**spoiler alert** I’ve been putting off writing this review. I suspected it wouldn’t be a fun one to write about halfway in, when I realized I’d been...more**spoiler alert** I’ve been putting off writing this review. I suspected it wouldn’t be a fun one to write about halfway in, when I realized I’d been skimming for sixty pages and hadn’t even noticed. Reading through to the conclusion of this best-selling trilogy bore that suspicion out, but I feel no fiendish glee in saying so. The truth is, I’d like to be over there with so many of you, nodding my head and talking about how Collins has penned a kid’s classic that tops even The Giver for its unrelenting intensity.
I suspect that you’ll tell me that I missed the point. That war is terrible, you know? And that only someone like Collins could capture the numbing, soul-crushing intensity of the horrible horror of it. That I should see how the flattened character of our narrator, the formerly imperious Katniss Everdeen, and the soulless, affectless behavior of those around her, is just an honest portrayal of how war destroys people.
I get it.
I just don’t find it all that interesting.
“Disinterested” is how I’d characterize most of my reading. I found little that was emotionally compelling in Mockingjay, a problem that really started somewhere in the previous book, Catching Fire, and here reached a sort of crescendo of deafening silence. But early in Catching Fire there was the promise of emotional connection with the events of the story—I can’t help but think of that scene in Rue’s district, the only one I clearly recall from the whole book, which made me weep in the bathtub as I read it. Here, beyond a very mild and shallow interest in the cat that appears in the book’s beginning, there was nothing. I read, and read, and read, never once connecting to Katniss or any of the people around her.
This was particularly true of the romantic exchanges between Katniss and Gale. These characters have never had any particular chemistry, mostly due to the woeful underdevelopment of Gale. Here, we finally get to know him a bit better—but what we learn isn’t particularly endearing. In fact, his brand of blood-thirstiness, combined with his weirdly proprietary attitude towards our intrepid narrator, was pretty gross.
But it’s clear through every single scene where he’s featured that Collins is totally Team Peeta, too. Peeta’s appearances (too late in the narrative, if you ask me) were the only scenes with any emotional resonance, and Katniss’ reactions to him hit, if not deep, than at least deeper. But unfortunately, for the sake of drawing out the love triangle, and in order to provide some sort of overarching conflict, Collins keeps our lovers largely apart. Her methods for doing so were contrived—of course, Peeta couldn’t just have PTSD; of course, there’s some sort of pseudo-scientific reason and he’s been tortured and so we get nearly four hundred pages of Katniss waffling.
Collins wants to show us that the leaders of the rebellion are just as evil as the leaders of Panam, so she makes them evil in a waxed moustache sort of way. And she decides that Katniss needs to hate Gale, and so he kills her sister in a manner that’s likewise convoluted. Nothing seems to happen naturally or organically. I never got the feeling that characters were acting a certain way because that’s who they really were, but rather because Collins needed them to act a certain way to make a point—that war is terrible. She wants us—young Americans, presumably, who have never experienced it—to cluck our tongues and shake our heads at the sad horror of it.
But I felt no catharsis. In fact, I hardly felt anything.
Until the final pages. Until the epilogue.
The end (combined with the fact that Collins can write compelling prose even if I didn’t like the story) is pretty much what saves this from being a one-star book. It’s as if Collins, for the first time, was emotionally engaged in what she was writing. The gradual cobbling together of two lives rang very true to me—there was a tenderness and affection there that was wholly absent in the rest of the novel. Unlike some readers, I didn’t find it particularly problematic that Katniss didn’t make an active “choice”—but perhaps this was true for me only because I thought it so obvious that Ms. Everdeen, or at least Ms. Collins, had long since chosen.(less)
I resisted Feed. It was recommended to me by several close friends, but I put off reading it and put of...more**spoiler alert** This is where I eat my words.
I resisted Feed. It was recommended to me by several close friends, but I put off reading it and put off reading it for what I now realize were fairly shallow reasons--first, that it looked like such a boy book, and, secondly, because I feared that this would be like Uglies: filled with grating slang and the glittering veneer of SF conceits but without any substance beneath them.
I was so, so wrong. Because Feed wasn't anything like Westerfeld's more recent dystopian series. Instead, it hearkens back to earlier, more substantial speculative fiction aimed at adults--there are shades of A Clockwork Orange here, but mostly I couldn't help but think of Philip K. Dick. Anderson's future world gleams with a Dick-like intensity; it is well-rendered and foreign and yet utterly recognizable, but more importantly, and again as is the case in many of Dick's novels, the emotional core of the book is what makes it transcendent.
At first, as is the case with Uglies, it's the technology of Feed that stands out: set in a far future where humans live in domed enclosures and have internet advertising, called Feeds, zapped into their heads, it's the story of Titus, a teenage boy who was never taught to question the world around him--or the one inside his skull. On the moon, Titus encounters Violet, a pretty, slightly unusual girl, and takes her to a club where both of their feeds are hacked. This is a minor inconvenience to Titus, but has terrible side-effects for Violet, leading her down a long road toward her eventual death.
The setting here is much more textured than the above probably implies--this isn't a clean utopia, but rather a commercial empire built upon the death of our planet and humanity. Hints of this texture are given early on, in the earliest references to the mysterious lesions that have begun to plague teenagers. But as the novel proceeds, the reader begins to learn precisely how diseased the planet, and human society, truly is, in fits and starts and stolen glimpses. Anderson doesn't condescend to his audience by stating the cause for all of this decay explicitly, but there's enough here that it's clear and implicit.
In a way, Feed is really a treatise on grief--Titus' grief for the still-living Violet as she declines, the grief of both Violet and her father for all of their world--and an examination of how commercial society offers insufficient comfort in the face of death. It's not insignificant that, when discussing things she would like to do in her short life, the only dream Violet can conjure that doesn't come from a sitcom opening is visiting the sacrificial grounds of Mayan temples. The commercial society of Feed has no vocabulary for sacrifice, for horror, or for death.
This was truly a challenging, beautiful read, and I'd highly recommend it, not only for young readers, but for anyone interested in layered, complex science fiction.(less)
I know, I know. This probably makes me a bad person.
(And, I know, too, that you're probably shaking your head, asking how th...moreI don't like David Lynch.
I know, I know. This probably makes me a bad person.
(And, I know, too, that you're probably shaking your head, asking how this could possibly be relevant to this review, but I promise you that I'll get to that.)
It's not that I don't appreciate the artfulness of what he does, or how difficult it must be to produce narratives that are creative in plotting or form. It's not that I don't think that he's probably an admirable iconoclast in some ways. It's not that I don't think he's talented, or smart.
It's that I don't enjoy watching his work. And I've watched a bit of it. Yes, even Twin Peaks. No, I didn't even like that. Really. I didn't. Please don't ask me to watch it again.
Because watching it makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. There's something about David Lynch that stirs in me a unabating sense of terror. A sort of Cyclopean horror. I don't mean the fun kind of scared--thrilled and edgy but still alive--that I get when reading a good, juicy Stephen King novel. I mean that feeling when you're trapped in a nightmare and can't wake up. That kind of fundamentally nauseating sensation of being really, really afraid, and really, really unhappy and just wanting it to stop.
That's how David Lynch makes me feel.
And, were I a child, I imagine that's how Nick and the Glimmung would make me feel, too. Hell, I felt a little bit of it already, at twenty-six, reading Philip K. Dick's only kid's novel for the first time.
You might not think Nick and the Glimmung would be nightmarish at all, if you were to judge it by the synopsis alone: Nick lives in a future where pets aren't allowed, but his family has managed to keep a black and white cat named Horace hidden for awhile. When Horace escapes, rather than relinquish the animal to the Anti-pet Man, the entire family decides to leave Earth for the Plowman's Planet where cats are allowed.
I would say that that's where it gets weird, only Nick's story isn't really very normal to start with. From the outset, Dick does little to modulate his tone or themes to be more appropriate for children. Usually, I would view this as a sign of respect for young readers. However, this is Philip K. Dick we're talking about. While I enjoyed Nick's father's lengthy monologue on the desperation of meaningless desk jobs, I suspect it would be lost on most children.
So I'll say, instead, that the weirdness is compounded once the Graham family leaves the planet. The narrative becomes suddenly dreamlike--Nick moves from one bizarre situation to another with little sense of continuity or unity of plot. Plowman's Planet is a richly terrifying setting, and every creature Nick encounters is eerie and strange. There's the Wug, who communicates only via index cards; and the formles Printer, who produces depressingly inferior copies of existing items; and the creepy, soulless "Nick thing," an exact duplicate of Nick who wants to kill him and take his place; not to mention the Wrejes, who give Nick a book that tells many different versions of the future, including one that details the eventual death of his cat. There's even the Glimmung who, as far as I can tell from this book (I haven't read Galactic Pot Healer, set in the same universe) might just be the devil--or at least, from the illustrations, resembles him.
Sure, Dick's prose is strong here, as always. It's firm and sparse and clear, and the story is certainly creative. But it was spooky. It creeped me out. I didn't enjoy reading it. And I definitely can't imagine that a kid would, either.
Just a note--I was thrilled when I found a new edition of this, released by Subterranean Press, at the local library. It certainly looked handsome, and was nicely illustrated, to boot. Unfortunately, it's riddled with a distracting number of typos. I'm not sure I'd recommend this edition--if you really want to try, despite the book's inherent ickiness--for this reason.(less)
You were surprised that I didn't like Uglies. It was so much fun, you said! And you told me that you liked the sequel, Prett...moreDear Tarah:
Well, I tried.
You were surprised that I didn't like Uglies. It was so much fun, you said! And you told me that you liked the sequel, Pretties, even more. When we talked about it, I wondered if it all boiled down to one's tolerance for hoverboards. Hoverboards are so played out, I said! It was a well-worn trope back in 1989, when Back to the Future was first released, I whined. It's certainly a cliche now.
You admitted that that might be true. But modern teenagers don't know from Marty McFly, you contended, and besides, hoverboards are awesome.
But the problem is that I still don't think hoverboards are enough to carry a novel. And the truth is, hoverboards are far from the silliest thing I stumbled across in Scott Westerfeld's Pretties. His universe is filled with silly things. Clocks embedded in eyeballs. Tattoos that glow with heartbeats. Floating skating rinks and jackets and poorly explained nanotechnology. Painful slang. And a seriously silly main character who I found seriously unlikeable.
With the exception of my dislike for Tally Youngblood, I may have been able to forgive all the goofiness of Westerfeld's world if it coalesced into something tangible, believable, and concrete. Now, don't get me wrong--I love sci-fi even when it's at its goofiest. I mean, I'll take a good ol' Ferengi episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 any day. But that's because I buy Ferengi culture. I believe it. And even a hundred and eighty pages into the second book in this series (which is the point where I gave up on reading closely, and just started skimming), I never believed in Tally's world. The technology seems fluffy--as if I'm meant to just find it wicked cool and ignore how utterly unlikely it seems. And the sociology is even worse. Adults in this society are either impotent or evil. Our rebellion is populated entirely by an under-twenty set with a strange dearth of participation from "Middle" or "Late" Pretties. There's exactly one adult fighting for "good," and she is completely unlikeable. I understand a young adult author's urge to dispense with parents or parental figures. However, I just didn't buy it--it violated my willing suspension of disbelief. Compare this universe with the one Suzanne Collins gives us in The Hunger Games. There, you also have self-sufficient teenagers who participate in exciting action sequences and are integral to a rebellion. However, they're bolstered and supported by adults even as they are separate from them. This created characters--and a world--which was much more human and much more believable.
But maybe all of that wouldn't have bugged me very much if I liked Tally. But I really, really didn't.
Because as Tally "progresses" in this series, going from Ugly to Pretty to "bubbly" to Special, she remains largely shallow in her motivations. She wants to be Pretty and she wants a powerful boy (though her preference for which powerful boy changes according to her situation) to like her. She lacks any real initiative. Any changes in her motivations are initiated and inspired by the boys she's involved with.
Contrast this to Shay. I'm still not sure how we're supposed to feel about Shay--that is, how Westerfeld wants us to feel about Shay--but I can't help but like her. Despite her informed flaw of jealousy, not to mention her apparent scrappiness, she displays real initiative time and time again in this series. For all that David claims in Uglies that she's a follower, she still leaves for the Smoke without Tally. In Pretties, as a Pretty, she finds a means towards "bubbliness" without medical intervention or encouragement by a boy. Now, I know we're meant to view the cutting here as horrific, particularly in comparison with Tally's "natural" ways of achieving mental clarity. But Westerfeld breaks his Aesop by having Tally eat calorie purgers and starve herself. Her behavior is equally self-destructive, and something she does only with the support of a stronger man. Meanwhile, Shay acts independently, and is eventually able to find both followers and power through these actions. I couldn't help but feel like her story was the more interesting of the two--and I couldn't help but wish that Westerfeld had shown us more of it.
I mean, there are a few times in this series where Shay confronts Tally, accusing her of going after the guys that Shay likes, of attaching herself to the cutest and most popular men. I couldn't help but just nod in agreement with everything she was saying, and that's a problem, don't you think? It's one thing if a character is realistically complex. It's another if you just start to hope that she'll be cut down to size by other characters.
That's the major reason why I gave up on this book, only skimming to the end. And that's why I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the series. I just really didn't like Tally--and didn't want to spend another minute with her.
**spoiler alert** The Passion is the final entry in L.J. Smith's Dark Visions trilogy, and easily the most memorable in the series. The novel begins w...more**spoiler alert** The Passion is the final entry in L.J. Smith's Dark Visions trilogy, and easily the most memorable in the series. The novel begins with the core group of teenage psychics fractured by the departure of psychic vampire Gabriel, but through quick pacing and the inclusion of several strikingly memorable scenes, Smith is able to weather the plot changes to bring the series to its riveting (if tidy) conclusion.
After Gabriel deflects to the other side, choosing to leave his do-gooder friends for Dr. Zetes' coven of psychic Hot Topic patrons, heroine Kaitlyn Fairchild is left with a choice: to stay with golden boy Rob and hope for some sort of passive resolution to the conflict between these groups; or to chase after Gabriel, infiltrate the Zetes Institute, and destroy the evil crystal that gives them their power herself.
She chooses the latter, of course. One thing I've admired about Smith's young adult novels as a feminist reader is the strength of her heroines. Her girls are never demure damsels-in-distress, but rather women of action. Kaitlyn, for all her beauty (and for all the boys fawn over her), is no exception. In fact, this becomes a plot point, and is a factor in her ultimate romantic choice: she realizes that Rob sees are as someone to be saved, while Gabriel respects her as an individual.
Which isn't to say that Gabriel, or Smith, make this an easy choice for Kaitlyn. Upon her return to the institute, she faces many challenges--she is surrounded by a bunch of sociopaths who resent her sudden intrusion, and one of the evil psychic girls has designs on Gabriel, herself. But Smith is smart enough to let the social conflicts take a backseat to Kaitlyn's two core problems: destroying the crystal (and Zetes, in the process), and finally uniting with Gabriel.
She accomplishes this in one fell swoop. In the novel's (and probably the series') most memorable sequence, Kaitlyn gets her first glimpse of what ultimately becomes of Zetes' pupils--they are transformed into disgusting, incapacitated, slug-like idiots--and she is locked away in a sensory deprivation chamber. The goal is to make Kaitlyn like one of these creatures, a pliant psychic pawn, but her psychic connection to Gabriel saves her.
The passages here, where Gabriel feeds her his own memories to keep her afloat, are reminiscent of Smith's vampire series. But they're far more artfully accomplished, with a darkness underscoring them. Kaitlyn and Gabriel might be soulmates, but there's more than just the "silver thread" of Smith's other couples connecting them--there's genuine pain, both shared and individual, present in their connection, too.
All of this creates a real page-turner, and one not easily forgotten. Unfortunately, the ending that follows is a little too neat. There are innumerable ways in which Smith could have disposed of her villain, but I'm not sure if one that avoids all legal and emotional ramifications for the characters was the best one. And I didn't quite buy all the new couples that were hastily forged by the conclusion so that no one was left out of the love fest. But it's a satisfying ending even if it's not a realistic one, and helps make The Passion a great read.(less)
**spoiler alert** The day I finished reading Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, a coworker picked it up off my desk.
"Uglies?" She asked, with a slight sneer....more**spoiler alert** The day I finished reading Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, a coworker picked it up off my desk.
"Uglies?" She asked, with a slight sneer. That sneer only deepened when she read the novel's tagline (in an appropriately arch tone): "In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is Ugly."
I wish I could have responded that the book was a criticism of societies where "extreme beauty" is prized, but after finishing Westerfeld’s novel, I'm not entirely sure that’s the case.
On the surface it certainly seems true. Uglies is the story of Tally Youngblood, who, at nearly sixteen, is about to undergo surgery to make her beautiful. In her world (a post-apocalyptic future, where now-contemporary humans are referred to as "Rusties" and frequently cited for our Rusty and destructive ways), this is what all children do upon coming of age. As in Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," their society rejects physical differences in favor of a flat standard of beauty. Unlike in "Harrsion Bergeron," they achieve this goal by raising the bar across the board, making everyone beautiful rather than average.
And it works. Tally's is a world without war or hunger or disease—particularly self-inflicted diseases like anorexia. As far as post-apocalyptic utopias go, this one is particularly utopic: everything is recycled, no one eats meat, and vehicles are powered by magnets rather than fossil fuels.
This creates a two-fold problem, my biggest issue with the book. First, I never believed for a second that Tally’s world was one that could actually ever come to fruition. This is a cotton-candy utopia, bolstered neither by scene descriptions or by Westerfeld's very weak science-fiction conceits. The "science fiction" here (hoverboards, hovercars) was clichéd well before it was featured in Back to the Future II. These days, it just plain doesn't pass muster. This was made worse, not better, by Westerfeld's use of extremely grating invented slang. I couldn't help but be reminded by this review of Margaret Atwood’s Year of the Flood. World-building is a delicate process, and if you're going to try to use language to compliment that, it should be done with both restraint and grace (or done wholeheartedly and immersively, as in A Clockwork Orange or Riddley Walker). All this talk of bubbliness and SpagBol and PadThai and Uglies and Littlies felt neither restrained nor graceful, which made the world that much more difficult to believe.
Secondly, I had trouble seeing the dangers supposedly inherent in Tally's world. At the beginning of the novel, Tally meets Shay, another young Ugly, who leads her out of her society and into the world of the Smoke, a group of resistance fighters who have opted-out of the City lifestyle. We learn (through a chapter of awkward info-dumping) that the surgery that makes Uglies into Pretties also makes Pretties stupid and pliant. And yet I couldn't help but wonder if that was a necessary addition to the surgery because Westerfeld hadn’t quite convinced himself (and he definitely hadn't quite convinced this reader) that everyone becoming Pretty and living in utopian cities was really all that terrible of an idea. I also couldn’t help but contrast this with "Harrison Bergeron" again; in Vonnegut's version, over the course of a few short pages, we're utterly convinced of the evils of a uniform society. In Westerfeld's rendering of the same (by now, slightly tired) Aesop, becoming Pretty never really seems that terrible, fundamentally.
Perhaps this is because we see the world through Tally's eyes, and Tally is meant to be a traitor to the Smoke and not a true believer. I think this made her a poor choice of point-of-view character, although I found her problematic as a character for other reasons, too. Tally is downright catty toward her friend Shay, despite the fact that their relationship is the most compelling one in the book—certainly more nuanced, believable, and interesting than Tally’s contrived romance with a Smokie named David. There’s a certain ugly (heh) glee in Shay's eventually destruction, not to mention in the way David and Tally both speak and think of her. This made Tally very difficult to empathize with and, more, made her a poor model for adolescent readers. Here, Westerfeld could have given us a still-complex but more functional (and realistic) model of adolescent friendship; instead, he resorts to sexist tropes centered on female competition over men.
Despite these problems, the novel still had its moments, particularly in the first section before Tally leaves for Smoke; in those first hundred pages, the novel seemed full of potential. The pacing does suffer a bit in its saggy, slow midsection, but otherwise Uglies is action-packed and fairly compelling. I just wish it had been more convincing, too.(less)
I discovered Riddley Walker by attempting, and totally failing, to finish a book that I'd heard rip-roaringly good things about, David Mitchell's Clou...moreI discovered Riddley Walker by attempting, and totally failing, to finish a book that I'd heard rip-roaringly good things about, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.
To be fair, I was only attracted to Cloud Atlas because I'd heard it featured a dystopia. I was fresh out of college, working in a library, and all I'd been interested in reading about was the end of the world. I happily picked my way through wikipedia's lists of dystopic works,until I got to Cloud Atlas. It became a slog: I only reached the end of the first half-story, then, lip curled, turned again to the internet to find out what happened in the rest.
It turns out that Mitchell, in his novel's post-apocalyptic center, was inspired by Russell Hoban, whose name I recognized from the Frances picture books from my childhood. I found a copy on the shelves of our library, and dove in.
And it was a dive: Riddley Walker was one of those most immersive reading experiences of my life. Hoban's invented language--as complex as Burgess' in A Clockwork Orange, but, perhaps, more poetic--seemed to change the book from a fairly simple story about a boy coming of age in a Bronze-Era-like society after the fall of man to some sort of integral, sacred text. I usually read quickly: Riddley Walker forced me to slow down, and in doing so the landscape around me seemed to transform. I remember standing on the brick track behind the library where I worked as the sun went down and feeling the soggy natural potential in the world around me.
It's difficult for me to talk about this book and not sound either sentimental or trite; it's difficult for me to talk about it in terms of plot, or character. Riddley Walker to me seems to be more of a history, or a mythology. It has the same slippery quality that Homeric works have, the same intangible magic as the Tao Te Ching or the Bible.
And no one's heard of it.
Oh, that's not entirely true, I suppose. People have. There are annotated webpages, goodreads reviews. But I've never met anyone familiar with the book. Because the experience of reading it was so strange and so affecting, I talk about it whenever I can. I have had more than one person tell me that it sounds like Cloud Atlas; have I read Cloud Atlas? At that, I can't help but wistfully shake my head. This isn't a post-modernist nesting doll gimmick of a book. This is something else entirely.
Riddley Walker should be seen as required reading for anyone who is interested in doing something beyond telling a story when they write a book. This is the story of a boy, and a death, and Punch and Judy, and the government, and what happens following the fall of our world. But it's so much more than that, too--it's the story of the world, and it's a world in itself, too.
**spoiler alert** Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins' much-anticipated sequel to The Hunger Games, starts, much like the first one, in District 12. Howeve...more**spoiler alert** Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins' much-anticipated sequel to The Hunger Games, starts, much like the first one, in District 12. However, now that Katniss Everdeen has triumphed over the Hunger Games, a televised fight-to-the-death, she's lifted her family out of poverty and become not just a celebrity but also a figurehead for a growing rebellion. That doesn't mean her life is easy; she's still not sure what to do with Peeta, her fellow victor and sort-of fiance, not to mention with Gale, her childhood hunting buddy who has recently decided to kiss her. But as President Snow, the leader of Panam, appears and threatens the lives of Gale and her family if she doesn't obey, her life gets even more complicated.
If that sounds a bit convoluted, that's because it is--and that's not the half of it. Catching Fire has a sprawling, complex, and often messy plot; first we spend the beginning of the novel in District 12, then we tour the country, then back to District 12, then, abruptly, there's a turn and we spend the second half of the book again plunged back into the Hunger Games themselves. With such a meandering story, it's no wonder that our narrator seems capricious, inconsistent, and unsteady--but this is an unfortunate and stark contrast to the driven and even-keeled Katniss of the first novel.
This is particularly true in regards to her romantic entanglements. While I enjoyed the romantic triangle of the first book, by the second it's clear that Gale is so poorly developed in comparison with Peeta that there's no way he could win Katniss' heart without the writer resorting to extreme contrivance. Gale hasn't yet, of course, but already the scenes where Katniss is starting to lean that way feel eye roll worthy. After two novels, I still feel like I didn't know Gale at all, and mostly felt frustrated at him for standing in Peeta's way--and frustrated at Katniss for caring about such a bland young man.
The ultimate return to the Games was likewise contrived, and a less interesting choice conceptually than remaining in the districts and with the growing rebellion. It almost felt like Collins wasn't sure what to do with her book without the structure of the Games to bolster it. That's a shame, because Catching Fire deals with some compelling issues: the growing rebellion, Katniss' place in it, and how such a young woman could possibly balance her role as figurehead with her own life and needs.
That being said, Catching Fire does have the same strong, driving voice as the first novel, and the characters here are even better developed than in the first, with the exception of Gale. Even minor players in the Seventy Fifth Hunger Games are vividly crafted and eminently believable. Though I suspect that Catching Fire was neither as carefully planned nor well-edited as the first book of the series, it was just as readable and enveloping. I hope that Collins returns to form in the third, and that she's willing to try to talk about Panem's bigger issues by keeping us out of the Games.(less)
I'll get this out of the way, first: conceptually, I found Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games to be derivative. My first thought as I began reading thi...moreI'll get this out of the way, first: conceptually, I found Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games to be derivative. My first thought as I began reading this story about teenagers in a dystopian world pulled into a televised fight-to-the-death was Stephen King's (or, you might say, Richard Bachman's) The Long Walk, though upon reflection it had even more in common with Battle Royale in the specifics, from the isolated setting to the armed battles to the alliances and romances between contestants. Collins seems not to have read these books, or if she has, she's kept mum about it. Instead, she claims that her inspiration was the myth of Theseus. Maybe that's true--it's not unheard of for different authors to stumble upon similar concepts. Convergent evolution, as it may be. It would be nice if Collins acknowledged these similarities, though. I can't help but think that it's an author's duty to read conceptually similar works before they embark on writing their own, particularly in an era when google and amazon makes them so easy to find. Perhaps King's review of The Hunger Games for the New York Times is a silent acknowledgement of their books' similarities, in which case, I guess I'm wringing my hands about nothing.
That being said, The Hunger Games is a gripping read, with one of the strongest YA protagonists and narrators I've seen in years. Katniss Everdeen, resident of District 12, dutifully cares for her grief-stricken widow mother and helpless little sister, not through traditional female tasks such as cooking or cleaning but by striking out to the woods of her mining community and illegally poaching wild game. Katniss is a no-nonsense young woman; her protectiveness and loyalty recalls Gregor, Collins' hero of her middle grade series that began with Gregor the Overlander. When her sister is selected in a lottery to participate in the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in their nation's capitol, Katniss takes her normal protectiveness a step further, taking her place in the game.
Katniss' voice is superbly designed. Collins adopts a sparse, strong, and utterly appropriate tone. As a heroine, Katniss is never sentimental--this causes her problems later in the book, when one of her fellow contestants develops feelings for her--and so the book rarely is, either. Having just finished the first two novels of the Twilight Saga, I can only call the difference refreshing. Collins proves that we can have a believable teenaged girl narrator who doesn't resort to purple prose every time boys come up.
That's not to say that she's an automaton. In fact, it's in her observations about the other characters that the novel is sharpest and most interesting. Though she sometimes (understandably) resorts to stereotyping her fellow contestants, Katniss--or Collins--has a fine eye for human interactions. This leads to excellent and gripping tensions when when the book's romantic triangle, between Katniss, fellow tribute Peeta, and Gale, her former hunting companion, develops. This isn't an easily resolved situation--there is no "right" or simple choice for Katniss--and it propels the reader quickly through the novel.
Descriptions of battle and Katniss' survival techniques are unfortunately less engaging. The Hunger Games comes very close to stream-of-consciousness at times, describing, in excruciating detail, every moment of the games. I found this unnecessary and more, just not that interesting. I'm not sure if this was because I'm generally less interested in these topics, or if Collins' just doesn't know how to make these passages as juicy as she does her character interactions. Of course, we're also never really left to wonder whether Katniss survives--she's narrating, after all--so it could just be that these passages lack the urgency of those regarding which boy she'll eventually choose.
Still, this was an excellent read, the kind where you keep telling yourself you'll just read "one more chapter" and soon find yourself another hundred pages in. I'd say that I couldn't wait for the next one, but that's not entirely true--in fact, I started it this morning, and am, already, a third of the way through. I'm sure already that the third volume in this trilogy will be eagerly anticipated.(less)
**spoiler alert** Before I get into my review of Parable of the Talents, I'd like to make a general complaint about publishers who refuse to make it c...more**spoiler alert** Before I get into my review of Parable of the Talents, I'd like to make a general complaint about publishers who refuse to make it clear when a book is a sequel, or comes late in a series. I picked up this thick little volume at a book sale--the only Butler novel I could find, and shelved in the African-American Literature section, no less, despite being terribly and clearly dystopic science fiction. Because I've been trying to be better about reading books in order over the past several years, I checked both the back cover and inside list of Butler's published works. Not only was there no indication that this was a sequel, but it was also listed beforeParable of the Sower on the inside flap, implying that this was the first book of the series.
I think it's a dirty trick by publishers who, I suppose, think readers are less likely to pick up the second book, and I think it does a disservice to the readers.
That being said, I'm not sure that my reading experience was at all marred by reading Parable of the Talents first, because I didn't even realize that I was reading a sequel until about two hundred pages in. This novel stands on its own incredibly well. Though, I'm sure, I missed out on some information which would have established the characters and the universe more firmly, I was actually only vaguely aware of this, and instead initially took this as one of the novel's strengths--that the universe felt complete and real; that the interactions within the universe by various characters did not need thorough introductions, because that's more true to how real people interact with the world around them.
Parable of the Talents is a post-apocalyptic novel set in the near-future United States. The ice caps are melting and religious extremists have taken control of the US government. Amidst this, Lauren Olamina attempts to found both a community, Acorn, and a religion, Earthseed, which places human destiny in the stars. It's told through a series of journals and writings by four different characters; this is effective, but I found the two male perspectives offered largely dispensable. This is really a novel about mothers and daughters, and Butler offers strong, distinctive voices and a unique perspective on this relationship in the writings of Lauren and daughter Larkin.
The characters here, both those two and the supporting cast, are very real. Though Lauren's husband Bankole is only with us for about half of the narrative, he's very realistically drawn; his concerns and characterizations felt incredibly true to life, and I found myself mourning the loss of him right along with Lauren.
I wasn't quite sure of how I felt about Earthseed, though, and the religious verse that opened each chapter. It's a fairly simple and self-evident philosophy, which suggests, to me, that we were meant to feel utterly sympathetic toward it. This made me a bit uncomfortable--was this Butler's way of proselytizing?--and it also meant that Larkin's later objections to Earthseed felt false, or at the very least, petulant.
The universe that Butler creates for us is a huge one, and quite immersive. Ultimately, I felt that the book could have easily supported another hundred pages. Instead, the ending felt rushed. We don't get to hear Lauren's voice after Earthseed becomes a successful movement, and I would have loved to experience it from her perspective.
But still, the long-awaited interaction between Lauren and Larkin touched me at the end. It was incredibly sad and very affecting. This was another well-done novel from Butler. I look forward to reading the first in the series, even if I know, ultimately, how it ends.(less)
Clarke told us that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; from that, I'd like to postulate that, perhaps, any sufficie...moreClarke told us that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; from that, I'd like to postulate that, perhaps, any sufficiently hard science fiction is indistinguishable from fantasy. The internet seems to want me to believe that Larry Niven is a terrifically hard (like, rock, like platinum) sci-fi writer, that his books are firmly ground in the theoretical physics of his time.
But, at the risk of sounding like one of his bubble-headed heroines, I just didn't get most of the science in Ringworld. We're meat to marvel at the setting created by the Ringworld Engineers, which our ragtag team of aliens and humans set out to explore. But, while I think it's a rich setting in its own right, the science behind it didn't particularly thrill me. In most ways, Ringworld felt, to me, more like a fantasy adventure novel. What seemed to me to be (at least indistinguishable from) pseudo scientific motivations for exploration really just felt like excuses to set his characters down in an interesting place and watch them interact.
And its in these interactions between characters that Niven's strengths really shine through. His aliens, particularly, are exceedingly well-drawn. I think it's just about impossible to read about Worf-like Kzin Speaker and Pierson's puppeteer Nessus and not feel some modicum of affection for them. The human characters are likewise endearing, if a little less well-fleshed out. Luck-afflicted human Teela Brown is intentionally empty, but this makes her attraction to Louis Wu less-than-convincing. Wu himself is an unremarkable everyman. Why all the women want him, I have no idea.
I was less interested in the plot, even, than I was in the supposedly hard science. But Niven's characters were so great that I didn't really care. This felt like a more-serious Hitchhiker's Guide, or maybe Farscape at its best--adventurous characters with nuanced relationships thrust out against a mysterious setting. Even if I didn't get what was so important about Fist-of-God or really understand how they turned a floating building into a spaceship, I enjoyed my time spent on the Ringworld.(less)
**spoiler alert** In her Pern novels, Anne McCaffrey introduced readers to telepathic dragons who bond psychically with humans. In her Valdemar series...more**spoiler alert** In her Pern novels, Anne McCaffrey introduced readers to telepathic dragons who bond psychically with humans. In her Valdemar series, Mercedes Lackey introduced readers to telepathic horses who bond psychically with humans. In Grass Sherri S. Tepper plays on the same theme, introducing telepathic fox . . . things who have . . . psychic sex (I think?) with humans.
Okay, so it's not quite the same. But Tepper is dabbling with a well-known science fiction and fantasy trope here. The Grassian nobility participate in the hunt, a version of the English fox hunt where all the animals are both alien and slightly horrific. During the hunt, strangely sexual things happen and young girls often disappear. Yet because of their bonds with their mounts the Hippae, the Grassians turn a blind eye until they are forced to pay attention when the daughter of a Terran ambassador disappears.
The development of the details of the hunt is slow and suspenseful. They're paired with gorgeous prose and strong character development. Majorie Westriding is a wonderful feminist heroine and the supporting characters are just as finely rendered. Several exiled monks who round out the cast stand out in my mind as terrifically, realistically, and subtly written.
Unfortunately, though, Grass is otherwise an uneven experience. The plot moves painfully slowly through the first two hundred pages; it was only the mystery of the hunt that kept me reading. And, even more unfortunately, the truth of the hunt never quite congealed for me into something satisfying or even particularly believable. The relationship between the Hippae and the Foxen or even these species and humans is unclear (okay, so they're the same species, but what exactly do the Hippae need the humans for?), the evolutionary science dubious, and the connection between this mystery and a plague subplot really poorly done. Too bad. Tepper's prose is fine enough that I'll probably pick up the next novel in the series, but I have a limited tolerance for science fiction that isn't believable even within its own framework, so hopefully I won't find the same there.(less)
Like many science fiction series aired on major network television, Alien Nation suffered from an abrupt cancellation for which the writers and produc...moreLike many science fiction series aired on major network television, Alien Nation suffered from an abrupt cancellation for which the writers and producers were unprepared. Unlike many science fiction series aired on major network television, it had received fairly solid ratings, so the show-runners, confident that they would have a second season, ended the first on a cliffhanger, with its main characters infected by a virus designed to completely eradicate their species.
I can imagine how thankful enthusiastic fans must have been when the novel-series was released following the TV show's cancellation. Dark Horizon is based on the scripts for both the series untimely conclusion, "Green Eyes", and the proposed second season opener, from which the novel gets its name. Though he's not always successful, K. W. Jeter does an admirable job of attempting to unify these two scripts, which were clearly very different both thematically and in terms of plot. His writing is at times very strong--there are a few scenes featuring Cathy, particularly, that are tenderly and vividly written.
However, since I've seen the TV movie that was later based on the second script, this doesn't break any new ground. It's very obvious that Jeter's kept very closely to the source material (most scenes and dialog are word-for-word identical to the later movie), so much of this felt repetitive and perfunctory. The few points of diversion from the television movie, particularly the resolution of Buck Francisco's romance with his human teacher, were really the only scenes that made reading Dark Horizon a worthwhile endeavor. It's too bad, since he's clearly a powerful writer, but nevertheless, the place for this book in the franchise has been supplanted. Watch the movie, or read the book, but it's definitely not necessary to do both--you won't be missing anything.(less)
It annoys me to see so many people making the deeply stupid argument that the weight of canon restricts writers. A good, non-lazy writer should be perfectly able to write within the canon they're working with. When someone's writing a novel that's ostensibly about the real world, no one says, "Well, you have to understand that it probably won't be very good; I mean, all the history is so well-established, there's not really room to do anything new." Who in their right mind would point to, say, The Grapes of Wrath, and call it continuity pr0n just because it deals with events that the author himself didn't have control over? "Yeah, it was good and all, but I think Steinbeck was sort of restricted in that he couldn't turn Tom Joad into a samurai with a laser-sword who has a climactic showdown with FDR in the last scene. And also, it turns out that Joad and FDR were secretly brothers, and that both have telekinetic powers."
It's too bad that Greg's advice wasn't around for Barry Longyear when he wrote The Change. This is truly a terrible licensed novel. It's beyond obvious that Longyear was excruciatingly unfamiliar with the universe in which he was writing. Not only is the dialogue off, but he fails to respect even the most basic canon details--like, in more than one instance, a character's full name. Names and biographies are changed freely, for no discernible reason.
Perhaps these changes would have made sense if they served a particularly excellent plot, but the story here is all over the place--poorly developed, loose ends abounding. There's a subplot about race that's painfully heavy-handed; though the original series was often allegorical for race and discrimination issues, it never felt nearly this pedantic. And Longyear's overly simplistic message--that we're all the same no matter our color--is weakened by the fact that his female characters are so poorly written and shrill. Every female character, both established and new, seems to suffer from women in refrigerator syndrome. If Longyear himself can't treat established franchise characters with respect, who is he to preach to us about treating our fellow men likewise?
This is a really terrible book. If you like Alien Nation, please skip this--you'll be better for it.(less)
I got impatient waiting for the second Alien Nation novel to arrive via paperbackswap, so I skipped directly to the third volume in the series, Body a...moreI got impatient waiting for the second Alien Nation novel to arrive via paperbackswap, so I skipped directly to the third volume in the series, Body and Soul, written by Peter David.
I'm familiar with David's writing through his Star Trek: New Frontier novels, as well as through his involvement in the kid's television series Space Cases. He's a known quantity, and his writing is appropriately solid here. His prose, though not quite as mature-feeling as the Reese-Stevens', who wrote the first Alien Nation novel, is efficient. It does its job well, though he relies a bit too heavily on cliches . . . and ellipses.
The plot is very close to its eventual made-for-TV movie adaptation. There are a few scenes that didn't make the transition to the small screen, much of it sexual content, but also a few scenes relating to the Francisco kids that were really quite nice.
David doesn't break any new ground here. This is typical licensed fare, a fast and engaging, if not particularly satisfying or challenging read.(less)
I wanted to like The Mote In God's Eye--not only did it come highly recommended by both the denizens of metafilter and my good friend Karin, but it al...moreI wanted to like The Mote In God's Eye--not only did it come highly recommended by both the denizens of metafilter and my good friend Karin, but it also centers on first contact with an alien race, one of my favorite themes in science fiction. Niven and Pournelle handle the species-building well--the Moties are strongly developed, emotionally believable, and consistent in their motivations. But everything else in this novel--not the least the human characters--felt extraneous and poorly developed.
There's no plot here, not really. I suppose we're supposed to be riveted by the painfully slow revelations about Motie culture--though if that were the case, I don't know why we linger so long on the bland human characters, many of which are stock sci-fi archetypes--don't get me started on the Scottish Engineer with his all-too-familiar--and painful-to-read--brogue. Each of the novel's four sections are poorly paced, with fairly bland narrative used to fill in the history of the universe and move the plot (slowly) forward. The universe itself is quaintly Victorian and vaguely unbelievable. The single female human character demurely tells the aliens at one point that respectable human girls don't use birth control.
Still, the conclusion to each section, and the parts of the novel most deeply involved in the story of the Moties themselves, move quickly and are engaging. This is particularly true of the parts of the novel told from the Motie perspective. Perhaps Niven and Pournelle should have spent more time developing the human characters--if they had been created with the care evident in their alien antagonists, this would have been a more even, and ultimately fulfilling, read.(less)
Alien Nation: Day of Descent is a fan-fiction writer's dream, not because there are Mary Sues or interspecies sex (in fact, it's blissfully short on b...moreAlien Nation: Day of Descent is a fan-fiction writer's dream, not because there are Mary Sues or interspecies sex (in fact, it's blissfully short on both), but because the authors do an incredible job of capturing the characters.
I should say that I'm a big fan of the show and recently rewatched the entire series. It was better than I remembered, so much more than a cop drama with racial allegories. The development of the Tenctonese species is more than enough to satisfy any armchair xenologist. While on the surface, these aliens seemed very close to (bald) humans, in building their culture show-runner Kenneth Johnson shined. His attention to biological and anthropological detail, paired with extraordinary characterization (though early episodes paint George comedically, you learn over the course of just one season what an incredibly complex, nauanced character he is, particularly in his interactions with his son), made it exemplary sci-fi. Though a little dated, I'd still recommend the core series to any science fiction or television fan.
And apparently, I can recommend the first follow-up novel with the same confidence. Set largely well before the movie, television series, and follow up TV films, Day of Descent is a prequel story, largely set five years before the events of the first film. Human Matt's tale is developed in parallel to George Francisco's and describes his very first case as a detective. Meanwhile, we're given ample and compelling backstory on the Newcomers lives in space and their eventual shipwreck on Earth. I always felt that this was a promising area left painfully unexplored during the series, and (true to my expectations), the alien plot is the stronger of the two. It describes the slow-building, and absolutely riveting rebellion of the Tenctonese against the Overseers, members of their own race who torture and enslave their cohorts. There are nice cultural and historic details about the Tenctonese sprinkled throughout--the novel does a good job of providing context for the aliens, and this context enriches the source material, rather than detracting or distracting from it.
What's more, even removed from their more familiar Terran situations, the Francisco family is perfectly recognizable. In fact all of the characters were. I had the uncanny feeling that I was actually watching an episode of the series as I was reading this book, something I've never before felt while reading a licensed novel. The Reese-Stevenses obviously approached the composition of this story with a great deal of affection and care. The only drawbacks here were some very minor issues with Matt Sikes' characterizations--he's a bit overly romantic in his internal narration at times, which (in just one scene) felt off. Also, the police drama dragged a little compared to the shipboard tale. However, their excruciating attention to the other detail of the series--the writers even resolve the most glaring continuity error of the franchise in a single line--easily redeem those minor issues. I'd definitely recommend this book for any fans of the series, perhaps even before I'd recommend any of the TV movies that followed several years later.
In short, this is a terrific science fiction tome. Reading it was instructive--this is what licensed work should be.(less)
Lilith's Brood, actually an omnibus of three novels (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) by Octavia Butler, is amazing. These three works are easily the...moreLilith's Brood, actually an omnibus of three novels (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) by Octavia Butler, is amazing. These three works are easily the best science fiction novels I've read in the past several years, and the first two are certain contenders for the best novels I've read in years, period.
They tell the story of a woman named Lilith, who is resurrected on an alien ship nearly three hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse, as well as the stories of her half-human, half-alien children. Lilith herself is a strong, determined hero--she often makes choices that not only seem unsavory to the people that surround her but are sometimes savory to the reader as well. However, her motivations (self-preservation above all else) always remain clear.
But the real centerpiece here are Butler's aliens, the Oankali, a three-gendered, space faring race engaged in an intergalactic gene trade. What they do with the aliens they encounter, including humans, constitutes nothing more than an alien invasion, but because they integrate the species they annihilate into their society--and their sexual practices--they become both terrifying and sympathetic.
There's no easy way to say this: the Oankali drug and rape humans to intermingle their genetic material. After this contact is established, normal sexual activity becomes repellent. The sex here, though there's never any physical contact, is really terrifying. The Oankali ooloi, the third-gendered aliens who facilitate these liaisons, are the definition of smooth operators. Because the gene trade is so ingrained in their culture, they are unable to see the ethical problems with their actions. To them, they have saved humanity from annihilation--that pure homo sapiens will die out, and that the Earth will be left a wasteland when the children of man go off to continue the gene trade elsewhere, is largely irrelevant.
Wonderfully, the reader's perception of this exchange changes over the course of the three novels. In the first novel, told largely from Lilith's perspective, the Oankali seem to be little more than diabolical, yet disturbingly seductive, creatures. The reader deeply sympathizes with Lilith and the other humans who must make sense of a new life from the vantage of a cloistered space ship, with no possible escape in sight. The second novel, Adulthood Rites, tells the story of Lilith's first Oankali son, who struggles to reconcile both the Oankali and human sides of himself. Despite his place in the alien society, his characterization and motivations seem more firmly human, even as he undergoes a metamorphosis to become a strange, tentacled creature.
The third novel, Imago represents the largest perspective shift. Unlike the other novels, it's told in the first person and weaves the story of Jodahs, Lilith's first ooloi child. Jodahs is almost completely alien to us in motivation--although he's different from the ooloi who came before, his primary interests lie in seducing humans. The strength of Butler's character building here is most strongly evident: Jodahs still manages to be sympathetic, somehow.
Unfortunately, the pacing of the third book is not quite up to snuff when compared to the first two. In the first novel, particularly, Butler seemed unafraid to let wide gaps of time pass undescribed to the reader. This created great tension and contributed to the horrific, nightmarish feeling of the story. The second novel, similarly, included large chronological gaps as well as drastic setting shifts that contributed well to the half-human, half-alien nature of its protagonist. But the third novel was a bit more pedestrian in its construction, and (particularly as I wasn't able to put Lilith's Brood down for about 10 days until I had finished all 800-some odd pages of it), felt a little rehashed by the conclusion. But despite this, it was still a cut above most sci-fi novels in terms of prose, characterization, and species building.
And it's for the species-building that I most admired this series. Butler amazingly creates a believable alien race that is, nevertheless, completely alien to us in society and motivations. The concepts introduced here are challenging, but no less wonderful for the moral quandaries they present. Highly, highly recommended.(less)
In The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer slowly weaves the tale of Matt, a clone of the drug lord Matteo Alacron. Alternately pampered and tortured...moreIn The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer slowly weaves the tale of Matt, a clone of the drug lord Matteo Alacron. Alternately pampered and tortured throughout his childhood (he slightly unbelievably goes from being kept in a pen of chicken litter to being given private piano lessons and tutoring in a few years' time), Matt grows up with a strong moral compass thanks only to his caretakers. Farmer does a good job of developing this bildungsroman--by the novel's end, Matt is a fairly complex character. Likewise, she builds her futuristic universe slowly: in the first several chapters, it largely resembles our own, but by the novel's conclusion we come to realize that this is a very different world, both in terms of technology and politics.
But something intangible was lacking here. There's something perfunctory about Farmer's prose, and the characters who surround Matt feel flat. And, while the actual plot of the book is fairly interesting, Matt's movement from episode to episode feels disjointed, as if Farmer was keeping her characters at arms' length. Nevertheless, she raises some interesting questions here, not only about cloning but also about power and our genetic destinies.(less)
In this terrific and long awaited sequel to Pamela Sargent's Earthseed, Sargent presents teen readers with an exciting survival story lightly laced wi...moreIn this terrific and long awaited sequel to Pamela Sargent's Earthseed, Sargent presents teen readers with an exciting survival story lightly laced with science fiction elements. Characters from the less cohesive first volume appear, but the real focus is on the teenaged protagonists Leila and Nuy, children from warring factions of a Terran colony on a distant planet they've come to call "Home."
These heroines are very well developed and quite strong. Although they are still nominally children in their societies, they are intelligent, bright characters who easily take on leadership roles. Although some of the sexual violence that darkened the first volume is still present, it's less of a centerpiece here, and both female protagonists spend the majority of the book happily unpaired. Their focus isn't on romance, but rather on survival--both survival as individuals and the survival of their community.
The science fiction aspects of the story also take a backseat; there's some slightly troublesome hand-waving in terms of the genetic development of the colonists, but this hardly detracts from the strongly paced, action-filled plot. Sargent sets readers up for another volume, so maybe some of these unresolved elements will be addressed, but hopefully readers won't have to wait another twenty years for a resolution.(less)
John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos has a terrific premise. The novel opens in an English boarding school, home to five incredibly bright students who h...moreJohn C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos has a terrific premise. The novel opens in an English boarding school, home to five incredibly bright students who have been raised there since birth. Mysteriously, they have been unable to reckon how much time has passed within the school's walls, their own ages, or where the boundaries of their home lie.
The early chapters are told through a series of slightly surreal-feeling vignettes. In a non-linear fashion, we are introduced to Amelia and her "siblings", and some of the school's mysteries slowly unfold--cryptic references to the fourth dimension abound. There is a real sense of melancholy in the first fifty pages or so.
But something happens when the plot kicks in. The tone abruptly shifts and the novel stops taking itself seriously. In place of mystery, we're given flat lectures on Greek mythology which stretch on for pages and pages. None of the revelations are particularly surprising or even interesting.
And then there's the weird sex stuff.
While Wright clearly has some sexual issues, it's not necessarily the presence of kink that turned me off to this novel about a hundred and fifty pages in. Rather, it's the fact that his kinks are so clearly inappropriate for the main character. Wright defines Amelia as a strong (literally and figuratively--she has the ability to alter an object's mass), determined female lead. At several points early in the novel she shows mild revulsion to her sister Vanity's flirtatious ways. Yet Wright interjects a scene where Amelia prances around in a French maid's outfit and has her complete the latter half of the novel in chains that are meant not just to confine her but to sexually titillate the older male characters. Even this, I could have mildly forgave Wright, but the internal narration does not stay true to character. Instead, Amelia starts swooning over just about any man that manhandles her. Like the crippled groundskeeper. The head master. And her brothers. For example:
"I'm stronger than you," I said, feeling foolish. "I can move huge iron doors you can't lift."
"Show me," he said.
Because he was standing behind me, he simply twisted both my arms up behind my back. My possible options at that point consisted of arching my shoulders back as far as possible and standing on tiptoe.
Somehow, somewhere, Colin had turned from a little annoying boy into a dangerous young animal. I could not even really struggle in his grip; he had grasped me too cunningly.
I noticed that he smelled nice. And tall. When did he get to be taller than me? I hadn't noticed. Had that happened this year?
And strong. And ruthless and confident.
I suddenly began to feel silly and out of breath. I told myself it was because Colin was holding me in an awkward position that I could not catch my breath. I tell myself a lot of things. I lie to myself a lot.
It was because Colin was holding me.
Having been a fourteen (or sixteen, or twenty, depending on how kinky Wright's feeling at that moment in the narrative) girl, all I have to say to that is: oh come on.
(By the time she gets spanked--no, I'm not kidding--and moons about how she deserves it--again, not kidding--I was about ready to throw the book at the wall, but I was less than fifty pages from the ending and had already squandered so much time on this tripe that it didn't feel worth the expenditure of energy.)
Oh, and Amelia also has a penchant for describing her own anatomy, particularly her breasts and cleavage, over and over again.
I don't think I've ever felt like a book was so wasted by the author's proclivities. I was really ready to love Orphans of Chaos, despite the fact that the narrative became increasingly less pressing and engaging. But in place of even bland prose, Wright gives us fantasies grossly inappropriate for both the plot and characters. I felt increasingly skeeved out, even violated, the further I read. I won't be completing the series.(less)
And they were very low after finishing the core Tripods trilogy. John Christopher's well-crafted prequel, however, more than made up for my disappointment in those first three dry, poorly paced books. By shifting the action to the near-future, Christopher gives us both a more realistically palpable setting and a much more sympathetic narrator. Although Laurie, hero of When the Tripods Came shares some personality traits with Will (protagonist of the first three books who I eventually came to loathe, not love), he is much more redeemably human, and shows much more growth over the course of 150 pages than Will does over three whole novels.
What's more, the invasion of the Tripods--gradual, but nonetheless terrifying--gives the novel an urgency that the others lacked. Their indoctrination of mankind via television is really scary and manages to be pleasantly undidactic (and I speak as a lover of the boob tube). Rather than giving us a lecture on the dangers of TV, Christopher shows television watching for what it is--a universal, but almost certainly exploitable--weakness. Even the characters who are seduced by the aliens are sympathetic.
All in all, a worthwhile read--and since it could easily stand on its own, I'd recommend it in a heartbeat, even if I can't say the same for the rest of the series.
**spoiler alert** John Christopher's final entry in the core tripods trilogy stands out as an excellent example of the series' flaws. This is a scatte...more**spoiler alert** John Christopher's final entry in the core tripods trilogy stands out as an excellent example of the series' flaws. This is a scattershot tale of military missions, of man's drawn-out and plodding victory over the ruthless aliens who have ruled over the Earth for more than a century. Each mission is dryly recalled and poorly developed; the action does not build in any particular way, and because we've already encountered each of the settings in this third book before, even Christopher's usually lush descriptions of scenery are absent. The human characters, again, are flat--and as in the second book, one of the most sympathetic personalities is that of an alien villain.
Meanwhile, the men here--and there are only men; not a single female character has been present since the first novel--are terrifically bland, occasionally violent, and overall unsavory. We are meant to sympathize with them wholly because they are human and seek freedom, but it's largely unconvincing, particularly when the most sympathetic human character (nerdy scientist Beanpole, whose presence is refreshing in the cast of militaristic characters) starts to reiterate arguments against humanity's freedom which were raised earlier by one of the alien overlords.
But most disappointing of all is the novel's ending; the men win a very clean victory, totally exterminating the Masters. Deeper, more satisfying possibilities--learning to live in harmony with the aliens, some of whom have shown themselves to be moderate in the attitudes towards humans--are rendered totally impossible. Instead, we're left with a bunch of violent men squabbling amongst themselves for leadership. For me, this felt like a very shallow victory.
Oh, and at one point, our hero refers to Asians as "little yellow men." Maybe this sort of dialog is meant to help emphasize how the series hearkens back to nineteenth century boys' adventure stories, but to me it really only underscored how horribly backwards all of the human characters seemed to be.(less)
The second book in the Tripods series starts much like the first--Will, a human boy, along with two companions, travels the European countryside, this...moreThe second book in the Tripods series starts much like the first--Will, a human boy, along with two companions, travels the European countryside, this time not seeking to escape the mysterious Tripods who rule over the Earth, but to join them--to infiltrate their city to gain information for a human resistance movement. The first half of the novel mirrors the first very closely, in both its rich descriptions of food and landscape and its pancake-flat depictions of our human protagonists.
However, a major shift occurs once Will reaches the city. Christopher's descriptions of the alien landscape are incredibly vivid and inventive and, unlike his equally lush descriptions of Europe, actually pretty exciting. What's more, some depth is finally introduced to one of his characters. Unfortunately, it's an alien antagonist who is humanized. Will's Master is sad, complex, and compelling. Christopher tells us time and time again how disgusting and revolting the character is, but that did little to curb the sympathy I felt for him as he proceeded to spill his heart (hearts?) to dull, dull Will, his only friend.
I'm fairly certain that this was not Christopher's intended effect. But regardless, it made the sophomore entry in this series a riveting and involving read.(less)
**spoiler alert** John Christopher's first foray into children's literature, and his first entry in the now-infamous Tripods series, could easily fit...more**spoiler alert** John Christopher's first foray into children's literature, and his first entry in the now-infamous Tripods series, could easily fit in well on a shelf besides most boys' adventure books. Told in strong, clear prose, Christopher presents the story of Will, a boy living in an apparently medieval world with an important difference: the presence of the enormous, mysterious Tripods who "cap" humans at the onset of puberty to keep them docile and obedient. This is his travelogue as he endeavors to escape this fate, sailing from England, traveling through an abandoned Paris and finding temporary sanctuary at the house of a wealthy French lord. Descriptions of scenery and food are lush and lively.
But the characterizations, of Will (so anonymous a boy that, several times, I forgot his name), of his traveling companions Henry and Beanpole, and of the people surrounding them, are incredibly flat and lifeless. The few details of personality we're given--that Henry has a temper, that Beanpole loves inventing things--seem to have no impact on their motivations. This flatness, coupled with an incredibly unsatisfying ending (we never learn anything about the white mountains to which they ultimately escape) drag this short book down considerably. I'm curious as to whether the subsequent volumes will redeem the series.(less)
The science fiction premise behind Pamela Sargent's Earthseed is a strong one: children born on an interstellar ship must prepare for colonization of an extraterrestrial planet. The diverse cast of teenagers must live alone in the Hollow, a pastoral area of the planet-sized ship on which they were raised, and learn to function as a society. However, in-fighting and competition threatens their success, manifesting itself in a surprisingly bloody, violent way. This is not young adult science fiction for the faint of heart--it's essentially a tale of the foibles of humanity, presented with a very dark tone.
But, while this core plotline is dynamic and engaging in its direness, Sargent undermines it in several ways. Many of the teenagers are hardly introduced as characters only to become, suddenly, integral to the plot. Beyond their multi-cultural names, they seem largely interchangeable and poorly developed. Worse, Sargent throws in several plot wrenches suddenly, with little foreshadowing. This means that aspects of the climax feel almost like a convenient afterthought.
But stripped of all this, it's clear that Sargent possesses a certain tenderness for her main characters, particularly for heroine Zoheret and for the sentient ship (called, appropriately, "Ship") itself. For all Earthseed's flaws, Sargent manages a satisfying and well-wrought conclusion.
This is the third long-lost title that I'll be reviewing. The title was discovered by the peeps over at ask.metafilter (based on some vague ramblings...moreThis is the third long-lost title that I'll be reviewing. The title was discovered by the peeps over at ask.metafilter (based on some vague ramblings about ugly ship captains and jellyfish ships), proving (again) that metafilter is the best and smartest group of people on the Internet.
Megan Lindholm's first, and only science fiction novel is innovative and engrossing. Alien Earth is the story of a future where humanity has been unknowingly enslaved after being rescued from a dying Earth by the Arthoplana, a race of symbiotes who maintain a monopoly over space travel through their relationship with the magnificent and mildly sentient Beastships, living vessels capable of faster-than-light travel. The concept behind the Arthoplana/Beastship relationship is not unlike what you encounter in the television show Farscape--to the point where I had to wonder whether Pilot and Moya are an uncredited homage to Lindholm's work. The interaction here is much deeper and more nuanced, however. Lindholm isn't afraid to render even the most alien alien as a complex, completely realized person.
She also isn't afraid to present us with a humanity that is almost completely alien from our own. Our primary protagonist is John, ship's captain, who has been physically deformed by generations of restricted breeding and genetic tinkering; in his late fifties, he has just started puberty. He, and many of the other characters here, initially seem strange and unlikeable. Yet as the novel progresses, Lindholm manages to make even the most curmudgeonly and grotesque characters sympathetic. She's clearly a master at characterization, and she maintains this characterization well despite the heavily developed and complex sci-fi setting.
In fact, I'd argue that Alien Earth's biggest weakness lies here: after eliciting sympathy for even the novel's villains for four hundred pages, she quickly kills one of them off in the last pages in a movement that seemed overly swift and morally simplistic. It's difficult for the reader not to expect some sort of redemption in a novel that makes even slave owners and evil overlords of the galaxy mildly likable. Otherwise, however, the novel's conclusion doesn't offer any easy answers--just a complex image of humanity pushed, literally, to the brink.
Alien Earth was a great read, and one I'd easily recommend to any sci-fi fan, despite its age. I'm surprised that it hasn't been more widely read, and even more surprised that this was Lindholm's only foray into the genre, since it was such an overall successful one.(less)
My review of Flute Song Magic will be the first in a series of sorts. For years, I've been plagued by the plots of several books whose name completely...moreMy review of Flute Song Magic will be the first in a series of sorts. For years, I've been plagued by the plots of several books whose name completely escaped me. Using the POWERS OF THE INTERNET, I've managed to not only rediscover them but buy some really cheap copies. Which means that you guys get to reap the benefits(?) of my rediscoveries!
Flutirr is a Nelvin, a species with a rigid, caste-based society and stringent rules about controlling emotions. He's never fit in well, having burst into tears on his first day of school seventeen years earlier, but as a young man he unwittingly begins to divorce himself from the other Nobles when he hears the complex and emotionally charged music of Don, a classless Nelvin who is dying from a deadly disease.
Flute Song Magic is the story of the Noble boy's quest across his expansive planet to find a cure. On his travels, he encounters many strange people (including humans!) and slowly sheds the material vestiges of his ill fitting former life. The character development here is subtle, gradual, and well-handled. Flutirr's increasing empathy is very believable, and Shettle communicates it through fairly confident writing.
This might seem surprising considering her inexperience, as Flute Song Magic was published through a publishing contest aimed at teenagers under the age of eighteen. Overall, this isn't very evident and she generally handles the ideas within the novel very well. It does seem bookended by slightly heavy-handed didactism, however, as Shettle essentially lectures her audience on the evils of an overly rigid and prejudiced society. Later in the novel, a half-hearted scene with a unicorn (inexplicable in a novel that is otherwise firmly sci-fi) and the presence of a deaf human author avatar stick out oddly, and are clearly novice mistakes. This is easy to forgive, though, considering the fact that Shettle was actually a novice. Flute Song Magic was a surprisingly solid read, and it's a shame that Shettle apparently didn't pursue writing further.(less)
In The Declaration, Gemma Malley creates a future where man has learned to cheat death, illness, and old age. But these miracles come with a price--th...moreIn The Declaration, Gemma Malley creates a future where man has learned to cheat death, illness, and old age. But these miracles come with a price--those who chose to take the drug called "Longevity" are legally barred from reproduction. Surplus Anna is one of the unfortunate results of these laws. Illicitly born into a world with no room or resources to spare, she must prove her usefulness through her training at Grange Hall, a home for surplus children where beating, starvation, and humiliation are the norm.
Through strong, clear prose complimented by the protagonist's diary entries, Malley builds the compelling tale of Anna's adolescence as she grows from a compliant servant to a love-lorn runaway. Characterization of the villains, initially, is a little wooden, but Malley manages to rectify this by the novel's surprising and stirring conclusion. Her description of the budding love between Anna and Peter, a newcomer to Grange Hall, is especially stirring. This is an exemplary example of YA sci-fi and would be quite comfortable on a shelf besides dystopic classics like The Handmaid's Tale, 1984, and Brave New World.(less)
Margaret Peterson Haddix's Among the Barons is the fourth story in the Shadow Children saga, featuring (as the first two entries, Among the Hidden and...moreMargaret Peterson Haddix's Among the Barons is the fourth story in the Shadow Children saga, featuring (as the first two entries, Among the Hidden and Among the Impostors) Luke, an illegal third child in a near-future society that allows each family only two. In this entry, Luke is thrust out of the cloistered community of the Hendrick's School for the first time and forced to intermix with the wealthy family who have given him a new identity--that of their deceased son. No longer able to hide behind claustrophobic settings, Haddix is finally forced to develop her world fully. Unfortunately, the universe of the wealthy barons feels sketchy and ill-defined and many of the supporting characters seem to be little more than mouthpieces for their various fictional philosophies. Still, the character development between Luke and his new brother Smits is maturely handled, and Haddix's strong, sparse prose renders Among the Barons nevertheless a page-turner.(less)
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