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jazzfishCharles Stross, The Family Trade
Charles Stross, The Hidden Family
Evidently, when Charlie Stross sent his new manuscript off to Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden said "It's brilliant, but a bit long. Let's split it up into two books." So, what you have here is a two-volume novel. Which is why there's a godawful cliffhanger at the end of the first one, and a genuine sense of resolution after the second. I strongly disapprove of this marketing decision, but the books are good enough that I can mostly ignore it.
Comparisons to Zelazny's Amber are immediate, obvious, and superficial. Woman goes worldwalking, discovers that she's a member of the ruling family, uncovers a giant plot. This, though, does Amber several better in terms of realistic world. Amber was all about the epic, the Order vs Chaos, with the labyrinthine machinations of the family taking a slight second place to the inherent coolness of the world. Stross goes the other way: he builds a genuinely medieval world, with other kingdoms and real people instead of the one ruling family, and shows us how the worldwalking gift is powerful but not overwhelming. (Merchant princes indeed. They're all drug smugglers, if you must know.) The plots of the various family members are indeed labyrinthine, but with genuine effects that ripple outward from each. And the Hidden Family of the second volume's title makes a great deal of sense. I'm interested in seeing where this story goes from here, which is about the highest praise I can give something.
Angelica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial (trans. Ursula K. Le Guin)
. . . wow. Subtitled "The greatest empire that never was." An empire so vast that learning its history, even in abbreviated form, would be the work of several lifetimes. A gathering of tales told by storytellers at who knows what points in the Empire's history (but clearly from several such points). And such variety: emperors rise and fall, an empress outlaws personal transportation, a city built and left empty . . . wow.
It's the voice that makes this book. If you can't stand oral history then this probably isn't for you. (If you're unsure, give it a try. It'll draw you in. One of the best of the stories, "The End of a Dynasty, or the Natural History of Ferrets," is available online.) Should someone else pick this up, I'd be interested to know whether the last story is brilliant or kitschy: I really can't tell.
Harold Ramis (dir.), The Ice Harvest
I came into this expecting more or less another Grosse Pointe Blank (still the finest comedy of the last N years). Ice Harvest . . . isn't. It's funny: laugh-out-loud funny in a good many places. It's also very very dark. It occupies uneasy territory between black comedy and noir crime drama. I'm really not sure what I think of it: I enjoyed it an awful lot but I don't know if I'd want to see it again often. (Once more, maybe, at some point.)
Charles Stross, The Hidden Family
Evidently, when Charlie Stross sent his new manuscript off to Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden said "It's brilliant, but a bit long. Let's split it up into two books." So, what you have here is a two-volume novel. Which is why there's a godawful cliffhanger at the end of the first one, and a genuine sense of resolution after the second. I strongly disapprove of this marketing decision, but the books are good enough that I can mostly ignore it.
Comparisons to Zelazny's Amber are immediate, obvious, and superficial. Woman goes worldwalking, discovers that she's a member of the ruling family, uncovers a giant plot. This, though, does Amber several better in terms of realistic world. Amber was all about the epic, the Order vs Chaos, with the labyrinthine machinations of the family taking a slight second place to the inherent coolness of the world. Stross goes the other way: he builds a genuinely medieval world, with other kingdoms and real people instead of the one ruling family, and shows us how the worldwalking gift is powerful but not overwhelming. (Merchant princes indeed. They're all drug smugglers, if you must know.) The plots of the various family members are indeed labyrinthine, but with genuine effects that ripple outward from each. And the Hidden Family of the second volume's title makes a great deal of sense. I'm interested in seeing where this story goes from here, which is about the highest praise I can give something.
Angelica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial (trans. Ursula K. Le Guin)
. . . wow. Subtitled "The greatest empire that never was." An empire so vast that learning its history, even in abbreviated form, would be the work of several lifetimes. A gathering of tales told by storytellers at who knows what points in the Empire's history (but clearly from several such points). And such variety: emperors rise and fall, an empress outlaws personal transportation, a city built and left empty . . . wow.
It's the voice that makes this book. If you can't stand oral history then this probably isn't for you. (If you're unsure, give it a try. It'll draw you in. One of the best of the stories, "The End of a Dynasty, or the Natural History of Ferrets," is available online.) Should someone else pick this up, I'd be interested to know whether the last story is brilliant or kitschy: I really can't tell.
Harold Ramis (dir.), The Ice Harvest
I came into this expecting more or less another Grosse Pointe Blank (still the finest comedy of the last N years). Ice Harvest . . . isn't. It's funny: laugh-out-loud funny in a good many places. It's also very very dark. It occupies uneasy territory between black comedy and noir crime drama. I'm really not sure what I think of it: I enjoyed it an awful lot but I don't know if I'd want to see it again often. (Once more, maybe, at some point.)