Childhoods End
Well, I seem to be a bit late, aren’t I? I could call this a yearly-update and I’d still be a few months off. Onward to business then. Mayhap if I keep this short and sweet, I might update more often. I think you’d (the hypothetical/imaginary reader) enjoy that.
So I’ve recently entered this SciFi phase were I bought almost nothing by science fiction over the last few months. Stephenson, Gibson, Clarke, Heinlein, you name it. Most recently I’ve finished Childhood’s End and I’m here to tell you about it. The title might have given that part away and if it didn’t, suprise.
Thinking back on it, this book was pretty strange. I’d go as far as say that it’s nearly on House of Suns’ level of strangeness but it unlike that, this has some redeeming features. Let us tick off the elements of the book from out imaginary list:
First off – plot. I can’t tell you almost anything about it. It barely has one. What little it has is only expressly told near the end so anything I can say will be constituted as a spoiler. I can tell you as much as the blurb on the back of the cover though. One day, aliens arrive on Earth and make us get our shit together. Are they saviors or slavemasters? Neither and both.
The plot in this is probably the thing that annoyed me the most. It takes for-goddamn-ever to start and ends almost as soon as it’s solidified. Only about 3/4 into it do you get a real grasp about what’s happening and by then the book is almost over. The thing is, I didn’t even notice this while reading it. I was enjoying the worldbuilding and writting style so much that I didn’t even stop to think that halfway through the book I wasn’t sure if I could explain the actual plot to another human being. That’s a pretty fine trick the author pulled, my metaphorical hat goes off to Mr. Clarke.
As for the other great element of books, the characters, I deserves a mention if only for blandness. Most of the times, it feels like the characters are there for nothing else other than be victims of plot advancement and threadweaving. I can tell that some atempt was made to make interesting characters but I just don’t feel that it succeeded. I’ve finished this book a month ago and I can only remember the name of one of the characters and that’s because his story arc was pretty damn wild compared to the rest.
So do I recommend this? Probably not. There are much better books out there. This is, however, a classic that can still be enjoyed today. I didn’t have a bad time reading it but it just felt bland. You could spend you time better in scifi by reading Neuromancer or Snow Crash. At least those are fun and/or interesting. Also confusing as all hell, but it’s part of the charm.
-Goodbye and hello, as always.
House of Suns
Let’s get right to it. This book is weird. It’s peculiar. It’s loopy. It’s like walking into your house and finding all your furniture on the ceiling.
Ok, admittedly that’s not the best metaphor I’ve come up with but I’m rusty here, gimme a break. Let me elaborate a bit by saying that from the moment I read the first line of the book till I finished the last one, I have absolutely no idea what I thought of the book. Now, quite a few months after finishing it, I’m still not quite sure.
The story revolves around two shatterlings (a group of a thousand clones of a single human, sent out to explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy), named Campion and Purslane, two of the blandest main characters I’ve read about since I read Dune (stars and sand, I shudder at the thought of Dune) as they …. well, I’m not sure what they do. It has been my experience that characters from a plot either a) have set out to do something or b) have had something done to them and they act in return. You could interpret that House of Suns’s Dynamic Duo as fitting loosely into the b) box, though for arguments sake, I shall propose to you that I don’t believe that they infact belong to neither box.
Careful now, I shall give some overview plot spoilers here, so take care.
So they start out performing some repairs on behalf of their house (each group of a 1000 shatterlings belong to a house). They realise they’re running late for a reunion, so they decide to upgrade one of their ships to get there in time. Along the way, they pick up a party member. Also along the way, they decide to stop by the equivalent to the Intergalactic Library and pick up some plot-threads as well. They finally arrive at the reunion some 20 years late (I shall return to this subject in a little while), only to find out that someone kill their entire line. They retreat to a safe planet, torture some suspects, very very slowly unravel the why-thread, there’s a space chase, one of the characters seemingly dies, another meets a Deus Ex Machina personification to get some more plot unravelling and it’s hinted that maybe the dead character isn’t so dead and there. End.
Now, if you haven’t read the paragraph, lemme sum it up: the two main characters don’t do anything to advance the main plot. They advance and resolve some side-quests here and there but all the legwork is seemingly done either by some ally or by deus-ex anthropomorphous. It’s not bad storytelling, per say, since the plot gets moving either way, I just personally don’t enjoy that it works out like that. Maybe it’s just a quirk of mine.
Also, I made a little note on the paragraph when I mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. McBland arrive at the meeting 20 years late. This novel has an absolute-timeline which borders on the clinically insane. Seeing as how faster-than-light travel hasn’t been invented and that the shatterlings are ageless, almost all space travel in the novel takes dozens, hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of years of absolute time, though there are technologies to alter the flow of relative time, so the traveller does not go bat-shit insane with boredom. I’m not sure about this, but I get a feeling that the novel takes place (not counting the flashback chapters) over the span of several million years.
And I just mentioned technology. This book comics of the deadly sins of Sci Fi writting (or at least it will become a deadly sin once I take power), which is to mention a piece of technology mid-conversion and never mention directly what it is, does or how it does it. This makes for some very confusing chapters early on, when the shit hits the fan and I have no idea what’s being used or how. Another reason for this is how the author doesn’t sign on the technology naming standards. Shields are (as far as I can tell) impassers and several other examples that I have forgetten by now.
That’s it for now. I now this is a pretty abrupt ending, but as I said before, I’m rusty. Kind of sounds more like a rant than a review, but hey, something is better than nothing. Also, it’s 3 and something AM, I’m sleepy and I’m watching X-Files for the first time in many years and loving it!
Also, it’s good to be back.
-Goodbye and hello, as always.
Still Alive
Howdy there my faithful, yet non-existent, followers! I do apologize for not posting anything in quite sometime.
Last time I posted a review, I was beginning my summer vacation and now I’m talking about just as my Christmas vacations start. Oh, the symmetry.
Well, onto business. I do not want to be one of “those” bloggers. You know the type, they only post once every few months and every post is about how sorry they are that they can’t post (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/superlative.png). So as a Christmas present for you, I shall be reviewing something!
I don’t know what yet, exactly. My choices are House of Suns, Cal Leandros saga, Old Man’s War Universe or mayhap Talisman.
Well, this about concludes this little snippet. I hope you enjoyed it. Ye shall be hearing from me soon. Or maybe never again. You’ll have to wait to find out.
-Goodbye and hello, as always.
The Long Dark No-Book-Time of the Soul
That’s right folks, I have spent nearly 2 months without reading anything new/worthy to comment upon, no counting the entire Codex Alera series, but I find that all the praise I gave the book in my review of it’s starting volume sums the entire series up pretty nicely, if I may say so myself. Not that you should take my word for it, I seem to be quite bias towards Jim Butcher these days, since the author has climb the rank of mere mortals into Godhood in my eyes. Right, that might be a bit extreme, but you got the point, didn’t you?
As of right now, I’m midway through The Talisman, which I will finish as soon as my second year of college starts, nearly done with Wyrd Sisters, which so far is the Discworld novel that has most made me laugh.
Regular readers will recall my ongoing struggle with the Lord of the Ring saga and how I vowed it won’t defeat me. Well, me and the late Mr. Tolkien called it a draw, since I sold my copy of them while I was midway through the second one. Yes, some may say I chickened out, but at least now I won’t see the books on my shelve, taunting me every time I look at them. Serves them right!
As a final note, the time for another book haul seems to be near at hand, so I’m quite open to suggestions. I am considering getting the first volume of the Mistborn series, as suggested by reader, get a few more Mythago Wood books, on behest of the Goddess Jen, the next two Cal Leandros books, since I enjoyed the first, a couple more Discworlds and that’s all I can think of right now. Any and all suggestions are appreciated.
-Goodbye and hello, as always.
Codex Alera – Furies of Calderon
Praise be to Jim Butcher, for he seems to have struck gold again.
Regular readers should know that I love the Dresden Files series. For those who didn’t know that, I love the Dresden Files series. Jim Butcher has written a fantastic (and so far twelve books long) series. The books are relatively small, very easy to read and ridiculously entertaining, being the most entertaining books I have read thus far. If you haven’t read them yet, go do so know or as fast as you can, because your free time should become less free now that (thanks to yours truly), you have discovered the Codex Alera series.
Truth be told, I have only read the first of the series, Furies of Calderon, but it was one damn good start. I only hope the rest of the series can keep up.
Let’s get this started, shall we? The book tells the story of the realm of Alera, who’s inhabitants have the ability to control (or cooperate with) the elemental beings know as “furies”. There are 6 types of furies: earth, water, wind, fire, metal and wood. Every Aleran has at least one fury, which comes to them sometime during their childhood. Each type of fury has several powers (using them is dubbed “furycrafting”), for example earth grants superhuman strength and can manipulate the earth itself, wind grants speed and lets the craft fly and so forth. These powers are vary from direct effects (such as firecrafts hurling fire) to much more subtle (using firecraft to cause fear to those around the crafter). I must say that I really enjoy the way it’s done, it’s a very refreshing change from regular magic featured in most novels (though Dresden Files still shines bright as my favourite form of magic manipulation). The story follows a lot of characters, though one is treated as main character. This is Tavi, a young boy considered a “freak” because he has no furies. He lives in the Valley of Calderon, which contains the only passage that separates the Alerans from the Marat, a race of savages who can’t communicate with furies but have a unique connections with the wildlife. Fifty years before the current time line, the Marat tried to invade Alera but got pounded into the dirt, though not before killing the son of Alera’s ruler. Now it seems the Marat are back and Tavi finds himself in a position that the future of Alera depends on him. Then things get complicated.
I kind of feel that the stories shifts too much from character to character. There are about 4 or 5 different perspectives, shifting constantly about. Admittedly, probably all of these are interesting and never fail to reveal important details to the story, but I still feel that it spreads itself too thin. I just hope that this doesn’t get worse with the later novels.
As with Dresden Files, this is brilliant written and paced, and though it doesn’t use as much humour as Dresden, it still made me guffaw a couple of times.
And that’s about it for now. I seriously enjoyed this book and will probably order the other 5 within the week. Stay tuned for that!
-Goodbye and hello, as always.
First Impression on Lovecraft
I mentioned in my last post that it wouldn’t be the Lord of the Rings triplets that would defeat me (by defeat, I mean be so bad that I couldn’t read through them), that I would be saving that honor for Lovecraft. Well, I have started reading it and after 8 short stories, I have found myself actually enjoying it. It’s dark, depressing, oppressive, eldritch and, at times, downright confusing, but I like it. I do have issues with them though.
Firstly, the main character in all short stories sounds like the same person over and over again, though I assume that all the narrators are self-insertions of Lovecraft. Secondly, I found out that I don’t like short stories much. Sure, they are entertaining while they last, but I like deep stories. All the stories seem to be pieces of a puzzle, only each piece is completely black, none of the pieces fit together and you don’t have the picture to know what the puzzle is supposed to look like. By this I mean that all theses stories seem to be itty bits of a much larger and absorbing story, but it wasn’t written.
I’m not reading all the stories in a row, I’m afraid that might get me depressed or paranoid or something along those lines. I’m reading a few shorts, a novel, more shorts. All in all, I’m liking it.
I wonder what book shall defeat then? I’ll be damned if it’s Lord of the Rings, after all.
- Goobye and hello, as always.
Lord of the Rings – Seriously?
Now then, I seem to have somewhat of a curse when it comes to books I knew of before I started reading. As of yet, only two of the series I have fall under this category, but they also rank at the bottom of the 70 or so books I’ve read. These are Dune, which I’ve reviewed already, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy or saga or triplets.
Now then, for those who’ve read my Dune and remember it, you know why I disliked the book. For those who haven’t, I’ll tell you: the writing. I am sad to say that this series suffers from the same ailment. Now then, I’m not saying that it’s a bad book, not at all (at least according to general opinion), I just seriously don’t like it. And I mean at all. I can’t, for the life of me, get into the story of the books, which are actually quite excellent (probably better than the movies), due to the damnable writing. Everything is “ye olde style”, characters rarely get a direct line of conversation, everything is “alas, but my heart is laden with grief for the downfall of the children of the evergreen trees of Mirkwood!”. It fits the style but it completely ruins the immersion for me.
I’ve been trying to read the three books for a few months now. It took me over a month (vacation time) to read the first one and I’ve been putting off the other two until I have nothing else to read in public (non-comedies). Which is the case. Hopefully, my next haul will arrive soon and post-pone the suffering for a few more months, but mark my words:
It shan’t be this series that shall defeat me. I will endure them. I will read them. If any book can defeat it, it might be the Lovecraft collection I’ve sent. Stay tuned to see how that goes!
- Goodbye and hello, as always.
Procrastination
Ah yes, the lack of posts.
There are several reasons for this, but I fear that, dear reader, you shall find them either bad, stupid, insane or, in the worst case, just normal.
My laziness is probably the main contributor to the downfall of my not-so-precious log of thoughts, but the other co-main-reason of not-being is that I have….well…. sort of run out of things to write about. I mean, there are still dozens of books that I have read left to write about, but very few, if any, of them have had as deep an impact on me as the ones I’ve written about already, for better or for worse.
I mean, as of the time of writing, I have nothing that can top Gentlemen Bastards, The Dark Tower and Amber. At the moment, the only book series I have any interest to write about is Spin/Axis, but since it’s missing it’s third chapter, I shan’t for now.
But no big deal, probably the only person who really reads this already knows what I think about those books anyway. Yes, you know who you are.
Until I post again, dear (purposeful use of singular here) reader.
- Goodbye and hello, as always.
The Gentlemen Bastards
Well, this series is an utter bastard. I’m sorry for that pun, but I was legally obligated to make it.
The Bastards held the coveted position of Third Favorite series for quite a long while. It liked that position. It had bought a couple of couches, had a nice hearth and some nice rugs. Then came Dresden Files and gave it the bum’s rush. Though don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t take anything away from The Bastards. It is still a magnificent series, or so I shall try to convince you of such over the next few hundred words.
Now then, this wonderful (and so far, short) series have made me admire Scott Lynch and want to bang my head against a wall. As of the time of writing, there are only two books released out of the seven planned. I got the first book, The Lies of Locke Lamora, solely because of a recommendation from my literary deity, Jen. I had very low expectations for this book from the get-go. In fact, my expectations were so low that I got this book from my first Haul, but I didn’t read it until after I ordered my second Haul. I believe I needn’t mention how (pleasantly) surprised I was. Amber may be brilliantly written, The Dark Tower may be utterly epic, but it was Lies of Locke Lamora (and later Red Skies over Red Seas) that gripped completely from start to finish without ever letting up. In fact, Lies of Locke Lamora still ranks numero uni novel I had read thus far (Amber and Tower are the superior series, but Bastards has better single books). It is just plain fun to read, very gripping storyline and simply amazing characters.
It all starts with a kid. Calling this kid a kleptomaniac is like stating that the Sun is, in fact, larger than a tennis ball (completely true, yet utterly fails to convey the full meaning). This kid is named Locke Lamora (gods, ain’t that just an amazing name?). As a young boy, Locke is adopted (read “bought”) by a man called the Thief Maker who … well … makes … thieves. Go figure. He soon finds that Locke is far more than he bargained for. After some unpleasantness involving the burning of an entire city block, the Thief Maker finds himself very fond of the idea of parting company with Locke and so passes him on to Father Chains, the blind priest who is chained to his temple. We soon find that Father Chains is neither blind nor chained. He is, in fact, training a gang of con artists whose main purpose is to break the Secret Peace between the thieves of Camorr and the Nobles (the Nobles are out of bounds for thieves, and in trade, some crimes are looked over). Flash forward to the present day and our story begins with Locke, now the garrista (gang leader) of the Bastards start his brand new con. Hilarity and thrills ensue. Oh, in the second book there are pirates. A lot of pirates. How cool is that? Arrrrrggghhhh!
The pacing in these books are quite peculiar. There are usually 3 distinct timelines. Timeline A, which is the main story, timeline B which is what happened immediately before A to lead up to it and timeline C, which are general flashbacks, usually months or years before A. This makes for some pretty interesting, if unorthodox, storytelling.
Also, the novel is funny as well, which I certainly didn’t expect. The first time I read it, I laughed out loud quite a few times. This was over a year ago. I re-read it a few weeks ago, while waiting for another Haul, and it still made me laugh my ass off though this time I was in a train while reading it (I wouldn’t recommend it, you sort of attract quite a few funny looks from people).
Is it worth stating that this book is amazing and that you should read it no matter what? Yes, it is. This book is amazing and you read it no matter what. Why else would it be the namesake for the link of my Designated Ranting Area? (I still don’t like the word “blog”)
- Goodbye and hello, as always.
Addendum to Dresden Files
After reading the next 4 books (making my total 8 out of the 12 available), The Dresden Files have officially overtaken The Gentlemen Bastards as my third favourite series thus far. In fact, I have named them the most entertaining series I have read so far.
The first 4 were good. The next 4 were far better. I am seriously considering a life of crime to buy the last 4.
Let us be honest with ourselves. Any form of media that involves bringing a T-Rex to life, riding him through a large city and using it in battle against a horde of zombies in order to stop a group of necromancers to arrise to godhood deserves an award, or several.
Jim Butcher, in case you ever read this, I tip my metaphorical to you.
-Goodbye and hello, as always.
