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Lots of reading done recently that I need to get caught up on. So, without further ado...
Finished: The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton
The third and final book of a series (although there was a previous series set hundreds of years in the same universe), The Evolutionary Void concludes the story of a "void" in the center of the galaxy that apparently contains a paradise-type world full of psychic powers, that lots of people want to enter, except doing so threatens the whole galaxy if it expands.
I like the series as a whole, and it's hard to talk about it without going over the same grounds I've talked about before. I suppose the only important thing to discuss is "Is it a satisfying conclusion?", and the answer is...
No, not entirely. However, GETTING to the conclusion is satisfying to a certain extent, even most of the book is enjoyable. It's just when they actually get to the point where the Void issue is dealt with, it's... a little too pat. (Spoilers, not major ones, no huge mystery-blowing ones, but some) ( Read more... )
I still think I might read it again at some point, though.
Finished: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson
This is a story of... 22nd Century America. Which is a lot like 19th Century America, due to the world essentially running out of oil, and a fundamentalist religious revival that spurns the knowledge that they blame for getting the world into the crises of the past centuries. It's told by a writer friend of the title character, who is the nephew of the President (more like Dictator), and a potential rival, and who has plenty of unorthodox ideas.
This story almost reads like the author wanted to write a Civil War era story (or maybe earlier, but it feels very Civil Warish to me), except he knew that his bread and butter was SF fans, and so he set it in the future that gave him much of what he wanted, and allowed him to improvise other elements. I've liked Wilson's work before, but this one doesn't do it for me, it feels a bit... artificial, ironically because of the attempt to give it a naturalistic style, as of someone who wrote in the past, with occasional asides to the audience, and footnotes, and things like that. However, as the writer is occasionally very naive, this causes some problems ( Read more... )
A more significant problem is I rarely got especially interested or invested in the world, and loathing many of the characters in the artistocracy (who, granted, were meant to be despicable) doesn't help. I mean, it's a little annoying to read a character earnestly defend slavery as natural, even if it's not meant to be approved of.
Compare this to The Windup Girl, which also relies a little on a "out of oil, so old ways become more common" idea, but the difference is, I was INTERESTED in that world. This one, I wasn't, especially, even when they brought in the occasional reference to higher tech (or, more commonly, tech that we're all familiar with but is much higher than the local standard, which can occasionally provide interesting contrasts, but in this book, not so much). It just felt like I was tricked into reading a historical-esque story.
It's not horrible, I never seriously contemplated just not finishing, and a certain type of person might really like it, and it does some nice things like (minor spoiler for a character element) ( Read more... ) But I don't expect I'll read it again anytime soon, perhaps ever.
I did find it for only $2 (discount clearance bin at a bookstore), so I suppose I can't complain much.
Finished: The Sunless Countries (Book Four of Virga) by Karl Schroeder
Another novel set in Virga, an approximately Earth-sized engineered habitat, filled with air and small cities who must rotate to produce their own gravity and use fusion suns to provide light and warmth.
This novel brings back Hayden Griffith from the first novel in the series, although really it's the story of Leal, a university professor in a country that, as the title implies, doesn't have its own sun... they don't live in complete darkness, their cities are lit, but it's lit like a city might be lit at night. She must struggle with her country's politics changing dramatically for the worse, all while there's a mysterious outside threat... a threat that might be from outside Virga itself.
Always enjoy this series, and this one is no exception... both fun big SF ideas and low-tech swashbuckling adventure, coexisting in one seamlessly. And one of Schroeder's strengths - people who seem like villains but who have a point (although not all of the bad folks in this one share that quality).
Slight weaknesses in that some of the virulent political struggle in the city read a bit too silly, and occasionally the story jumped a few months suddenly when I'd have liked to stay a little longer. Also, usually in this series, the story of each book more or less stands alone. There are plot threads that continue from book to book and sometimes a supporting character is left in one place in one book and takes the lead in another book to finish their story, but it still feels like each is its own story. But in this case it felt a lot more like a cliffhanger ending, that this was only part of the story.
Still, looking forward to reading the conclusion (Ashes of Candesce), although I think I'll still wait till paperback.
Finished: Catching Fire (Book Two of the Hunger Games Trilogy) by Suzanne Collins
Don't want to give a plot outline because it kind of spoils the first book. But behind the cut later there may be some of that by implication. So, anyway, although I did enjoy this book more than the first one, it still suffers from many of the same weaknesses.
But let's get one out of the way it improves on, at least. In the first book, I complained that except for a very small group of characters, nobody else in the games (or the book, in fact) seems to get any development. In this one, they don't have that much of a problem - quite a lot of them get some development.
However, that almost highlights one of my other problems. (Spoilers, where I'll also go into the other problems) ( Read more... )
Still, I did like it better than the first, the tension is higher and it feels like the main character actually makes more choices instead of just being backed into things.
I am going to finish the series.. in fact, my brother just borrowed the last book from my stepbrother, as apparently he and his wife also enjoy it, and they're not normally readers. I've said it before: Even though I think it's overrated (though I do enjoy it), I have to applaud them for getting people excited about reading.
Anyway, I'll read it after my brother (though I'll still probably buy the last book myself, since I like owning books, though this means I can wait for it to be used).
Finished: The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa
This is another book from the Haika Soru imprint, which takes Japanese SF novels and translates them and releases them in North America. They're also, I shouldn't have been surprised to find out and yet somehow was, the same company that released Battle Royale here (though, at the time, not under the name). So far I've had good experiences with them.
This one is an alien invasion story, with a twist... the aliens keep traveling back in time to earlier and earlier eras in their quest for total victory, forcing the human side to do the same, sending their AI war cyborgs back to create alternate timelines and repel them. Most of the story is set in an alternate 3rd century Japan, although there are chapters set throughout history.
I'm not thrilled at all the handling of time travel and timelines in the book, it feels a little sloppy and inconsistent at times, which I normally hate, and includes things like ( Read more... )
That said, I really enjoyed the book as a whole, it had a nice heart throughout and an epic scale. Suffers from the usual 'translated story problem' (characters, dialogue and just plain writing style sometimes feeling a bit stilted, perhaps due to translation) but less so than some of the other books of this imprint I've read.
Finished: Transition by Iain M. Banks
Unusual for Banks, a SF novel that doesn't take place in the Culture, or even in space at all (really, if it takes place in space, even if it's not actually a Culture book, it often feels like it might as well be, just in a part of the universe far away from their influence). This book takes place on Earth, or rather Earths. It's about parallel universe, and a shadowy group who travel from world to world using a special drug, and manipulating events to their liking, and particularly about a power struggle within the group. It jumps around from a bunch of different characters and viewpoints.
It starts out rather well, a quite entertaining setup, a mysterious organization that might be good or bad or bits of both, peeks at other worlds, all the good stuff that a multiple-universe themed story can get into. And it stays that way though most of the book.
Unfortunately, it all kinds of falls apart at the end (not as bad as City at the End of Time, another book that had people who could jump into parallel universes and also turned to $!@$ at the end), many of the storylines that get significant page time tend to not really matter much to the plot (at least, not enough to need that much time), questions that were looming never get resolved. It all goes to hell when (spoilers ahoy) ( Read more... ) A shame too, because I was quite enjoying it... and I guess it still has that value, a lot of the book is sort of entertaining glimpses of alternate worlds and different (to me, but still quite common) mindsets and just interesting characters, and the ending doesn't actually take away from that... one of the stories where the journey is more interesting than the destination. It's just a shame in this case the destination was SUCH a letdown (but again, at least not utter %@!% like City at the End of Time, just rather unsatisfying).
And a particular part of that journey stood out: I used to be in the habit of selecting quotes from the books I read that particularly resonated with me... more often in rereads, but occasionally in new ones too. I've gotten out of the habit, but there's one in this one I do want to highlight. It doesn't even really matter in the context of the story (but I'll cut it anyway), it's not a part of the plot, it's just one of the characters talking about a part of his history... it's a little piece about torture in general.
( Read more... )
Finished: Blindsight by Peter Watts (reread)
Read this so many times. But still love it. And although I think I've already quoted this one, since I'm in a quoting mood (although there are plenty of great quotable parts in this):
"Watching the world from a distance, it occurred to me at last: I knew exactly what Chelsea had meant, with her Luddite ramblings about desaturated Humanity and the colorless interactions of virtual space. I'd known all along. I'd just never been able to see how it was any different from real life."
Started: Not entirely sure, because I JUST finished and still haven't chosen replacement books, but right now I'm thinking Spin Control by Chris Moriarty and maybe a reread of something.
I have a bit of TV to talk about, but I think I might wait till next week so I can discuss a whole season of one show.
Finished: The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton
The third and final book of a series (although there was a previous series set hundreds of years in the same universe), The Evolutionary Void concludes the story of a "void" in the center of the galaxy that apparently contains a paradise-type world full of psychic powers, that lots of people want to enter, except doing so threatens the whole galaxy if it expands.
I like the series as a whole, and it's hard to talk about it without going over the same grounds I've talked about before. I suppose the only important thing to discuss is "Is it a satisfying conclusion?", and the answer is...
No, not entirely. However, GETTING to the conclusion is satisfying to a certain extent, even most of the book is enjoyable. It's just when they actually get to the point where the Void issue is dealt with, it's... a little too pat. (Spoilers, not major ones, no huge mystery-blowing ones, but some) ( Read more... )
I still think I might read it again at some point, though.
Finished: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson
This is a story of... 22nd Century America. Which is a lot like 19th Century America, due to the world essentially running out of oil, and a fundamentalist religious revival that spurns the knowledge that they blame for getting the world into the crises of the past centuries. It's told by a writer friend of the title character, who is the nephew of the President (more like Dictator), and a potential rival, and who has plenty of unorthodox ideas.
This story almost reads like the author wanted to write a Civil War era story (or maybe earlier, but it feels very Civil Warish to me), except he knew that his bread and butter was SF fans, and so he set it in the future that gave him much of what he wanted, and allowed him to improvise other elements. I've liked Wilson's work before, but this one doesn't do it for me, it feels a bit... artificial, ironically because of the attempt to give it a naturalistic style, as of someone who wrote in the past, with occasional asides to the audience, and footnotes, and things like that. However, as the writer is occasionally very naive, this causes some problems ( Read more... )
A more significant problem is I rarely got especially interested or invested in the world, and loathing many of the characters in the artistocracy (who, granted, were meant to be despicable) doesn't help. I mean, it's a little annoying to read a character earnestly defend slavery as natural, even if it's not meant to be approved of.
Compare this to The Windup Girl, which also relies a little on a "out of oil, so old ways become more common" idea, but the difference is, I was INTERESTED in that world. This one, I wasn't, especially, even when they brought in the occasional reference to higher tech (or, more commonly, tech that we're all familiar with but is much higher than the local standard, which can occasionally provide interesting contrasts, but in this book, not so much). It just felt like I was tricked into reading a historical-esque story.
It's not horrible, I never seriously contemplated just not finishing, and a certain type of person might really like it, and it does some nice things like (minor spoiler for a character element) ( Read more... ) But I don't expect I'll read it again anytime soon, perhaps ever.
I did find it for only $2 (discount clearance bin at a bookstore), so I suppose I can't complain much.
Finished: The Sunless Countries (Book Four of Virga) by Karl Schroeder
Another novel set in Virga, an approximately Earth-sized engineered habitat, filled with air and small cities who must rotate to produce their own gravity and use fusion suns to provide light and warmth.
This novel brings back Hayden Griffith from the first novel in the series, although really it's the story of Leal, a university professor in a country that, as the title implies, doesn't have its own sun... they don't live in complete darkness, their cities are lit, but it's lit like a city might be lit at night. She must struggle with her country's politics changing dramatically for the worse, all while there's a mysterious outside threat... a threat that might be from outside Virga itself.
Always enjoy this series, and this one is no exception... both fun big SF ideas and low-tech swashbuckling adventure, coexisting in one seamlessly. And one of Schroeder's strengths - people who seem like villains but who have a point (although not all of the bad folks in this one share that quality).
Slight weaknesses in that some of the virulent political struggle in the city read a bit too silly, and occasionally the story jumped a few months suddenly when I'd have liked to stay a little longer. Also, usually in this series, the story of each book more or less stands alone. There are plot threads that continue from book to book and sometimes a supporting character is left in one place in one book and takes the lead in another book to finish their story, but it still feels like each is its own story. But in this case it felt a lot more like a cliffhanger ending, that this was only part of the story.
Still, looking forward to reading the conclusion (Ashes of Candesce), although I think I'll still wait till paperback.
Finished: Catching Fire (Book Two of the Hunger Games Trilogy) by Suzanne Collins
Don't want to give a plot outline because it kind of spoils the first book. But behind the cut later there may be some of that by implication. So, anyway, although I did enjoy this book more than the first one, it still suffers from many of the same weaknesses.
But let's get one out of the way it improves on, at least. In the first book, I complained that except for a very small group of characters, nobody else in the games (or the book, in fact) seems to get any development. In this one, they don't have that much of a problem - quite a lot of them get some development.
However, that almost highlights one of my other problems. (Spoilers, where I'll also go into the other problems) ( Read more... )
Still, I did like it better than the first, the tension is higher and it feels like the main character actually makes more choices instead of just being backed into things.
I am going to finish the series.. in fact, my brother just borrowed the last book from my stepbrother, as apparently he and his wife also enjoy it, and they're not normally readers. I've said it before: Even though I think it's overrated (though I do enjoy it), I have to applaud them for getting people excited about reading.
Anyway, I'll read it after my brother (though I'll still probably buy the last book myself, since I like owning books, though this means I can wait for it to be used).
Finished: The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa
This is another book from the Haika Soru imprint, which takes Japanese SF novels and translates them and releases them in North America. They're also, I shouldn't have been surprised to find out and yet somehow was, the same company that released Battle Royale here (though, at the time, not under the name). So far I've had good experiences with them.
This one is an alien invasion story, with a twist... the aliens keep traveling back in time to earlier and earlier eras in their quest for total victory, forcing the human side to do the same, sending their AI war cyborgs back to create alternate timelines and repel them. Most of the story is set in an alternate 3rd century Japan, although there are chapters set throughout history.
I'm not thrilled at all the handling of time travel and timelines in the book, it feels a little sloppy and inconsistent at times, which I normally hate, and includes things like ( Read more... )
That said, I really enjoyed the book as a whole, it had a nice heart throughout and an epic scale. Suffers from the usual 'translated story problem' (characters, dialogue and just plain writing style sometimes feeling a bit stilted, perhaps due to translation) but less so than some of the other books of this imprint I've read.
Finished: Transition by Iain M. Banks
Unusual for Banks, a SF novel that doesn't take place in the Culture, or even in space at all (really, if it takes place in space, even if it's not actually a Culture book, it often feels like it might as well be, just in a part of the universe far away from their influence). This book takes place on Earth, or rather Earths. It's about parallel universe, and a shadowy group who travel from world to world using a special drug, and manipulating events to their liking, and particularly about a power struggle within the group. It jumps around from a bunch of different characters and viewpoints.
It starts out rather well, a quite entertaining setup, a mysterious organization that might be good or bad or bits of both, peeks at other worlds, all the good stuff that a multiple-universe themed story can get into. And it stays that way though most of the book.
Unfortunately, it all kinds of falls apart at the end (not as bad as City at the End of Time, another book that had people who could jump into parallel universes and also turned to $!@$ at the end), many of the storylines that get significant page time tend to not really matter much to the plot (at least, not enough to need that much time), questions that were looming never get resolved. It all goes to hell when (spoilers ahoy) ( Read more... ) A shame too, because I was quite enjoying it... and I guess it still has that value, a lot of the book is sort of entertaining glimpses of alternate worlds and different (to me, but still quite common) mindsets and just interesting characters, and the ending doesn't actually take away from that... one of the stories where the journey is more interesting than the destination. It's just a shame in this case the destination was SUCH a letdown (but again, at least not utter %@!% like City at the End of Time, just rather unsatisfying).
And a particular part of that journey stood out: I used to be in the habit of selecting quotes from the books I read that particularly resonated with me... more often in rereads, but occasionally in new ones too. I've gotten out of the habit, but there's one in this one I do want to highlight. It doesn't even really matter in the context of the story (but I'll cut it anyway), it's not a part of the plot, it's just one of the characters talking about a part of his history... it's a little piece about torture in general.
( Read more... )
Finished: Blindsight by Peter Watts (reread)
Read this so many times. But still love it. And although I think I've already quoted this one, since I'm in a quoting mood (although there are plenty of great quotable parts in this):
"Watching the world from a distance, it occurred to me at last: I knew exactly what Chelsea had meant, with her Luddite ramblings about desaturated Humanity and the colorless interactions of virtual space. I'd known all along. I'd just never been able to see how it was any different from real life."
Started: Not entirely sure, because I JUST finished and still haven't chosen replacement books, but right now I'm thinking Spin Control by Chris Moriarty and maybe a reread of something.
I have a bit of TV to talk about, but I think I might wait till next week so I can discuss a whole season of one show.
