C.S. Daley's Blog, page 4

The Hugo’s: The Sheep Go Baa

I have been reading science fiction for over three decades. I will read just about anything inside the genre if it comes with a recommendation for someone and sounds like I might like the book. As a child science fiction was one of my main paths of escape. In a lot of ways who I turned out to be as a man was directly influenced by the writings of Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Bradbury, (and for the twisted part of me) Ellison. I absorbed stories. I mulled them over. I smiled. I laughed. I cried. “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison is burned into the very fiber of my being. One of many stories I read that changed my thinking about the world around me.

I am a fan. Science Fiction is extremely important to me. It is why I am saddened by the huge blow-up over this year’s Hugo nominations. If you don’t know what I am talking about just do a Google search. It’s all there. The issue is that a group of people put together a slate and asked their readers and fans to vote for that slate to get them a Hugo nomination. It worked.

I want to be clear right off the bat that many of the writers that were put forward were fine writers. Writers I have actively read for years. I am not knocking them or even saying that they don’t deserve the nomination. What I am knocking is the gaming of the system. I don’t believe that slate voting is in anyway the right thing to do. I have no problem with people putting out recommended reading lists. Hell, I do it all the time. I have no problems with fans passionate about an author going out and registering to vote for that author because their new book was incredible.

The problem I have is the active encouragement to not participate in the process of being a fan. Of being a reader. If you haven’t read the stories you voted for you are not a participant. You are a sheep blindly going wherever the shepherd pointed you. It’s a book. A piece of art. Letters jumbled into thoughts. It is meant to be read. The Hugo’s are a popularity contest. I am okay with that but this wasn’t about popularity. This was about putting names on a ballot without concern for what you, the voter, truly thought about the story. It’s wrong and I believe it is unethical. Science Fiction will survive this. Great books will continue to come out. Many of them will be by the authors on this year’s Sad Puppy slate. I will read them. I might even vote for a few of them for a Hugo. It will be because I think they are great. For the record, I think Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey was the best book I read last year.

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

I think I am funny. I am fairly certain that a handful of people think I am funny. I know that I have occasionally thrown something out onto Twitter that has garnered a few laughs. I also know that I have had jokes fall like weighted anvils to the bottom of the social media stream to never be laughed at or seen again. At least that’s what I hope. The truth is far different from that. It doesn’t go anywhere. It just sits there and waits. If you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky and you said something particularly offensive to somebody or you become famous, those jokes and comments will rise up like a leviathan and swallow your life whole.

We live in a world that seems to enjoy the piling on of public shame. We revel in it. Some people seem to be waiting around just hoping for that good shame feast to pounce on. This happens again and again with little to no thought of the consequences. There are times when the public shaming seems to be well deserved. Someone’s caught plagiarizing or being misogynistic. Often times it is just a joke gone wrong. A few words misunderstood. Then the shame is piled on like we are in a coliseum and we are going to feed those people to the public lion. There are no breaks and lives are often destroyed in the process.

This is the subject Jon Ronson tackles in his new book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. He starts off with a personal story of shaming someone who stole his identity as a joke or thought experiment. He writes about the glee he felt when he brings them down with the power of the internet. It leads him to a deeper thought. Did I go too far? Did the punishment actually fit the crime?

He sets off to interview and tell people’s stories of their public shaming. Some of them are heart breaking. Lives completely destroyed and torn apart because a joke sunk like a bomb. What’s worse is their inability to ever escape it because it sits out there like an anchor around their neck. Waiting to be discovered by the next person who Googles their name.

This was my favorite Jon Ronson book since Them and that is saying something because I love Ronson. I felt he told the stories fairly and evenly. I loved that he kept his own personal feelings about the people and public shaming right up front. This book became about self discovery as much as telling these people’s story. His understanding of the glee he took in several public pile ons keeps him moving forward.

As a person who puts a lot of things out into the social media world this hits close to home. It is not that hard to imagine myself at the other end of a particularly nasty lashing. It has made me examine my own behavior out on the web. To really think about the people I have blasted over the years. To examine if I want to actually be part of the shame culture that seems to exist in social media. There is no easy answer to this question but it is one well worth examining. This book will help start that journey.

Off To WonderCon

Why yes, I am going to WonderCon this weekend. While I am looking forward to going to panels, walking the floor, sneaking off to Disneyland, seeing all the costumes, and tons of other fun things – this year’s WonderCon is going to be all about the visiting. This is going to be my one chance to see all my geeky con friends this year. For the first time in ages I have decided to not go to ComicCon. It was a tough call to make and I waited all the way until the last second to make it. Ultimately, I decided to give GenCon a go this year.

I will try to post a few updates this weekend if I do or see anything interesting. No, this will not include the sneaking off to Disneyland part. Okay, it might but only if it’s because I had to stop my lovely wife from buying everything. This is code for me buying everything.

I will be mostly going to panels with friends on it. So I will be reading about any big scoops just like you will but my friends are way smart so I plan on writing up some of their awesome panels as soon as I get a chance. Of course, the first thing we have to do is drive there. Right after school no less. So we will be rolling into Anaheim sometime after midnight. Nothing like a 9 hour drive after a long day at work. Our insanity knows no bounds.

Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis

Book three of the Milkweed Triptych (Bitter Seed and The Coldest War being book one and two) starts off with a bang. Takes a sharp left turn and then drives a spike right through your brain. This may be one of my favorite trilogies I have read in the last decade. If you haven’t read the first two you are missing out on a treat. I like alternate history books and this series mixed horror, magic, and science like few I have ever seen.

I am going to have to do a clever dance around the plot to keep this spoiler free. At the end of The Coldest War the British Warlocks unleashed the Eidoloens (the best way I can describe them is a nasty Cthulhu like creature) on Nazi Germany and their battery powered super soldiers. The results were truly horrific and devastating. It leads Raybould Marsh, British super spy, to catapult himself back in time to hit the reset button.

What happens next is a thrilling roller coaster ride as Marsh tries to stay one step ahead of both the Germans and the British in a desperate attempt to rewrite history (including his own). Every time I thought I knew where this book was going it would swerve in a different direction. It was a completely satisfying ending to the story (although, I still think The Coldest War was the best book of the trio).

It is a testament to Tregillis’ plotting that he was often able to weave the multiple timelines and stories into this final book. I don’t think I have had more fun with a time travel story ever. I also loved seeing the older Marsh deal with his younger self and his wife. The older Marsh was a ruthless bastard who would do anything to save his family and country. The younger Marsh was a hero who had not quite become the jaded monster that his alternate timeline persona had become.

This series was a genre bending, alternate history, mash up. It was action packed, thrilling, often horrific and ultimately brilliant. A lot of times when authors throw in everything including the kitchen sink the story can often get bogged down. This one left me stuffed to the brim with goodness. I can’t wait to see where Tregillis goes next with his career.

When Good Series Go Bad

There is nothing better than a great book. Dollar for dollar one of the best entertainment values out there. They engage your imagination. Transport you to far off places. Allow you to meet characters you may never have met in your life. The extension of a great book is when the book turns into a great series. That eager anticipation for when the next one comes out. The holding of your breath as you turn to the last page and wonder where the next book will take you. Of course, the flip side is when a series goes wrong. Where you invest countless hours into an author and their world only to abandon it before the end.

I need to start this off with a very clear statement. I respect novelists. Writing a novel is not an easy accomplishment. I can speak from first hand experience on this one. Everything I am about to write is strictly my opinion and a matter of taste. I am also aware that I am not standing firmly with most fans of the series I am going to mention. The very nature of a publisher putting out a series means it is popular. Someone cares about it. Often times passionately.

I also think who I am as a reader is important in this. I read a lot. I have been an avid reader since about fourth grade. I look forward to retiring from my teaching job not because I dislike my job but because I have so many damn books to read. I read fast and I would rather read a great book than just about any other thing in the world (I said “just about”, so don’t get all crazy on me). I also have a very sensitive bullshit meter. If books start doing things that break the rules of the world they are set in, I tend to drop them. I feel no need to complete what I have started if the book or series loses me. There are too many books out there to waste my valuable time on books I don’t like (it is why you can pretty much assume my blog will be a terrible place to come for book reviews that shred books).

I like series. I always have. I think comic books trained me to enjoy the serial nature of words from an early age. I read The Chronicles of Narnia in 5th grade. In sixth grade I read The Dark is Rising sequence. When I jumped to adult books I was all over Terry Brooks and the Shannara series. John Carter of Mars and the Doc Savage books were constant companions. I began reading Robert Parker’s Spenser books like they were my new religion. Series are wonderful.

It doesn’t stop the landscape of my reading life from being littered with the corpses of series I gave up on. There have been a lot of reasons why this happens. I stopped reading Piers Anthony’s Xanth series because I no longer felt he was bringing anything new to the table. I stopped reading Terry Brooks’ Shannara series because they all started to feel the same (this one is one that really hurts. I adored those books. I have tried to go back and read them and failed). I stopped reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time books because they began to bore me. Although, I did get through seven of them before this happened.

Sometimes I can’t explain why I go away. I can remember no discerning moment where I decided to stop reading Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books. I just did. I always chalked it up to taste. As in mine moved on. I finished Frank Herbert’s Dune books as a kid but as an adult I can’t stand the later books. Dune is one of the few series that has gone wrong on me twice. I loved Kevin Anderson and Brian Herbert’s relaunch for a few books than it started leaving a very bad monetary taste in my mouth and I was out again.

The longer the series the more danger there is. It is a testament to Sue Grafton’s writing that I still love her alphabet mysteries. The counter to that is by the end of Robert B. Parker’s career his writing was just a shell of its former self and I bailed. Interestingly, Ace Atkins reboot has been wonderful. Far superior to the last ten books of Parker’s. I would have never seen that coming. It does however, give me a chance to bail on a series again if it goes south.

I have dropped out because it just takes so long for the books to come out. I am getting dangerously close to this with George R.R. Martin right now. Now my fellow geeklings don’t go crazy here. I know Mr. Martin is not my bitch. It doesn’t change the fact that there is a danger you will lose some of your readers if it takes an exceptionally long time to finish a series (especially when your series requires a concordance to keep track of all the characters). It didn’t help that they pulled apart book four and five. It was a terrible decision that I felt made both books a little less enjoyable. I hope someday he goes back and puts them back together.

The Game of Thrones has an interesting place in my reading history. There is a huge contingent of fantasy series that I will never finish because Game of Thrones (You can include Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch in this equation) changed the way I felt about fantasy novels. This has happened to me before. When I was a kid it was Stephen R. Donaldson and Thomas Covenant that probably helped to kill my reading enjoyment of Terry Brooks and Piers Anthony.

There are a lot of reasons why I walk away from series. I always regret it a little when it happens but I usually quickly get over it after the next great book I read. I will always be a series guy. I like immersing myself in other people’s worlds. I love the familiar mixed with the new. The revisiting of those characters you have come to care about. I love looking at my pre-order list and thinking June isn’t that far away (this is the wait time for my current favorite series The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. Come on June hurry up). My name is Christopher and I am a book addict.

Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson

The subtitle of this book should have been “Longmire Goes to Philadelphia”. I want to start off by saying I enjoyed this book. This is important for me to get across immediately. Johnson is a very good writer with an incredible knack for dialogue and creating memorable characters. I finished the book and will read the next one which is a big deal for me. I read a lot of books and will give up on a book or series in a heartbeat (see this coming Friday’s blog for more on this).

Great, now that I have that out of the way. I am glad this was not the first Longmire book I read. If it had been I would probably not have continued with the series. The plot was not exceptionally good. It felt very forced. Almost as if the author was worried about setting all the books in Wyoming. It was easily the weakest of the first three books. There were whole parts of the plot that pulled me out of the story and made me question the logic of what was happening in Walt’s world. Frankly, several of the characters did things that I just didn’t buy. The first two books were exceptional and raw. I bought completely into the characters and their world. This book took every chance it could get to throw me out of the world. In most books I am done when this starts happening. I have a very sensitive bullshit meter.

Why did I keep reading? Johnson is a master at character interaction. His dialogue jumps off the page. I would say he ranks right up there with Robert B. Parker when it comes to those two traits. This is the highest praise I can give because Parker was a master. I genuinely like all the characters. I care about Walt, Cady, Vic, and Henry. I feel invested. After only three books this is quite a masterful feat.

I will sum this story up fairly quickly. Walt goes to visit his daughter Cady. Something bad happens. The Philadelphia police allow a sheriff to waltz all over their town to solve the bad thing. Walt does some dumb things. Vic does some dumb things. Bad things solved. Everyone goes back to Wyoming. I laugh a lot (remember great dialogue). I get angry a few times. I decide I will read the next book.

The good news is I have read a few reviews and heard from some people I trust that the plot of this book was an aberration and that by the next book Johnson gets back to the business of crafting a great story with a wonderful plot and exceptional dialogue. I know this series has some huge fans and I will probably be in the minority on this book but I can live with that. I am not saying to skip this book. I did mostly enjoy it. I am just saying don’t let it be your first trip into the land of Longmire.

Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory

There is not enough time in the day to work and read all the books I have waiting for me. I have been wanting to read Daryl Gregory for some time but just have never quite gotten to him (despite the fact that I own two of his books which have been well reviewed). When the opportunity to review Harrison Squared came up I decided the time had finally arrived. The best thing I can say about this book is that when I was done I knew I would be quickly reading the other Gregory books I owned. I absolutely adored this book.

While the book clearly falls in the teen age range it is very accessible for adults. It is a great book that never gives into many of the common cliches in teen fiction. The plot unfolds nicely revealing bits and pieces of the mystery. It’s a hard book to review plot points without giving up too much of the surprising story. I’ll give you the bare bones. Harrison Harrison and his mother move to the small Lovecraftian town of Dunnsmouth, Massachusetts. Harrison is a little damaged both mentally and physically. Both a direct result of an attack by a giant sea creature (at least that’s how he remembers it) that cost him his leg and his dad his life.

It turns out Harrison is a sensitive. His mind finely attuned to the paranormal world around him. This was probably not the right town to move to because Lovecraftian horrors abound and Harrison soon finds himself right in the middle of it all. Between his way strange high school, the deep ones, fish human hybrids, and knife wielding maniacs trying to skin him alive Harrison has his hands full.

The story is often quite hilarious and creepy scary in equal amounts. What really jumped out at me was Gregory’s total command of the story. His writing is fast and crisp. He is able to set the mood, keep you guessing, and introduce mountains of great characters (including Lub who may be my favorite new character of the year. I would read a whole book with him as the star). One of my favorite books this year and I hope the beginning of a wonderful relationship between me and Daryl Gregory.

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This book was an advance reader’s copy provided by Tor Books

The Secret Place by Tana French

My brain often wrestles with the wonder of letters. How twenty-six letters arrange into words. Turn into paragraphs. Fill up pages. Occupy our brain. How these letters turn into wonder. How the magicians who wield them can make them dance and weave. Do their bidding and inject into us all sorts of emotions. Push us to places we would not go on our own. Poison us with thoughts and plots and people.

Tana French is a magician. She is everything I love about fiction. She hooks me into a style of storytelling that I am not always a fan of. Fiction is fickle. We all are not going to like the same thing. French often tells a story like the eating of an artichoke. You pull off the outer pieces and you eat them. They are not always completely done. Some of those outer pieces are rough but you keep digging. Piece by piece you pull off the leaves and consume them. The deeper you get into the artichoke, the better it is. The flavor expands. Your taste buds are tickled. Than you get to the heart of it. With all the prickly artichoke thorns out of the way you are presented with the fur. You know underneath it is the prize. So you carefully scrape the choke off. Then all your work is paid for with the delicious finish line.

French takes her time. I don’t always like this. Pacing is a tricky thing but all her books have this trait in common. They pick up steam and barrel to the finish line. This book was no exception. Unsurprisingly, I loved it. There always comes a point in all French books where it becomes almost impossible to put it down. You just can’t wait to see how she gets to the heart of it. She is an expert plotter and her characters are always engaging.

I don’t like to talk too much about plot because that is for you to discover. So here is my bare minimum. Young friends at a boarding school suspect that one of their own is guilty of a murder that took place a year ago. Unable to live with it any longer one of them tosses out a fishing line to hook the police back into the investigation. The story than is told through two alternating plot lines. The police investigation and the girl’s viewpoints months before the murder.

All of French’s books are stand-alone books which take place in a shared world with characters overlapping. This one is no different. While you can read it without reading any of the earlier books, I would not recommend it. I think you would lose a little of the tension. So if you are a fan of the series, what are you waiting for? Go read it. If you have never picked one up, then head out and grab a copy of In The Woods and enjoy the ride.

The Running Man Strikes Again

Now anyone who knows me is not going to be shocked by this next statement. I am not entirely sure that I am right in the head. I know, you are probably saying, “Christopher, this is simply not news to us.” Okay, no one is probably saying that but you should be. Want the proof. I signed up to run the New York Marathon again.

Every time I run a marathon I promise it is going to be the last one. They are grueling to train for and hard to run. Half-marathons are definitely more my speed. Now if you are not convinced yet about my mixed up head let me throw in the clincher. I have not run at all since November. I have barely run since August. I had surgery six weeks ago and the recovery has not been going as smoothly as I wanted. So, of course, I signed up to run a marathon in November.

I did it for a number of reasons. The first is that I like to motivate myself through challenges. To push myself through the hardship of recovery with a clear goal in mind. Running another half-marathon is not a big enough goal. I have no doubt in my mind that once I start running regularly I can get back up to that distance. The second reason is that the New York Marathon is my favorite race. I love New York. Running New York is truly a joy. As much as the training will be hard, the run itself will be beautiful (well except for all the pain in my feet, but whatever).

The most important reason is that The Boston Children’s Hospital has asked me to run for their charity team again. Running the New York Marathon for them last time was one of the most gratifying things I have ever done. Helping children is what my life is built around. So if I am going to crush my body training (and recovering from surgery) it might as well be for something I truly care about.

So there you have it. I am slightly off….but in a good way. If you want to encourage this strangeness then I would be forever in your debt if you could contribute even a dollar to my fund raising efforts. If you can’t, no worries. I could also use a lot of mental support to help me grind through the training these next 8 months. It’s a long road back but the running man will strike again. Plus, I have to collect more medals than Kyle Cassidy. I think this is a rule written in stone somewhere.

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Here is the link to my Boston Children’s Hospital fundraising page.

California Bones by Greg van Eekhout

I should buy myself a rubber stamp with the word sucker on it. This way when I am looking at new books and say the words, urban fantasy, heist, alternate history, genre blending, fantasy, I can just stamp my head sucker and buy it. I don’t even really know how to begin describing California Bones. At its heart it is an urban fantasy set in a Los Angeles dominated by magic and canals (you read that right, canals. It is one of my favorite parts of the book). Ruled by a nasty piece of work called the Hierarch. Calling him a brutal, tyrant of a dictator is probably too nice of a selection of words.

The magic is where the fun starts. You see bones make the magic system do its rounds. Any kind of bones; human, animal, fossils. Eekhout does a great job of building the magic system which is good because it is central to the plot. It seems the Hierarch likes to cleanse his Southern California nation of potential rivals and powerful Osteomancers (bone magicians).

This is the leaping off point where we meet young Daniel and his family. They are caught up in one of the cleansings and Daniel escapes into the city where he becomes a brilliant thief. Fast forward a few years and we get to the meat of the story. Someone hires Daniel and his crew to break into the Hierarch’s fortress.

That’s about as much of the plot as I want to give away. The joy of this book is the discovery. Eekhout does a bang up job of world building. Giving you just enough of a familiar Los Angeles to keep you guessing what surprise will come next and there are plenty of them. The book is relentless. It plows forward and barely gives you a chance to breath. Lots of action, magic, and suspense with a dash of dark grittiness thrown in for good measure.

California Bones is one of the best times I have had reading a book this year. I curled up in my reading chair yesterday and plowed through it. It is a book that is hard to put down. So hard in fact dinner was a little late. I needed to know how it finished up. The best news of all is that it is book one of a planned trilogy and book two (Pacific Fire) is already out. I know what I will be reading this week. Pick it up and set aside a few hours. You won’t regret it.