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newnumber6Finished: The Dark Tower, Book 7: The Dark Tower
Spoilers behind cut, although nothing too explicit. Though if you're particularly spoiler conscious about it you might want to be careful anyway, especially because people might comment with stuff you don't want to see.
Well, the Dark Tower series is finally over. I'm glad I read it, but I can't help but feel that it felt a little anticlimactic. The first half or so of the last book is pretty good and a lot of what I like, but once the final trek towards the Dark Tower begins is just drags too much, and elements that have been set up for a long time get resolved without much oomph. I was already prepared for the final few pages, so it wasn't so much that that disappointed me, it was the stuff leading up to it, with the Crimson King and such.
Ah well, still a very good series overall, even if I don't think it's the greatest SFish series of all time like some do. Oh, and in my head, I still see Gina Torres as Susannah, if they ever make it into a movie/miniseries.
Space to end spoilers
Started: The Timeline Wars, by John Barnes (reread)
Still in Progress: A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge (reread)
Minor, 'back-of-the-book' level of plot detail spoilers for these ones behind the second cut here (and there's space between the DT spoilers, but still, be warned).
The Timeline Wars is a collection of three books about a bodyguard who gets caught up in a war across various timelines, as the title suggests, which send him back to slightly alternate versions of the past (The 60s in which Hitler won, the Revolutionary War, and Rome, among others). I've read it a few times, it's a decent fun novel with a few nifty ideas, a little 'light' but I still find myself reading it once in a while.
A Fire Upon The Deep is a little bit of a deeper novel, set in Vinge's "Zones of Thought" universe - the idea is that there are certain zones to the galaxy, and depending on which zone you're in the laws of physics are slightly different as is the quality of thought acheived. The zones follow the mass distribution of the galaxy, and so the center of the galaxy, where stars are most concentrated, intelligence wanes. On the outer fringes, FTL works, antigravity works, and a bunch of other things, and even further out there are 'gods' who can create 'programs' that are more complex than humans as easily as we'd create a simple computer game. Earth exists in the 'Slow Zone' (FTL impossible), but A Fire Upon the Deep is set long after a branch of humanity has made it into the FTL realm, and some human researchers accidentally awaken a malevolent 'god'. Very skillfully moves between a high space opera-y plot trying to find a way to deal with the god, and a planet based plot involving two stranded, but separated, children on an alien world getting involved with two opposing sides of locals. The aliens are really inventive and Vinge is really good at making aliens that are both interesting and _different_ (both in body and mind) and yet still relatable. I've only read it once before but I'm really getting a deeper appreciation for it on the second read, and I'm only about a quarter of the way in (since I read it less often). In fact I think I'll move onto rereading A Deepness in the Sky (set in the same universe, and technically a prequel but should be read after AFutD if you're at all interested) as soon as I'm finished.
Spoilers behind cut, although nothing too explicit. Though if you're particularly spoiler conscious about it you might want to be careful anyway, especially because people might comment with stuff you don't want to see.
Well, the Dark Tower series is finally over. I'm glad I read it, but I can't help but feel that it felt a little anticlimactic. The first half or so of the last book is pretty good and a lot of what I like, but once the final trek towards the Dark Tower begins is just drags too much, and elements that have been set up for a long time get resolved without much oomph. I was already prepared for the final few pages, so it wasn't so much that that disappointed me, it was the stuff leading up to it, with the Crimson King and such.
Ah well, still a very good series overall, even if I don't think it's the greatest SFish series of all time like some do. Oh, and in my head, I still see Gina Torres as Susannah, if they ever make it into a movie/miniseries.
Space to end spoilers
. . . . . . ........... . w .......A... . m .A......... . ........A.. . ...A....... .. ........A.. .. ..A........ .. ........... .... ........A.. ..... ...A....... ..... ........... ..... ........A.. ..... ..A........ ..... @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@...........@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ........tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.....O.....tttttttttttttttt
Started: The Timeline Wars, by John Barnes (reread)
Still in Progress: A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge (reread)
Minor, 'back-of-the-book' level of plot detail spoilers for these ones behind the second cut here (and there's space between the DT spoilers, but still, be warned).
The Timeline Wars is a collection of three books about a bodyguard who gets caught up in a war across various timelines, as the title suggests, which send him back to slightly alternate versions of the past (The 60s in which Hitler won, the Revolutionary War, and Rome, among others). I've read it a few times, it's a decent fun novel with a few nifty ideas, a little 'light' but I still find myself reading it once in a while.
A Fire Upon The Deep is a little bit of a deeper novel, set in Vinge's "Zones of Thought" universe - the idea is that there are certain zones to the galaxy, and depending on which zone you're in the laws of physics are slightly different as is the quality of thought acheived. The zones follow the mass distribution of the galaxy, and so the center of the galaxy, where stars are most concentrated, intelligence wanes. On the outer fringes, FTL works, antigravity works, and a bunch of other things, and even further out there are 'gods' who can create 'programs' that are more complex than humans as easily as we'd create a simple computer game. Earth exists in the 'Slow Zone' (FTL impossible), but A Fire Upon the Deep is set long after a branch of humanity has made it into the FTL realm, and some human researchers accidentally awaken a malevolent 'god'. Very skillfully moves between a high space opera-y plot trying to find a way to deal with the god, and a planet based plot involving two stranded, but separated, children on an alien world getting involved with two opposing sides of locals. The aliens are really inventive and Vinge is really good at making aliens that are both interesting and _different_ (both in body and mind) and yet still relatable. I've only read it once before but I'm really getting a deeper appreciation for it on the second read, and I'm only about a quarter of the way in (since I read it less often). In fact I think I'll move onto rereading A Deepness in the Sky (set in the same universe, and technically a prequel but should be read after AFutD if you're at all interested) as soon as I'm finished.
