Among Others
Feb. 7th, 2011 02:39 pm( Among Others )
Oh, and the potential sequel has a title. Because what else could the sequel to Among Others possibly be called?
Oh, and the potential sequel has a title. Because what else could the sequel to Among Others possibly be called?
Elsewhere / Nevernever
Jul. 21st, 2010 11:56 amDisclaimer: The only Bordertown I've read prior to these was Emma Bull's Finder. I've never read any of the anthologies: I own Bordertown and The Essential Bordertown but just haven't made time for them, partly due to not having access to the other two. But with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellen_kushner gushing about the forthcoming new anthology, I figure I might as well get caught up before it gets here.
( Elsewhere )
( Nevernever )
In retrospect I wanted these to be "Milo Chevrolet's The Last Hot Time," which is unfair to everyone concerned.
ellen_kushner gushing about the forthcoming new anthology, I figure I might as well get caught up before it gets here.( Elsewhere )
( Nevernever )
In retrospect I wanted these to be "Milo Chevrolet's The Last Hot Time," which is unfair to everyone concerned.
Neal Stephenson, Anathem
Someone finally taught Stephenson what a proper ending looks like. The main thrust of the story comes to a fairly satisfying conclusion, even as the characters and their arcs continue. This works for me. I'm not ready to forgive him for Cryptonomicon yet but I'll certainly look with less skepticism on his next book.
Anyway. Anathem is a hard book to talk about, because it's not really what you think of when you think of fiction. It's set in an alternate world where the brilliant thinkers, scientists, philosophers, have all hidden away in monasteries dedicated to the worship of reason and the study of, well, of everything really. These monks are so devoted to their studies that they seal themselves off from the outside world for a year, or a decade, or a century, or (the especially crazy ones) a millenium, so they can proceed untroubled by the rise and fall of the secular world beyond their walls. The story starts out following one young monk through a few months in the monastery, and then Something Happens, and suddenly there's plot and adventure and all that good stuff.
Which is periodically interrupted by long stretches of Platonic discourse with the numbers filed off.
Not, I hasten to add, that I think that's a bad thing. There was only once where I felt like it was "all very interesting but where's the plot" (during the Messal chapter, which is structured as a series of dinner conversations at which the narrator is a servant). And it may have been those philosophical digressions I felt the lack of during the almost terminally dull section in the middle of the book when the narrator is journeying across the North Pole. They're just. . . odd and unexpected. I can see where other people would get fed up rather quickly with the wink-wink nudge-nudge mixture of Greek philosophy in a medieval "math" (monastery) with all the names changed up slightly. Me, I enjoy reading about the process of finding things out. I also enjoy an elegant geometry proof now and then.
(Speaking of names changed up slightly, "math" is merely the tip of the iceberg in the book's tendency to call a rabbit a smeerp (WARNING: TVTropes link). This is more like calling a rabbit a lapin (or, I suppose, a norska) since nearly all the words are based on familiar Latin/Greek/English roots, or at least sounds. I mostly enjoyed the sense of "oh, that's what that means!" but by the time Jules Verne Durand's dialect showed up I'd gotten thoroughly annoyed by the process.)
So: the philosophy is good but maybe not to everyone's taste. The prose keeps it moving, the plot is passable and compelling enough to keep one reading (new wrinkles are introduced pretty consistently, so that just when you think you've got a grip on what's happening it turns out to be something else again), the characters work.
The worldbuilding. . . has what look to me like some holes. The ability of the mathic world to exist more or less free from interference from the Saecular Power (whatever happens to be the government at the time) seems idealized to just this side of laughable. Even accounting for the three Sacks in the past 3700 years, it's difficult for me to accept that the Saecular Power-- or some upstart-- wouldn't be putting the monks to work developing more ways to keep and hold that power. And mathic sex passes well beyond the realm of the laughable: the boys and girls are raised more or less together but romantic/sexual liaisons are prohibited, in an effective way, until they turn eighteen. I understand the Catholic Church has tried something similar, with somewhat mixed results.
Not to mention the presence of roughly four female characters, all of whom hold tertiary roles. Oh, Neal Stephenson, if you're going to go to the trouble of claiming that mathic society is gender-balanced, could you at least do the same in the dramatis personae?
At this point I'm nitpicking. I enjoyed the book an awful lot (I must have, to have been lugging it around for a month or so). Bottom line: if you liked The Republic but thought it would have been more fun written as the Book of the New Sun, this is probably one for you.
(See also Adam Roberts's somewhat more negative review, which has done the world an invaluable service by providing us with the words "fatasy" and "worldbling.")
Someone finally taught Stephenson what a proper ending looks like. The main thrust of the story comes to a fairly satisfying conclusion, even as the characters and their arcs continue. This works for me. I'm not ready to forgive him for Cryptonomicon yet but I'll certainly look with less skepticism on his next book.
Anyway. Anathem is a hard book to talk about, because it's not really what you think of when you think of fiction. It's set in an alternate world where the brilliant thinkers, scientists, philosophers, have all hidden away in monasteries dedicated to the worship of reason and the study of, well, of everything really. These monks are so devoted to their studies that they seal themselves off from the outside world for a year, or a decade, or a century, or (the especially crazy ones) a millenium, so they can proceed untroubled by the rise and fall of the secular world beyond their walls. The story starts out following one young monk through a few months in the monastery, and then Something Happens, and suddenly there's plot and adventure and all that good stuff.
Which is periodically interrupted by long stretches of Platonic discourse with the numbers filed off.
Not, I hasten to add, that I think that's a bad thing. There was only once where I felt like it was "all very interesting but where's the plot" (during the Messal chapter, which is structured as a series of dinner conversations at which the narrator is a servant). And it may have been those philosophical digressions I felt the lack of during the almost terminally dull section in the middle of the book when the narrator is journeying across the North Pole. They're just. . . odd and unexpected. I can see where other people would get fed up rather quickly with the wink-wink nudge-nudge mixture of Greek philosophy in a medieval "math" (monastery) with all the names changed up slightly. Me, I enjoy reading about the process of finding things out. I also enjoy an elegant geometry proof now and then.
(Speaking of names changed up slightly, "math" is merely the tip of the iceberg in the book's tendency to call a rabbit a smeerp (WARNING: TVTropes link). This is more like calling a rabbit a lapin (or, I suppose, a norska) since nearly all the words are based on familiar Latin/Greek/English roots, or at least sounds. I mostly enjoyed the sense of "oh, that's what that means!" but by the time Jules Verne Durand's dialect showed up I'd gotten thoroughly annoyed by the process.)
So: the philosophy is good but maybe not to everyone's taste. The prose keeps it moving, the plot is passable and compelling enough to keep one reading (new wrinkles are introduced pretty consistently, so that just when you think you've got a grip on what's happening it turns out to be something else again), the characters work.
The worldbuilding. . . has what look to me like some holes. The ability of the mathic world to exist more or less free from interference from the Saecular Power (whatever happens to be the government at the time) seems idealized to just this side of laughable. Even accounting for the three Sacks in the past 3700 years, it's difficult for me to accept that the Saecular Power-- or some upstart-- wouldn't be putting the monks to work developing more ways to keep and hold that power. And mathic sex passes well beyond the realm of the laughable: the boys and girls are raised more or less together but romantic/sexual liaisons are prohibited, in an effective way, until they turn eighteen. I understand the Catholic Church has tried something similar, with somewhat mixed results.
Not to mention the presence of roughly four female characters, all of whom hold tertiary roles. Oh, Neal Stephenson, if you're going to go to the trouble of claiming that mathic society is gender-balanced, could you at least do the same in the dramatis personae?
At this point I'm nitpicking. I enjoyed the book an awful lot (I must have, to have been lugging it around for a month or so). Bottom line: if you liked The Republic but thought it would have been more fun written as the Book of the New Sun, this is probably one for you.
(See also Adam Roberts's somewhat more negative review, which has done the world an invaluable service by providing us with the words "fatasy" and "worldbling.")
The Malloreon
Oct. 26th, 2009 12:18 pmDavid Eddings, Guardians of the West
King of the Murgos
Demon Lord of Karanda
Sorceress of Darshiva
The Seeress of Kell
I didn't reread these three summers ago when I went on my Eddings binge because I didn't have a copy of the first one. I finally fixed that a few weeks ago, so figured it was about time to decide whether these are worth keeping.
Um.
Really bloody annoying sexism? Check.
Racism as shorthand for character? Check and double check: the only reason the titular King of the Murgos is a human being is that he's half Drasnian (by which I mean "half Silk").
Plot consisting of characters being led around by the nose for no good reason? Check.
Godawful dialect? Check.
General exhaustion and no real desire to read much further by midway through book four? Check.
And yet. I've read these books so often, especially the first three, that they're seared into my brain. In a lot of ways they're the only good memories of junior high that I've got. The dialog's snappy, the individual episodes aren't too bad. . . meh. I've got the Elenium for that, and it's shorter, to boot.
Anyone want hardback copies of the Belgariad and the Malloreon?
King of the Murgos
Demon Lord of Karanda
Sorceress of Darshiva
The Seeress of Kell
I didn't reread these three summers ago when I went on my Eddings binge because I didn't have a copy of the first one. I finally fixed that a few weeks ago, so figured it was about time to decide whether these are worth keeping.
Um.
Really bloody annoying sexism? Check.
Racism as shorthand for character? Check and double check: the only reason the titular King of the Murgos is a human being is that he's half Drasnian (by which I mean "half Silk").
Plot consisting of characters being led around by the nose for no good reason? Check.
Godawful dialect? Check.
General exhaustion and no real desire to read much further by midway through book four? Check.
And yet. I've read these books so often, especially the first three, that they're seared into my brain. In a lot of ways they're the only good memories of junior high that I've got. The dialog's snappy, the individual episodes aren't too bad. . . meh. I've got the Elenium for that, and it's shorter, to boot.
Anyone want hardback copies of the Belgariad and the Malloreon?
see monkeys
Sep. 24th, 2009 12:00 pmRobert M. Sapolsky, A Primate's Memoir
This is nominally a tale about Sapolsky's time studying a baboon troop in Kenya. In practice, it's a bunch of stories, some of which are about the baboons, some of which are about the tribes (Bantu farmers and Masai raiders) that live near the baboons, and some of which are about traveling elsewhere in Africa and what a horrible idea that was due to the endemic political instability.
He knows how to tell a really, really good story. I spent much of the book laughing in amazement, or shaking my head in sympathy. He is, in fact, so good at evoking a response that this introvert found the book kind of exhausting, in exactly the same way that being at a party is exhausting. It's great fun and you're enjoying yourself, and at the same time you need to go home and calm down for awhile, turn off the social overload.
My only other complaint is that the stories seem so fragmented. They follow a loose chronology, but often seem disconnected from each other. There's no real link between the stories of the baboons, the tribes, or the larger African situation, except for occasionally the characters.
At least, there's no link until the heartwrenching last chapter, which talks about the fate of the baboons. It ties together the lives of the baboons, the cheerfully self-absorbed culture of corruption in the tribes, and the much greater scale of endemic corruption in the government, with inevitable and horrifying results.
Early on in the book, Sapolsky notes that baboons live a pretty easy life: they have few natural predators, and they can forage for enough food in just a few hours a day. This gives them "about a half dozen solid hours of sunlight a day to devote to being rotten to each other. Just like our society." After reading this book, I can't fault the comparison.
This is nominally a tale about Sapolsky's time studying a baboon troop in Kenya. In practice, it's a bunch of stories, some of which are about the baboons, some of which are about the tribes (Bantu farmers and Masai raiders) that live near the baboons, and some of which are about traveling elsewhere in Africa and what a horrible idea that was due to the endemic political instability.
He knows how to tell a really, really good story. I spent much of the book laughing in amazement, or shaking my head in sympathy. He is, in fact, so good at evoking a response that this introvert found the book kind of exhausting, in exactly the same way that being at a party is exhausting. It's great fun and you're enjoying yourself, and at the same time you need to go home and calm down for awhile, turn off the social overload.
My only other complaint is that the stories seem so fragmented. They follow a loose chronology, but often seem disconnected from each other. There's no real link between the stories of the baboons, the tribes, or the larger African situation, except for occasionally the characters.
At least, there's no link until the heartwrenching last chapter, which talks about the fate of the baboons. It ties together the lives of the baboons, the cheerfully self-absorbed culture of corruption in the tribes, and the much greater scale of endemic corruption in the government, with inevitable and horrifying results.
Early on in the book, Sapolsky notes that baboons live a pretty easy life: they have few natural predators, and they can forage for enough food in just a few hours a day. This gives them "about a half dozen solid hours of sunlight a day to devote to being rotten to each other. Just like our society." After reading this book, I can't fault the comparison.
The Diamond Age
Nov. 14th, 2008 11:01 amNeal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
You can tell this is a Neal Stephenson book by how the plot falls apart by the end.
That's not entirely fair. You can really tell it's a Stephenson by the dialogue (Judge Fang's in particular), by the names of things (the House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel, at which Fang and his cohorts devour fried chicken), by the hacker in-jokes (look, it's a bazaar! With a free flow of information! And, are those cathedral bells we hear tolling at the end of the book?). And Diamond Age doesn't fall apart nearly so badly as Cryptonomicon (the book that, 2/3 of the way through, made me swear off future Stephenson books until someone gets him a proper editor).
Like Snow Crash and Crypto, Diamond Age is a fun read, full of witty characters and a plot that collapses under its own weight. Unlike those, Diamond Age is about something bigger than the wild ride. It's an analysis of societal structures, of moral virtues, and of how those virtues are passed to people (children) who don't necessarily choose them. It's about the success and failure of strict societies (Victorian, Confucian) and the need for flexibility.
I was having a great deal of fun with the book up until about halfway through, when the strange distributed hive-mind of the Drummers pops up (and absorbs a main character). At that point. . . something snapped. It wasn't precisely my disbelief suspenders. More that. . . they felt out of place in the techno-rational world Stephenson had created. At that point I stopped being swept along and started reading more critically. Which is kind of crucial for the enjoyment of Stephenson's books, and in particular for believing in and being thrilled by the upheaval and near-transformation of the world at the end of this one.
It's still good stuff; I'd reread it, I'd recommend it to other people. It's just not as good as the first half suggests. (Much like Stephenson's other books.)
You can tell this is a Neal Stephenson book by how the plot falls apart by the end.
That's not entirely fair. You can really tell it's a Stephenson by the dialogue (Judge Fang's in particular), by the names of things (the House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel, at which Fang and his cohorts devour fried chicken), by the hacker in-jokes (look, it's a bazaar! With a free flow of information! And, are those cathedral bells we hear tolling at the end of the book?). And Diamond Age doesn't fall apart nearly so badly as Cryptonomicon (the book that, 2/3 of the way through, made me swear off future Stephenson books until someone gets him a proper editor).
Like Snow Crash and Crypto, Diamond Age is a fun read, full of witty characters and a plot that collapses under its own weight. Unlike those, Diamond Age is about something bigger than the wild ride. It's an analysis of societal structures, of moral virtues, and of how those virtues are passed to people (children) who don't necessarily choose them. It's about the success and failure of strict societies (Victorian, Confucian) and the need for flexibility.
I was having a great deal of fun with the book up until about halfway through, when the strange distributed hive-mind of the Drummers pops up (and absorbs a main character). At that point. . . something snapped. It wasn't precisely my disbelief suspenders. More that. . . they felt out of place in the techno-rational world Stephenson had created. At that point I stopped being swept along and started reading more critically. Which is kind of crucial for the enjoyment of Stephenson's books, and in particular for believing in and being thrilled by the upheaval and near-transformation of the world at the end of this one.
It's still good stuff; I'd reread it, I'd recommend it to other people. It's just not as good as the first half suggests. (Much like Stephenson's other books.)
Stations of the Tide
Oct. 3rd, 2008 11:23 amMichael Swanwick, Stations of the Tide
The only other Swanwick I've read was _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_, which is not so much a fantasy novel as a deconstruction of all manner of fantasy tropes. It was enjoyable and deep, even when the sections felt disjointed, as though there were transitions missing.
_Stations_ is a lot like that, too. As in _IDD_ there's a thematic reason for it: here, it's because of the implicit parallel with the Stations of the Cross. (It might also just be how Swanwick writes novels. I'll get back to you after I finish _Jack Faust_.)
This feels very Wolfean. Specifically it feels a lot like _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_, only it makes a little more sense.uilos observed that _Stations_ has an awful lot of theme but not much plot. That's pretty accurate.
The plot, such as it is: the tide is coming in on the planet, flooding the fertile lowlands, and everyone is fleeing for the hills. (Creatures on the planet survive this by being amphibians, evolving into something that can handle the tide.) Meanwhile, a nameless bureaucrat is in search of a megalomaniac who's been using restricted technology without a license. (Digression: "The bureaucrat fell from the sky" is one of the great opening lines in all of literature.) The theme. . . technology, and humanity, and responsibility to those we see as "lesser" (and are they, actually, lesser / less worthy?).
I'm not sure I liked _Stations_ but I have a lot of respect for it. I definitely want to read it again. (Come to think of it, I feel that way about Wolfe's _New Sun_ and _Fifth Head_, too.)
The only other Swanwick I've read was _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_, which is not so much a fantasy novel as a deconstruction of all manner of fantasy tropes. It was enjoyable and deep, even when the sections felt disjointed, as though there were transitions missing.
_Stations_ is a lot like that, too. As in _IDD_ there's a thematic reason for it: here, it's because of the implicit parallel with the Stations of the Cross. (It might also just be how Swanwick writes novels. I'll get back to you after I finish _Jack Faust_.)
This feels very Wolfean. Specifically it feels a lot like _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_, only it makes a little more sense.
uilos observed that _Stations_ has an awful lot of theme but not much plot. That's pretty accurate.The plot, such as it is: the tide is coming in on the planet, flooding the fertile lowlands, and everyone is fleeing for the hills. (Creatures on the planet survive this by being amphibians, evolving into something that can handle the tide.) Meanwhile, a nameless bureaucrat is in search of a megalomaniac who's been using restricted technology without a license. (Digression: "The bureaucrat fell from the sky" is one of the great opening lines in all of literature.) The theme. . . technology, and humanity, and responsibility to those we see as "lesser" (and are they, actually, lesser / less worthy?).
I'm not sure I liked _Stations_ but I have a lot of respect for it. I definitely want to read it again. (Come to think of it, I feel that way about Wolfe's _New Sun_ and _Fifth Head_, too.)
(no subject)
Mar. 6th, 2008 10:51 amJoseph Heller, Catch-22
It's a dark, dark book. The darkness is easy to overlook at the beginning, when everything is all jokes and whimsy until you're reminded that one day Clevinger flew into a cloud and never came out again, or Yossarian starts complaining about the dead man in his tent who's not even there. The scenes about Snowden, the dying tailgunner Yossarian fails to save, start off vague and detached. Even the book's loose relationship with chronology contributes to the madcap zany humor. You always know that there's another wacky episode just around the next page.
Then about three-quarters through the book Kid Sampson dies in a freak unlucky accident, and the darkness and viciousness come out in full force. The Chaplain undergoes a Kafkaesque interrogation sequence. Nately is killed shortly after achieving his heart's desire. Aarfy throws a woman out a window and isn't arrested-- but Yossarian is, for being in Rome without a pass.
Catch-22 itself is rephrased by one character as "They have a right to do anything that's not against the law," and finally as "They can do anything you can't stop them from doing." That's the real lesson, no different from Orwell's "The object of power is power, and the object of torture is torture."
The ending isn't wholly dark, though. Yossarian and the Chaplain both recognize that the only way to win is not to play, and set out to do just that. The final image is of Yossarian running, the most active thing he's done for the entire book. He's found himself and what he needs to do.
I was going to follow this up with a reread of Closing Time, the sequel, but the wackiness and prose and dark were just too much. Maybe in another month or two.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.I first read this book my senior year of high school. I fell in love with it on about the third page, at the line "Dunbar was working so hard at increasing his lifespan that Yossarian thought he was dead." Everything that made no sense on the surface was eventually revealed to have a rationale that seemed to hold together perfectly logically, until you poked at it. It's in everyone's interest to not poke at it, though, so the system works. Right up until Yossarian finally says "the hell with it."
It's a dark, dark book. The darkness is easy to overlook at the beginning, when everything is all jokes and whimsy until you're reminded that one day Clevinger flew into a cloud and never came out again, or Yossarian starts complaining about the dead man in his tent who's not even there. The scenes about Snowden, the dying tailgunner Yossarian fails to save, start off vague and detached. Even the book's loose relationship with chronology contributes to the madcap zany humor. You always know that there's another wacky episode just around the next page.
Then about three-quarters through the book Kid Sampson dies in a freak unlucky accident, and the darkness and viciousness come out in full force. The Chaplain undergoes a Kafkaesque interrogation sequence. Nately is killed shortly after achieving his heart's desire. Aarfy throws a woman out a window and isn't arrested-- but Yossarian is, for being in Rome without a pass.
Catch-22 itself is rephrased by one character as "They have a right to do anything that's not against the law," and finally as "They can do anything you can't stop them from doing." That's the real lesson, no different from Orwell's "The object of power is power, and the object of torture is torture."
The ending isn't wholly dark, though. Yossarian and the Chaplain both recognize that the only way to win is not to play, and set out to do just that. The final image is of Yossarian running, the most active thing he's done for the entire book. He's found himself and what he needs to do.
I was going to follow this up with a reread of Closing Time, the sequel, but the wackiness and prose and dark were just too much. Maybe in another month or two.
Gene Wolfe, Soldier of Sidon
Everything I wrote about the previous two Latro books is still true. This time Latro goes to Egypt, though, so the gods are substantially more opaque. No more gimmes like "the goat-footed man, who says his name is All." Instead we've got a host of animal-headed deities and the occasional long-dead deified Pharaoh.
Latro falls in love briefly in the second book. In one of the more repulsive bits, his "friends" use this later on to exploit him and convince him to stick around. He gets a wife in this volume as well. I'm impressed by his consistency: he's loyal to his wife even when he doesn't remember that she's his wife (must be Twoo Wuv), and he instinctively distrusts the creepy woman who keeps hitting on him, even when he doesn't remember that he's married. Yay for characterization.
I really appreciated that this book opened with the reappearance of the physician who first treated Latro, way back at the beginning of Soldier of the Mist. Seven Lions's return is welcome as well, although we don't see nearly enough of him.
The ending screams "if this one sells well enough there will be a sequel." I'm not sure whether I'm happy about that or not. Mostly because, well, Wolfe is getting on in years, and his /next/ book isn't a Latro book either.
(And what the devil is the invisible baboon that hangs around the priest of Thoth?)
Gene Wolfe, Pirate Freedom
Gene Wolfe's time-traveling pirate book. Wolfe's non-series books still tend to feel far slighter than his longer works, and this is no exception. It's got great atmosphere and characters (best and truest pirates ever), it's got typically Wolfean musings on the nature of identity and the unreliability of narration, and it's a delight to read. It just . . . didn't inspire the same love in me that the Latro books, or Long/Short Sun, did. I guess someone who's got more of a thing for pirates might feel differently.
The narrator's voice feels an awful lot like Able's, from Wizard Knight. It'd be kind of awesome if he somehow tied this and Wizard Knight and another book or two together . . .
Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, A Companion to Wolves
Anything that delivers a smackdown to Anne McCaffrey's pioneering work in the field of psychic animal companions is good by me. You know what my favorite part of this book was? The wolves don't talk. They don't think in words, they think in impulses and sensations.
There's not a lot of Intricate Plot here. Coming off of a Gene Wolfe bender that particular lack was even more noticeable than it might have been. In its place there's rock-solid characterization and society-building. (And also cold. This book made me feel the cold in a way that only _Left Hand of Darkness_ has before.)
So, the society. There are trolls, and they eat people. To stop the trolls, there's an army of big psychic wolves and the men who bond with them. The bond goes deep enough that the emotional state of one can affect the other. This causes interesting things to happen with gender, since only men can bond with wolves, and when a female wolf goes into heat, well . . .
What really disturbed me about the wolfcarls' society wasn't the gang-rape, actually. I mean, yes, disturbing, but not in quite the same way. No, what got me was the role that Isolfr (the main character, bonded to a female wolf) was being put in. Specifically, the scenes where he's being actively courted by other wolfcarls. Given useless trinkets. Flirted at (not with, /at/). Generally treated as someone who'd be swayed by such ridiculously insulting behavior. You know. As though he were female in an overtly patriarchal society. My brain snapped after about the second such scene and it took me several days to put it back together. If he'd been female I would have thought "how insulting" and moved on, but because he's male it hit me a lot more viscerally.
I didn't really understand what it was that was getting me until I read this review, and then, bam. I've been trained to reject caretaker work as lesser, as bad, and it took seeing a man first forced into and then actively accepting that role to make me realise it. Yet more work to be done in my head. (Thanks, Bear and Mole. I think.)
Everything I wrote about the previous two Latro books is still true. This time Latro goes to Egypt, though, so the gods are substantially more opaque. No more gimmes like "the goat-footed man, who says his name is All." Instead we've got a host of animal-headed deities and the occasional long-dead deified Pharaoh.
Latro falls in love briefly in the second book. In one of the more repulsive bits, his "friends" use this later on to exploit him and convince him to stick around. He gets a wife in this volume as well. I'm impressed by his consistency: he's loyal to his wife even when he doesn't remember that she's his wife (must be Twoo Wuv), and he instinctively distrusts the creepy woman who keeps hitting on him, even when he doesn't remember that he's married. Yay for characterization.
I really appreciated that this book opened with the reappearance of the physician who first treated Latro, way back at the beginning of Soldier of the Mist. Seven Lions's return is welcome as well, although we don't see nearly enough of him.
The ending screams "if this one sells well enough there will be a sequel." I'm not sure whether I'm happy about that or not. Mostly because, well, Wolfe is getting on in years, and his /next/ book isn't a Latro book either.
(And what the devil is the invisible baboon that hangs around the priest of Thoth?)
Gene Wolfe, Pirate Freedom
Gene Wolfe's time-traveling pirate book. Wolfe's non-series books still tend to feel far slighter than his longer works, and this is no exception. It's got great atmosphere and characters (best and truest pirates ever), it's got typically Wolfean musings on the nature of identity and the unreliability of narration, and it's a delight to read. It just . . . didn't inspire the same love in me that the Latro books, or Long/Short Sun, did. I guess someone who's got more of a thing for pirates might feel differently.
The narrator's voice feels an awful lot like Able's, from Wizard Knight. It'd be kind of awesome if he somehow tied this and Wizard Knight and another book or two together . . .
Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, A Companion to Wolves
Anything that delivers a smackdown to Anne McCaffrey's pioneering work in the field of psychic animal companions is good by me. You know what my favorite part of this book was? The wolves don't talk. They don't think in words, they think in impulses and sensations.
There's not a lot of Intricate Plot here. Coming off of a Gene Wolfe bender that particular lack was even more noticeable than it might have been. In its place there's rock-solid characterization and society-building. (And also cold. This book made me feel the cold in a way that only _Left Hand of Darkness_ has before.)
So, the society. There are trolls, and they eat people. To stop the trolls, there's an army of big psychic wolves and the men who bond with them. The bond goes deep enough that the emotional state of one can affect the other. This causes interesting things to happen with gender, since only men can bond with wolves, and when a female wolf goes into heat, well . . .
What really disturbed me about the wolfcarls' society wasn't the gang-rape, actually. I mean, yes, disturbing, but not in quite the same way. No, what got me was the role that Isolfr (the main character, bonded to a female wolf) was being put in. Specifically, the scenes where he's being actively courted by other wolfcarls. Given useless trinkets. Flirted at (not with, /at/). Generally treated as someone who'd be swayed by such ridiculously insulting behavior. You know. As though he were female in an overtly patriarchal society. My brain snapped after about the second such scene and it took me several days to put it back together. If he'd been female I would have thought "how insulting" and moved on, but because he's male it hit me a lot more viscerally.
I didn't really understand what it was that was getting me until I read this review, and then, bam. I've been trained to reject caretaker work as lesser, as bad, and it took seeing a man first forced into and then actively accepting that role to make me realise it. Yet more work to be done in my head. (Thanks, Bear and Mole. I think.)
Tor Double #25
Sep. 23rd, 2007 11:41 pmThe Tor (and Ace) Doubles are a great idea. They're a way for longer short stories (~100pp) to find an audience, you get two books for the price of one cheap paperback, and they've got that neat flip-effect going on. (Plus, two covers! Don't like one? Store it so you see the other!) Of course these days the Reading Public wants six-hundred-page bricks for their seven bucks, so there's no real market anymore. But still.
John M. Ford, Fugue State
This book is made of confusion.
It apparently began life as a short story, and was expanded for publication here. Joel Rosenberg, on hearing this, said "Oh good, you're clearing up some of the ambiguities, then?" and JMF replied "No; adding new ones."
There are three or four, or maybe five (six?) stories going on, all with what are probably the same characters and concerning similar events. There are weirdnesses with memory, and what might be as full an explanation as possible at the end.
It is amazing and almost comprehensible. Even the title is a multilayered thing of beauty, in ways that aren't wholly clear until you've come out the other side and have some space for reflection.
Gene Wolfe, The Death of Dr. Island
I've read this before, in The Island of Doctor Death And Other Stories And Other Stories (yes). Unlike Fugue State, the only ambiguities are in the rather clever title. That doesn't make it any less brilliant, though. The titular doctor is a therapist with ultimate control over his environment (somewhere in the asteroid belt, I think). He has three patients, whom he helps to varying degrees.
Conceit: brilliant. Plot: quite good. Characters: of the four, two are fully realised, and two are drawn as they are mostly to support the theme. Which theme is my main problem with the book: the willingness of Dr. Island to play God with his patients unsettles me quite a bit. On the other hand, without that arrogance there'd be no book at all, and in the context of the book his methods are at least fifty percent effective.
John M. Ford, Fugue State
This book is made of confusion.
It apparently began life as a short story, and was expanded for publication here. Joel Rosenberg, on hearing this, said "Oh good, you're clearing up some of the ambiguities, then?" and JMF replied "No; adding new ones."
There are three or four, or maybe five (six?) stories going on, all with what are probably the same characters and concerning similar events. There are weirdnesses with memory, and what might be as full an explanation as possible at the end.
It is amazing and almost comprehensible. Even the title is a multilayered thing of beauty, in ways that aren't wholly clear until you've come out the other side and have some space for reflection.
Gene Wolfe, The Death of Dr. Island
I've read this before, in The Island of Doctor Death And Other Stories And Other Stories (yes). Unlike Fugue State, the only ambiguities are in the rather clever title. That doesn't make it any less brilliant, though. The titular doctor is a therapist with ultimate control over his environment (somewhere in the asteroid belt, I think). He has three patients, whom he helps to varying degrees.
Conceit: brilliant. Plot: quite good. Characters: of the four, two are fully realised, and two are drawn as they are mostly to support the theme. Which theme is my main problem with the book: the willingness of Dr. Island to play God with his patients unsettles me quite a bit. On the other hand, without that arrogance there'd be no book at all, and in the context of the book his methods are at least fifty percent effective.
Harry Potter 6 and 7
Aug. 3rd, 2007 09:55 amJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
This is the best of them so far, I think. There is Plot, there is Character, there is Harry being treated like an adult, there is a dearth of pointless digression. Dumbledore is irritatingly secretive with his blackened hand, but other than that people are pretty open with each other about what's going on.
Yay Snape finally gets to teach DADA! (Why did D not just promote him last year and save us all the trouble of dealing with Umbridge?) Evil Snape is pretty believable, I must say. I'm sticking with my 'he's really a good guy' theory, as implausible as it seems given the end of the book. I base this solely on D's "Go get Snape" order.
Good to see Draco do something other than 'be an annoying little git.' Angst-filled Tonks doesn't work for me. Maybe if we'd seen more of her in this book it would have.
The Half-Blood Prince bit is the weakest thing about the book. A neat idea but poorly integrated with everything else.
I very nearly threw the book across the room when Harry broke up with Ginny "for her own good."
Lots of zooming around doing cool things, and uncovering bits and pieces of backstory, and general good times. Enjoyable.
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In which (almost) everyone dies.
This wouldn't have been so bad if there had been any sort of precedent in the books at /all/ for this kind of mass slaughter. That's not the tone we'd been getting, though, so it feels exceptionally jarring. (Okay, and also I'm bitter at some of the who lives and who dies decisions that were made.)
Individual episodes were good. The raid on the Ministry in particular was made of yay. And the plot's alright except for the totally random element introduced that there was absolutely no hint of previously. Do not talk to me about how JKR has had so much awesome planned out from the very beginning. Evil Snape was pretty clearly invented between five and six, and the Hallows popped into existence between six and seven. (As did D's Mysterious Past.)
Speaking of which, the Redemption of Snape was rather unsatisfying. Mostly because, well, what good does it do /him/? Dramatically, hearing about it in backstory instead of having him tell (or, preferably, show) just doesn't work. Compare with the Malfoys, who actually became barely sympathetic towards the end.
"All the Slytherins are evil" is just lazy writing. I've thought this since book 5. Having one or two of them join the impromptu DADA lessons, and then having one of those stay behind, would have improved matters immeasurably. As it is, "all the houses have to work together! (except Slytherin.)" Remind me again why they still /have/ houses in the epilogue?
O yes, the epilogue. A bigger waste of paper I cannot conceive of. Absolutely the only thing of value there was the suggestion that the feud between Gryffindor and Slytherin, personified in Harry's and Draco's kids, would continue. Bleh and double bleh.
Mostly disappointing. Worth reading to wrap things up but doesn't stand on its own legs at all.
And now, off to read the comments on Making Light.
This is the best of them so far, I think. There is Plot, there is Character, there is Harry being treated like an adult, there is a dearth of pointless digression. Dumbledore is irritatingly secretive with his blackened hand, but other than that people are pretty open with each other about what's going on.
Yay Snape finally gets to teach DADA! (Why did D not just promote him last year and save us all the trouble of dealing with Umbridge?) Evil Snape is pretty believable, I must say. I'm sticking with my 'he's really a good guy' theory, as implausible as it seems given the end of the book. I base this solely on D's "Go get Snape" order.
Good to see Draco do something other than 'be an annoying little git.' Angst-filled Tonks doesn't work for me. Maybe if we'd seen more of her in this book it would have.
The Half-Blood Prince bit is the weakest thing about the book. A neat idea but poorly integrated with everything else.
I very nearly threw the book across the room when Harry broke up with Ginny "for her own good."
Lots of zooming around doing cool things, and uncovering bits and pieces of backstory, and general good times. Enjoyable.
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In which (almost) everyone dies.
This wouldn't have been so bad if there had been any sort of precedent in the books at /all/ for this kind of mass slaughter. That's not the tone we'd been getting, though, so it feels exceptionally jarring. (Okay, and also I'm bitter at some of the who lives and who dies decisions that were made.)
Individual episodes were good. The raid on the Ministry in particular was made of yay. And the plot's alright except for the totally random element introduced that there was absolutely no hint of previously. Do not talk to me about how JKR has had so much awesome planned out from the very beginning. Evil Snape was pretty clearly invented between five and six, and the Hallows popped into existence between six and seven. (As did D's Mysterious Past.)
Speaking of which, the Redemption of Snape was rather unsatisfying. Mostly because, well, what good does it do /him/? Dramatically, hearing about it in backstory instead of having him tell (or, preferably, show) just doesn't work. Compare with the Malfoys, who actually became barely sympathetic towards the end.
"All the Slytherins are evil" is just lazy writing. I've thought this since book 5. Having one or two of them join the impromptu DADA lessons, and then having one of those stay behind, would have improved matters immeasurably. As it is, "all the houses have to work together! (except Slytherin.)" Remind me again why they still /have/ houses in the epilogue?
O yes, the epilogue. A bigger waste of paper I cannot conceive of. Absolutely the only thing of value there was the suggestion that the feud between Gryffindor and Slytherin, personified in Harry's and Draco's kids, would continue. Bleh and double bleh.
Mostly disappointing. Worth reading to wrap things up but doesn't stand on its own legs at all.
And now, off to read the comments on Making Light.
Harry Potter 5
Jul. 31st, 2007 03:42 pmJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Ah, the Ugly Blue Book at last. In which people keep secrets from the main characters for no reason, with predictably disastrous results. Such as Harry turning into a ball of repressed teenage wizard rage. At least he's got a good sulking partner in Sirius.
Oh look, a bloody /psycho/ house-elf. This is not an improvement.
You know, at the point where the first book was suddenly starting to develop a plot, this one is still mucking about with the trumped-up Wizengamot trial.
"Gryffindors get busted for no reason while Slytherins skate free" has been a running theme since midway through book 1, and it got old by three-quarters of the way through book 1. Maybe it's the rampant abuses of authority by every single character (with the surprising exception of McGonagall), but that sort of thing is exceedingly grating this time around. Or maybe it's just that there's more of it and it's more blatant. (Has no one in Quidditch ever heard of sportsmanship?)
Harry/Cho is handled pretty well. I like Tonks, and I like that Moody is not the same as he was last book. And when did Ginny Weasley become a real character? Dumbledore, too. Wow.
Oddly it's not the glimpse into Snape's past that makes me like him better; it's his reaction to Harry discovering it.
Umbridge ended up too over-the-top, but then her final fate was pretty over-the-top as well. Bleh. Glad to see the back of her.
Decent but not 850 pages worth of decent.
Ah, the Ugly Blue Book at last. In which people keep secrets from the main characters for no reason, with predictably disastrous results. Such as Harry turning into a ball of repressed teenage wizard rage. At least he's got a good sulking partner in Sirius.
Oh look, a bloody /psycho/ house-elf. This is not an improvement.
You know, at the point where the first book was suddenly starting to develop a plot, this one is still mucking about with the trumped-up Wizengamot trial.
"Gryffindors get busted for no reason while Slytherins skate free" has been a running theme since midway through book 1, and it got old by three-quarters of the way through book 1. Maybe it's the rampant abuses of authority by every single character (with the surprising exception of McGonagall), but that sort of thing is exceedingly grating this time around. Or maybe it's just that there's more of it and it's more blatant. (Has no one in Quidditch ever heard of sportsmanship?)
Harry/Cho is handled pretty well. I like Tonks, and I like that Moody is not the same as he was last book. And when did Ginny Weasley become a real character? Dumbledore, too. Wow.
Oddly it's not the glimpse into Snape's past that makes me like him better; it's his reaction to Harry discovering it.
Umbridge ended up too over-the-top, but then her final fate was pretty over-the-top as well. Bleh. Glad to see the back of her.
Decent but not 850 pages worth of decent.
Harry Potter 4
Jul. 27th, 2007 01:15 pmJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Oh no, more house-elves.
Oh dear God no, more Dobby the terminally annoying plot device.
Hermione gets to play a parody of everyone who's ever campaigned to improve working conditions for slaves and near-slaves. Color me unimpressed.
Onward. The book's alright; the plot is back to "things happen to Harry" rather than "Harry does things" (as happened in books 2 and 3), but everyone gets some much-needed depth to their character. Well, except for Draco, but what can you do. (It is bloody obvious that short of one or both of them dying, Ron and Hermione are going to end up together.)
The Tri-Wizard Tournament was more interesting than Quidditch. I believe this statement is known as "damning with faint praise." The maze failed to convince me at all, and we only see Harry's segment with the dragons so there's not much of interest there. The underwater bit worked well, I thought.
The DADA teachers are getting more and more personality as the series goes on. If this trend continues I expect the one for book 7 to utterly dominate the action. (If it finally gets to be Snape, so much the better. That seems unlikely given certain revelations about his past in this book, but one never knows.)
Still worth reading. I think 2 is still my favorite so far; a second read of the series may well change that, of course.
Oh no, more house-elves.
Oh dear God no, more Dobby the terminally annoying plot device.
Hermione gets to play a parody of everyone who's ever campaigned to improve working conditions for slaves and near-slaves. Color me unimpressed.
Onward. The book's alright; the plot is back to "things happen to Harry" rather than "Harry does things" (as happened in books 2 and 3), but everyone gets some much-needed depth to their character. Well, except for Draco, but what can you do. (It is bloody obvious that short of one or both of them dying, Ron and Hermione are going to end up together.)
The Tri-Wizard Tournament was more interesting than Quidditch. I believe this statement is known as "damning with faint praise." The maze failed to convince me at all, and we only see Harry's segment with the dragons so there's not much of interest there. The underwater bit worked well, I thought.
The DADA teachers are getting more and more personality as the series goes on. If this trend continues I expect the one for book 7 to utterly dominate the action. (If it finally gets to be Snape, so much the better. That seems unlikely given certain revelations about his past in this book, but one never knows.)
Still worth reading. I think 2 is still my favorite so far; a second read of the series may well change that, of course.
Harry Potter 3
Jul. 26th, 2007 01:14 pmJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Do I get in trouble if I say I liked the movie better? I mean, even apart from having Gary Oldman in it. Tighter plot, better script ("You tell those spiders, Ron"), more showing not telling (e.g. Harry seeing Peter on the map instead of hearing about him from Lupin). More interesting things with the time-travel sequence. Less Quidditch. It's good stuff.
If I didn't already know about the time twister I would be throwing this book against the wall in frustration. The writer's job is, to paraphrase Gene Wolfe, to tell me something really cool. It's not to taunt me with how much more the writer knows about the world than I do. Dude, it's /your/ world. Of course you know more about it than I do. /Tell/ me how awesome it is, don't just give me impossibilities whose explanations are being kept secret for the sake of secrecy.
While we're on the subject of throwing the book against the wall, Draco Malfoy nearly got me there as well. (Another point in the movie's favor: the scene where Hermione punches him out.) Yes, it is totally in character for him to milk his "injury" for all he can and then some. Doesn't mean I have to enjoy reading about it.
Lupin is a better character in the book than in the movie, granted. And the movie could have done with actually explaining who Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were. (Which plot-point was a rather nice touch.)
Onward to book 4, which I expect to be better than the movie, since the movie had a distinct lack of Gary Oldman.
Do I get in trouble if I say I liked the movie better? I mean, even apart from having Gary Oldman in it. Tighter plot, better script ("You tell those spiders, Ron"), more showing not telling (e.g. Harry seeing Peter on the map instead of hearing about him from Lupin). More interesting things with the time-travel sequence. Less Quidditch. It's good stuff.
If I didn't already know about the time twister I would be throwing this book against the wall in frustration. The writer's job is, to paraphrase Gene Wolfe, to tell me something really cool. It's not to taunt me with how much more the writer knows about the world than I do. Dude, it's /your/ world. Of course you know more about it than I do. /Tell/ me how awesome it is, don't just give me impossibilities whose explanations are being kept secret for the sake of secrecy.
While we're on the subject of throwing the book against the wall, Draco Malfoy nearly got me there as well. (Another point in the movie's favor: the scene where Hermione punches him out.) Yes, it is totally in character for him to milk his "injury" for all he can and then some. Doesn't mean I have to enjoy reading about it.
Lupin is a better character in the book than in the movie, granted. And the movie could have done with actually explaining who Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were. (Which plot-point was a rather nice touch.)
Onward to book 4, which I expect to be better than the movie, since the movie had a distinct lack of Gary Oldman.
