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newnumber6March already. Doesn't feel like it, but that's possibly, in part, because it doesn't feel like we've had winter yet at all here, aside from a few brief blasts (which I almost entirely avoided just due to schedule). By the end of the month, I'll be 34. :P
Survived Valentine's Day, mostly by virtue of avoiding anything to do with it as much as possible, partly by design but mostly accidentally (didn't have to leave the house, and didn't watch much TV except syndicated-daily-shows that had little-to-no V-Day content). Otherwise, I'm alive. Seem to be especially sleepy lately, though. Like, I get up, feel okay for a couple hours, then want to take a nap. And whether I do or not, it seems, I'm still sleepy/sleepy again a few hours later (albeit with a short grace period when I feel able to be active).
Anyway, blah blah, nobody cares, so, Book Foo time...
Finished: Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks
Another book in Banks Culture universe, this one dealing with one of the consequences of a galaxy where the ability to record personalities/memories is remarkably easy and common... what do you do with the people who don't, or don't want to, exist bodily anymore. The more enlightened races have a variety of options which might charitably be called virtual heavens, but then some cultures have a belief that you need a stick as well as a carrot... and since you can't guarantee they'll ever get real punishment, that means you have to create virtual hells as well, to eternally torment the personalities of those who've gone astray.
Naturally, this point of view makes some people totally aghast and there's even a (virtual) war over the whole affair going on, that threatens to spill out into the real world. There are of course, lots of other side plots.
It's a rare thing for the Culture books, but this is actually a conflict that's really worthy of the Culture universe. Most of his tales deal with extremely local affairs where it feels like the only thing stopping the Culture from going in and righting everything themselves is the worry that they might be seen as meddling busybodies interfering with local politics, individual Culture members on their own personal missions, or occasionally ones where there's a conflict between two groups with relatively similar technology level, but the conflict's still over relatively small stakes rather than high-minded principles. Here, the idea of expelling Hell from the universe, now there's something that I could imagine going to war for (notsomuch going to war to keep, but you can't have everything).
So how is it? It's good, but not quite what I wanted it to be. Part of it is that much of the main plot isn't actually about the war itself, it's a revenge plot from a slave who got murdered but didn't stay dead. Or rather about her journey towards getting back to the planet where she can have her revenge. That's literally most of the book, she's en route, while other stuff happens that tie a little bit into the main plot but mostly serves as Banks traditional "isn't all the stuff the Culture can do cooool?" fodder (and it is. I wish I lived there!). Fun to read but it doesn't feel like it really goes anywhere mostly, more like it's just marking time, and although the main story ends relatively satisfyingly, it doesn't feel like the story that needed to be said.
There's another story about somebody living in one of these Hells, which was interesting but looked mostly like a vehicle for Banks other traditional obsession... detailing really fiendish or convoluted but inventive ways for people to torture each other (seriously, I see it again and again in his work... I'm not saying he approves it, but I think he takes some kind of perverse joy in the creation of these types of scenarios in a 'safe' zone of fiction). I'd have liked the story to tie in more to the rest, because there were aspects of it that were really interesting. Say having the character finding a way out of her hell to join the battle against it, or somehow subverting it within.
That sort of says it all about my feelings of the book, really... lots of elements that are individually rather well done in many ways, but it doesn't feel like it all hangs together properly, at least not in a way that lives up to the great concept of a war over virtual hells. It does nicely and somewhat subtly skewer the whole philosophy behind Hells in first place, including in real religions (I've often thought that the theory of eternal Hell alone is enough to make the worship of religions that included it a moral evil, even if everything else about the religion is great stuff. If I believed in a God who tortured souls for eternity, I'd be honor-bound to oppose him), but it doesn't serve as the great Culture Adventure/War novel that I wanted, and almost wastes such a great concept.
That said, I do think it's one of the better Culture novels. Which seems odd, considering all that I just said, but sometimes it's better to be really ambitious and fall short than to tell a smaller, simpler story and do it satisfactorily (and often the exact reverse is true, but this isn't one of those times). I'd probably put it in the top 3-5 of them, although I'd have to reread the others to decide exactly where.
Not-that-interesting-tidbit-that-amused me. As I was reading this, walking home from work that day, I looked up and saw another member of The Walking Read ahead of me (that's what I call us, those who walk like zombies reading something). As we got closer, ready to pass, I noticed that he was ALSO reading a Culture novel... Excession. Unfortunately he didn't look up at me and notice that we were both reading books in the same universe and maybe had a brief interesting conversation about it, but still, kind of a cool coincidence.
Finished: A Thousand Words for Stranger, by Julie E. Czernada
Space opera, with some romance undertones, of a girl on the run who has amnesia, and is helped by the roguish captain of a trading ship that may know more than he lets on.
It's a first novel. And it sort of reads like a first novel; there seems to be a lot of... I want to say 'wishy-washyness' in the plot, where it seems like the author can't decide where to go, or wants to kill time, with character dithering or going back on previous decisions and going back on going back on them, and so on, not to mention the premise of 'character with amnesia that drives the plot' (which is a little cliche, but exactly the kind of thing I myself might do, fool myself into thinking I could do a good enough job to justify using it anyway, and then fail at doing so especially on my first novel).
The other problem is that it contains elements that, at this point in my life, I think I'm pretty well done with in SF. This is more about me than that book. I don't think I actually knew I was done with it before I read the book, but if I had, it wouldn't have helped, because I didn't know the book contained it until I read it. I'll say exactly what it is behind the cut (it's not a HUGE spoiler, in fact it's revealed very early on, but just to be safe, and also that it's a fairly significant part of the plot may be considered a spoiler to some), but before I do, a non-spoilery analogy for the same thing. It's like vampires. I used to be really into vampires, either as villains or heroes. But, sometime shortly after Buffy, I realized that I was pretty well DONE with vampires... that I couldn't work up much interest or excitement about them anymore, and didn't want to read/watch anything that heavily dealt with them unless it was clear it was doing so in a really novel way, or is a minor part of a much larger work (like, if I'm watching a show where the supernatural is all over the place, it doesn't bother me if a vampire shows up for one episode, or one regular character is a vampire, so long as it's not a show ABOUT vampires). Except, in this book, it's not vampires, it's space-telepathy-and-other-psychic powers. That is, one of the major alien races (and several individual members of other races, including some human characters) in the book is distinguished with telepathic ability... not just telepathy, but the ability to teleport, etc, too. When I was young, I ate this kind of thing up. But today... I think I'm done with it for now. I just had trouble CARING. And the book is largely about this other race, and some of the main characters have other telepathic stuff going on. So for that reason, I don't see myself reading any more of the series... at least, unless my feelings change and I once more get into a mood for that element. This isn't due to the quality of the writing itself (which, being a first novel, as I said, was a little unpolished but I could see being decent and improving a lot in future works), but just because I have no interest in that aspect.
Not-so-interesting-tidbit: I did picture the male lead as being played by Nathan Fillion. I don't normally picture specific actors playing characters in books, but in this case he felt a little like Mal.
Finished: The Child Garden, by Geoff Ryman
In the future, the world has changed dramatically... most humans are taught by viruses, and their perceived character flaws are likewise 'corrected', but there have been downsides and mistakes, including a dramatic drop in human lifespan. One of the citizens of this world is Milena, an actress who has some virus education, but due to some oversight never had her personality traits 'corrected', and so feels a bit of an outcast, particularly because one of those things that has been corrected out of the population, but not her, is homosexuality. It starts as she happens to meet a genetically-aletered Polar Woman, another offshoot of the human race which hasn't taken the viruses, and feels an instant connection, and the story follows much of Milena's life.
This is a weird one, very poetical/allegorical at times, with a good deal of satirical bite or occasionally absurdist humor, the story's at times told in non-linear segments, with odd characters or types of characters weaving in and out... mostly not my preferred storytelling techniques, to be honest. At several times during the book, I thought, "You know, I'd really like to read a novel that explores many of these ideas in a style more to my tastes." There were several times I was reading and almost skimming, wanting to get through whatever they were talking about... and yet there were also times I was genuinely moved to emotion. I wasn't thrilled with the ending (my usual vague spoilers for the type but not specifics of the ending) where it got kind of especially mystical and in fact seemed like he tried to wrap up a 'happy' (albeit, very very oddly happy that might not be at all recognizably human) ending where it might have been better off with a more depressing ending.
I'm going to put this one in the 'not sure I liked it, but I'm glad I read it' category... I might give it another chance somewhere down the line, too.
Started: City at the End of Time, by Greg Bear
Started: Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds
Survived Valentine's Day, mostly by virtue of avoiding anything to do with it as much as possible, partly by design but mostly accidentally (didn't have to leave the house, and didn't watch much TV except syndicated-daily-shows that had little-to-no V-Day content). Otherwise, I'm alive. Seem to be especially sleepy lately, though. Like, I get up, feel okay for a couple hours, then want to take a nap. And whether I do or not, it seems, I'm still sleepy/sleepy again a few hours later (albeit with a short grace period when I feel able to be active).
Anyway, blah blah, nobody cares, so, Book Foo time...
Finished: Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks
Another book in Banks Culture universe, this one dealing with one of the consequences of a galaxy where the ability to record personalities/memories is remarkably easy and common... what do you do with the people who don't, or don't want to, exist bodily anymore. The more enlightened races have a variety of options which might charitably be called virtual heavens, but then some cultures have a belief that you need a stick as well as a carrot... and since you can't guarantee they'll ever get real punishment, that means you have to create virtual hells as well, to eternally torment the personalities of those who've gone astray.
Naturally, this point of view makes some people totally aghast and there's even a (virtual) war over the whole affair going on, that threatens to spill out into the real world. There are of course, lots of other side plots.
It's a rare thing for the Culture books, but this is actually a conflict that's really worthy of the Culture universe. Most of his tales deal with extremely local affairs where it feels like the only thing stopping the Culture from going in and righting everything themselves is the worry that they might be seen as meddling busybodies interfering with local politics, individual Culture members on their own personal missions, or occasionally ones where there's a conflict between two groups with relatively similar technology level, but the conflict's still over relatively small stakes rather than high-minded principles. Here, the idea of expelling Hell from the universe, now there's something that I could imagine going to war for (notsomuch going to war to keep, but you can't have everything).
So how is it? It's good, but not quite what I wanted it to be. Part of it is that much of the main plot isn't actually about the war itself, it's a revenge plot from a slave who got murdered but didn't stay dead. Or rather about her journey towards getting back to the planet where she can have her revenge. That's literally most of the book, she's en route, while other stuff happens that tie a little bit into the main plot but mostly serves as Banks traditional "isn't all the stuff the Culture can do cooool?" fodder (and it is. I wish I lived there!). Fun to read but it doesn't feel like it really goes anywhere mostly, more like it's just marking time, and although the main story ends relatively satisfyingly, it doesn't feel like the story that needed to be said.
There's another story about somebody living in one of these Hells, which was interesting but looked mostly like a vehicle for Banks other traditional obsession... detailing really fiendish or convoluted but inventive ways for people to torture each other (seriously, I see it again and again in his work... I'm not saying he approves it, but I think he takes some kind of perverse joy in the creation of these types of scenarios in a 'safe' zone of fiction). I'd have liked the story to tie in more to the rest, because there were aspects of it that were really interesting. Say having the character finding a way out of her hell to join the battle against it, or somehow subverting it within.
That sort of says it all about my feelings of the book, really... lots of elements that are individually rather well done in many ways, but it doesn't feel like it all hangs together properly, at least not in a way that lives up to the great concept of a war over virtual hells. It does nicely and somewhat subtly skewer the whole philosophy behind Hells in first place, including in real religions (I've often thought that the theory of eternal Hell alone is enough to make the worship of religions that included it a moral evil, even if everything else about the religion is great stuff. If I believed in a God who tortured souls for eternity, I'd be honor-bound to oppose him), but it doesn't serve as the great Culture Adventure/War novel that I wanted, and almost wastes such a great concept.
That said, I do think it's one of the better Culture novels. Which seems odd, considering all that I just said, but sometimes it's better to be really ambitious and fall short than to tell a smaller, simpler story and do it satisfactorily (and often the exact reverse is true, but this isn't one of those times). I'd probably put it in the top 3-5 of them, although I'd have to reread the others to decide exactly where.
Not-that-interesting-tidbit-that-amused me. As I was reading this, walking home from work that day, I looked up and saw another member of The Walking Read ahead of me (that's what I call us, those who walk like zombies reading something). As we got closer, ready to pass, I noticed that he was ALSO reading a Culture novel... Excession. Unfortunately he didn't look up at me and notice that we were both reading books in the same universe and maybe had a brief interesting conversation about it, but still, kind of a cool coincidence.
Finished: A Thousand Words for Stranger, by Julie E. Czernada
Space opera, with some romance undertones, of a girl on the run who has amnesia, and is helped by the roguish captain of a trading ship that may know more than he lets on.
It's a first novel. And it sort of reads like a first novel; there seems to be a lot of... I want to say 'wishy-washyness' in the plot, where it seems like the author can't decide where to go, or wants to kill time, with character dithering or going back on previous decisions and going back on going back on them, and so on, not to mention the premise of 'character with amnesia that drives the plot' (which is a little cliche, but exactly the kind of thing I myself might do, fool myself into thinking I could do a good enough job to justify using it anyway, and then fail at doing so especially on my first novel).
The other problem is that it contains elements that, at this point in my life, I think I'm pretty well done with in SF. This is more about me than that book. I don't think I actually knew I was done with it before I read the book, but if I had, it wouldn't have helped, because I didn't know the book contained it until I read it. I'll say exactly what it is behind the cut (it's not a HUGE spoiler, in fact it's revealed very early on, but just to be safe, and also that it's a fairly significant part of the plot may be considered a spoiler to some), but before I do, a non-spoilery analogy for the same thing. It's like vampires. I used to be really into vampires, either as villains or heroes. But, sometime shortly after Buffy, I realized that I was pretty well DONE with vampires... that I couldn't work up much interest or excitement about them anymore, and didn't want to read/watch anything that heavily dealt with them unless it was clear it was doing so in a really novel way, or is a minor part of a much larger work (like, if I'm watching a show where the supernatural is all over the place, it doesn't bother me if a vampire shows up for one episode, or one regular character is a vampire, so long as it's not a show ABOUT vampires). Except, in this book, it's not vampires, it's space-telepathy-and-other-psychic powers. That is, one of the major alien races (and several individual members of other races, including some human characters) in the book is distinguished with telepathic ability... not just telepathy, but the ability to teleport, etc, too. When I was young, I ate this kind of thing up. But today... I think I'm done with it for now. I just had trouble CARING. And the book is largely about this other race, and some of the main characters have other telepathic stuff going on. So for that reason, I don't see myself reading any more of the series... at least, unless my feelings change and I once more get into a mood for that element. This isn't due to the quality of the writing itself (which, being a first novel, as I said, was a little unpolished but I could see being decent and improving a lot in future works), but just because I have no interest in that aspect.
Not-so-interesting-tidbit: I did picture the male lead as being played by Nathan Fillion. I don't normally picture specific actors playing characters in books, but in this case he felt a little like Mal.
Finished: The Child Garden, by Geoff Ryman
In the future, the world has changed dramatically... most humans are taught by viruses, and their perceived character flaws are likewise 'corrected', but there have been downsides and mistakes, including a dramatic drop in human lifespan. One of the citizens of this world is Milena, an actress who has some virus education, but due to some oversight never had her personality traits 'corrected', and so feels a bit of an outcast, particularly because one of those things that has been corrected out of the population, but not her, is homosexuality. It starts as she happens to meet a genetically-aletered Polar Woman, another offshoot of the human race which hasn't taken the viruses, and feels an instant connection, and the story follows much of Milena's life.
This is a weird one, very poetical/allegorical at times, with a good deal of satirical bite or occasionally absurdist humor, the story's at times told in non-linear segments, with odd characters or types of characters weaving in and out... mostly not my preferred storytelling techniques, to be honest. At several times during the book, I thought, "You know, I'd really like to read a novel that explores many of these ideas in a style more to my tastes." There were several times I was reading and almost skimming, wanting to get through whatever they were talking about... and yet there were also times I was genuinely moved to emotion. I wasn't thrilled with the ending (my usual vague spoilers for the type but not specifics of the ending) where it got kind of especially mystical and in fact seemed like he tried to wrap up a 'happy' (albeit, very very oddly happy that might not be at all recognizably human) ending where it might have been better off with a more depressing ending.
I'm going to put this one in the 'not sure I liked it, but I'm glad I read it' category... I might give it another chance somewhere down the line, too.
Started: City at the End of Time, by Greg Bear
Started: Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds
