Abandoned 11/30/09 because The Boy (at 17 months) seemed to get his sleeping act together on his own without much in the way of real interventions.
I w...moreAbandoned 11/30/09 because The Boy (at 17 months) seemed to get his sleeping act together on his own without much in the way of real interventions.
I wanted to like this book. And a lot of it I did like. But it also seems like the central message of this (and a lot of other baby sleep books) is to adjust your attitude because you can't adjust your baby.
Which is fine. And true. And right. But when you're frazzled and sleep-deprived, it's a little hard to swallow.
Would I recommend it to parents with a baby that's having trouble sleeping...? Probably.(less)
In many ways, I've started to come to believe that you can't go wrong with a John Joseph Adams' collection. Wastelands was incredible, The Living De...moreIn many ways, I've started to come to believe that you can't go wrong with a John Joseph Adams' collection. Wastelands was incredible, The Living Dead was great, and Federations...? Also very very good.
The "dust jacket description" of this anthology pretty much sums it up... It collects a few different modern takes on the classic science fiction trope: What does it take; what does it mean for a civilization to be interstellar and/or pan-galactic?
My take of Federations, it gets a composite rating of 3.9130 (individual stories below)
• "Mazer in Prison" (Orson Scott Card): ★★★ » About what you'd expect from Card. So it doesn't disappoint but it doesn't exactly thrill, either. • "Carthago Delenda Est" (Genevieve Valentine): ★★★★ • "Life Suspension" (L. E. Modesitt, Jr.): ★★½ • "Terra-Exulta" (S.L. Gilbow): ★★★ » Reminds me a bit of that Stephen King piece that opens Wastelands. The letter-writing format is a tough one to write in and I appreciate the effort here. And I don't dislike this piece but it seems... too short? or just that its hand is tipped too early and that kind of blows the ending a bit? • "Aftermaths" (Lois McMaster Bujold): ★★★★ • "Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy" (Harry Turtledove): ★★ » Not terribly intriguing, and a little puerile/juvenile. To me... I can see why it was included (for the variety and for the perspective it brings) but it just doesn't do it. Not for me. • "Prisons" (Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason): ★★½ » So much potential, and almost good; but why did I wind up feeling like it needed to be more subversive? (E.g., so many heteronormative relationships!—if the prison revolt leader had been lovers with another man, well now maybe that might have been a little more intriguing.) • "Different Day" (K. Tempest Bradford): ★★★★★ • "Twilight of the Gods" (John C. Wright): ★★★★ » The Tolkien-esque language can be a little off-putting at first but it really starts to make sense after you get about a third of the way in. • "Warship" (George R. R. Martin and George Guthridge): ★★★★★ » I can't imagine why it took so long for Martin to shop this piece—unless Guthridge really brought that much to it. The execution is very spot-on. • "Swanwatch" (Yoon Ha Lee): ★★★★ » I want to like this more. It's beautiful but a bit oblique—and that's fine but somehow it doesn't jump to where it needs to be. • "Spirey and the Queen" (Alastair Reynolds): ★★★★★ » Awesome. Did you like Watts' Blindsight? Did you like Sterling's "Swarm"? A little bit like that. (Only robots.) • "Pardon Our Conquest" (Alan Dean Foster): ★★★½ • "Symbiont" (Robert Silverberg): ★★★★½ » Highly disurbing; more so than I thought it would be. (Just read this one; skip the introduction.) • "The Ship Who Returned" (Anne McCaffrey): ★★★★ • "My She" (Mary Rosenblum): ★★★★½ » Brilliant. Nicely subversive and almost perfect. • "The Shoulders of Giants" (Robert J. Sawyer): ★★½ • "The Culture Archivist" (Jeremiah Tolbert): ★★★★★ » This one is funny in the way that "Someone is Stealing..." (vida supra) could/should have been. • "The Other Side of Jordan" (Allen Steele): ★★★★½ » Serves a little bit as a reminder that one of the things you're going for (when you're going for sci-fi) is the "deep milieu". This has got it. And I love it for it. • "Like They Always Been Free" (Georgina Li): ★★★★ » Very dense; worthwhile. • "Eskhara" (Trent Hergenrader): ★★★★★ » The allegory bits are obvious but rather than detract, they make it all very worth while. • "The One with the Interstellar Group Consciousnesses" (James Alan Gardner): ★★★★ » Cute, and a bit novel, but kind of like an artisan soda: not really bad for you but not really necessary but damn tasty but kind of a cloying aftertaste? * "Golubash, or Wine-War-Blood-Elegy" (Catherynne M. Valente): ★★★★½ » A little on the oblique side but the framing for the story is absolutely killer.(less)
Arranged chronologically from 1955 through 2001, Dozois' anthology Worldmakers: SF Adventures in Terraforming, is a tightly-themed collection of scien...moreArranged chronologically from 1955 through 2001, Dozois' anthology Worldmakers: SF Adventures in Terraforming, is a tightly-themed collection of science fiction shorts. It's a good overview of the terraforming subject's treatment within the genre but the anthology seems to lack any stand-out stories — there are no great masterpieces in here. Which is not to say that it's not an enjoyable collection. I mostly picked it up for research purposes (re terraforming and first contact[†:]) but found it to be a good bed-side item. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this collection is that, because it is arranged chronologically, you get a sense of how views of terraforming have evolved within the genre over time — what are the in vogue technologies? how central is terraforming to the story? what sorts of politics are involved?
As for the computed average of my ratings on the individual stories themselves (out to four decimal places), Worldmakers scores: 3.2250
Includes: • "The Big Rain" by Poul Anderson (1954): ★★½
• "When the People Fell" by Cordwainer Smith (1959): ★★½ » There's a narrative whimsy that's a little off-putting; also, reading this made me recall this essay: The Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu, and the Ethnic Future by Lisa Katayama.
• "Before Eden" by Arthur C. Clarke (1961): ★★★ » A bit dry and stilted but the twist at the makes up for it.
• "Hunter, Come Home" by Richard McKenna (1963): ★★★★ » Reminded me a lot of the fungus/mindworms stuff from Sid Meier's "Alpha Centauri" — and that made it extra endearing.
• "The Keys to December" by Roger Zelazny (1966): ★★½
• "Retrograde Summer" by John Varley (1974): ★★
• "Shall We Take A Little Walk?" by Gregory Benford (1981): ★★
• "The Catharine Wheel" by Ian McDonald (1984): ★★★½ » Felt like "typical McDonald" (gels with my image of his work as reflected best in River of Gods) but felt like it was working more with cyborgian tropes than strict terraforming.
• "Sunken Gardens" by Bruce Sterling (1984): ★★★★½ » Brilliant. But I love Sterling's work. And the Shaper/Mechanist stuff is always great.
• "Out of Copyright" by Charles Sheffield (1989): ★★★½ » The terraforming bit seemed pretty tangential. Also, when did Sheffield start channelling Cory Doctorow?
• "A Place With Shade" by Robert Reed (1995): ★★★ » Most interesting is the way that Reed casts terraforming in a light that makes it look like the engineer's rigor has given way to the dilettante's art.
• "Dawn Venus" by G. David Nordley (1995): ★★★
• "For White Hill" by Joe Haldeman (1995): ★★★★★ » Stunning. Well-crafted and taut.
• "The Road to Reality" by Phillip C. Jennings (1996): ★★½ » Another where the terraforming tropes were off on the side. Speculating about whether to leave a fossil record when building a planet? Cool. Veering off headlong into a cyberworld prison? Huh?
• "Ecopoesis" by Geoffrey A. Landis (1997): ★★★★ » One of the more interesting stories in the whole collection — and I say that even though parts can be a bit hard to follow (esp. w/r/t/ keeping track of characters) and also despite how the romantic bit felt tacked on.
• "People Came From Earth" by Stephen Baxter (1999): ★★★★
• "Fossils" by William H. Keith, Jr. (1999): ★★½
• "A Martian Romance" by Kim Stanley Robinson (1999): ★★★½ » A good story re pacing etc. (and a good ending) but the lead-in was... a little weak? Perhaps this one reads better if you're familiar with the back-story from Robinson's previous stories set in this milieu.
• "Dream of Venus" by Pamela Sargent (2000): ★★ » Could have been much stronger if there was more of a focus on Miriam. (Or: "I didn't much care for this narrator.") The premise works (and makes a good accompaniment to "Ecopoesis") but something about it doesn't carry.
• "At Tide's Turning" by Laura J. Mixon (2001): ★★★★★ » Great. The terraforming bits fall to the wayside a bit but the rest of the story is so strong (strong enough to make this one the best in the collection?) that it stands well despite falling slightly off the theme. Also: Mixon offers us an well-realized milieu with a great vocabulary.
--- † = Though there's barely any first-contact subject matter in here at all.(less)
A strong collection for King; a little of what I expect (i.e., schlocky horrorshow) and then some very awesome surprises. It's a bit more literary, a...moreA strong collection for King; a little of what I expect (i.e., schlocky horrorshow) and then some very awesome surprises. It's a bit more literary, a bit more high-brow than what I expect from King — and those "keepers" are real keepers. There is some not-unexpected post-9/11 influenced overtones in places, but that just seems to be a framing technique for some more fundamental human horrors. In that respect, "Graduation Afternoon" is by far the pick of the litter.
Averaged rating on the Goodreads scale: 3.6923
Individual Story Ratings: • "Willa" — ★★★★½ • "The Gingerbread Girl" — ★★★ • "Harvey's Dream" — ★★★ • "Rest Stop" — ★★★★ • "Stationary Bike" — ★★★★ • "The Things They Left Behind" — ★★★★★ — like a more brooding, post-9/11 Skinny Legs and All? • "Graduation Afternoon" — ★★★★★ — pretty heavy-hitting for "just" 7 pages; interesting, the way it drives home how superficial and petty class differences can be (and nicer still how the nuke is down-played and isn't even a big end-of-the-world thing but just an end of the world as she knows it). • "N." — ★★★ — Lovecraftian and epistolary. • "The Cat from Hell" — ★★★ • "The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates" — ★★★½ • "Mute" — ★★★ • "Ayana" — ★★★ • "A Very Tight Place" — ★★★★
SPECIAL SIDE NOTES: • Multiple references to VT and ME (though ME references are more predictable); New England seems to be King's setting-of-choice for the supernatural. • Also: what's King's deal with Florida? That seems to be his setting-of-choice for those non-supernatural but utterly base human-on-human destructive acts. (less)
**spoiler alert** An amazing, astounding book that seems worthy of every superlative. I (on the other hand) do not feel worthy of writing a review. A...more**spoiler alert** An amazing, astounding book that seems worthy of every superlative. I (on the other hand) do not feel worthy of writing a review. A few comments instead:
* this should be required reading for everyone (but esp. Americans) * Alex Haley wields his craft masterfully in this story, laying out a visceral passage through time that is tempered with the facts, adorned with its embellishments, and unpretentious in its overall effect * Haley's novel astounds me not because it is a parade of brutal physical atrocities but because of the way these atrocities punctuate the lives and existence of this story's inhabitants * though the last few chapters are a break from the rest of the narrative's voice, it seems a fitting epilogue
A BRIEF ANECDOTE: (may contain spoilers) While reading this novel, I was struck with a sense of shame when, after being bought by Massa Waller (from his brother, Massa Waller), I felt a sense of relief that Kunta Kinte was now owned by someone far less likely to brutalize and torture him. When that sunk in with me, I was astounded that I felt that way — not because he was better off bound in the chains of a sadist but because he was NOT better off enslaved by one rather than the other.(less)
When I read Angela Carter, I imagine her as the literary grandmother to someone like Kelly Link. There's an eccentric tone of fantasy, an unabashed ou...moreWhen I read Angela Carter, I imagine her as the literary grandmother to someone like Kelly Link. There's an eccentric tone of fantasy, an unabashed outlandishness and roguish word-play; there's a thread of challenge running through the narrative, sometimes cleverly concealed and sometimes out in front like so much gaudy embroidery. Carter is a master storyteller with a remarkable gift for language and a willingness to take risks on any front.
But all of the above I already knew from my introduction to Carter, her short story "The Loves of Lady Purple" (check it out in Wayward Girls and Wicked Women).
Nights at the Circus goes beyond the expectations set by "The Loves of Lady Purple". It is more fantastic, more surreal, more political, more challenging, more graphic, and though more forceful also much more subtle. The traveling circus of Colonel Kearney provides such a splendid backdrop for Angela Carter's handiwork that I would not be at all surprised if this is her finest novel {†}. The notion of the circus opens up every possibility for her—literate monkeys taking over their own care and negotiating their own compensation, a fortune-telling pig, abject and sociopathic alcoholic clowns {††}... And most of that (despite providing its own commentary) seems on the surface to primarily help provide color to a narrative that focuses on a struggle to reconcile independence/individuality with the desire to mate and bond with others. Carter cleverly leads the reader along her characters' paths via totems and proxies, and accelerates us through their worlds in crisis when those totems become threatened and lost.
This is one novel that is as brilliant as it is lyrical.
--- † = Again, as of this writing, I've only read this novel and one short story. Though I may perhaps be biased by the strength of the recommendation that J.M. made when suggesting the werk in the first place.
†† = Not to mention the thorough deconstruction of clowning.
Eclipse 1 is a good-not-great anthology of speculative (née "science") fiction and fantasy (rather: "new weird") short stories edited by Jonathan Stra...moreEclipse 1 is a good-not-great anthology of speculative (née "science") fiction and fantasy (rather: "new weird") short stories edited by Jonathan Strahan. My "good-not-great" may be stemming from my disappointment that there was more "new weird"/fantasy than there was science fiction[†:] but there were still quite a few "big wins" in the pile that is this paperback binding.
As for the computed average of my ratings on the individual stories themselves (out to four decimal places), Eclipse 1 scores: 3.3000
Includes: • "Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse" by Andy Duncan: ★★★½ ➟ Cute, weird.
• "Bad Luck, Trouble, Death, and Vampire Sex" by Garth Nix: ★★
• "The Last and Only or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French" by Peter S. Beagle: ★★★
• "The Lost Boy: A Reporter At Large" by Maureen F. McHugh: ★★★★★ ➟ Probably double visceral if you've ever lived in the Baltimore/DC area but outstanding regardless of your geographic history.
• "The Drowned Life" by Jeffrey Ford: ★★
• "Toother" by Terry Dowling: ★★★½ ➟ I couldn't put my finger on why I wasn't bowled over by this one. I wanted to like it a lot more but something about it left me wanting a bit...
• "Up the Fire Road" by Eileen Gunn: ★★½ ➟ *groan*sigh*snort* (reversed)
• "In the Forest of the Queen" by Gwyneth Jones: ★★
• "Quartermaster Returns" by Ysabeau S. Wilce: ★★★★ ➟ A playful tone and artfully written, toys with the right conventions, too.
• "Electric Rains" by Kathleen Ann Goonan: ★★★★½ ➟ As with "The Lost Boy..." (v.s.), this one probably hits harder for folks with a little DC time under their belt but hits all the high notes even without that.[††:]
• "She-Creatures" by Margo Lanagan: ★★ ➟ The prurient overtones didn't exactly make up for the brogue veneer and otherwise bewildering plot.
• "The Transformation of Targ" by Paul Brandon and Jack Dann: ★★★ ➟ Maybe ★★★★ and in my heart of hearts a sympathetic ★★★★★ — this was an extremely fun story.
• "Mrs. Zeno's Paradox" by Ellen Klages: ★★★★ ➟ The fact that the story is so short (about 3 pages? 4?) was like its own double-entendre. And any light-hearted story that can work in "ångström" should get bonus points.
• "The Lustration" by Bruce Sterling: ★★★½ ➟ I think it's good? Though maybe a bit too oblique?
• "Larissa Miusov" by Lucius Shepard: ★★★★★ ➟ Far and away the best story in this collection. If your library has this anthology then you owe it to yourself to at least read this one.
--- † = Call it a personal preference.
†† = Also, for the private few reading this that have also read a certain manuscript of mine, I'd like to share that I had a big (and vocal) "WTF?" the night I was reading this in bed. I felt a little dirty and cheated — but how can someone rip you off when they've never heard of you? or read your work? (Besides, it was different enough to not be "the same".)(less)
AN INTRODUCTION BY WAY OF HYPERBOLIC SENTIMENT:The Elegant Universe is "The Bible" of superstring theory[*:].
I close the covers of The Elegant Univer...moreAN INTRODUCTION BY WAY OF HYPERBOLIC SENTIMENT:The Elegant Universe is "The Bible" of superstring theory[*:].
I close the covers of The Elegant Universe with powerfully mixed feelings. On the one hand, Brian Greene gives us a lucidly-written layman's-terms explanation for high-concept modern physics, providing an excellent survey of 20th century science and painting a vivid picture of a promising strategy for reconciling the discrepancies in the otherwise dominant theories. On the other hand, about half-way through the text, it devolves into (what feels like) a navel-gazing vanity project that fails to connect that promising strategy with the target audience (i.e., the layman that actually gives a damn about modern science).
To be clear: the first third of the book is a remarkable accomplishment. Brian Greene is a cogent writer with a wonderful pedagogical streak that is able to produce a clear image of some otherwise hard-to-decipher concepts in modern physics. Because of The Elegant Universe, I feel like I now have a fairly good understanding of the core concepts underlying Einstein's theories of special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics (e.g., Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). Greene is also able to give a decent explanation regarding how these theories break down when you try to "merge" them (e.g., like when you come up with "infinite energy" and/or "infinite mass" and/or "infinite probabilities" through calculations of black holes or the Big Bang).
This first third of the book is very accessible, very enjoyable, and very informative. Engaging, fascinating, and extremely powerful.
Somewhere during that potent 130-150 pages, Greene remarks (something to the effect of): You cannot be said to fully understand something until you can explain both its system and significance to a complete stranger. (Not a quote, but I'm sure you know what I'm getting at...)
And with that statement does Dr. Greene undermine the remaining two-thirds of the book. After introducing string theory, after explaining that it is a strategy with the potential to marry relativity and quantum mechanics, after getting you (the lay-reader) excited that you too will have some insight into the critical significance that is superstring theory — he glosses over some math (which doesn't really feel like physics after that first 120 pages) and more/less asks you to "bear with me here, trust me..." EXAMPLE: after introducing the concept of strings, the text rushes into a discussion of 6-dimensional "curled up" Calabi-Yau manifolds without really giving a good way of visualizing that whole mess[†:]. EXAMPLE: after 2 or 3 chapters about string theory where Greene is introducing it and discussing how it might reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics, he starts to segue into reconciling aspects of string theory with itself — looping back (like its own subject strings) on itself in a perverse recursion full of mathematical adjustments and jargon. EXAMPLE: in the midst of discussing how this New Science, and where you expect it to loop back on the promised explanations for the Old Science, Greene veers off into a series of anecdotes about "this one time at Harvard..." and/or "once at Princeton we stayed up all night and..." — which really just seemed a little gratuitous.
By the time I realized what was happening, my attitude was already tainted. Perhaps I could have extracted more of the science if my cynicism hadn't kicked in so virulently and so early on in the reading. Perhaps spending more time with the end-notes will prove fruitful. Or perhaps on a future, subsequent follow-up reading I will discover that I was right the first time and we have 150 or so pages of incredible science writing and the remainder is chintzy vanity project[‡:].
RATED FOR HYPE: ★★★★★ RATED FOR STYLE: ★★★☆☆ RATED FOR SCIENCE: ★★☆☆☆
--- [*:] Let's hear it for faith-based science?
[†:] This is partly me being overly critical of Greene's (in my opinion) cavalier treatment of the Calabi-Yau concepts immediately following their introduction. There are some end-notes and citations for further reading, and he does attempt to dedicate some space in the main text to the idea — but his "dumbing down" of the Calabi-Yau manifolds to the "ant in the garden hose" analogy just doesn't really address it with sufficient vigor. Not after the incredible work he did in the earlier chapters re explaining relativity and quantum mechanics. I suppose I may have been more satisfied with something along the lines of "you have your time dimension, your three 'regular' space dimensions, and then these other six are really dedicated to providing reference points to describing the shape and vibration of the string IN THE THREE DIMENSIONS YOU ARE ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH" — but no such explanation was there. If that's even really what he might have meant.
[‡:] Which I mean in the nicest possible way...? To be fair, Greene leaves plenty of room throughout the text to permit himself (and his colleagues studying superstring theory) to be "wrong". It reminds me of when Robert Wright hedges his bets in The Moral Animal, saying that the evolutionary psychology approach (as championed by himself, Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Robert Trivers, and others) is a strong one that explains a whole lot but you better be careful before you go painting too broad of a stroke with those kinds of theories... Greene seems to do similar hedging, admitting that aspects of superstring theory seem tenuous (esp. when you consider how many "adjustments" they perform while "fine-tuning" a given aspect of the theory(s)) and that they (as scientists) are wise to temper their enthusiasm, to not lose sight of goals like "experimental verification". But then there's Greene's enthusiasm — which can easily electrify the reader but also just as easily undermine all of that careful hedging.(less)
REAL REVIEW PENDING but super-short version: after having finally read this, I can see why it has been held up as influential and widely regarded as a...moreREAL REVIEW PENDING but super-short version: after having finally read this, I can see why it has been held up as influential and widely regarded as a masterpiece. Dawkins cuts into some deep science here with very accessible language, painting a vivid picture of what genes are, what their function is, as well as what our function is as vehicles for those genes.
SIDE NOTE: Any aspiring science fiction author must read this. If you want to a lush inter-galactic tapestry with bizarre but believable alien species, start close to home. You don't know bizarre until you read about ant queens that invade the colonies of other ant species and secrete mind-control hormones to turn that colonies workers into zombies that murder their own mother.(less)
In lieu of a actual substantive review, a few notes:
(1) A typical Saunders collection. This means you're getting some delightfully weird prose but it...moreIn lieu of a actual substantive review, a few notes:
(1) A typical Saunders collection. This means you're getting some delightfully weird prose but it also means you're getting (more than?) a few tales oblique enough to blot out the sun. Which is not to comment on whether/not those stories are any good.
(2) Recipe for a Saunders short story: take 1 protagonist (preferably male) in some way already at the end of his distressed rope; add 1 foil (preferably female) at the end of her respective rope with him, mix liberally with 2 parts cuckoldry (though henpecking will do as a substitute if beaten with sufficient vigor). Blend in a conservative portion of concentrated lampoon of consumer-culture. If you haven't already, make sure to de-bone the protagonist before the story's end and to remove any chance of success. Garnish with a zombie; or if no zombie is available, try ghosts.
------ Out to four decimal places, the composite Goodreads score is: 3.4166
• I CAN SPEAK!™ — ★★★ • My Flamboyant Grandson — ★★★★★ • Jon — ★★★★★ • My Amendment — ★★★ • The Red Bow — ★★½ • Christmas — ★★½ • Adams — ★★★ • 93990 — ★★★ » note to self: oblique, re-read will be required • Brad Carrigan, American — ★★★ • In Persuasion Nation — ★★★★ • Bohemians — ★★★½ • Commcomm — ★★★½(less)
Goodreads calls its 5★ rating "Amazing". I don't know if Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fits that specific superlative, but I would agree tha...moreGoodreads calls its 5★ rating "Amazing". I don't know if Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fits that specific superlative, but I would agree that it is approximately one of the most perfectly constructed and tightly written narratives I have encountered. First, a note about the book:
My feelings toward "creative non-fiction" are a bit on the love/hate end of things. I have nothing specifically against creative non-fiction but my inner would-be-novelist thinks that something about it seems like cheating. After all, you didn't invent the story, even if you went to great pains to bring it to literary life. On the other hand, a good story deserves to be told — and as long as you're talented enough to do it...
Well, John Berendt was certainly talented enough to do it. As I mentioned above, the narrative is almost perfectly paced and almost perfectly structured. It is instantly engaging and strikes all the right notes to cue you in on where the story is headed without telegraphing each next move. Savannah, Georgia, provides an instantly surreal and visceral back-drop for this story. I hate to give it all away but allow me at least mention that, though Kevin Spacey and John Cusack put on great performances in the film adaptation, the movie version is scarcely better than Cliffs' Notes for this tapestry of grandeur, intrigue, and voodoo.
P.S.— don't you think that "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is THE BEST TITLE EVER??(less)
So sorry, I am not worthy of the honor of reviewing this novel. If however, my Lord insists it, then I shall endeavor to offer up some humble thoughts...moreSo sorry, I am not worthy of the honor of reviewing this novel. If however, my Lord insists it, then I shall endeavor to offer up some humble thoughts regarding its mighty, even epic narrative. Neh? The scope is so vast, the characters and settings are so many, the head is liable to spin at times, so sorry. But the arc it follows is like a peregrine's path through the sky: long but fast and with vicious twists along what might otherwise have seemed a predictable path. I'm sure my Lord would agree that parts of the story can become quite tedious. I am not speaking of the slow-to-develop romance between Mariko and the Anjin-san nor even of the dueling political machinations of Toranaga and Ishido. No, Sire. This humble vassal speaks more to the text and how Japanese is interwoven with the barbarian words in so many places. And then how barbarian words come even to replace Japanese! Or barbarian words standing in for the words of other barbarian tongues! If you'll excuse this vassal's petulant tongue, Sire, it's enough to make one fart dust, so sorry. But these tedious affectations do blend in after a while, neh? and the narrative is quite the enjoyable one — full of so much intrigue and humor. A rousing and enjoyable tale of which I am not worthy to comment further. Please, I cannot live with this shame. Please allow me to commit seppuku at once.(less)
(1) "Teddy" was a really and truly fascinating character and (like him or not) an important figure in Ame...moreA few thoughts as I step away from this book:
(1) "Teddy" was a really and truly fascinating character and (like him or not) an important figure in American history.
(2) Given when I was reading this (i.e., more/less at the height of the health care reform debates of the Obama administration), it gives me some perspective and perhaps a little hope, viz. that a popular but politically controversial President can get quite a bit accomplished.
(3) Morris paints a pretty vivid picture of the turn-of-the-century United States in addition to painting a vivid picture of Roosevelt. One of the things that got me through the book's 555 pages (viz., I don't care about who is winning delegates!) was the sense of pageantry and drama. Big things were happening and the world was a well-appointed stage.(less)
In lieu of a review (because what would be the point?), a few notes intead:
(1) I can see why it's considered a science fiction classic. On an intellec...moreIn lieu of a review (because what would be the point?), a few notes intead:
(1) I can see why it's considered a science fiction classic. On an intellectual level, I "get" that part. Hence getting shelved as "important". Creating a character and a milieu and a plot to lampoon all of our socio-cultural conventions? Even cannibalism? Brilliant! But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
(2) How did this book get lauded and praised as the "bible" of the counter-culture/sexual revolution? Heinlein's narrative stilts toward homophobic and what was up with the line (from Jill!) re: "nine times out of ten if a woman gets raped, it's her fault"? Terrible.
(3) Just like I couldn't stand what Melville did with Billy Budd, I couldn't stand the "Christ-figure" thing that Heinlein did with M.V.Smith either. I feel like there's this impulse in Western literature to write a Christ-figure into your story. And I think that there's this impulse on the part of critics to just orgasm all over themselves to praise it when an author does it. But this never seems to add anything to the narrative — it always just comes across as heavy-handed and abusive. Stop it.(less)
Marvelous. Even in translation, I true spectacle of language. Time-twisting and reality-bending. At several points while reading I thought to myself:...moreMarvelous. Even in translation, I true spectacle of language. Time-twisting and reality-bending. At several points while reading I thought to myself: I can see why Danielewski cribbed so heavily from this for House of Leaves. A copy should be on the bookshelf of every aspiring novelist. (Yes, it requires some extra cognition to get through but every piece is worth the effort.)
--- --- --- composite rating: 4.1176★
INDIVIDUAL RATINGS: Part One: The Garden of Forking Paths • Prologue • Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius — ★★★★★ • The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim — ★★★★ • Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote — ★★★½ • The Circular Ruins — ★★★★★ • The Babylon Lottery — ★★★★ • An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain — ★★★ • The Library of Babel — ★★★★★ • The Garden of Forking Paths — ★★★★★
Part Two: Artifices • Prologue • Funes, the Memorious — ★★★½ • The Form of the Sword — ★★★★ • Theme of the Traitor and Hero — ★★★ • Death and the Compass — ★★★★★ • The Secret Miracle — ★★★★ • Three Versions of Judas — ★★★ • The End — ★★★★ • The Sect of the Phoenix — ★★★★ • The South — ★★★★ ★(less)
This book has been on my shelf for five years. I use it every week; I should probably know more by now but this book always has exactly what I need to...moreThis book has been on my shelf for five years. I use it every week; I should probably know more by now but this book always has exactly what I need to jumpstart me through whatever brain-fart froze me up in the first place.
It has earned the nickname: El Rhino Diablo!
---- Updated for Sixth Edition ----
I continue to hold this book in high esteem, and the Sixth Edition is a huge improvement over the old edition that I had. You can tell that Flanagan put a lot of thoughtful work into the re-write. If asked to choose between this and Zakas'Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (3rd Ed.)... I don't know if I could. Both of them are thorough, both of them are comprehensive... Zakas can be easier to digest, I think; but Flanagan also offers this really nice API reference guide in the bottom half of the book. Toss up... There's much to appreciate here, and almost every JavaScript question you might have has an answer between these covers.(less)
Micro review: Gurganus has a great, somewhat lyrical style that propels the tapestry of vignettes that comprise this novel; that said, he tips his nar...moreMicro review: Gurganus has a great, somewhat lyrical style that propels the tapestry of vignettes that comprise this novel; that said, he tips his narrative hand in the first 30 pages and you spend the next 450 pages playing a sort of emotional defense.
A few miscellaneous points: (1) RE: "vignettes" (v.s.): it took me a while to see how the different scenes fit together into a novelistic arc. It isn't that the vignettes are unrelated or disconnected (viz. they're unified by narrator and (for the most part) by place) just that a few feel like non-sequiturs.
(2) RE: "emotional defense" (v.s.): spending the first section relating to us the final comic catastrophe of one beloved friend dying of HIV means one (and only one thing) when followed by a deep flashback: it means you're going to spend hundreds of pages telling us in fine-grained detail the life stories that might otherwise be relayed in a hundred. And you drag it out and fill it with detail because you want me to get emotionally invested in this motley group that we already know is going to die, one by one.
(3) But Gurganus does have a good style, and it comes across here pretty strongly.(less)
—Interesting the picture of this alternate world that PKD gives us; esp. w/r/t/ a world that lacks a...moreReal review to come but a few interesting points:
—Interesting the picture of this alternate world that PKD gives us; esp. w/r/t/ a world that lacks a Cold War (though still gets a big under-the-covers inter-superpower conflict) —A little disappointed by the Stephensonian ending (before there was such a thing?) but it's also the weakest part of what is otherwise some of PKD's strongest writing(less)
• 1st: "Swarm" — reeeeeally liked; I can see why it's so popular and well known — reminds me of Blindsight — except...moreSHORT VERSION: (not a real review)
• 1st: "Swarm" — reeeeeally liked; I can see why it's so popular and well known — reminds me of Blindsight — except that Blindsight was probably in-part inspired by this...? • 2nd: "Spider Rose" — reminds me of that PKD story "Beyond Lies the Wub" • aspects of the main novel (Schismatrix) cued in my mind visions of: "this is Neuromancer on extraversion" (but mostly I think that b/c they're contemporaries?); also cued: "smatterings of this show up in Accelerando" (but maybe they're just sharing tropes and/or formats? arcs?) • I think I need a re-read to unpack it and put it all back together
-- A note about this edition: it's an omnibus—and as such it contains Sterling's novel (Schismatrix) plus all the short stories in the Shaper/Mechanist milieu. (less)
**spoiler alert** SCENE: Samuel R. Delany, sitting at his writing desk, surrounded by books (some on shelves, but most piled on the floor), circa 1973...more**spoiler alert** SCENE: Samuel R. Delany, sitting at his writing desk, surrounded by books (some on shelves, but most piled on the floor), circa 1973; a man walks into the room.
- Delany and the man stare at each other. They both stroke their beards.
Delany: "Who are you?"
The Man: "Don't you know? They sent me."
D: "Who? Who sent you?"
TM: "It doesn't matter. I'm here to tell you that it's OK. They told me to tell you that we're not really competing. Not really."
D: "And who are you...?"
TM: "I told you, didn't I? Anyway, it doesn't matter. Nice place. With the books and all that."
D: "Thanks?" (pause) "So what is it that's supposed to be 'OK' by 'them'?"
TM: (picks up a stack of papers from next to the typewriter) "Good shit. Run with it."
D: "But you didn't even read it?"
TM: "I don't have to. Look, I've already been there. I've been in it. I know it. I've lived for Christ's sake. This is us."
D: "What do you mean?"
TM: "What do you mean 'what do I mean?'? Isn't it obvious?"
D: "Is it? I would guess not because I'm asking you."
TM: "Maybe... Maybe... It's shared though. What's on these pages--" (TM slaps the ream of pages) "--these pages are shared by you, by me, by everyone that does this kind of work. Everyone that has ever put pen to paper or pressed a typewriter key and called the output 'science fiction'--those people are us. And we all share this vision. This is shared. It's... Well, there's a man--he'd be about 25 now--he will call it--" (he slaps the ream again) "--he will call this a 'riddle that was never meant to be solved'--and this is what he'll mean when he calls something else a 'consensual hallucination'."
D: "Those are some sexy phrases."
TM: (strokes his beard) "Aren't they? But not gratuitously so."
D: "And even if they were..."
TM: "It's a fine line between gratuitous and... and... Indicative of...?"
D: "...of what?"
TM: "Exactly. There's nothing wrong with sexy." (slaps the ream again) "As a matter of fact. Do it up. Do it way up. You'll never get another opportunity like this."
D: "But I can write whatever I want."
TM: (laughs, snorts) "Not like this. This one is indelible. You only get a chance to do a novel like this once. Don't screw it up."
D: "That's not fair. This won't be my only 'good' novel."
TM: "That's not fair either. Don't put words in my mouth. Some of your other work is good. Babel-17 is good. Nova was good, too. But this..." (TM shivers) "The stuff you're doing with that Caulkins character? As an anti-Merlin? Good stuff."
D: "Anti-Merlin?"
TM: "Sure. Isn't he kind of a stand-in narrator? Like the Arthurian Merlin? Or like that Tolkein guy did with Gandalf. Or that 'Old Jew' character in that Miller guy's book... What was it called? 'Chronicle of Liebermark'? Something like that?"
D: "Canticle?"
TM: "Whatever. My point is... It's a smart move. He's like that. Omniscient and omnipresent--only not. He's knows everything--but only second-hand--and he's never ever physically present. It's twisty-turny. The ugly hands, the never-present authority figure..."
D: "What's this about the hands?"
TM: "Don't be coy. I hate it when you do that. They hate it when you do that. You don't want to piss them off. You know how long it took me to pay off that piper?"
D: "Who are you?"
TM: "I told you already! Look, it doesn't matter. Just listen. This is important. Don't screw up Kemp. This 'Kemp' character of yours is important. Captain Kemp? You remember? Have you written him in yet? Well you need to. He is your vehicle for summing it up. Look, the readers--the ones that get it--and not everyone will get it--and that's fine, they don't need to--I'm just saying, the ones that get it--Kemp's dialogue will resonate with those readers. If you haven't already--" (he quickly leafs through the ream) "--you'll write this passage--from Kemp's point-of-view--about his trip to the moon. Now when you write it, he will be talking to this--uh--to The Kid and he is going to have to admit how his trip to the moon is not something that you can describe. And--and this is important--that since he can't--since no one can possibly describe it, that there is almost no point in trying to--so instead you just tell them what they want to hear."
D: "But that isn't what I want to do at all!"
TM: "But it's OK. I told you. They sent me here to tell you exactly that. That it's OK to tell it this way. Look, there's going to be this pool of readers--" (TM throws his hands up in a huge circle that encompasses his entire girth) "--that even bother to try to read this thing. Now remember that the total pool of readers is much bigger. Bigger than this room, bigger than this apartment--probably bigger than this whole city. But this circle--" (TM makes an obscene thrust of his pelvis through the circle of his arms) "--represents everyone that will even crack the binding on this one. Are you with me? These are the people that give a shit. And these--" (TM makes the circle half the size that it was) "--these are the people that will see it through to the end. Still with me? Most of these--" (he makes the obscene pelvic thrust again through the circle) "--most of these people are themselves writers. Or at least aspiring writers. Now, you remember earlier when I was talking about how this--" (TM slaps the ream of paper again) "--this represents some kind of shared knowledge between you and me and all of them--" (again with the pelvic thrust) "--well if anyone is going to get it, it's going to be these people--" (he shrinks the circle of his arms again) "--OK? Which isn't even to suggest that they'll follow every last lead that you put in there. After all, no one but you is going to be even able to be intimate with the piece on that level. But these people--" (once more with the thrust) "--will know that maybe what you're doing with Kemp, maybe his whole bit of dialogue to The Kid, that maybe that's the real crux of the narrative. That you cannot possibly hope to share every last detail as it transpires in your own mind. So you bash away on those keys and hope that enough of The Shared World comes across that they will recognize the Kemp dialogue for what it is and recontextualize the whole thing with that as the baseline modulator."
D: "So what you're saying is that--as the author--you can never really get it right? So don't even try?"
TM: "No, I'm saying that you can't get it to be accurate. You can get it to be right. But you have to--first--trust your readers; and--second--trust that your voice conveys the meaning (for whatever that word is worth [TM mutters:]). Casting the setting is as much in the hands of the reader as it is in yours. You stretch the canvas, your reader applies the paint."
D: "What else?"
TM: (stokes his beard) "There is no 'what else'! I thought you knew that. They thought you knew that! Seriously, you go all meta-narrative in this thing and then you hit me with a 'what else' like it's nothing?"
D: "But--"
TM: "But nothing! The writing-within-the-writing thing is great. Your last chapter is a killer. An absolute killer. It's a shame that you can't do the whole thing like that. Can you? Can't you? In another 27 years there's a guy who is going to do this in a pretty epic fashion. Anyway, I--" (TM trails off for a second) "--I can see how maybe you can't get away with it this year. Or even next? Anyway, look it'll still be strong."
D: "You think so?"
TM: "Oh yes. You've created some interesting dichotomy. You've got your narrative and then the meta-narrative it contains. And within that meta-narrative there's only ever two kinds of anything. The poems, and the journalism. 'Brass Orchids' and 'the paper'. The Kid and Caulkins, the narrator and the never-present. It's a good trick."
D: "It's more than a cheap trick, you know."
TM: "I didn't mean for it to sound like I was calling it a cheap trick." (TM sighs) "Anyway, I better get going. I'm supposed to flash-forward and steal my cybernetic facsimile."
D: "They do that in the future?"
TM: "Not in any useful way. Nothing that's going to help either of us." (TM starts to go out the way he came in)
D: "Wait! Any other advice?"
TM: "Sure. Play down the whole 'Grendel' linkage unless you need to force your hand. Let people slip into Greek classicism for their comparisons. It's their own folly." (TM pulls his head off, tucks it under his arm and walks out)
- Delany looks down at the ream with something between scorn and satisfaction. He rolls a joint using one of the pages as his paper, and starts to read through the manuscript after he gets it lit.
"What did you learn from this book?" That human beings are strange, unpredictable creatures capable of great love, great hate, lust, estrangement, (in...more"What did you learn from this book?" That human beings are strange, unpredictable creatures capable of great love, great hate, lust, estrangement, (in)sanity, passion, art, Drano drinking, car sales, racism, and redemption. Also, sometimes they act like something on their bodies that looks like this:
**spoiler alert** In lieu of an actual review (short version: it was good but a little challenging and took at least 2 reads to "get it"), a couple of...more**spoiler alert** In lieu of an actual review (short version: it was good but a little challenging and took at least 2 reads to "get it"), a couple of observations:
(1) On the appeal of steampunk: I remain convinced (and in large part because of this book) that the big appeal of "steampunk" as a genre has to do with the archetypal Inventor/Tinkerer. Here we get this in Miéville's Isaac. In many ways he's an unlikely protagonist: a little hefty[†:], nerdy, self-aggrandizing, cowardly, and a bit of a pervert[††:]; but incredibly brilliant. He occupies a mental space with our real-world Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla and (perhaps more so?) Benjamin Franklin. Our modern (20th/21st century) concepts of science are so laden with litigation and patent applications and funding cuts and notions of proprietary information... It makes sense to cast Isaac as a radical; it's as if he can see through the veil of the page into our own world, can see how science is encumbered by business and process, can see how disconnected the individual is from his work. There is no more Lone Tinkerer puttering about his basement workshop assembling the next great innovation. And something in our cultural consciousness years for that.
(2) On protagonists: Though I've (above) alluded to Isaac as the protagonist, Miéville's Yagharek serves as our narrator and by extension of convention this grants him a kind of protagonist emeritus status[†††:]. But in Yagharek we're given an interesting bridge between the novel and the reader. Yagharek is, in so many ways, the opposite experience of what I imagine a "typical" fantasy reader is after in his narrators: Yagharek is not heroic either; he is a rapist and a cripple and he is in many ways frustrated and impotent. Our vehicle into the story is hardly a vehicle for escape, hardly a means of escaping our own "real world" anxieties and limitations. What's more, Yagharek's ultimate fate (i.e., to desplumarate himself and "go as a man" into New Crobuzon) is a way of turning to the reader and saying: "Now get back to your life just as Yagharek has done."
--- [†:] = The references to "his bulk" being a little bit mixed in that regard; but for the sake of argument, he could (in the parlance of our time) stand to lose a few pounds, for sure.
[††:] = Though let us not judge him here since his "perversion" is really just analogous to an interracial relationship (though that comparison is on par with calling the space shuttle an airplane).
[†††:] = To be honest though, Yagharek is enough of a protagonist to not need the "emeritus".
If you compute the arithmetic mean of Christopher Moore's work, you will arrive at this book. (I mean that in the best possible way.) The cargo cult a...moreIf you compute the arithmetic mean of Christopher Moore's work, you will arrive at this book. (I mean that in the best possible way.) The cargo cult aspect of it is what makes this novel memorable and I like to compare it as the complete opposite take on that phenomenon (i.e., cargo cults) as Gibson's approach in "Hinterlands".
Anyway: good beach read. Or for on the plane. (Well, maybe not the plane.)(less)
When I first read Snow Crash, I thought to myself: "This thing is paced like a comic." Funny then to later discover that the novel was written after a...moreWhen I first read Snow Crash, I thought to myself: "This thing is paced like a comic." Funny then to later discover that the novel was written after a comic book attempt at the same story fell apart.
Snow Crash is the paradigmatic Stephenson novel. Grabs you quickly, thrusts you head long into world that's so preposterous that he can't possibly be making it up, and the drags you along kicking and screaming until you're left startled and somewhat confused at a precipitous ending.
But don't let that fool you. This is probably Stephenson's best, most memorable work. It's certainly my favorite and it's certainly the one that's the most fun. (Which is probably why I've read it ten times.)
The write-up on the back of the edition that I read describes Sharma's protagonist as a bit of a Dostoevskyian anti-hero. This makes sense: Sharma giv...moreThe write-up on the back of the edition that I read describes Sharma's protagonist as a bit of a Dostoevskyian anti-hero. This makes sense: Sharma gives us a corrupt, alcoholic, child-molesting bureaucrat as the vehicle through which most of the story is told. And—call me old fashioned—this makes the story just that much harder to get through; any time you have a protagonist so wretched, so miserable, so abhorrent that you are viscerally—even physically—angered by them... Well, good luck finishing; you're unlikely to enjoy the story.
So where does that leave us? Is this worth reading? Yes, perhaps.
The catch is that there is a fine line between what's gratuitous and what is simply graphic. Fortunately, Sharma gets all (or at least most) of this out of the way in the first 50 pages or so. But you may find that you need a strong stomach to get through those first 3 or so chapters. That said, if it weren't for chapter 2 {†}, I might have abandoned it.
At the heart of this story is a tale of the consequences that follow corruption and moral ambiguity. It is gripping and powerful at moments but kind of shambling and listless at others.
--- † = Sadly (and confusingly) one of only two where the first-person narrator is not Ram; and that final dangling chapter in the third-person... how does that fit in?(less)
Loading...
