Books
Alphabetical by title. ... See also favourites.
A
- The Accidental Buddhist
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1997First Main Street Books
- Adiamante
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19961stToryesModesitt tackles the ethics of war in the distant future with differently modified versions of humanity coming together. The title comes from the hardest substance any of them are capable of making: almost, but not quite, totally indestructible. Well written and thought-provoking.
- The Age of Speed: Learning to thrive in a more-faster-now world
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20081stBard PressyesReading Poscente is like getting a lecture on speed from an articulate ADHD sufferer. Chapters are never more than four pages long. By the second chapter he had proven that facts weren't going to interfere with him making the point he wanted to make: he talks about how airplanes crossing the Atlantic are getting faster and faster, and very soon we'll have the Aerion corporate jet that does Mach 1.5! This presents two possibilities, neither of them good: either he's never heard of the Concorde and has done no research at all (both of which seem unlikely), or he's willfully ignored the Concorde. Either way I had a strong distrust of any further "facts" he might provide. But that was okay, because he preferred to use generalizations and aphorisms such as "faster is better" and "faster doesn't necessarily mean less time for relaxation." This is a 225 page book with enough content for a half page newspaper article: and at that, you could probably figure most of it out on your own with an hour's thought.
- The Alchemist (orig. O Alquimista)
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1988?HarperPerennialyesTranslated from the Portuguese by Alan R. Clarke. Taken by many as life guidance for adults, it struck me as a nice fable for children. It encourages us to pursue our "Personal Legend" by listening to our hearts and reading the signs. Our hero, Santiago, pursues his personal legend from Spain and across Africa to the pyramids and back again over a couple years, at great risk to life and limb. A sweet story, but I failed to find the depth in it that many seem to have.
- The Alchemist's Apprentice
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20071stAce?
Our narrator is Alfeo Zeno, the young (intelligent, smart ass) apprentice to Maestro Nostradamus. A society murder in Middle Ages Venice leaves Alfeo working very hard to find out who did it while also helping his master who has his own way of solving things. Lots of clever, and fairly enjoyable, but hardly a great book.
- All Systems Red
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2017Tor
Martha Wells appears to have written quite a few books, although I wasn't aware of her until Tor Books decided to give this novella away as an ebook. It sounded more appealing than most of Tor's give-aways, so I downloaded it. And it was a lot of fun. Our first person protagonist is a "SecUnit," partially organic, partially robotic, all controlled by commands from its parent computer system. But it's obviously as intelligent as a human - and just as temperamental. It's mostly interested in binge-watching "Sanctuary Moon," its favourite media show. Rather importantly, it's disabled its own "governor" module - the one that usually gives it commands. So it can choose to ignore those commands if it wants to. It refers to itself as "Murderbot."
It's been assigned to a small survey group on a recently charted world. But anomalies begin to show up quite soon - including their map of the planet being tampered with. Warnings about dangerous fauna don't show in the survey record, but the dangerous fauna does show.
As things begin to get ugly, it's forced to choose between following the increasingly problematic orders from its governor unit and actually saving its humans. As cranky and dismissive as it is, Murderbot does have something strongly resembling a moral compass.
My favourite kind of science fiction makes you think about your assumptions about the future, forces you to reconsider your vision of how things will change. But sometimes it's a pleasure to read a book that just has a good plot and is fun: and that's what this is.
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
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20001stRandom Houseyes
I stalled out on page 165 of 656 of this book. The writing is very good, the characters are good, the story is interesting ... and yet every time I put it down it was a struggle to pick it up again. I couldn't tell you why, except he does develop the story very slowly.
Sam Clay is a young New York Jew who meets his cousin Joe Kavalier for the first time in 1939. Joe has just escaped prosecution as a Jew in Prague. Driven forward by Sam's exaggerations, excellent comic book storytelling, and occasional outright lies, plus Joe's superb drawings, the two of them look set to launch a successful comic book career on the eve of the Second World War.
- The Amber Spyglass
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2000Alfred A Knopfyes
This is the sequel to The Subtle Knife. This is the final book in the trilogy, the first being The Golden Compass. I started re-reading them after watching the second season of the "His Dark Materials" TV series based on these books.
This one gets pretty strange: you thought it was weird in the last book, with three different parallel worlds (Lyra's Oxford with its dæmons, Will's Oxford - our world, and Cittàgazze with its spectres) ... Pullman now adds dozens more worlds (with the statement that there are infinitely more) ... including the world of dead. And he adds a race of people six inches tall, a very non-human race who run on wheels, plus angels. Is it fantasy? Or science fiction? It combines elements of both. It's also noticeably longer than the previous books.
Lyra and Will work together to survive, and to do the morally correct thing through great hardship. Mary Malone (a dark matter physicist and former nun introduced in the previous book) spends a lot of time with the wheeled "mulefa," learning about "Dust" (or dark matter). She is blessed (or cursed, but Pullman would consider it the former) to play the role of "the serpent," as she was told in the previous book - so it's inevitable that her path and Lyra's cross again. And Lord Asriel's war with Heaven reaches a peak - with Lyra's mother Marissa Coulter inevitably playing a vital role as well.
Pullman continues the idea that Lyra doesn't achieve all this on her own: many people - adults, children, even angels and the dead - fight with her. Some die unacknowledged for belief in the cause. Which is a bit dark for a children's book, but as I said before - more believable than her doing this alone.
Didn't love this series as much this time through as I did with the first reading, although it's still pretty good.
SPOILERS: Stop reading etc. I love that they allow God to die part way through the book: he was old and completely senile and being held captive by some of the other angels, and was happy for the opportunity of release. I still can't imagine this sitting well with the Christian Church - even if he was called "the Authority" in the context of the book.
- American Gods
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20011stWilliam MorrowyesA whole bunch of interesting, clever ideas in search of a plot. Sure, there's a plot, and a main character named "Shadow." But Shadow is a cypher: partly because Gaiman draws him that way, partly because Gaiman's just not a good enough writer to leave any impression at all with a character he wants to be mostly a shadow. Quite possibly worth reading for all the nifty ideas about the gods in America, but doesn't hold together as a story.
- Anansi Boys
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2005yes
The recent arrival of the Sandman TV series has put Neil Gaiman at the front of my mind, and in roaming the library shelves about a week ago I realized I hadn't read his Anansi Boys. Anansi is a Caribbean trickster god (his origins lie elsewhere, but as Gaiman's American Gods tells us, it's important to understand where this version of the god originates from. This is a story of Fat Charlie Nancy, the fairly normal son of Anansi ("Mr. Nancy") who's dragged into the world of magic after the death of his father.
Fat Charlie (who isn't particularly fat - you'll learn the story if you read the book) lives in modern day Britain, where he has a job, a fiancée, and little ambition. After his father's death, he returns to Florida for the funeral. At the funeral, he finds out from his father's neighbours that he has a brother that he somehow doesn't remember. And that his father was a god, and that his brother got all the "god-stuff." Meeting his brother turns Charlie's life completely on its head.
I'm struggling to come up with a good description of the prose. "Ridiculous" doesn't do it justice, and in using that word I'm not sure how to convey how much good ridiculousness there is in the book. I'll let Neil Gaiman explain:
This is on page 120 of 334. It's not a particularly deep book (although there's a lot going on and it's well thought out), but it's very, very entertaining and quite charming.Like all sentient beings, Fat Charlie had a weirdness quotient. For some days the needle had been over in the red, occasionally banging jerkily against the pin. Now the meter broke. From this moment on, he suspected, nothing would surprise him. He could no longer be outweirded. He was done.
He was wrong, of course.
- Ancillary Justice
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20131stOrbityes
Ancillary Justice was Ann Leckie's first novel: it won both the Hugo and the Nebula award.
Our main character is, or once was, a space-faring ship called "Justice of Toren." It takes quite a while before we learn how that separation came about as we follow two threads, the events of 20 years ago (at which point she was still the ship) and today (in which she is a single "ancillary" - a more or less human body whose memories are those of the ship). Toward the end of the older story, perhaps two thirds of the way through the book, we finally find out why she's hell-bent on revenge ... and who it is she intends to kill.
I found a number of elements of the book unsatisfactory: right at the beginning of the current day storyline, our protagonist saves the life of Seivarden Vendaai, someone who had served on Justice of Toren, but whom she didn't like. I could have lived with that, but the trouble (life-threatening trouble) she goes to to keep Seivarden alive makes no sense at all. Nor does Seivarden's eventual conversion to ally.
And the gender thing: I don't think our protagonist's gender is ever discussed. And our protagonist is constantly getting other people's gender wrong, and rather randomly switching gender pronouns for people because she's unable to figure them out. It was really annoying, and, ultimately, unexplained. Wikipedia says "The Radchaai do not distinguish people by gender, and Leckie conveys this by using female personal pronouns for everybody, or by having the Radchaai main character guess wrongly when she has to use languages with gender-specific pronouns." That doesn't seem like a sufficient reason. I assumed there would be some pay-off or reason given after 400 pages of ambiguity, but ... nothing.
There's some interest in her implicit questions about morality and identity, but mostly it's a fairly traditional space opera. The success of the book has spawned two sequels, but I won't be returning to the series.
- Andre the Giant: Life and Legend
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2014First Secondyes
There's a wonderful photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of "Conan the Destroyer" (so probably in 1983) standing between Wilt Chamberlain and André the Giant. Schwarzenegger looks small (not a word you ever thought you'd hear in association with the man), even though he was at the height of his muscularity at the time. Chamberlain (who is listed as 7'1") and André are roughly the same height. Sadly this photo isn't part of the book, but you can find it easily by searching Google Images for the names of the people involved.
"André the Giant" is possibly the most famous professional wrestler who ever lived. He suffered from acromegaly, a disease that was to kill him at the age of 46. It also made him enormous: his billed height was 7'4", although it's more likely he was 7'2". And for many people, he will forever be remembered for his wonderful portrayal of Fezzik in the great movie "The Princess Bride." It's from this movie that I know him best (I had friends in university in the 1980s who were fans of wrestling, I never was - but I've seen the movie six or seven times): it's always been my belief that he wasn't a very good actor, and thus the charming personality that shines through in the movie is probably who he was. (Let me believe it.)
Box Brown has written a 240 page graphic novel about André: he's clearly researched it as much as he could, but as he's quick to point out in the introduction, the scripted nature of professional wrestling - and the decades long denial that it was scripted - leads to some difficulty in ascertaining which oft-repeated stories are true. Oddly, after all that research, he must have known André's full name: "André René Roussimoff," and yet throughout the book he refers to him exclusively as "Andre" (without the accent on the E).
Sadly, the end result feels a little thin (on details - not so much in the physical sense at 240 pages ...). It feels like a mix of apocrypha and stuff I already knew. Brown is right: it's very hard to know which of the many stories about him are true. Perhaps we'll know some day: for now, I'll remember him as Fezzik.
- The Android's Dream
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20061stToryesKeith Laumer's Retief mixed with Bill, Galactic Hero - but happily no one portrayed here is quite as stupid as that would imply. You'll also have to add some violence to get the right kind of picture. The book is meant to be a farce, a comedy, and there are several places where he manages multiple pages of hilarity. But then he moves the plot forward with brutal violence and several deaths, which darkens the mood just slightly. If you decide to read it, brace yourself for a start that includes one of the most extended fart jokes ever written: but I have to give him credit, it's fairly clever and pretty funny. A diplomat sits across a table from an alien trade negotiator: the alien in question communicates in part through scent. The diplomat has an ... insert ... that allows him to send some very nasty messages to his counterpart without the point of origin being obvious, until the alien works himself into an apoplectic rage and dies of a stroke. If that kind of absurdity amuses you, go pick up a copy.
- The Angel of the Crows
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2020Toryes
Katherine Addison (real name Sarah Monette, a name she also writes under - also author of The Goblin Emperor) has an "Author's Note" at the end of the book. It's both a concise introduction to the concept of fanfic and says a lot about the book itself so I think it's worth including here:
For those of you who do not know, there is a thing called fanfiction, wherein fans of a particular book or TV show or movie write stories about the characters. Fanfiction, as an umbrella term, covers a vast variety of genres and subgenres. One of those subgenres is something called wingfic, wherein a character or characters have wings. The Angel of the Crows began as a Sherlock wingfic.
I spent a couple years working at a Science Fiction and Fantasy library (Toronto's Merril Collection) and became more aware of fanfic than I ever wanted to. But I still hadn't heard of "wingfic" - maybe it's a recent thing. Or she made it up.
Our protagonist and narrator is Dr. J.H. Doyle, who we meet as he makes his way home from the Second Anglo-Afghan War (fixing our time frame at approximately 1879 ... while this isn't our world, the parallels are very clear). He can't afford a place to stay on his Army pension, and ends up rooming with "Crow" at 221B Baker Street in London. "Crow" is an angel, although a most atypical one. Angels are portrayed as the guardians of large public buildings, and they remain in residence in those buildings. But Crow can go anywhere in the city, and has a fascination with murders. Doyle finds Crow both annoying and charming, and they become an investigative team as well as roommates.
In this version of the Sherlock and Watson story, Watson/Doyle was injured by a "Fallen," an angel who is ... it's not really explained, but no longer an angel. I guess the name "Fallen" is considered explanation enough. They cross paths with hemophages and necrophages (neither well explained in the book), vampires and werewolves (mostly law-abiding citizens), curses, ghosts and hell hounds (being the latter isn't necessarily a bad thing ...). Oh - and laudanum addicts, thieves, and murderers. They also run through their own versions of A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and (apparently, I didn't recognize it) The Sign of the Four ... as well as tackling the Jack the Ripper case. And while the "Watson" and "Sherlock" names have been changed, we still have Lestrade and Gregson, and a vampire clan named Moriarty. Her choices of which names and facts to stick with and which to change seemed arbitrary.
It's perhaps a bit late to point out that I've never read a single one of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I have, on the other hand, watched some of the Jeremy Brett TV series, all of the "Sherlock" series, most of "Elementary," and multiple other interpretations of the characters besides. So it was very interesting to see what was to me "A Study in Pink" (the first episode of "Sherlock") recreated as the opening of this book. This is of course because both the beginning of this book and the "Sherlock" episode mirror Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet.
Addison's prose is good, which makes her writing easier and more enjoyable to read than most. I'm a little less sure about the book's structure and plot - a bit too much going on. But Crow and Doyle are slightly bizarre and enjoyable creations, and that made the book worth reading.
- Anya's Ghost
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2011First Second (Roaring Brook Press)yes
This is a young adult graphic novel, done in grayscale line art.
High school student Anya Borzakovskaya falls down an abandoned empty well, and makes a new friend of sorts - a ghost, a young woman whose skeleton has been down there 90 years. Initially her new friend is great company, but there's a darker side to her.
The art is simple but both effective and quite nice, and the story is good.
- Assassin's Apprentice
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1995Bantam Spectra
"Robin Hobb" turns out to be one of a couple pseudonyms used by Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, who wrote several books under the name of "Megan Lindholm" before this "debut" novel as Robin Hobb.
Our main character is "Fitz," a term that in their world means simply "Bastard." He's the bastard son of Chivalry, one of the Princes of the kingdom he lives in. One of the book's several conceits is that Fitz is writing this autobiography in his old age. His memories start at the age of six - very vividly. He remembers being taken from his mother and birth family and given to the royal family ... and remembers absolutely nothing before that.
Initially he works in the stables, but is eventually raised to be, if not a part of the royal family, at least close to it. And he's secretly trained as an assassin. This book uses its 435 pages to detail Fitz's life up to approximately age 15, showing in the process that he's smart, observant, and skilled in a couple forms of magic (although he doesn't initially understand this). With the politics of the Kingdom in upheaval, all of this gets exciting and the action gets interesting around page 390.
This took me months to read: that only happens when a book is slow-paced. And not terribly well written. Although not so slow-paced that I ever dropped it entirely. I was ... underwhelmed by her idea that people in the royal family are named by characteristics: the King is Shrewd, his Queen is Desire, the three princes are Chivalry (whose wife is Patience, although her behaviour least seems to embody her name), Verity, and Regal.
Overall not bad, but certainly not one of the great fantasy books. The author has the decency to wrap things up nicely, although it's clear that there's still a threat to the Kingdom for a sequel. A sequel I won't be bothering to read.
- At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances
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2003
I adored the title of this book, so I picked it up. McCall Smith is best known for The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, but I suppose most authors want, in their hearts, to write an unpleasant character like this book's protagonist Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. He reminds me of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman, or Donald Jack's Bartholomew Bandy (a reference for Canadians only). Igelfeld is a German academic whose understanding of the world does not extend beyond his incredibly narrow field of scholarly research. He and his associates are petty, mean little men who feud over tiny slights, real or imagined.
I spent a decade working at a university, but this wasn't my experience (McCall Smith's writing makes it clear all academics are like this). I suppose there were one or two people who behaved this way at the university I was at, but I didn't even have to make an effort to avoid them because they were so few and far between. I know the author wasn't going for accuracy, but his portrayal was mean enough, and so far from the truth, that it put me off pretty badly.
Some authors can work oblivious characters like this into comedy (I adore the first three Bandy books), and McCall Smith is an eloquent writer, but I merely found the intellectual pratfalls and jokes in this book wearing - so much so that I set it aside at page 82 of its rather slender 126 pages. My dislike aside, apparently the petty Igelfeld is a popular character: this seems to be the third book about him.
B
- Barrayar
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1991?
See Cordelia's Honor.
- Beat Procrastination and Make the Grade
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20051stPenguinyesAimed at students, but most of what it says applies to adult procrastinators as well. Looks quite good, but I didn't read much of it.
- The Beast Master
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1959Harcourt
Our hero, Hosteen Storm, is an ex-soldier, Navajo, Terran - shortly after the destruction of Terra. He settles on another human-colonized world with his team of animals (who he is partly telepathically linked to) with the intention of settling a long-held grudge against a man named Brad Quade.
Norton wrote considerably better than most of the authors of her generation. And because she mostly stayed away from technology, this book has aged particularly well. But the blood oath he's sworn against Quade is brought up multiple times - without ever explaining it, which struck me as a considerable and annoying cheat. Overall a fairly good book, mostly intended for teens.
- The Belgariad, Books 1 and 2
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1982
The first book of The Belgariad, David Eddings' five book high fantasy epic, appeared in 1982. I was at the time old enough to have concluded I didn't read children's books any more. In looking back recently, the series came up as a well known and well regarded series I'd skipped over. So I read the first two books, Pawn of Prophecy and Queen of Sorcery.
Our protagonist is Garion, who is 13(?) when the first book starts. He lives a quiet and rather idyllic life on a farm in a peaceful country, watched over by his Aunt Pol. Although if you read the ponderous introduction about the world's prehistory and gods, you will immediately identify her as the very long-lived sorceress Polgara - a "revelation" that comes about half way through the book. Like many children's books, our protagonist constantly stumbles on the most important events in the country and overhears or influences them. Eddings leans heavily on the idea that evil people are ugly and/or smelly: by the second book he's working a bit on bringing home the lesson that "you shouldn't judge a book by its cover," but bad people are still scarred or have "dead eyes." Life lessons are laid on with a trowel: my favourite was "don't marry for looks alone," with Garion's travelling companion Barak being burdened with a resentful and cold wife ... but it's by no means the only one. There are lessons about being considerate to others, thinking before you act ... I'll spare you the dozens of others.
As a fantasy book, it strikes me as a cross between The Lord of the Rings and Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain, which is also a five book series about a young boy coming to adulthood as his entire kingdom falls into war against an unthinkably powerful enemy. Lloyd Alexander's Taran is also an orphan, but Eddings' Garion has shown by the second book that he is himself a powerful (if uncontrolled) sorcerer, whereas Taran does what he does with no powers at all. But both travel with their wildly varied party of life-lesson-giving friends, and I suspect that in the second book of the Belgariad we've already met Garion's future bride - who bears a remarkable similarity to the Princess Eilonwy of Prydain (we'll see if I'm right about that). We could also compare Belgarath and Dallben (both essentially immortal sorcerers). Eddings' target audience is two to four years older than Alexander's, but Alexander got there 18 years prior and set the bar pretty high. Eddings' prose is slightly better, but two books in I'm favouring Alexander ... Don't get me wrong: I'm enjoying it, but one thing I won't be accusing it of is originality.
Which leads me to a weird digression: if you want original fantasy, something different than anything else you've read, go try Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock. Okay, the man writes lousy prose, but since The Lord of the Rings the whole sword-and-sorcery-with-a-quest thing has been the only paradigm that exists in fantasy. There's a quest in Mythago Wood, but the ideas are the most radically different from any other fantasy you're going to find.
Second prize in the category of original fantasy ideas goes to Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone, which is somewhere in a totally unoccupied zone between fantasy, steam-punk, and the modern world ... and better written than any of the other books mentioned here.
- The Belgariad, Books 3, 4 and 5
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1983
Pawn of Prophecy and Queen of Sorcery are followed by Magician's Gambit, Castle of Wizardry, and Enchanter's End Game. These three books close out the story of Belgarion's ("Garion" by his new name) rise to power and further adventures. The prose is of a style with the first two books, as is the structure of the story. The broad sweep of the story was fairly predictable (I was right about the bride) and the slightly ponderous prose had grown somewhat tiresome. Overall, a somewhat disappointing series.
- Bellwether
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19961stReillyyes
Willis goes for comedy-by-exaggeration - a lot, apparently. I was introduced to her through The Doomsday Book, which I still think is one of the best SF novels ever written. Even in that she has moments of absurd/obsessive behaviour, but they serve to leaven an otherwise extremely harrowing book. This is more like a shorter version of her To Say Nothing of the Dog, with the young statistician/historian Sandra Foster trying to track down the origins of fads (and based to some extent on the Robert Browning poem "Pippa Passes"). Foster is surrounded by incompetent or obsessed co-workers as she stumbles on with her research and begins a new project researching the trainability and the spread of fads in sheep.
- The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time
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2002?ibooks, New YorkyesMalzberg seems to have a particular penchant for depressing tales. The 15 stories are all fairly good, but most of them are pretty damn depressing. I was hoping for more convoluted logic and difficult paradoxes - there were some - but I realize that's not all time travel stories are about. Overall a passable but not great collection.
- Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
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1980
Gateway by Fred Pohl is one of the best known SF novels in existence (although at 40 years, its age may slowly be overcoming its reputation). This novel is the direct sequel to Gateway - a book I read more than 30 years ago.
Robin Broadhead, the protagonist of the previous novel, is older, still filthy rich, happily married, and nevertheless still feeling very guilty about his actions in the previous book. As a result of that guilt, he's obsessed with Heechee technology (the alien race that built Gateway) and funds a trip to a Heechee artifact called "The Food Factory." Part of the book is also seen through the eyes of the Herter family, the people travelling to the Food Factory. A horrible years-long trip, followed by all kinds of discoveries both good and bad.
The writing is acceptable, but not great. The characters are utilitarian. The plot is scattered, split as it is between multiple viewpoints. The mysteries - of what things are, and why they are the way they are - are at least somewhat interesting. But the book isn't nearly as good as its predecessor ... or at least not nearly as good as I remember its predecessor to be, although I suspect I would be more critical of the first book now too. Read Gateway - I'm not sure you need to read this.
- The Black Cauldron
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1965??yes
A children's fantasy novel, the second in "The Chronicles of Prydain" sequence of five after The Book of Three. Taran goes on a quest to destroy the titular Black Cauldron. As usual, he is accompanied on and off by Eilonwy, Gurgi, Doli, and Fflewddur Fflam. But they have another partner of sorts, the very poor and excessively proud Prince Ellidyr.
This is in some ways the darkest of the Prydain books. There are more deaths in The High King, but the tone in this is dark from end to end as the cauldron's one and only use is to turn dead people into emotionless, tireless, unkillable warriors. As with the others, a very good book.
Followed by The Castle of Llyr.
- Blackdog
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2011Pyryes
"Otokas was not a particularly devout man. Prayer had always seemed a pointless ritual. ... The goddess met his eyes and smiled, a neat, correct figure standing against the west, patience itself in a girl's small body. Attalissa had heard the prayers as many times as he, the same words wearing the same deep grooves in the memory, until one did not hear them at all and could not remember if the ceremony were ending or had only just begun. ... The words of the prayer ran on. Did they make any difference, and had they ever? ... Prayer is for them, dog, not for you and me, she told him, in the silent speech, mind to mind, that they shared."
I love the idea that devotion and belief are so unimportant in a world where there are hundreds of gods. Attalissa is one of them, and Otokas, the Blackdog of the title, is her protector.
Within a few pages, both their lives are changed forever as their temple is invaded by a powerful sorcerer intent on taking Attalissa as his bride - or consuming her powers, or both. The Blackdog and Attalissa flee to the desert, where they hide in a trader's caravan for years. Most of the story revolves around that, and the developing politics of the situation in the place she abandoned and among her devout followers who have scattered to the surrounding areas to avoid persecution by the sorcerer, who has permanently set up house awaiting her return.
Some interesting ideas, but too long - it took a long time to get into it, and it was a struggle to get through the middle section. Decent characters and writing.
- Blood Music
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1985
Vergil Ulam is a biotechnologist in a future so near you can touch it. Brilliant but sloppy, and also believing the rules don't apply to him, he starts experimenting with human blood cells (his own), turning them into rudimentary computers. When he's caught at it, he's fired but has a few minutes in which he ... re-injects the modified blood into his own body, with the intent of filtering it out later. But he doesn't get around to it - and his body starts ... changing.
I can't tell you much without getting into spoilers. But I will say that I think this is one of the greatest books of SF ever written, terrifying and exhilarating, thought-provoking and all too possible. Everyone should read this.
- The Book of Three
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1964??yes
A children's fantasy novel, the first in "The Chronicles of Prydain" sequence of five. This book introduces "Assistant Pig Keeper" Taran, who pursues his pig into the woods and ends up running all over the country in the company of the high and mighty on both sides of the battle of good and evil.
I read these when I was a kid, and in hindsight I think they significantly changed both my thinking (they're full of lessons - not particularly subtle, but nicely embedded in wonderful writing) and my future reading habits (I've been a fan of SF and Fantasy most of my life). This is a great set of stories.
Followed by The Black Cauldron.
- The Books of Magic
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19931stDC Comicsyes
I borrowed this from the library because Gaiman wrote it, and as I see it, this is proof that that's a bad policy. Long winded, thinks it's an epic, and it's just stupid. Fits into DC's universe, mostly referencing (that I recognized) Constantine and elements of the Dreaming. Timothy Hunter is a young boy who has the potential to become possibly the greatest magician ever, so four men (Constantine is one) take him on bizarre tours, to see the past, to meet the greatest magicians of the current day, to see other worlds, and to see the future. Hunter is a vehicle, not a character, so that leaves little to engage with.
- Born on a Blue Day
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20061stHodder & Stoughton Ltd.yes
Tammet is a savant - but unlike most savants, he's not significantly damaged in any other way. He's on the autistic spectrum, has Aspberger's, but you'd be hard-pressed to tell in most circumstances (look him up on YouTube). He's the first of eight children, and his fifth(?) sibling, a brother, had recently been diagnosed as being autistic as well. So, this man who can multiply massive numbers in milliseconds and memorize entire languages in a week decided he should write a book to help others understand what his brother is going through.
Tammet's writing is about as pedestrian as it gets - I'm afraid it reminds me of Oscar Wilde's quote "The man who calls a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for." As Tammet himself explains (or at least mentions in passing), complex or ornamented language can severely confuse people on the autistic spectrum: they expect literal information and metaphors, double negatives and similes all confuse them. So he uses none of them. But he's a fascinating guy who's had a very interesting life, and it's enough to hold you through the book.
- A Brief History of Vice
-
2016Plumeyes
For me, it started with a video: "4 Awful Ways Our Ancestors Got High (That We Tested!) - Cracked Goes There with Robert Evans." Cracked is a humour website, the offspring of the now deceased humour magazine also titled Cracked. Robert Evans works for them, and also has an interest in vice. The video was ... illuminating. And had the desired effect of leading me to his recently published book, A (Brief) History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization. This might imply that the book is a work of comedy (partially true) and fiction (apparently not). It seems to be exceptionally well researched (seriously - he did a lot of reading for this). Evans makes what might otherwise have been a boring academic piece about bad behaviour eminently readable through a combination of foul language, self-experimentation, and practical examples. As one cover review says: “Mixing science, humor, and grossly irresponsible self-experimentation, Evans paints a vivid picture of how bad habits built the world we know and love" (David Wong). Personally, I don't consider self-experimentation more than mildly irresponsible: but Evans branches out into experimenting on his fiancée and fellow staff members at Cracked. That's impressively irresponsible. But their terrible experiences are fodder for our education!
He covers (among many other things!) getting high on fly agaric (nasty, nasty side effects if you're not careful), the long histories of prostitution and smack-talk, and weird ways of ingesting tobacco and pot. He printed recipes for all the concoctions he tried including - but not limited to - "soma" (made from fly agaric), ur-booze, and a proto-power bar made from whole coffee berries. It's a well written, well researched, and hugely entertaining journey. Highly recommended!
- Buddha 1: Kapilavatsu
-
20031stVertical, Inc.yesFrom the man who brought us "Astroboy," and more recently "Metropolis," we have an epic interpretation - in comic form, eight (how appropriate) thick books - of the life of the Buddha. This is the first. The black-and-white line art varies between the ludicrous and the sublime. I don't know the story well enough to know which characters are added and which are original, but it seems to be targeted at quite a young audience and even for them I'm not sure it's being told all that well.
- Buddha 3: Devadatta
-
20041stVertical, Inc.yesMoving on in the series ... I have to re-assess who this is aimed at ... There's enough sex, swearing, and violence that this is definitely not for children, but the humour and plot development are ... rudimentary. Sure, he's got a huge cast of characters to keep track of, but if he can't do anything better with them ... Siddhartha enters his time of trials. Several other characters are being developed to join him later or cause him trouble later (sometimes he flat out tells you this, sometimes it's just painfully obvious).
- Buddha 4: The Forest of Uruvela
-
20041stVertical, Inc.yesSiddhartha moves on to the Forest of Uruvela, there to undergo trials and privations on his way to understanding that all life is equal and that adding more suffering to a life of suffering gains us nothing. A bit better than the previous books.
- Buddha 5: Deer Park
-
20051stVertical, Inc.yesLots of filler material - Tezuka-created characters fighting it out and trying to decide if Buddha is actually worth listening to - fill out this book. Buddha gives his first sermon.
- Buddha 6:Ananda
-
20051stVertical, Inc.yesWhile this American version is a different number of volumes than the original Japanese series and thus is out of step with them, the title "Ananda" is certainly fitting for this book. It's very much about the people-hating bandit Ananda who becomes Buddha's main aide - and I think it's one of the better stories that Tezuka has told in the sequence.
- Buddha 7: Prince Ajatasattu
-
20051stVertical, Inc.yesBuddha is injured, and tended to and assisted by Ananda. Buddha's friend Seniya, now a king, has his son Ajatasattu locked up in the hopes that he will be prevented from fulfilling the prophecy that says he will kill his father. In the manner of these things, the imprisonment more or less guarantees that it will happen. Buddha decides to begin travelling to spread the word, despite his increased age and relatively poor health. Ananda goes with him.
- Buddha 8: Jetavana
-
20051stVertical, Inc.yesThe title derives from the park and temple where Buddha gave many of his sermons later in life. Of all the books, I suppose I found this one least memorable. It being the last one, it's not surprising to find that it ends in his death (I'm not giving anything away here, am I?).
- Burma Chronicles
-
20081stDrawn and Quarterlyyes
Delisle is an animator from Quebec, now living in France, who does comics on the side. His life has taken him to some very interesting places, most notably Shenzhen and Pyongyang, both visits he did graphic novels about and which I enjoyed considerably. This time he's tackling a country I spent a month in - staying part of that time with relatives who had been there for a couple years - so I know more about the place than most of his readers. His portrayal of the country struck me as accurate in every respect that I was aware of, so I'm more inclined to credit the rest of his work. The book is highly episodic and not sequential: sets of two to ten(?) pages address a particular issue, whether it's the bizarre houses, daycare for his child, or a visit to an HIV clinic in a far corner of the country. Some are told without words: I felt a couple of these could have used a bit more explanation, but overall it's a good book and a good introduction to the country.
C
- Camouflage
-
2004
The story is mostly set a few years from now (I'm reviewing it in 2018), about the discovery and raising of what appears to be an alien artifact from the sea floor. But it also follows the life on our planet of the creature that arrived in that artifact (Haldeman calls it "the changeling," who has been here so long it's forgotten its own origins), and another rather nasty non-human creature ("the chameleon") - and both of them can and do masquerade as regular humans. The story alternates between the slow socialization of the changeling starting around 1930, and the current day tale of the research into the artifact.
I suppose I hoped for more of a revelation around the nature of the changeling at the end of the story. There was something, but not even its reasons for being on our planet were explained. But the story was well constructed, the characters well drawn, and the writing was good, so it was an enjoyable read.
- Camp Concentration
-
1968
Our first-person voice is Louis Sacchetti, an obese poet and conscientious objector against a near future war, jailed and then moved involuntarily to "Camp Archimedes." The conditions are far better than the jail he was in initially, but he's still jailed and he eventually finds out that all the other inmates (he is to be a reporter) have been injected with a form of syphilis which causes the body to terminally deteriorate while simultaneously making the subject immensely more intelligent. References to Doctor Faustus abound.
I remembered this book with immense admiration from my youth, and I find that I still - perhaps even more so - find it a breath-taking piece of work. The writing is spectacular, every word of it. And in many ways, that's so much harder than coming up with a good plot (which he has also done). Disch's writing is loaded with literary references, far more of them than I got when I was 20, or even now, 30 years later - although I definitely caught more of them this time.
I really don't understand how this excellent book isn't better known ...
- A Canticle for Leibowitz
-
1960
Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of the most celebrated books in all of science fiction, a post-apocalyptic novel about the endurance of the Catholic Church and the inevitability of man's self-destructiveness as a species. I've known about the book for as long as I've been reading science fiction (since my early teens), but for some reason I never read it until 2016. I'm glad to say I now understand why it's achieved the renown it has. One reason is that he's a damn good writer: the prose is an order of magnitude better than any other SF coming out of the 1960s, except possibly Ursula LeGuin. Another reason is that he's created an incredibly enduring look at the apocalypse: he postulates a society slightly more advanced than ours that's destroyed itself in a nuclear holocaust, and the entire novel takes place across centuries after that event. Most science fiction "ages out," with their predictions becoming blatantly incorrect. He starts by blowing up our society, and from there on his speculation is ... universal.
The novel is in three parts, the first of which amounts to the Dark Ages. It establishes the Catholic Order of St. Leibowitz, which preserves "the Memorabilia" - documents of science and technology from before the "Flame Deluge." The second part is essentially a Renaissance, and the third amounts to the equivalent of our 21st century - a technology slightly more advanced than that of 2016.
Miller seems to have a very high opinion of the Catholic Church. Most of the major characters are priests and abbots and, while each is a fully developed character (and he's very good at character), they're all good people doing the right thing. I wonder if his characterization of the church would have been significantly different if he'd written the book after the revelations of the sexual abuse scandal in Boston (and the rest of the world). (I'm aware that this doesn't condemn the entire church ... but his view of it is more positive than I think is warranted.)
This is not an upbeat book. He believes - and argues very convincingly - that we're condemned to repeat our mistakes and destroy ourselves. But it's a superbly written story that should be read by not just fans of the genre, but by everyone.
- Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
-
2012yes
Set shortly after (okay, there are a couple books in the Vorkosigan series between them - Diplomatic Immunity and Cryoburn), and closely related to Bujold's A Civil Campaign. The important relation here is that both of these two are military (adjacent ...) SF farces set (mostly) on Barrayar. This one stars Ivan Vorpatril, the same age as Miles Vorkosigan - he grew up with Miles, and has shown up in a number of the Vorkosigan novels ... mostly to be lightly abused and mocked by Miles. Now he has his own starring vehicle, and we learn what you probably already knew if you were paying attention in the other books. Ivan's a fairly smart guy. He's just ... a lot less ambitious than Miles, and his being "less intelligent than Miles" is a qualification he shares with 99.9% of the population.
This novel starts on Komarr, with Byerly Vorrutyer (another recurring secondary character in the Vorkosigan books) convincing Ivan to assist a young woman in danger. Ivan's attempted assistance/seduction goes seriously askew, but he manages to help her out anyway - and in the end, save her from her initial danger by making a highly unusual (and comedic) alliance. Inevitably, it gets more complicated from there.
The book is quite funny, but it felt messier, not as well thought out as A Civil Campaign. The characters are mostly likeable and I did read the book fairly compulsively, so I guess it did something right, but again - not quite as good.
- The Castle of Llyr
-
1966??yes
Third in the Prydain series (preceded by The Black Cauldron and followed by Taran Wanderer). Taran has got slightly less hotheaded, but if you started with this book you'd be hard-pressed to believe that. This book sees Eilonwy sent off to the Isle of Mona to learn to "be a lady." As she prefers to sleep in the woods, ride with raiding parties and swing a sword, this is something of an uphill battle. But taking her to Mona isn't as simple as it seems, and Taran and his companions are shortly off on another adventure.
- Castle of Wizardry
-
1984
- Castle Waiting Volume 1
-
2006Fantagraphicsyes
One of the longest graphic novels I've read at 450 pages: but it goes relatively fast for such a thick volume. The story starts with a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, although "Beauty" herself is a minor character - we're setting up the people who live in the castle. Then we see the young and pregnant Jain travelling the country to get to Castle Waiting, where she settles in as a new resident among the several oddballs who already live there. But she's not to be the protagonist either, although Medley leaves some significant questions dangling about Jain, who now almost disappears as other people tell very long stories at the castle.
I was particularly amused by her use of Saint Wilgefortis. Most readers will recognize some (although probably not all) of the dozens of other stories Medley is riffing on (the already-mentioned Sleeping Beauty, The Canterbury Tales, Iron Henry, etc.) But I suspect that most people will think she made up Wilgefortis - a bearded female saint. She didn't. I know this because I encountered Wilgefortis in a church in Prague - although Medley has slightly changed the story ... I don't think there were ever nunneries of bearded women.
I found the structure of the story quite frustrating, but at the same time the black-and-white artwork, the characters, the dialogue with its occasionally modern language, irony, and mores, and the stories-in-the-story are all marvelous - to the point that I immediately placed a hold at the library on Volume 2. Has some annoying features and may frustrate those looking for straight-forward story-telling, but overall an elegant and very enjoyable book.
- Castle Waiting Volume 2
-
2010Fantagraphicsyes
I really enjoyed Castle Waiting Vol. 1, and moved on to Volume 2 immediately on receiving it from the library. The previous one was a series of not very closely related stories: this one is more the day-to-day life of the castle. This includes their odd visitors (a couple dwarves), the things they find (a secret passage), their weird goat, and bits and pieces of nearly everyone's backstories. And if you haven't gathered ... not a damn thing of significance happens. Despite which, I liked this even better than the previous one. Once you get on her wavelength and realize this isn't about big events, you settle into enjoying the story-telling and artwork ... both of which are superb. I highly, highly recommend both books.
It should be noted that there's also a Castle Waiting Volume 2: Definitive Edition which has 18 chapters to this one's 11 - and possibly even something resembling a conclusion. The above review is for the NON-Definitive edition of the book.
- Chicken With Plums
-
20061stPantheon/Random HouseyesI came to this right after reading the excellent Persepolis by the same author. This is another graphic novel and a huge disappointment. We are told from the beginning that this is the story of her uncle, a musician, who essentially lay down to die after his favourite instrument is broken. Perhaps Satrapi isn't as good at writing fiction as she is at writing her own life, because most of what we see in this book must be speculation even if the main concept is truth. There's a haze of depression lying over the whole story as we know from the start it culminates in his death. No tension, and not a great deal of interest in the stories told.
- Children of Time
-
2015Toryes
A good friend recommended this to me, but when it arrived on the hold shelf at the library I thought "he really should have told me it was the length of a Bible!" Having just finished reading it, it seems to me that it's just as well he didn't: I might not have ordered it, and that would have been a real shame.
The book spans millennia. The amount of time is never specified, but it doesn't really matter: it's hundreds of thousands of years, split between a world where we skip across tens of thousands of generations of uplifted spiders and a human cold storage ship voyaging between the stars trying to find a new home. Two groups set on an inevitable collision course. Tchaikovsky has woven so many disparate science fiction concepts into one novel that if you look at it from the outside you're going to believe there's no possible way he can make it work. He takes on:
- the poisoning of the Earth
- future Luddites
- species uplift
- racism/phobias (they're spiders)
- artificial intelligence
- biotechnology
- godhood
- species war
- millennia spacecraft
- terraforming
And that's probably not everything that I could name. But I'm making a list after the fact, whereas he was just trying to write a good story. And I've made a silly list and he's made a fantastic novel.
Yes, it's long: and if you're like me, you'll treasure the whole thing. The struggles of the generations of spiders, their evolution sped thousands of times by a nanovirus, and the last colony ship from the poisoned Earth, desperately seeking a terraformed world left behind by the "Old Empire" (a previous human civilization).
And it comes complete with a WTF ending - but the good kind. There are twist endings that come out of nowhere and completely destroy a book or movie. And then there are ones like this, ones that work - after you pick your jaw up off the floor. Ones where the clues were hidden throughout the book as you read it, but you never put it together ... The two most memorable recent examples I can think of are both movies, "The Sisters Brothers" and "Ex Machina."
Best book I've read this year, highly recommended.
- Chronicles of Amber, Books 1-5
-
1970-1978Doubleday?
I read and loved these as a teen (Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon, Sign of the Unicorn, The Hand of Oberon and The Courts of Chaos), but approached them with some trepidation in 2013. A number of books that I read at that age turned out to have truly terrible writing, no matter how good the story. Zelazny's writing is a product of the Seventies ("Can you dig it?" "Whatever") and not his best - it feels kind of rushed - but it mostly works, and the story is every bit the rip-roaring fantasy adventure I remembered.
I reread them again in 2019:
Our hero (Corwin) awakes with amnesia, but over the course of the first book discovers that he's a prince of Amber, and he and his often treacherous siblings can "walk in Shadows," which is to say they're able to traverse a multiverse of worlds, all of which are "shadows" of Amber, the perfect world (although it's home to some nasty politics among the nine princes and their family).
Of the five books, the final one is the weakest: Zelazny has to create an appropriate grand finale, and that includes ... well, the destruction of reality. It gets awfully metaphysical and philosophical, which isn't much of a treat in that lousy prose (although the prose has improved since the first couple books). And it involves a lot of "hellrides" (fast switching between multiple worlds which often produces unpleasant side effects). The problem isn't the hellrides, per se, but rather the way he writes them with pages and pages of disjoint prose, suggestions of images. There's way too much of it in one book.
Despite these complaints, the series as whole is a blast, an epic fantasy series I will still - despite the prose - recommend to any fan of the genre.
There are five more Amber books, written from 1985 through 1991. I only managed to read the first in that set (years ago): it seemed clear that it was structured like a video game, with "the bad guys" and "the good guys" alternately getting bigger and better power-ups. With my view on the subject confirmed by other reviewers who read the rest of the series, I'd recommend avoiding the second series.
- Chronopolis and other stories
-
1971?Longmans Canadayes
Ballard's characters are all self-destructive, and generally a little deranged. It's hard to feel much empathy for them, and harder still to find an upbeat story. I could have forgiven this if he had put some serious thought into the consequences of his various ideas, but generally each story focused around one idea, and one idea only. The corpse of a giant washes up a beach ("The Drowned Giant") or people's time becomes massively over-regulated ("Chronopolis") or surgery removes the human need for sleep ("Manhole 69"). Each of these ideas has side effects, often massive ones, which he completely ignores in pursuit of the one idea. In the end, each story becomes a small psychological exercise about unsympathetic characters with a thin veneer of "science fiction."
- Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love
-
20101stDC Comicsyes
After the "Fables" series ended, of course they were going to be spin-offs. It was too popular for there not to be. And Cinderella was one of my favourite characters: she looks like she's jetting around the world attending parties, but she's actually one of Fabletown's best spies (used to work for Bigby, now works for Beast). So I thought this book was a good idea, and the cover and inside cover art are fantastic. Unfortunately, "Fables" has run its course and Roberson's story isn't clever enough to resurrect it: the ideas in the book just aren't that interesting.
- City at the End of Time
-
2008yes
City at the End of Time starts simply enough, with people in modern-day Seattle. But they aren't normal people, and they have a connection with a future multiple trillions of years from now. In that future, the expansion of the universe has led to a weakening of the fabric of reality, and from that is born a non-reasoning entity called "The Typhon" that is destroying the laws of physics and eating reality.
But I've already misled you: the first chapter is in fact the very last. It doesn't make a lot of sense when you first read it because you don't have the context for it yet, but you'll come back to it at the end of the book and it'll make a bit more sense. Bear has constructed the book with multiple chapters out of order, so you jump about in time from the present day to the end of time and back, seeing the connections between the players and how the universe got to be in the mess it's in. Both the problem and the solution have to do with words, storytelling, and Mnemosyne (the Greek goddess of memory). And some of the stories within the story don't actually make any sense at all.
If it sounds confusing, it is. I didn't find it made much more sense after reading 500 pages, and I found those pages a brutal slog. It took me six months to get through this one - it's heavy going with a lot of ideas about how stories and words shape reality ... which, when I write it out, sounds good, but in practise was merely soporific.
About half way through I abandoned it long enough to re-read Bear's Blood Music - now that's a good book.
- A Civil Campaign
-
1999yes
I love some of Bujold's fantasy (at the top of the list: The Curse of Chalion). Many of her SF novels (including this one) are dedicated to the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan, and I've become disenchanted with them. In the afterword to Cordelia's Honor Bujold wrote (I've quoted this in another review, but I think it's important in context ...): "... accidentally discovering my first application of the rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to this guy?' And then do it." Every Miles novel and story I've read has been like that: he suffers horribly throughout the book and at the end wins through. Importantly, he never, ever gets a break in the context of the book - no rest, no happiness, just pain. And that gets very old. But I decided to read this novel (glad I did) because it's an anomaly: Miles is back home on Barrayar, and hoping to win himself a wife. There are several political incidents, and a couple other romantic sub-plots. No battles, no deaths: Bujold was writing this in the style of a historical romance, and dedicated the book to "Jane, Charlotte, Georgette, and Dorothy." Miles has a rough time wooing the lady, but it's largely his fault and it's damn funny.
Bujold makes no mystery of the romance: we know who is meant for who from the moment they step onto the page. But she keeps things entertaining with political sub-plots and Miles's clone brother Mark's attempts to build a new business venture (which is both physically unattractive and makes a hell of a mess of their house). As usual, Bujold's plotting is lovely. It all made sense, but (with the already-mentioned exception of the romances) I never guessed where things were headed. It was a hugely entertaining read with a lot of comedy, and several moments where I was laughing so hard I had to put the book down. I treasure moments like that: they're rare, and the fact that she managed it several times in one book is an achievement.
As an example of the twists and comedy (although this will take some scene-setting to make sense ...): Mark is very much in love with Kareen, but Kareen's parents are old-school Barryaran and don't approve of Mark's origins or mental health issues. Mark and Miles's mother Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan is famous/notorious for being able to solve political issues (and their sub-genre, romantic issues). She decides to champion Mark's cause and invites Kareen, Mark, and Kareen's parents for a visit. When Kareen enters the room, she sees a slightly shabby couch she recognizes from the attic where she used to play hide-and-seek with Miles years ago. This couch is somewhat out of place in Cordelia's well-kept house - and she insists that Kareen's parents sit on it. One of them mumbles "that's not fighting fair," and they sit rather reluctantly. From this, Kareen deduces that when her parents were young, in love, and considered "not suited for each other," they were caught fooling around on this couch. Despite the unsuitability of the match, they married and managed to build a happy and loving family. Nobody states any of this explicitly, we have only Kareen's speculation to go on - but it seems pretty clear that she's right. (Update: I'm told by a bigger fan of the "Vorkosigan Saga" that this actually happens in one of the early books.) It's a clever move and screamingly funny in context, and Bujold pulls off several more of these wonderfully unexpected and funny moments throughout the book.
- Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity
-
20071stOxford University PressyesOn the surface it sounds like an interesting book (to my eclectic tastes, anyway). Smith manages to avoid using academic jargon, but rambles and manages to sound like she's writing for an academic journal despite apparently targeting the rest of us. Over-long and not well delivered.
- Cloud Atlas
-
20041stVintage Canada/Random Houseyes
Six nested stories from the 1830s to a far distant post-apocalyptic future, all connected. Each of the first five stories is interupted by the next story, the sixth story being complete and leading to the completion of each of the interupted stories. Each written in a radically different style, all extraordinarily well written. The ending was a let-down for me, as it seemed to me that the story had peaked after the completion of either the second or fourth storyline, and it was downhill from there. But there's quite a reward in the reading: the structure is brilliant, and the prose is among the best you'll ever read.
- Cockeyed: A Memoir
-
20061stPublicAffairs (Perseus)yesKnighton has Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative condition that has caused him to go slowly blind starting when he was 14 or so. He's articulate and funny, and avoids being maudlin. I wasn't crazy about the writing style, but the story was definitely worth it. It's an education in what it's like to try to lead a normal life as your eyesight goes away.
- Conscience of the Beagle
-
1993
I'd previously read Anthony's Cold Allies and Brother Termite. Cold Allies left me with an abiding respect for her: here was someone who said "if we ever meet aliens, we would NOT understand them" - an argument I'd been making for years (given our inability to understand the people on the other side of the planet), and she wrote a good book based on that premise. Brother Termite is her best known book, but I didn't like it much. But when Conscience of the Beagle showed up at the library's discount store, I thought that an SF noir police drama sounded like a good thing.
The book is told entirely from the point of view of Major Dyle Holloway, who's just been assigned a job on the planet Tennyson. He and his team of three others are sent there to figure out who's been planting bombs and killing the populace. One of his teammates is a construct of Hoad Taylor - a human-looking reconstruction of the person Hoad Taylor used to be. "Beagle," as Dyle refers to him, was the best investigator the Earth had ever had.
But Dyle is barely clinging to his sanity: the book is staccato stream-of-consciousness in Dyle's mind, essentially SF William Faulkner. Dyle is incredibly paranoid, forgetful, and depressed, a stumbling wreck of a man ever since the death of his wife a year and a half previously. Prior to his wife's death, he'd solved some of Earth's biggest mysteries, but now it's clear that he should be in a psych ward rather than on a case. Even barely functional, Dyle is still a surprisingly effective investigator. I think Anthony wants us to think he's operating "on instinct," but since he has trouble remembering anything and is staggeringly paranoid and afraid of what's around every corner, I didn't think he'd be able to operate even as well as he did.
Anthony has a propensity for unsympathetic main characters. This is a personal preference I've mentioned many times before: I prefer my protagonists sympathetic. The end result is that I think it's a passable book ... but I didn't like it much.
- Consider Phlebas
-
1987
Our main character is Horza, a Changer (given a few hours - or days, depends on the change - he can change his appearance to that of another humanoid, complete with fingerprints). The book opens with him chained up in a room attached to the toilets of the banquet hall above him: his execution is to be by slow drowning in the shit and piss of the partyers above him. Banks spends several pages on this, including lots of unpleasant detail. All of which reminded me that Iain Banks famous first book, The Wasp Factory, was notorious for its violence and grotesquery (Wikipedia says 'The book sold well, but was greeted with a mixture of acclaim and controversy, due to its gruesome depiction of violence. The Irish Times called it "a work of unparalleled depravity."') I hoped that this lovely introduction had him getting it out of his system, but it was not to be: about a third of the way through the book he introduces us to a cult that eats only refuse. Except for their extremely obese prophet, who eats people while they're still alive (that section gave us 40 pages of the grotesque without advancing the plot at all).
This combined with the oft-repeated out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire events that leave Horza constantly in danger and travelling all over the galaxy while barely advancing what I had thought was the main plot about the war between "The Culture" (an "anarchic utopia" of Humans and A.I.) and the Idirans (religious fanatic aliens that Horza has chosen to side with "because at least they're on the side of life" - he's not a fan of A.I.) nearly put me off the book - but his writing was otherwise good enough and mostly entertaining enough to keep me going. Still, the last 50 pages of this 450 page monstrosity (what makes it a monstrosity is that it should have been 250 pages) were a horrible slog - I was just sick of it by the end.
Banks' The Player of Games and Use of Weapons (the next two books in "The Culture" series) are highly recommended, both by the SF community in general and by a friend who didn't think much of Consider Phlebas either - he thought it was too long, and too grotesque. Given the similarity of his point of view, I should probably move on to the other two titles. But I've been so put off by this one it may be a while.
- Consolation
-
20061stAnchor (Random House)yesChosen in late 2007 to be the book "all Toronto should read," Consolation is very much about the city - both in the present day and in 1855. In the present, a researcher determines that a photographer made a record of the city in 1855, and the negatives are buried in a boat wreck near the lake's edge. He commits suicide, and his wife tries to vindicate him. In the past, we learn something of the life of the photographer. Unfortunately, Redhill's characters are inflexible to the point of woodenness and unbelievability. And his endings leave something to be desired: not only does he not wrap up some plot threads, he unravels others that you had thought were concluded.
- Contact
-
1985Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster)yes
I remember Carl Sagan from my childhood - I would have been 15 when "Cosmos" was broadcast, and I thought he was an egotistical, over-explaining pedant. Don't get me wrong: I liked the show - I just wasn't a big fan of him. Because of that, and despite my love of the movie version of "Contact," it took until 2017 (and again in 2023) for me to read this book. It turns out his voice as an author is significantly different from his voice as a TV presenter, and in most ways better: he doesn't over-explain as much as an author, although there's still a lot of exposition.
I spent my time while reading the book analyzing the differences between the book and the movie (which I've seen several times). Only to read in the "Author's Note" at the end that "This book has grown out of a treatment for a motion picture that Ann Druyan and I wrote in 1980-81." (My movie review shows I knew this once, but I'd forgotten it by the time I read the book.) So ... are the differences in the movie variances from Sagan and Druyan's original screenplay? Or did Sagan choose to make the changes when he turned the screenplay idea into a book? Their screenplay was from 1981, the book was published in 1985, and the movie hit theatres in 1997 (Sagan died in late 1996 - it's too bad he didn't get to see the final version, I think he would have liked it). Whoever wrote the final screenplay would obviously have had access to both the book and the original treatment ...
The main character from the movie is much the same - Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway is a very intelligent child who grows into a hard-working radio astronomer and SETI ("Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence") scientist. Sagan also covers the development of her personality as a result of the sexism she faced among other (almost entirely male) astronomers. Her career is languishing (SETI is considered fringe science in the book as it is in our world) when it gets one hell of a kick in the pants from a broadcast originating in Vega. Then we're on to the attempts to decode "The Message," and the politics around following the instructions within. She fights for, and eventually gets, a seat on the might-be-a-spaceship Machine that the message describes.
But the book, like the movie, is less about aliens than it is about humanity - particularly the divergences and similarities of science, faith, belief, and religion. I found Sagan's introduction of Ellie at the beginning of the book particularly effective, a series of vignettes of her at different ages - a dedicated scientist from an early age. And he had a fine selection of quotes starting each chapter. Overall I found the book a bit too long and rambling: the movie loses some important subtleties from the book and is occasionally over-acted, but mostly it's better focused on the points it wants to make about science, belief, and religion.
Wikipedia says "Sagan wrote frequently about religion and the relationship between religion and science ..." This book is about Faith and Belief, and how they apply to both religion and science. Another quote from him in Wikipedia is closely related to the subject of this book:
An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.
I've been influenced on both his ideas about faith (mostly from this movie) and his ideas about God - although not directly from him and have come to appreciate his stance on this.Some quotes I liked from the book:
"I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and our political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it." - Bertrand Russell, Skeptical Essays, I (1928)
As technology developed and the cities were polluted, the nights became starless. New generations grew to maturity wholly ignorant of the sky that had transfixed their ancestors and that had stimulated the modern age of science and technology. Without even noticing, just as astronomy entered a golden age most people cut themselves off from the sky, a cosmic isolationism that ended only with the dawn of space exploration. [Sagan]
If we like them, they're freedom fighters, she thought. If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas. [Sagan]
The casually dressed scientists ... spilled out of doors, where, illuminated by cigarettes and starlight, some of the discussions continued. [Sagan]
"The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals." - William James The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Drumlin, like many others she had known over the years, had called her an incurable romantic; and she found herself wondering again why so many people thought it some embarrassing disability. Her romanticism had been a driving force in her life and a fount of delights. [Sagan]
"I don't see how the governments could convince people this is a hoax," she said. "Really? Think of what else they've made people believe. They've persuaded us that we'll be safe if only we spend all our wealth so everybody on Earth can be killed in a moment - when the governments decide the time has come." [Sagan]
The book also introduced me to the terms "chiliast" (chiliasm is "the doctrine of Christ's expected return to reign on earth for 1000 years; millennialism" - I lost track of how many times he used this word) and "ecdysiast" ("a facetious word for 'stripper'" created by H.L. Mencken(?)).
SPOILER ALERT: I'll be discussing details of the book as compared to the movie: some of what follows qualifies as spoilers. The biggest change between the book and the movie is that in the book, five people rode in The Machine - while in the movie only one went (just Ellie). I suppose the screenplay authors decided it was easier to question the experience of one person than five who all had the same experience. Palmer Joss is (for a time, anyway) Ellie's lover in the movie - not in the book. Her mother and step-father are important in the book, but don't exist in the movie. Related to that, the truth about her father is a huge revelation at the end of the book ... and not in the movie at all. And one of my favourite characters in the movie, Kent (William Fichtner), doesn't exist in the book.
- Cordelia's Honor
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19961stTor?
Omnibus edition including Bujold's Shards of Honor and its direct sequel (and Hugo winner) Barrayar. Shards of Honor is about how Cordelia Naismith of the planet Beta meets enemy combatant Aral Vorkosigan. Barrayar follows them together on Vorkosigan's home planet of Barrayar, through their first year together and the birth of their son, Miles Vorkosigan - who Bujold has written so many stories about.
I don't generally read military SF and I'm not much of a fan of the Miles Vorkosigan books. But this book was recommended by a friend and I've cut Bujold a lot of slack because of Curse of Chalion, which I consider one of the best fantasy novels ever written. Sadly, this struck me as being nothing more than well-written military SF - no genius shining through, no heart-stopping moments. Just ... well written. Although I did love one particular quote: Cordelia is in her late thirties, and when she encounters a 20 year old military service man she refers to him as too young to believe in the experience of death after life.
In the afterword, she writes: "I paused briefly, flirted with a really bad scenario about a convenient alien invasion that would force Barrayar and Beta to ally, decided 'Why should I make things easy on my characters?', and plunged on to the much better and more inherent idea of the Escobar invasion, thus accidentally discovering my first application of the rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to this guy?' And then do it."
I really didn't need to see behind that curtain. But it does explain the entirety of Miles Vorkosigan's life - all ~13 books as of 2013 - and why I don't like it much: his life is achievement and suffering, rinse and repeat.
- The Courts of Chaos
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1978
- Cryptonomicon
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1999Avon Books
Neal Stephenson has written two of Science Fiction's greatest books: Snow Crash and this. They're both big books (this one has the edge in size, by about a factor of two), and they both use parody and absurdity to reach for greater truths about humanity and where we're headed. I love Wikipedia's opening comment on Snow Crash (retrieved 2021-06-18): "Like many of Stephenson's novels, it covers history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics and philosophy." This is true of Cryptonomicon as well.
I first read Cryptonomicon in 2005, and I did it in 11 days while sitting in temples and other tourist sites in Thailand. This time, it took me somewhere between eight months and a year with a number of stops to read other books.
Stephenson is given to absurd flights of fancy and digressions. My favourite in this book was a couple pages on how Randy Waterhouse (one of our several main characters) was obsessed with staple removers when he was ten, deliberately stapling things together badly so he could get the teacher to take them apart again. Did this forward the plot? Not so much. Was it hilarious and enjoyable to read? Absolutely. The most memorable for sheer length was a six page digression about Randy having his wisdom teeth out several years prior to current plot events. The entire point of this digression was so we understand his immense feeling of relief in the main story line (similar to finally having his wisdom teeth out). The digression is both funny and horrific. And it's intriguing to see how these digressions work in his books: Snow Crash had plenty of them, but this has more and longer - and I enjoyed every minute of it. Reamde is written in very much the same style and structure, but the digressions aren't as much fun - and that book became a horrible slog.
But I haven't even told you what the book is about yet. It occurs in two timelines, one during the Second World War, and one in the modern day (1999, when the book was written). We follow several people in each timeline, and descendants of theirs in the modern day. Both are very much about cryptography and finance. Sound dull? Trust me - not the way Stephenson writes it. It's a great book.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
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20021stDoubleday CanadayesThe story is written from the point of view of 15 year old Christopher, who is autistic. Brilliant at maths (this is a British book), and possessed of a mostly photographic memory, he doesn't understand people's emotions at all and is easily overwhelmed by new situations. One day he finds a neighbour's dog dead, and sets out to "detect" who did it. This leads to a bunch of interesting discoveries - many of which he doesn't understand, but we do - related in a very plain style. With this limited literary palate, Haddon has fashioned a poignant, hysterically funny, and often gut-wrenching book. Highly recommended.
- The Curse of Chalion
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20011stHarperCollinsyes
It was a novelty and a blessing to open this book and find myself reading good writing. Her descriptions are excellent, the pictures drawn in your mind vivid. And the plot that unfolds is exquisite. Our main character and point of view throughout the book is Lupe dy Cazaril, who we meet first as a severely damaged man having spent two years rowing in a slave galley and then nearly being whipped to death. He finds a place in a household he used to work in, and is set as tutor to a young woman whose political importance increases with time, and so he's drawn into a world he had hoped to avoid.
Cazaril is a wonderful character, although his brilliant-mind/broken-body dichotomy is a little too like Miles Vorkosigan: a favourite of Bujold's but not mine. That's my only complaint about an otherwise superb book: read it. I'm also a huge fan of her theological creations, what is now called "the World of Five Gods" because she likes it too and has written multiple other stories in that world. This really is one of the best fantasy novels ever written - which I've now read five(?) times.
Set in the same world, and very nearly as good: The Hallowed Hunt, the excellent semi-sequel: Paladin of Souls, and the entertaining and charming, if not-quite-as-good, Penric's Demon.
D
- The Dark is Rising
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19731stAtheneum/Macmillanyes
Several children's librarians I know swear by this book, claiming it's one of the best children's books ever. But to me, I find a young boy (Will, 11) flailing about in the clutches of forces he doesn't understand - forces without an internal logic, never mind one that makes sense in our world. This is a fantasy overlay on Great Britain of the 1960s or 1970s. Will is told he is the Sign Seeker, and sets out on a quest to collect the six signs. He randomly pops through time and to weird locations outside time, frequently has nonsensical guidance from people called "Old Ones," and is attacked alternately by "the Black Rider" and a swirly black tornado that is the power of the Dark. The complete failure of internal logic bothered me immensely, and the limited explanation of what had happened toward the end of the book absolutely did not make up for the fumbling around in mystery throughout the rest of the book.
- Darwin's Radio
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19991stDel Reyyes
A little too reminiscent of the "Golden Days" of SF, with a brilliant idea and a poor plot. I adored Blood Music, also by Bear, but this isn't even in the same ball park. The first two thirds of the book is more biology than plot, all to explain that junk DNA isn't actually junk, it's co-operative. And gradual evolution isn't: we're about to evolve suddenly. But most experts within the book take the manifestations to be disease. I'm not explaining it well, but it's a brilliant idea. He explains it too well, and comes up with too many not very well conceived characters. Too bad.
- Daytripper
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2011Vertigo/DCyes
"Daytripper" is a graphic novel about the life of the fictional Brás de Oliva Domingos, and the things that are important in his life at different times. They make this point by dividing the story up into chapters, each titled by his age in years (not chronological). And at the end of each he dies, and there's something resembling an obituary (tying in with the newspaper job he has at 32, the first chapter) talking about what mattered to him and what he'd achieved.
I have really mixed feelings about this one: the writing - particularly the prose, the things people say - is outstanding. Better than any other graphic novel I've ever read. And the artwork is likewise superb: just slightly rough-hewn, but incredibly evocative and beautifully coloured - a real pleasure to look at.
The problem is, he dies in almost every chapter. Which gets depressing. And then we have the discontinuity that he is, effectively, resurrected. A few of the things that happened - particularly things to cause some of his deaths - seemed unduly improbable. And I had trouble forgiving them for the end they brought to his friend Jorge - who was arguably an even more interesting character than our protagonist. And who died in a way I found most unlikely.
Despite the graphic novel's problems, its many virtues make it required reading for fans: really good stuff.
Postscript about details: Moon and Bá are apparently twin brothers, despite their dissimilar surnames. They're based in Brazil, as is the story. But it appears to have been written in English: no translator is named, and I've never seen prose that read this well after translation.
- Dealing With Dragons
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1990Jane Yolen Books / Harcourt Braceyes
Princess Cimorene is interested in many things: fencing, cooking, magic, and Latin all appeal to her. But her parents - and pretty much everyone - tell her that this isn't proper for a princess. When her parents try to arrange her marriage to a boring prince, she takes the advice of a frog and runs away to become the princess to a dragon. This is also improper as normally princesses don't volunteer for dragons. But Cimorene and the dragon Kazul are both happy with the arrangement.
This is a young adult novel about finding your own way in life - even if it's not what's "expected," and Cimorene is an intelligent and rebellious young adult who's fun to spend an afternoon with. The book is fairly short, and for the most part goofy fun with an appealing lesson about making your own way that's delivered, if not gently, at least not with a sledgehammer. (For those that like that kind of thing, there are several sequels.)
- Dear Committee Members
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2014Doubledayyes
Dear Committee Members is an epistolary novel, composed of letters written by "Jay Fitzger, Professor of Creative Writing and English, Department of English, Payne University." They are mostly letters of recommendation, but Jay Fitzger isn't dissuaded from writing totally inappropriate personal digressions simply because the letter is supposed to be about someone else. Through this we rapidly learn of his severe foot-in-mouth disease (metaphorical, not medical), the deteriorating state of his university department, and his extremely damaged relations with his ex-wife and previous girlfriend (both also in academia).
The style of the author's writing can be easily demonstrated with a couple quotes:
This letter's purpose is to provide the usual gratuitous language recommending a student, Gunnar Lang, for a work-study fellowship. Lang - a sophomore with a mop of blond dreadlocks erupting from the top of his head like the yellow coils of an excess brain - tells me that he has applied, unsuccessfully, for this same golden opportunity three times ... Deny him the fellowship and he will undoubtedly turn his hand to something more lucrative, probably hawking illegal substances between the athletic facilities and the Pizza Barn. ... He's charming in a saucy, loose-limbed way, and his hair - his parents did right to name him Gunnar - is a phenomenon unto itself that I suspect you'll enjoy.
And Gunnar is is someone he likes.
If Sellebritta Online is in need of an editor/copywriter who refuses to allow the demands of honesty or originality to delay her output, it will have found one in the unflappable Ms. Tara Tappani.
He did warn her that she didn't want his reference - she had, after all, got an F in his course (in part for plagiarism).
Schumacher's writing is frequently hilariously funny, but her character's grinding social incompetence and vicious wit wore on me so badly I gave up entirely on page 82 (of 180 pages), unwilling to spend any more time with Professor Jay Fitzger.
- Death: The Deluxe Edition
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2012Vertigo / DC Comicsyes
The things I said about the character Death in my review of Death: The Time of Your Life apply here as well, and that graphic novel is also contained within this one. This is a good-sized hardcover graphic novel containing some, possibly most, of the comic book and graphic novel appearances of Gaiman's character "Death."
I don't have much to add to the previous review, except perhaps to add that Foxglove's run-in with death ("The Time of Your Life") grew on me considerably on second reading. Gaiman's writing tends to have a lot of depth and a lot of thought behind it, and you'll get more out of it if you read it again.
In Death: The High Cost of Living, a weird dude called "The Eremite" goes to a great deal of trouble to steal Death's ankh on the one day in one hundred years that she spends as a human being. I remembered this sequence from reading it 30 years ago. The Eremite has high hopes for the ankh he's stolen, and the young man with Death says "He thinks that thing of yours has power." She replies: "He's right, of course. It's a symbol of life; and symbols have power." She continues: "Maybe not in the way he thinks, though." After which she buys another ankh for $10 at a street jewelry stand, saying that "It's the most important thing in the whole universe." This short sequence caused me to think very long and hard about how a symbol without context has no power at all, and that in context ... entire nations go to war for them.
- Death: The Time of Your Life
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1997yes
Art by Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham, Mark Pennington
Neil Gaiman's "Death" is the world's second-most endearing literary anthropomorphic personification of that particular event in our lives, outdone only by Terry Pratchett's "Death." As Gaiman and his artists envisioned her, she's kind of Goth looking with black hair and very pale skin. But far more important than her appearance is her behaviour: she's there as a friend when you die, and she likes and assists everyone. She does not, however, make deals. Except extremely rarely - because, I suppose, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. This graphic novel (itself a collection of several comic books) is the story of one of the times Death made a deal.
Foxglove is a rock star, living a hectic life that isn't making her - or her girlfriend, although they're in the closet - happy. It turns out that her girlfriend's son died several months prior, and Death struck a deal, allowing the child to live - she would come back for ... one of them ... eventually.
Gaiman's writing is, as always, excellent. Some of the artists he's worked with haven't been to my taste, but the panels in this one are really lovely. It's a fairly thin graphic novel and I was a bit disappointed that the story wasn't longer, but it's good.
I'm revisiting both the Sandman and Death graphic novels after having watched the first season of Netflix's "The Sandman."
I read this book shortly after it came out and enjoyed it then - I also met and sat with the author. I've now enjoyed it for a second time.
Moore got interested in Buddhism in America and set out to discover what exactly "American Buddhism" was. While he seems to think he failed in his attempt to discover an answer, he gave a very good (and often funny) introduction to the subject and became a happier man in the process. The book describes his Catholic upbringing (see below), and his personal anger and frustration with life in general - and the slow turn-around as he finds some form of peace in the hybrid Buddhism that his research brings into his life.
I'm re-reading Dinty Moore's The Accidental Buddhist." It shows the stark contrast between Buddhism and Catholicism in North America (it's from 1997, but this hasn't changed much). I should mention that I was raised in a house where no religion was ever mentioned, except (very rarely) as an intellectual discussion - perhaps from books that I was reading. I found my way to (philosophical, not religious) Buddhism on my own.
Dinty Moore on religious attitudes:
And the contrast between sermons:
This experience of the religions depends which continent you're on - if you grew up in Thailand, it would be a given that you would be a Buddhist, and Christianity would be the tiny minority religion. And certainly, there are hard-core militant Buddhist groups, but the view of the scriptures presented by Moore's quotes above is fairly accurate.