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newnumber6My birthday yesterday (I was also born on Good Friday, so I'm still accepting birthday greetings today before calling you late). Meh, too old to really get worked up about it.
So let's move on to Book Foo!
Finished: The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
Most of the world is gone, the results of a war with a terrible weapon that effectively erases targets from existence... but there is fallout, monsters and nightmares and stranger things that form out of the stuff left behind. One man tells his memories leading up to and including the war, and an effort to save what's left from the forces that came after.
This is a rather strange book. It's a mix of memoir, speculative fiction adventure tale, and satire, at times deeply silly and campy and at others deep. I've heard several times it being described as "Catch-22 meets..." with the other party, or parties, being a variety of things. And it's a bit unfair to do that to a book, or a writer, describe it in terms of other books or writers. But I'm going to do it anyway. Because it really does seem to be a good description. To me, this book is like a mix between Catch-22 and a Neil Gaiman novel, or maybe a Neil Gaiman and Iain M. Banks novel. With doses of a kung fu movie as well. Which isn't to say it's completely like any of them, but there are echoes that pleasantly gave me that vibe.
It's not, usually, laugh out loud funny, but there is a lot of humor that made me smile, and even when it got silly, something that normally turns me off a book, I still enjoyed it. That's another thing worthy of note, it's a book that contains a lot of elements that usually turn me off, but... it didn't, here. There was the silliness. There was the feeling that it was trying a little self-consciously to be "literary." There were mimes.
But I enjoyed it consistently, and I even think it has some worthy things to say about the tendency for systems to grow out of control and for people to commit atrocities in the name of "this is what I have to do."
The book did occasionally meander a bit, while at the same time the plot jumps between various different types of stories leaving a feeling that the author just got bored and wanted to write in a slightly different genre. And there was a stretch where after a significant revelation, the main character is ignorant of it for far too long after it was mostly clear what had happened to the audience.
Still, these are quibbles, the book was a lot of fun, something I expect I may read again, and definitely put this author on my radar.
Finished: Murasaki (shared world anthology)
Around a nearby star, a pair of twin planets orbit a point in space, as though each are the moon of the other. And because both planets support life, it's only natural for Humanity to send expeditions. This is the case of the star christened Murasaki, and the planets Genji and Chujo, and Murasaki tells a series of stories about humanity's explorations of these planets and what they learn about the inhabitants, and themselves.
Take two classic SF authors known for hard science fiction. Tell them to design a planet, or in this case, two, following science as much as possible, and create alien races for that planet. Then, open the world up to other authors, specifically, authors who have won the Nebula award (given by other SF writers and editors). Each writer reads the stories that came before them, then writes their own in that same, shared universe. It's a daring experiment... not the first of its kind, but worthy of attention nonetheless. If nothing else, it can be a fascinating look at elements of the process of writing science fiction that can often be behind the scenes.
The book ends with appendixes... these are essentially the outline of the world and aliens that the authors all worked from, as they originally saw it. You could either read them at the end, or skip ahead and read them first... I decided to go with option B, which will necessarily effect how I related to the rest of the stories but I'm not entirely sure I can evaluate how. Still, the appendixes were dry but interesting at the same time, and you can see the fun authors have in creating details. They may have made too many, though... although certainly the other writers added their own ideas, they may have felt somewhat constrained by the extensive details set out in advance. It's a mixed blessing, at the very least.
The alien races were fascinatingly designed and with a keen awareness that aliens aren't created in isolation but rather are part of an ecology, with animals and plants that don't seem out of place with each other (at least, no more than Earth creatures, and when you have platypuses and oak trees sharing the same planet, there's room for a lot of variation). There are also (at appropriate times in the stories themselves, rather than the appendices) actually drawings of many of these creatures, which shouldn't be necessary in a SF novel but is a really cool treat nonetheless, and helped the world come alive.
But enough about the skeleton of the book, what's important is the story... and, unfortunately, here's where it didn't entirely connect for me. The stories were, for the most part, okay. Some were dated in a few aspects, or the relationships between people didn't ring true, but they were okay... yet, they didn't draw me in. Any number of factors could have gone into this... and again, I read the appendices first, so it's possible that I was simply a little bored by the stories gradually setting up details that I was already well aware of. Or it could be something as simple as me being more distracted by outside concerns than I usually am, while I was reading it. I can't say for sure. All I can say is, most of the stories didn't entirely connect, and I sometimes found myself skimming through one story or another, picking out cool bits rather than being immersed.
The last two stories got me more involved, and I can't say whether it's because they're better story or because, by then, I'd bought into the world, but I felt more in those two stories than in the rest of the book, even if some of the plot elements weren't what I like in science fiction. The last, "Birthing Pool" by Nancy Kress exemplfies this, when I read it I thought, "Oh, I wish the 'mystery' didn't go in THAT direction, but, well, I enjoyed that story enough regardless." Even the last two stories, though, while they were good, they weren't among the greater short stories I've read.
In the end, it's an interesting experiment, and may well be worth reading for that alone, and as a textbook example of worldbuilding in action. But for sheer enjoyment? I'd put it between two and three stars, probably settling more towards the "okay" end rather than "I liked it." I liked it a little, and I'm glad I read it, but I wanted to like it much more than I did.
Finished: Trident's Forge by Patrick S. Tomlinson
Full disclosure: I was able to read an electronic advance reader's copy of this through Netgalley. I don't think it affected my review. Sequel to last year's "The Ark", so synopsis is behind cut.
Humanity has finally arrived at its new home... for more than two centuries, after Earth was destroyed by a black hole, all of humanity was aboard a generation ship that managed to escape. Now that they've arrived, they can start rebuilding and some of the old rules fall away... but humanity isn't alone on this world, it's also inhabited by the G'Tel, a humanoid race at a more limited stage of technological development. When a diplomatic meeting goes tragically wrong, Bryan Benson teams up with a truthseeker of the G'Tel to find out what exactly happened.
This is a sequel to last year's The Ark, which was the author's first published novel, and it's intended to be part of an ongoing series. These days both situations (an author's second book, and the second book in a series) carry almost of an expectation of disappointment, the so-called sophomore slump. There are many reasons for this... one simple one is that an author typically has years to work on their first book, but has to, comparatively, rush out the second so they can capitalize on their brand-new name recognition or avoid keeping fans waiting.
So does this book suffer from a sophomore slump? Unfortunately, yes, but not to a fatal degree. It's still largely enjoyable, does a few things better and is more ambitious in a couple ways, but it just wasn't as good as the first.
The ambitiousness, while not a flaw, may be part of the reason it wasn't quite as impressive. When you do something really well, and then try something quite a bit harder, even if you don't outright stumble it can come off looking a little rougher of a performance. That's the case with the worldbuilding. In the first book, the author really sold the setting, a generation starship. It felt authentic, that anything unusual about the way people behaved or what was possible flowed naturally from that premise.
In this book, Tomlinson tackles the much harder task of creating a planet and an alien race. And it's broadly done well... or at least the aliens are done well. The planet, I'm afraid... I got very little sense of it being all that much different than Earth with a few different species on it. While there might have been occasional references to differences in say, gravity or the composition of atmosphere, I never really FELT them. Plants were edible (although occasionally not quite as edible), there were no unusual pests I could recall, and weather never felt like much of an issue.
The aliens, though, a lot of thought did go into them, and there were a few nice moments where their alien biology and culture intersected in ways that could make them horrifying or incomprehensible to most people, which is a great trick when you can pull it off. But on the whole the aliens weren't all that different from types aliens I've read in SF before, maybe some details were interesting but they fell into some standard tropes. They aren't going to make it in any of my lists of favorite alien races. And there were a few times where some of the behind-the-scenes craft of writing was more obvious, where it seemed like the reason that the aliens had certain physiological or behavioral differences was because it drove the plot in a specific way. This is of course to be expected, but ideally the reader doesn't notice that it's being structured. And there were a few times where something just felt off, like when an alien, who largely use their bioluminescent skin to indicate emotions, "smirked."
The first book mostly (possibly exclusively, I can't remember) followed the perspective of Detective Bryan Benson. In this book, the author again goes the more ambitious route and has three major viewpoints, Benson, his wife (and also police chief), and one of the G'Tel. Largely this is a good move, a crash course in the alien culture from the inside, and a good way to break away from the action in one scene and jump somewhere else. I actually found Esa's investigation back home more interesting a lot of the time (although sometimes I felt the author was succumbing to the urge to tell the reader how awesome Bryan Benson is by having his wife think he's just the best except for a few heroic flaws). The other two characters spent a good deal of their time in the same place, so it lead to the occasional feeling that the perspective was shifting for no other reason than that it was the other character's "turn," which again is one of those little things that pulled me out of experiencing the story by reminding me that it was, in fact, structured and written by a person.
Other than these authorial "stretch-marks", the book's characterization, plotting, pace, and other such basic requirements fit into the same "pretty good" quality of the first one. I think it might have been a little lighter on the humor, which might be a plus or a minus to different people... for me, it was a small disappointment, but I'd much rather it be not quite as funny than being too played for laughs. But, most importantly, the book was fun and I was interested in what was happening all the way through. Although I only rated it three stars, it's on the high end of three stars, and I liked it enough that not only do I see myself continuing on to the third book when it comes out, but also going one better... I read this book for free, and electronically, but I'm a physical book man, so I think I'm going to buy a copy of it to keep with the first. Granted, the fact that it's released in paperback form first rather than starting with hardcover makes this decision a lot easier, but still, I think it's going to be one of those series I reread again when I want something that's readable, fun and yet still at it's core good science fiction.
Finished: The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
The mixed-species crew of the Wayfarer, including their newest hire, Rosemary, take on a year-long job that involves building a wormhole tunnel to a distant planet controlled by a group who has decided to join the Galactic Commons... even though the rest of their species has not. Along the way, there's friendships, family, romance, secrets, adventure, food, and stops at various trading posts.
This book has been getting a lot of attention, and one of the reasons why is that it's a very different type of book from most space opera. It's quieter, more personal, and in many ways a series of short vignettes rather than a full-fledged story. The best way I can describe it as follows: Picture your favorite TV SF space show, focused on a single relatively small crew, something like Firefly or Farscape. One that you fall in love with the characters, and maybe even imagine yourself aboard, interacting with them. Now, instead of saving the galaxy or running from some elaborate galactic conspiracy, the show simply follows the daily life of the crew, like a family drama or sitcom. One episode might be a visit home for a holiday, another might be two characters hooking up, or getting in a fight. And yes, there might be an action-centered episode here or there, where they encounter pirates or a hostile alien, but that's an aberration. Most episodes are personal, lighthearted, friendly. And you enjoy it because you do love the characters, and so even just hanging out with them while they do fairly mundane things is entertaining enough for you.
That's the type of book this tries to be. And, for the most part, it succeeds at it. It's not hard SF by any means, in terms of the technology, but it's hard enough that you can appreciate elements of worldbuilding, and the aliens are fun to learn about, how they're alike and different from humans in many ways. It's also generally very optimistic, like Star Trek, of different species with radically different cultures getting along. And, for all that it's light-hearted, there are indeed moments of tragedy and heartbreak to keep the book from being too saccharine. The balance is almost perfect.
As for flaws? Well, it takes a while for a few of the characters to break out of two-dimensionality (and there are a few who still feel kind of one-note by the end), and the lack of action and direction might bother some. I'm not sure I agree with some of the views expressed by characters that go unchallenged enough that one wonders if it was something the author wanted to express as well, and (and somewhat related) sometimes a few of the aliens come across as too "our species all believe/act like X" rather than capturing a similar range of diversity as humans. And some of the conflicts generated tread on SF tropes that are almost cliche (although, one fairly well for all that). But these are quibbles, minor things I think could have been done a little better, or that I hope are done better in future books by the author. Overall, it's quite well done, although I can see it not being to everyone's tastes.
For that reason, it's a little hard to imagine this COULD be a TV show, at least without introducing some action in every episode, but... I'd kind of like to see someone try (again, without introducing action every ep). It's also not the kind of thing I want every story to be, but once in a while, this kind of thing can really hit the spot, especially when done well. Worth giving a look, if nothing else, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick up the sequel.
Finished: Crisis in Zefra by Karl Schroeder
In the near future, Canadian forces are on-hand in Zefra, a new and struggling African city-state, to peacekeep and prepare for their first democratic election, but when terrorists strike they must go into action to deal with the threat. The methods of warfare may have changed with new technology, but the dedication remains the same.
This isn't your usual story. It was specifically commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces as a way to explore how emerging technologies may change the shape of war a couple decades down the line. I'm reading it mostly because the writer they chose for the project, Karl Schroeder, is one of my favorites (and also because it's available free online, just google the title). He's also not who I would have expected as a first choice to write a book like this, although with a little deeper consideration, it makes sense. Schroeder himself is not a soldier (although the credits indicate that a number of military personnel did advise on the project) and was raised Mennonite, and although I don't know if he holds to the strict pacifism of that faith, I do notice that his work often includes cases of people in conflict coming to resolution in non-violent ways. For a peacekeeping-centered force in an urban environment filled with non-combatants, this may actually be a nearly ideal outlook for a writer going in... dealing with the threats while minimizing collateral damage or actions that can be spun to the enemy's propaganda.
It does read like a traditional SF story, approximately of novella length, albeit with breaks for discussion questions for the target audience to consider. At the same time though, it is written to a purpose, and so while there are characters with realistic motivations, it's not a heavy focus and so they can come off a little flat.
As a showcase for technologies and tactics the military my have to deal with, it's pretty interesting. As a story... it didn't really work for me as well, but then, I'm really not the target audience. Still, I did find it worth reading for the speculative fiction elements (and there are extensive footnotes with links to web articles talking about the technologies in development, although I suspect some of those links themselves may have died, which itself shows something of a minor failure of foresight). Also of note is that there's an essay at the end detailing a history of the Canadian military using what's essentially science fiction to explore the future of warfare. To my surprise, there's a much more extensive history than I would have previous thought, although this was the first such effort in a while.
Even though I only rated it two stars, I remain quite impressed and proud that this exists at all, and that there's a sequel, Crisis in Urlia. Despite my somewhat lukewarm reaction, I do eventually plan to read it.
Finished: Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh
While the future may have brought many things, it hasn't brought to everyone equally. Poverty still exists and, in certain places, so do new kinds of slavery. Hariba is one such, a young woman who has undergone a procedure called "jessing" which makes her loyal to an employer, and unable to defy him without life-threatening consequences... in addition to legal ones. But at least it is a job, an opportunity, and her master treats her well. But then there is Akhmim, a harni, a created being who is owned outright, by the same master. At first Hariba despises Akhmim, but then starts to develop feelings for him that make her decide to take a huge risk for both of them.
I'm mixed on this book. It's not the type of thing I normally go in for, but it's interesting for the most part. As a science fiction novel, it's one of those where there is very little actual speculation on technologies and trends, but rather what is there is mostly to look at slavery and power dynamics. With very little changing, you could easily set this in the modern day world with one or two new advancements, rather than a hundred or so years in the future.
It also moves on surprisingly quickly from the initial premise. I had expected at least half the book would be the two lead characters coming together and deciding to risk fleeing, but instead it happens in the first chapter (which granted is a fairly long chapter), and the rest of the book deals with the consequences. It also shifts point of view with every chapter, often to people who aren't part of the main pair. It does flesh out characters pretty convincingly for these side characters, although I think the main characters suffered by comparison.
Throughout the middle two thirds or more of the book, I was interested in what would happen to the characters, and the world, but at a somewhat low level, and it felt like the middle part dragged on a little. Maybe that was because it was the part that fascinated the author most, but not me. For me it picked up again with the last chapter, which turned some of the previous book on it's head, and certainly had a lot more nuanced things to say, although at the same time, as a narrative it wasn't entirely satisfying.
Hard to score this one. I think it might appeal a lot more to someone other than me... it might even wow certain people. I didn't dislike it, I just found my reaction somewhat subdued, so much that I'm not even sure I'd call it a "like." So I think two stars it is, while recognizing there was a lot of craft, it just didn't fully connect and engage me.
Finished: Faith by John Love
Hundreds of years ago, an advanced alien ship attacked the Sakhran Empire and then disappeared. Shortly after that, the Empire collapsed. Now, hundreds of years later, the ship, dubbed Faith, has been sighted again, and the ship sent after it is the Charles Manson, a ship crewed by psychopaths and criminals who are willing to do whatever's necessary, that must confront and destroy Faith.
I wanted to like his book so much. The premise was pretty cool sounding, and I thought it might hit the spot towards my darker tastes in science fiction like Blindsight did... the plot, at it's core, even sounded similar... deeply damaged people confronting the alien.
Unfortunately, too much didn't work for me.
Let's start with the description, or rather, how it related to the rest of the book. I suppose it's a bit of a spoiler, but I feel it's a relatively mild one. In some stories, there's a description like this, and it just describes how the book opens, but as the story evolve, it moves far beyond that. In this one, the synopsis pretty well describes the whole book... it's one long engagement between the two ships, starting a bit before and occasionally flashing back to some part of a character's history to keep it from just being a huge fight scene. But for me, it meant I spent a large part of the book just hoping they'd move past the initial confrontation and get interesting.
The disappointment was exacerbated, somewhat, by the approach to science. This isn't hard SF, or even hard SF with a few impossible items... I'd describe it as "cinematic" SF. It's the kind of science fiction that not only has FTL, it invents weapons that do cool but implausible things, where asteroid belts are so full that you have to dodge and weave around rocks, where a pilot can be inexplicably better at piloting than computers centuries more advanced than ours. This is a valid approach to SF, I can enjoy that type, even if it's not my favorite, but in this case, where it's one long engagement between two ships, it just feels like a parade of different made-up tactics against each other, there's no consequences or sense of stakes because the rules aren't grounded in either believable science, or some kind of greater outside world that can make even nonsense believable. It's like an imaginary schoolyard fight where the kids are free to make up whatever powers they want... maybe it's a hell of a lot of fun to them, but to watch? What mysteries are revealed also didn't impress me because my suspension of disbelief was already too strained.
But both of them are potentially minor problems, and perhaps for some people, not even problems at all, especially if the character work is great. This is certainly where the plot of the book is most ambitious... when you design your crew around the concept of "everyone's a psychopath", you're setting yourself a pretty high bar. To succeed I think you either need to dig deep and force the audience to confront the core of humanity behind these outcasts, or make them so interesting and compelling despite being irredeemable monsters that the audience roots for them. The book succeeds at neither. The backstories are mostly trite and told coldly, and in the present day they're fairly bland, occasionally getting into amusing cynical conversations, but never really justifying the premise. That is, I never really got any sense for WHY the Galactic Commonwealth made a crew of criminals and psychopaths and gave them one of their most powerful ships. They don't seem exceptionally talented, with a few exceptions, most of which feel like authorial fiat, so it seems like there are far better hands to put your greatest starship in the care of. Aside from occasionally being rude to planetary authorities (which could just as easily be a matter of policy), they never step outside of a box of what conventional morality would allow. So it winds up feeling like a gimmick. You could replace the crew with Captain Kirk and the Enterprise and perhaps be even more effective because you don't have to worry as much about them maybe deciding to go rogue (well, then again, with Captain Kirk, maybe that's not the best example). Now, they do occasionally have flashes of insights that I suppose could be attributed to their "out of the box thinking", but really it's just over and over again the characters getting feelings that there's no evidence for that turn out to be right, which makes them feel more like puppets than characters. It's not just the crew, either, there's the alien race that "turned away from one another" because of the insight from the last encounter, just because. People, singly or collectively, don't seem to come to rational conclusions, they decide what the author wants them to decide. Made worse because the alien threat is the same way, it's defined as incomprehensible and super powerful and there's the constant feeling that it's just toying with them, stretching out the battle for no reason other than it wants to, which really means because the author wants to, he needs to fill pages.
What's most frustrating is that the book's not all bad. A few individual sections are genuinely interesting, particularly the beginning, and the alien race that faced Faith before was actually pretty well done, a good attempt at alien worldbuilding. Some of the conversations among the crew had me smiling along, too. And a few of the ideas, invented technologies or staging areas for battle, were really quite cool, taken in isolation, it's the collective effect of all of it put together that failed for me. I also think that I, personally, may have been more hostile to the ending than other people would be... it's very much the kind of thing I can see someone else finding an interesting, mind-blowing idea, but for me, it just made me roll my eyes and say, "Really?" and it tainted my enjoyment of ant tolerance for elements of the rest of the book. I didn't hate the book, but I'm so divided on it that I can't even say I "liked it", unreservedly, so I have to just say, "it's okay."
It is, however, the author's first novel, so I won't give up on him entirely, but I have to give it a two because I was so disappointed with how it turned out.
Finished: Engineering Infinity (short story collection)
Engineering Infinity is a collection of modern day hard science fiction stories, of a number of different styles and authors.
It's the usual mixed bag here, maybe a little better than just a random short story collection, or one of a single theme or author, but there were still some stories I didn't connect much to, and some I really liked. Unfortunately a number of the ones I really liked I'd already read, but that's hardly the fault of the collection, even if it does somewhat affect my personal enjoyment.
I was very slightly disappointed in a misapprehension I had going in, I thought with a title like "Engineering Infinity" there would be a running theme of some sort of large scale (either in size or time) projects, ancient technological civilizations and giant starships, and there is some of that sort of thing, but there are also some smaller stories where it's just, say, a conventional mystery set on an alien planet, or the development of a single new piece of technology. I guess they all (more-or-less) qualify under hard SF, but I was hoping for a little more sense of wonder, Big Dumb Objects in space, mega-engineering stories as well.
Still, it was pretty good. My favorite stories were probably, "Malak" by Peter Watts, "The Ki-Anna" by Gwyneth Jones, and "Mercies" by Gregory Benford. But even in some of the other stories there were a few things I really liked, and only a couple that left me almost completely cold.
Worth a look particularly if you're interested in modern hard SF, although if you've already read a lot of short story collections from this century you'll probably also see a lot of overlap. That may be the reason I'm only rating it 3 stars instead of 4... if they were new to me, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more (although even so it's probably closer to 3.5).
Finished: Starfarers by Vonda McIntyre
Mankind is finally preparing a mission to a different star, one they believe holds intelligent life. It's an international effort full of scientists, and after years of preparation, they're months away from launch... but political winds are starting to shift, and the US is interested in converting the ship towards more military purposes back home, purposes that would put the entire mission at risk.
This is a bit of a weird book, firstly because it's clearly the first part of a series. And, while I suppose it might count as a spoiler, I don't think it's too big of one to say that this novel focuses on the beginning of the mission rather than the full purpose of the mission. So, obviously, it feels somewhat incomplete on it's own, like a lot of buildup, but where only, at best, half the story is told (though from what I understand, it's a four book series). Some characters are introduced and given some depth, but then play very little role in the story (and much of that, isolated from the rest), because it's clear they're intended to play bigger roles in the next books. And some people might be disappointed by the lack of things that they're hoping for when they read a book about a mission to another star to meet aliens.
That said, the book was fairly enjoyable. It had a mix of interesting worldbuilding (with the world in question being a mostly plausible near future Earth), a set of appealing characters, and just was an overall pleasant read. Even when the characters were just discussing fairly dry planning details or dealing with mundane day to day life, I enjoyed reading it. A few of the antagonist characters seemed on the one-dimensional side and designed to elicit certain reactions, but even they got more sides to them as the story developed.
I wouldn't call the book one of my favorites overall, but it was one of my favorites of the ebook bundle I got it in (a Women in SF bundle), and I liked it enough that I probably will try to track down at least the next book in the series.
In Progress (or finished and haven't yet written reviews): Against A Dark Background by Iain M. Banks (reread), The Diving Bundle by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter, Marooned In Realtime by Vernor Vinge (reread)
Oh, and for my birthday, I bought/ordered: The Edge of Dark by Brenda Cooper, Vicious by V.E. Schwab, A Darkling Sea by James Cambias, an anthology I can't remember the title of because it was in the bargain book list online, and, the day before I got at a used bookstore (so I'll count it as a B-Day purchase), The Harvest by Robert Charles Wilson and a new copy of Neal Stephensons The Diamond Age which I can't seem to find anywhere and feel like reading again since I don't think I've read it since the first time, around when it came out.
So let's move on to Book Foo!
Finished: The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
Most of the world is gone, the results of a war with a terrible weapon that effectively erases targets from existence... but there is fallout, monsters and nightmares and stranger things that form out of the stuff left behind. One man tells his memories leading up to and including the war, and an effort to save what's left from the forces that came after.
This is a rather strange book. It's a mix of memoir, speculative fiction adventure tale, and satire, at times deeply silly and campy and at others deep. I've heard several times it being described as "Catch-22 meets..." with the other party, or parties, being a variety of things. And it's a bit unfair to do that to a book, or a writer, describe it in terms of other books or writers. But I'm going to do it anyway. Because it really does seem to be a good description. To me, this book is like a mix between Catch-22 and a Neil Gaiman novel, or maybe a Neil Gaiman and Iain M. Banks novel. With doses of a kung fu movie as well. Which isn't to say it's completely like any of them, but there are echoes that pleasantly gave me that vibe.
It's not, usually, laugh out loud funny, but there is a lot of humor that made me smile, and even when it got silly, something that normally turns me off a book, I still enjoyed it. That's another thing worthy of note, it's a book that contains a lot of elements that usually turn me off, but... it didn't, here. There was the silliness. There was the feeling that it was trying a little self-consciously to be "literary." There were mimes.
But I enjoyed it consistently, and I even think it has some worthy things to say about the tendency for systems to grow out of control and for people to commit atrocities in the name of "this is what I have to do."
The book did occasionally meander a bit, while at the same time the plot jumps between various different types of stories leaving a feeling that the author just got bored and wanted to write in a slightly different genre. And there was a stretch where after a significant revelation, the main character is ignorant of it for far too long after it was mostly clear what had happened to the audience.
Still, these are quibbles, the book was a lot of fun, something I expect I may read again, and definitely put this author on my radar.
Finished: Murasaki (shared world anthology)
Around a nearby star, a pair of twin planets orbit a point in space, as though each are the moon of the other. And because both planets support life, it's only natural for Humanity to send expeditions. This is the case of the star christened Murasaki, and the planets Genji and Chujo, and Murasaki tells a series of stories about humanity's explorations of these planets and what they learn about the inhabitants, and themselves.
Take two classic SF authors known for hard science fiction. Tell them to design a planet, or in this case, two, following science as much as possible, and create alien races for that planet. Then, open the world up to other authors, specifically, authors who have won the Nebula award (given by other SF writers and editors). Each writer reads the stories that came before them, then writes their own in that same, shared universe. It's a daring experiment... not the first of its kind, but worthy of attention nonetheless. If nothing else, it can be a fascinating look at elements of the process of writing science fiction that can often be behind the scenes.
The book ends with appendixes... these are essentially the outline of the world and aliens that the authors all worked from, as they originally saw it. You could either read them at the end, or skip ahead and read them first... I decided to go with option B, which will necessarily effect how I related to the rest of the stories but I'm not entirely sure I can evaluate how. Still, the appendixes were dry but interesting at the same time, and you can see the fun authors have in creating details. They may have made too many, though... although certainly the other writers added their own ideas, they may have felt somewhat constrained by the extensive details set out in advance. It's a mixed blessing, at the very least.
The alien races were fascinatingly designed and with a keen awareness that aliens aren't created in isolation but rather are part of an ecology, with animals and plants that don't seem out of place with each other (at least, no more than Earth creatures, and when you have platypuses and oak trees sharing the same planet, there's room for a lot of variation). There are also (at appropriate times in the stories themselves, rather than the appendices) actually drawings of many of these creatures, which shouldn't be necessary in a SF novel but is a really cool treat nonetheless, and helped the world come alive.
But enough about the skeleton of the book, what's important is the story... and, unfortunately, here's where it didn't entirely connect for me. The stories were, for the most part, okay. Some were dated in a few aspects, or the relationships between people didn't ring true, but they were okay... yet, they didn't draw me in. Any number of factors could have gone into this... and again, I read the appendices first, so it's possible that I was simply a little bored by the stories gradually setting up details that I was already well aware of. Or it could be something as simple as me being more distracted by outside concerns than I usually am, while I was reading it. I can't say for sure. All I can say is, most of the stories didn't entirely connect, and I sometimes found myself skimming through one story or another, picking out cool bits rather than being immersed.
The last two stories got me more involved, and I can't say whether it's because they're better story or because, by then, I'd bought into the world, but I felt more in those two stories than in the rest of the book, even if some of the plot elements weren't what I like in science fiction. The last, "Birthing Pool" by Nancy Kress exemplfies this, when I read it I thought, "Oh, I wish the 'mystery' didn't go in THAT direction, but, well, I enjoyed that story enough regardless." Even the last two stories, though, while they were good, they weren't among the greater short stories I've read.
In the end, it's an interesting experiment, and may well be worth reading for that alone, and as a textbook example of worldbuilding in action. But for sheer enjoyment? I'd put it between two and three stars, probably settling more towards the "okay" end rather than "I liked it." I liked it a little, and I'm glad I read it, but I wanted to like it much more than I did.
Finished: Trident's Forge by Patrick S. Tomlinson
Full disclosure: I was able to read an electronic advance reader's copy of this through Netgalley. I don't think it affected my review. Sequel to last year's "The Ark", so synopsis is behind cut.
Humanity has finally arrived at its new home... for more than two centuries, after Earth was destroyed by a black hole, all of humanity was aboard a generation ship that managed to escape. Now that they've arrived, they can start rebuilding and some of the old rules fall away... but humanity isn't alone on this world, it's also inhabited by the G'Tel, a humanoid race at a more limited stage of technological development. When a diplomatic meeting goes tragically wrong, Bryan Benson teams up with a truthseeker of the G'Tel to find out what exactly happened.
This is a sequel to last year's The Ark, which was the author's first published novel, and it's intended to be part of an ongoing series. These days both situations (an author's second book, and the second book in a series) carry almost of an expectation of disappointment, the so-called sophomore slump. There are many reasons for this... one simple one is that an author typically has years to work on their first book, but has to, comparatively, rush out the second so they can capitalize on their brand-new name recognition or avoid keeping fans waiting.
So does this book suffer from a sophomore slump? Unfortunately, yes, but not to a fatal degree. It's still largely enjoyable, does a few things better and is more ambitious in a couple ways, but it just wasn't as good as the first.
The ambitiousness, while not a flaw, may be part of the reason it wasn't quite as impressive. When you do something really well, and then try something quite a bit harder, even if you don't outright stumble it can come off looking a little rougher of a performance. That's the case with the worldbuilding. In the first book, the author really sold the setting, a generation starship. It felt authentic, that anything unusual about the way people behaved or what was possible flowed naturally from that premise.
In this book, Tomlinson tackles the much harder task of creating a planet and an alien race. And it's broadly done well... or at least the aliens are done well. The planet, I'm afraid... I got very little sense of it being all that much different than Earth with a few different species on it. While there might have been occasional references to differences in say, gravity or the composition of atmosphere, I never really FELT them. Plants were edible (although occasionally not quite as edible), there were no unusual pests I could recall, and weather never felt like much of an issue.
The aliens, though, a lot of thought did go into them, and there were a few nice moments where their alien biology and culture intersected in ways that could make them horrifying or incomprehensible to most people, which is a great trick when you can pull it off. But on the whole the aliens weren't all that different from types aliens I've read in SF before, maybe some details were interesting but they fell into some standard tropes. They aren't going to make it in any of my lists of favorite alien races. And there were a few times where some of the behind-the-scenes craft of writing was more obvious, where it seemed like the reason that the aliens had certain physiological or behavioral differences was because it drove the plot in a specific way. This is of course to be expected, but ideally the reader doesn't notice that it's being structured. And there were a few times where something just felt off, like when an alien, who largely use their bioluminescent skin to indicate emotions, "smirked."
The first book mostly (possibly exclusively, I can't remember) followed the perspective of Detective Bryan Benson. In this book, the author again goes the more ambitious route and has three major viewpoints, Benson, his wife (and also police chief), and one of the G'Tel. Largely this is a good move, a crash course in the alien culture from the inside, and a good way to break away from the action in one scene and jump somewhere else. I actually found Esa's investigation back home more interesting a lot of the time (although sometimes I felt the author was succumbing to the urge to tell the reader how awesome Bryan Benson is by having his wife think he's just the best except for a few heroic flaws). The other two characters spent a good deal of their time in the same place, so it lead to the occasional feeling that the perspective was shifting for no other reason than that it was the other character's "turn," which again is one of those little things that pulled me out of experiencing the story by reminding me that it was, in fact, structured and written by a person.
Other than these authorial "stretch-marks", the book's characterization, plotting, pace, and other such basic requirements fit into the same "pretty good" quality of the first one. I think it might have been a little lighter on the humor, which might be a plus or a minus to different people... for me, it was a small disappointment, but I'd much rather it be not quite as funny than being too played for laughs. But, most importantly, the book was fun and I was interested in what was happening all the way through. Although I only rated it three stars, it's on the high end of three stars, and I liked it enough that not only do I see myself continuing on to the third book when it comes out, but also going one better... I read this book for free, and electronically, but I'm a physical book man, so I think I'm going to buy a copy of it to keep with the first. Granted, the fact that it's released in paperback form first rather than starting with hardcover makes this decision a lot easier, but still, I think it's going to be one of those series I reread again when I want something that's readable, fun and yet still at it's core good science fiction.
Finished: The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
The mixed-species crew of the Wayfarer, including their newest hire, Rosemary, take on a year-long job that involves building a wormhole tunnel to a distant planet controlled by a group who has decided to join the Galactic Commons... even though the rest of their species has not. Along the way, there's friendships, family, romance, secrets, adventure, food, and stops at various trading posts.
This book has been getting a lot of attention, and one of the reasons why is that it's a very different type of book from most space opera. It's quieter, more personal, and in many ways a series of short vignettes rather than a full-fledged story. The best way I can describe it as follows: Picture your favorite TV SF space show, focused on a single relatively small crew, something like Firefly or Farscape. One that you fall in love with the characters, and maybe even imagine yourself aboard, interacting with them. Now, instead of saving the galaxy or running from some elaborate galactic conspiracy, the show simply follows the daily life of the crew, like a family drama or sitcom. One episode might be a visit home for a holiday, another might be two characters hooking up, or getting in a fight. And yes, there might be an action-centered episode here or there, where they encounter pirates or a hostile alien, but that's an aberration. Most episodes are personal, lighthearted, friendly. And you enjoy it because you do love the characters, and so even just hanging out with them while they do fairly mundane things is entertaining enough for you.
That's the type of book this tries to be. And, for the most part, it succeeds at it. It's not hard SF by any means, in terms of the technology, but it's hard enough that you can appreciate elements of worldbuilding, and the aliens are fun to learn about, how they're alike and different from humans in many ways. It's also generally very optimistic, like Star Trek, of different species with radically different cultures getting along. And, for all that it's light-hearted, there are indeed moments of tragedy and heartbreak to keep the book from being too saccharine. The balance is almost perfect.
As for flaws? Well, it takes a while for a few of the characters to break out of two-dimensionality (and there are a few who still feel kind of one-note by the end), and the lack of action and direction might bother some. I'm not sure I agree with some of the views expressed by characters that go unchallenged enough that one wonders if it was something the author wanted to express as well, and (and somewhat related) sometimes a few of the aliens come across as too "our species all believe/act like X" rather than capturing a similar range of diversity as humans. And some of the conflicts generated tread on SF tropes that are almost cliche (although, one fairly well for all that). But these are quibbles, minor things I think could have been done a little better, or that I hope are done better in future books by the author. Overall, it's quite well done, although I can see it not being to everyone's tastes.
For that reason, it's a little hard to imagine this COULD be a TV show, at least without introducing some action in every episode, but... I'd kind of like to see someone try (again, without introducing action every ep). It's also not the kind of thing I want every story to be, but once in a while, this kind of thing can really hit the spot, especially when done well. Worth giving a look, if nothing else, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick up the sequel.
Finished: Crisis in Zefra by Karl Schroeder
In the near future, Canadian forces are on-hand in Zefra, a new and struggling African city-state, to peacekeep and prepare for their first democratic election, but when terrorists strike they must go into action to deal with the threat. The methods of warfare may have changed with new technology, but the dedication remains the same.
This isn't your usual story. It was specifically commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces as a way to explore how emerging technologies may change the shape of war a couple decades down the line. I'm reading it mostly because the writer they chose for the project, Karl Schroeder, is one of my favorites (and also because it's available free online, just google the title). He's also not who I would have expected as a first choice to write a book like this, although with a little deeper consideration, it makes sense. Schroeder himself is not a soldier (although the credits indicate that a number of military personnel did advise on the project) and was raised Mennonite, and although I don't know if he holds to the strict pacifism of that faith, I do notice that his work often includes cases of people in conflict coming to resolution in non-violent ways. For a peacekeeping-centered force in an urban environment filled with non-combatants, this may actually be a nearly ideal outlook for a writer going in... dealing with the threats while minimizing collateral damage or actions that can be spun to the enemy's propaganda.
It does read like a traditional SF story, approximately of novella length, albeit with breaks for discussion questions for the target audience to consider. At the same time though, it is written to a purpose, and so while there are characters with realistic motivations, it's not a heavy focus and so they can come off a little flat.
As a showcase for technologies and tactics the military my have to deal with, it's pretty interesting. As a story... it didn't really work for me as well, but then, I'm really not the target audience. Still, I did find it worth reading for the speculative fiction elements (and there are extensive footnotes with links to web articles talking about the technologies in development, although I suspect some of those links themselves may have died, which itself shows something of a minor failure of foresight). Also of note is that there's an essay at the end detailing a history of the Canadian military using what's essentially science fiction to explore the future of warfare. To my surprise, there's a much more extensive history than I would have previous thought, although this was the first such effort in a while.
Even though I only rated it two stars, I remain quite impressed and proud that this exists at all, and that there's a sequel, Crisis in Urlia. Despite my somewhat lukewarm reaction, I do eventually plan to read it.
Finished: Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh
While the future may have brought many things, it hasn't brought to everyone equally. Poverty still exists and, in certain places, so do new kinds of slavery. Hariba is one such, a young woman who has undergone a procedure called "jessing" which makes her loyal to an employer, and unable to defy him without life-threatening consequences... in addition to legal ones. But at least it is a job, an opportunity, and her master treats her well. But then there is Akhmim, a harni, a created being who is owned outright, by the same master. At first Hariba despises Akhmim, but then starts to develop feelings for him that make her decide to take a huge risk for both of them.
I'm mixed on this book. It's not the type of thing I normally go in for, but it's interesting for the most part. As a science fiction novel, it's one of those where there is very little actual speculation on technologies and trends, but rather what is there is mostly to look at slavery and power dynamics. With very little changing, you could easily set this in the modern day world with one or two new advancements, rather than a hundred or so years in the future.
It also moves on surprisingly quickly from the initial premise. I had expected at least half the book would be the two lead characters coming together and deciding to risk fleeing, but instead it happens in the first chapter (which granted is a fairly long chapter), and the rest of the book deals with the consequences. It also shifts point of view with every chapter, often to people who aren't part of the main pair. It does flesh out characters pretty convincingly for these side characters, although I think the main characters suffered by comparison.
Throughout the middle two thirds or more of the book, I was interested in what would happen to the characters, and the world, but at a somewhat low level, and it felt like the middle part dragged on a little. Maybe that was because it was the part that fascinated the author most, but not me. For me it picked up again with the last chapter, which turned some of the previous book on it's head, and certainly had a lot more nuanced things to say, although at the same time, as a narrative it wasn't entirely satisfying.
Hard to score this one. I think it might appeal a lot more to someone other than me... it might even wow certain people. I didn't dislike it, I just found my reaction somewhat subdued, so much that I'm not even sure I'd call it a "like." So I think two stars it is, while recognizing there was a lot of craft, it just didn't fully connect and engage me.
Finished: Faith by John Love
Hundreds of years ago, an advanced alien ship attacked the Sakhran Empire and then disappeared. Shortly after that, the Empire collapsed. Now, hundreds of years later, the ship, dubbed Faith, has been sighted again, and the ship sent after it is the Charles Manson, a ship crewed by psychopaths and criminals who are willing to do whatever's necessary, that must confront and destroy Faith.
I wanted to like his book so much. The premise was pretty cool sounding, and I thought it might hit the spot towards my darker tastes in science fiction like Blindsight did... the plot, at it's core, even sounded similar... deeply damaged people confronting the alien.
Unfortunately, too much didn't work for me.
Let's start with the description, or rather, how it related to the rest of the book. I suppose it's a bit of a spoiler, but I feel it's a relatively mild one. In some stories, there's a description like this, and it just describes how the book opens, but as the story evolve, it moves far beyond that. In this one, the synopsis pretty well describes the whole book... it's one long engagement between the two ships, starting a bit before and occasionally flashing back to some part of a character's history to keep it from just being a huge fight scene. But for me, it meant I spent a large part of the book just hoping they'd move past the initial confrontation and get interesting.
The disappointment was exacerbated, somewhat, by the approach to science. This isn't hard SF, or even hard SF with a few impossible items... I'd describe it as "cinematic" SF. It's the kind of science fiction that not only has FTL, it invents weapons that do cool but implausible things, where asteroid belts are so full that you have to dodge and weave around rocks, where a pilot can be inexplicably better at piloting than computers centuries more advanced than ours. This is a valid approach to SF, I can enjoy that type, even if it's not my favorite, but in this case, where it's one long engagement between two ships, it just feels like a parade of different made-up tactics against each other, there's no consequences or sense of stakes because the rules aren't grounded in either believable science, or some kind of greater outside world that can make even nonsense believable. It's like an imaginary schoolyard fight where the kids are free to make up whatever powers they want... maybe it's a hell of a lot of fun to them, but to watch? What mysteries are revealed also didn't impress me because my suspension of disbelief was already too strained.
But both of them are potentially minor problems, and perhaps for some people, not even problems at all, especially if the character work is great. This is certainly where the plot of the book is most ambitious... when you design your crew around the concept of "everyone's a psychopath", you're setting yourself a pretty high bar. To succeed I think you either need to dig deep and force the audience to confront the core of humanity behind these outcasts, or make them so interesting and compelling despite being irredeemable monsters that the audience roots for them. The book succeeds at neither. The backstories are mostly trite and told coldly, and in the present day they're fairly bland, occasionally getting into amusing cynical conversations, but never really justifying the premise. That is, I never really got any sense for WHY the Galactic Commonwealth made a crew of criminals and psychopaths and gave them one of their most powerful ships. They don't seem exceptionally talented, with a few exceptions, most of which feel like authorial fiat, so it seems like there are far better hands to put your greatest starship in the care of. Aside from occasionally being rude to planetary authorities (which could just as easily be a matter of policy), they never step outside of a box of what conventional morality would allow. So it winds up feeling like a gimmick. You could replace the crew with Captain Kirk and the Enterprise and perhaps be even more effective because you don't have to worry as much about them maybe deciding to go rogue (well, then again, with Captain Kirk, maybe that's not the best example). Now, they do occasionally have flashes of insights that I suppose could be attributed to their "out of the box thinking", but really it's just over and over again the characters getting feelings that there's no evidence for that turn out to be right, which makes them feel more like puppets than characters. It's not just the crew, either, there's the alien race that "turned away from one another" because of the insight from the last encounter, just because. People, singly or collectively, don't seem to come to rational conclusions, they decide what the author wants them to decide. Made worse because the alien threat is the same way, it's defined as incomprehensible and super powerful and there's the constant feeling that it's just toying with them, stretching out the battle for no reason other than it wants to, which really means because the author wants to, he needs to fill pages.
What's most frustrating is that the book's not all bad. A few individual sections are genuinely interesting, particularly the beginning, and the alien race that faced Faith before was actually pretty well done, a good attempt at alien worldbuilding. Some of the conversations among the crew had me smiling along, too. And a few of the ideas, invented technologies or staging areas for battle, were really quite cool, taken in isolation, it's the collective effect of all of it put together that failed for me. I also think that I, personally, may have been more hostile to the ending than other people would be... it's very much the kind of thing I can see someone else finding an interesting, mind-blowing idea, but for me, it just made me roll my eyes and say, "Really?" and it tainted my enjoyment of ant tolerance for elements of the rest of the book. I didn't hate the book, but I'm so divided on it that I can't even say I "liked it", unreservedly, so I have to just say, "it's okay."
It is, however, the author's first novel, so I won't give up on him entirely, but I have to give it a two because I was so disappointed with how it turned out.
Finished: Engineering Infinity (short story collection)
Engineering Infinity is a collection of modern day hard science fiction stories, of a number of different styles and authors.
It's the usual mixed bag here, maybe a little better than just a random short story collection, or one of a single theme or author, but there were still some stories I didn't connect much to, and some I really liked. Unfortunately a number of the ones I really liked I'd already read, but that's hardly the fault of the collection, even if it does somewhat affect my personal enjoyment.
I was very slightly disappointed in a misapprehension I had going in, I thought with a title like "Engineering Infinity" there would be a running theme of some sort of large scale (either in size or time) projects, ancient technological civilizations and giant starships, and there is some of that sort of thing, but there are also some smaller stories where it's just, say, a conventional mystery set on an alien planet, or the development of a single new piece of technology. I guess they all (more-or-less) qualify under hard SF, but I was hoping for a little more sense of wonder, Big Dumb Objects in space, mega-engineering stories as well.
Still, it was pretty good. My favorite stories were probably, "Malak" by Peter Watts, "The Ki-Anna" by Gwyneth Jones, and "Mercies" by Gregory Benford. But even in some of the other stories there were a few things I really liked, and only a couple that left me almost completely cold.
Worth a look particularly if you're interested in modern hard SF, although if you've already read a lot of short story collections from this century you'll probably also see a lot of overlap. That may be the reason I'm only rating it 3 stars instead of 4... if they were new to me, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more (although even so it's probably closer to 3.5).
Finished: Starfarers by Vonda McIntyre
Mankind is finally preparing a mission to a different star, one they believe holds intelligent life. It's an international effort full of scientists, and after years of preparation, they're months away from launch... but political winds are starting to shift, and the US is interested in converting the ship towards more military purposes back home, purposes that would put the entire mission at risk.
This is a bit of a weird book, firstly because it's clearly the first part of a series. And, while I suppose it might count as a spoiler, I don't think it's too big of one to say that this novel focuses on the beginning of the mission rather than the full purpose of the mission. So, obviously, it feels somewhat incomplete on it's own, like a lot of buildup, but where only, at best, half the story is told (though from what I understand, it's a four book series). Some characters are introduced and given some depth, but then play very little role in the story (and much of that, isolated from the rest), because it's clear they're intended to play bigger roles in the next books. And some people might be disappointed by the lack of things that they're hoping for when they read a book about a mission to another star to meet aliens.
That said, the book was fairly enjoyable. It had a mix of interesting worldbuilding (with the world in question being a mostly plausible near future Earth), a set of appealing characters, and just was an overall pleasant read. Even when the characters were just discussing fairly dry planning details or dealing with mundane day to day life, I enjoyed reading it. A few of the antagonist characters seemed on the one-dimensional side and designed to elicit certain reactions, but even they got more sides to them as the story developed.
I wouldn't call the book one of my favorites overall, but it was one of my favorites of the ebook bundle I got it in (a Women in SF bundle), and I liked it enough that I probably will try to track down at least the next book in the series.
In Progress (or finished and haven't yet written reviews): Against A Dark Background by Iain M. Banks (reread), The Diving Bundle by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter, Marooned In Realtime by Vernor Vinge (reread)
Oh, and for my birthday, I bought/ordered: The Edge of Dark by Brenda Cooper, Vicious by V.E. Schwab, A Darkling Sea by James Cambias, an anthology I can't remember the title of because it was in the bargain book list online, and, the day before I got at a used bookstore (so I'll count it as a B-Day purchase), The Harvest by Robert Charles Wilson and a new copy of Neal Stephensons The Diamond Age which I can't seem to find anywhere and feel like reading again since I don't think I've read it since the first time, around when it came out.
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Date: 2016-03-27 05:52 am (UTC)I haven't read Starfarers specifically but I've liked some other things from McIntyre that I've read, especially Dreamsnake. She's been writing since forever, it's sad she hasn't gotten more attention I think.
The Fortunate Fall was a book I found very moving and disturbing when I first read it, ten-odd years ago. I haven't re-read it in entirety in almost ten years but I had a nightmare about a small passage in it that was vivid enough that I had to go look up that specific bit of the book just to cement what it said specifically. That didn't make it all better, as it was a disturbing passage on its own, but it helped. In the process of trying to find the book (either my copy, in a box somewhere, or finally full-text online from the most obscure search term imaginable) I also found a lot of archived newsgroup discussion of it from the late 90s. It is amazing some of the things the internet remembers--since the author has more or less disappeared from public view in the interim, a lot of what is written about them is from the olden days of the web, on weird little sites. It was an interesting look backwards, and I feel that the book was an interesting look backwards. Less perhaps for its technological speculation (though things like the Postcops are still interesting, and it's one of the few 'visual/virtual' interpretations of a computer network that didn't annoy me) than its human speculation.
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Date: 2016-03-31 08:23 pm (UTC)The Fortunate Fall was a book that I had heard highly recommended a couple times, but I'd heard very little about it in discussions of the genre... I had it on my "look for in used bookstores" list for a year or mor, but finally bought the bullet and bought online (once I finally found a used bookseller that I could order from using paypal). I'm glad I did. It does seem like it's a book that's slipped through the cracks (and possibly the author has as well), and it's a shame, because it really is an impressive book. I'm not sure specifically which passage you're referring to (as there's a lot in the book that's disturbing in one way or another), but I'm not surprised pieces of it stuck in your head, I'm sure it will in mine.