China Mieville "The City and the City"

What just happened.  That was what I thought after reading the first chapter.  That was what I was thinking when I finished the book.  I finished it a few days ago and still do not know the answer, which might be the point, or it might not, if you see what I mean.

It is essentially a detective story.  No.  It is essentially a science fiction story about parallel co-existing universes that overlap. No. It is a social commentary that uses a story telling tool like a bludgeon. No.  Obviously I do not really know what it is.  It does however, follow the path of a police officer, Borlu,  investigating a murder that took place in his city, or  the other city?  His city overlaps and mingles with another city, though you have to try hard not to look, or at least look like you are looking, because that is a really serious crime, even when compared to Murder.  The police officer, Borlu,  investigates and you almost learn about the city he lives in, and the city he does not live in but sees and ignores the whole time.

This book is completely mad.  I am still not sure if the author wants us to think that the two coexisting cities are  the result of people simply behaving as if they do, behavior after all on some things can define reality.  Or is there a cosmic event shaped twisted reality warp that makes it possible.  You never know and he probably has no intention to let you know. There was a funny moment when there was a reference to Harry Potter that threw me for a loop.  The book could easily up to that point have been written in the sixties/seventies by a Kafka obsessed hippy with too ready access to mind altering chemicals, but no, it was written in the age of ipads, mp3 players and other technokookery.

Here is the deal.  This is a book that many people would hate.  It is vastly confusing and murky.  It lacks that clear tone of story telling so common to science fiction.  It did draw me in though.  I quite enjoyed it.  It was a ride.  A friend told me though that this might be one of the sanest and most straightforward of the books written by the man, so here goes for the next one which involves I believe dream bugs that are dead, but still actually alive and infesting a parallel dimension.

"Oryx and Crake", Margaret Atwood

I read this after a recommendation from a friend. I have read Margaret Atwood before, The Handmaids Tale to be exact, but it was many years ago and much water has flowed under the bridge.

Lets start off with a controversial claim.  I think that Margaret Atwood has an awful lot in common with Ayn Rand.  Yes, Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged. If you believed in the political spectrum, you would likely position Rand to the right and Atwood to the left.  Lets be hones,t they would both be so far off the edges of the spectrum you would need special glasses with UV filters to see Ayn Rand, and Margaret Atwood would resemble the emissions of a red giant star.  What I mean is, you might focus on the differences between them and dismiss my claim outright, but they both have a very important feature in common when it comes to speculative fiction.  They are extremely negative.  To Ayn Rand the vast majority of the human race is capable of naught and are mere leechs that suck the blood of the talented. In the world of Oryx and Crake the world has been completely screwed up by man and the picture painted of mans final days is one filled with horrific images of society, it is in fact a society or place that bears very little resemblance to our own. There is no happiness for man in this book.  There is no understanding.  There is just a wanton destruction and callous disregard for the world that is not believable.

Now, there is a  place for negativity in fiction, especially science fiction, what better vehicle to explore the negative outcomes of things we are indeed doing.  But the fact is that given all the terrible things that do happen there are good things too.  Even with all the terrible people out there, there are more good caring people.

I am going to throw out another comparison.  There is a movie called Sideways, a comedy about two men on a wine holiday who get up to high jinks in the Napa  valley.  I hated that film for one important reason, there was not one single character in it who I liked, so I didn't connect, and hated the movie which won many awards.

I am the same here with this book.  The writing is often excellent, especially in the second half when the naval gazing finishes and it begins to move forward at a fair clip.  Some of the ideas are important and needed to be explored.  But like the movie mentioned there was nobody in it to like, nothing to conect to, it was negative and I hated it.

I can see that this author is beloved, if not revered, but all I could think was what a fabulous job a writer like Heinlein could have done with the theme, without painting the whole human race with the same brush.  Do not take my opinion on this author with anything beyond a pinch of salt, she is much loved.  But she does not get my vote.

Alastair Reynolds -'Revelation Space'

Alastair Reynolds was recommended by a new friend at work, based upon my liking for history, archaeology and hard science fiction.  It definitely delivers on all three of these fronts.  For those of you familiar with your film history this book is a bit of a Sergio Leone.  It is a good read, but it is has elements of the good, the bad and the ugly.  Like the movie of that name, it was worth my time though.

The ugly part could have been fixed by a decent editor or publisher.  The book changes the perspective the action occurs from in a clumsy and crude manner.  You have jumps in perspective and time that are not separated cleanly to give you a chance to mop your forehead and wipe off the sweat.  A new line can be a switch that throws you for six.  This is a visual editing thing and has nothing to do with the writing, but when you do write about something complicated in its temporal and geographical structure you really want it to work.

The bad part is something I would lay at the writers feet.  The characters are a bit flat.  They do not drag you into the their view, you do not feel their pain, you do not wince when their hands are separated from their bodies (sorry, giving some of the action away).  Character development is lacking as well, even though the events cover a considerable time.

But the good.  This book has some brilliant ideas in it.  I am not saying they are all the authors, but he has blended together some great sci-fi concepts that really are on a galaxy shaping level in a believable and smart way.  There is what is essentially high end nano technology, explorations of consciousness and identity,  interstellar space craft limited to light speed with the crew held in suspended animation, aliens and space based archaeology abound.  There is a computer like no computer like I have seen before.

Now, if this writer could create characters like the one portrayed by Mr Eastwood, he would be the hottest thing since a gamma ray burst,  as it is he is more in planetary nebula territory.  Sorry about the horrible metaphor if you are not an astronomer, if you are, suffer.  Read this if you like weird new ideas on a vast scope that explore the limits what we might be able to know or do.  If your reading needs people you can identify with, give it a miss. As a reference the David Brin Uplift trilogy did the same kind of thing, but he did a superb job with his cast.  I loved that trilogy.

The Darkness That Comes Before

R Scott Bakker is a local boy.  London, Ontario that is.  I picked up this book, the first in a trilogy an age ago and became one of those books that languishes on the to read shelf for far too long.  I am glad I picked it up and read it, it is a good book, but it leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

In short the book is heroic fantasy, world creation, an evil force threatens creation which means you need the forces of good right?  To step in and save it all.  But that is where I think the strength, and in a personal way, the weakness of this book lies. The cast of good has very leaden feet, so mush so that by the end of this first book you are left scratching your head as to who the villains are and who the hero's are.  That is the books strength, it keeps you wondering and the characters, strengths flaws and virtues draw you in.  Some aspects of the evil side of things are were it is too much for me.  He has truly horrendous horribly horrifying demons.  The stuff they do, the thoughts they think are just so evil and nasty that it made me feel like I needed a bath.

That part though is just me.  There are many things in life I do not need to have described, or to see on a news clip, to know they are there, and to understand their gravity.  I personally do not like to see it directly because my imagination is a powerful thing.  So maybe with this book it is my fault?  Who knows.

I can say though that the book is well written, it comes alive and some of the scenes described are fantastic. The characters are complex and fill out nicely though might be lacking in sympathy.

I am not sure about him yet.  I will read a few more and decide if the author is depraved or not.  If  I bump into him at the local convenience store I will hope he takes this criticism with a light heart.  

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N, K, Jemisin

Fantasy writing often seems to get down and wrestle with some of the big questions, life, reality, why we are here.  Things normally left to priests, physicists and philosophers with their often radically different approaches.  I am always left wondering if it works.  A good example would be a writer I absolutely could not get enough of as a teenager, David Eddings.  Eddings wrote about the gods.  He wrote about the creation of the universe. He wrote about the reason for it all.  And quite frankly, to me now, it was a bit crap.

You see I think I am in some ways a bit jaded.  On a personal level, wrestling with life and beliefs I find it so incredibly hard to get away from the simple fact that we, the human race, are less than a pimple on the face of reality.  We are in fact so unimportant, negligible and unnoticeable that we would not make the rank of pimple, on a pimple on a pimple, on the face of reality; and I for one am OK with that.  So when fantasy frames gods and realities in historical superstitious terms I am ok with that.  I buy it.  When fantasy tries to talk about a reality like ours, when it posits the birth of stars, galaxies, quasars and super giant black holes with the same mass as ten million suns and then has that reality depend upon the actions of some sex obsessed human being, I kind of have a problem with it.

That is what Jemisin does quite well in this work.  It's about the gods.  It's about the creation of a whole universe much like ours.  The scope of our reality.  She then has it all depend upon political intrigue of people.  The nature of reality depends upon people.  Her writing was good.  It was a bit sexy at times.  The plot moved forward and characters developed.  Me?  I could not get beyond the fact that the main character was screwing the origin of the universe.  Should you read it?  Its fun.  Will I try other stuff by her?  yes, but from the library when inspiration fails.  Another beef, that is probably not her fault but the editors.  Probably one of the worst titles ever, no real connection to anything remotely important in the novel.

In music they have the term easy listening.  Music that is easy to listen to.  In fantasy I think they should have something called easy reading.  There are so many fantasy writers out there who manage to write escapist stuff that is like brain chocolate.  At least for people like me.  E. E. Knight is another writer that falls into this category.

Dragon champion is more than just brain candy though.  The basic idea of the book is that it is a fantasy from the perspective of a dragon.  A dragon who has to survive being hunted by cruel elves, reckless humans and uncaring dwarfs.  Knight manages to capture this very well, the character development of the dragon, and its perspectives on events and people is really quite wonderful.  You find yourself rooting for the dragon one minute and then stopping a few seconds later asking yourself, "Did the protagonist I care for really just bite off a child's head and chew it.....with gusto?"

The writing is absorbing, E E Knight writes really well.  The plot is fairly straightforward, but in many ways more compelling because of that.  The ending is of course, like any great work in fantasy, a beginning and I expect ( I  have not looked yet ) to find at least a trilogy.  What kinds of readers will like this?  If you like your fantasy simple, and in many ways traditional, you will enjoy this book.  I will read more by this man, who I think is great after one book.  I will add him to my list.

Patrick Rothfuss "A Wise Man's Fear"

This is the second book in a series.  This book, and the book that came before, "The Name of the Wind" is complete and utter genius. I will repeat that if you did not hear it the first time, complete and utter genius  I should have reviewed "The Name of the Wind', but had read it before I started reviewing such trivial things as works of great fantasy.  The thing is, it took an age for him to write this second book, which I first read away from a computer, and we are still waiting on further instalments.

What makes it genius? I hear you cry.  For me it is the character development.  You keep thinking you know the lead character, Kvothe, but then he does something, and even though you did not expect it, it fits, both the character and the story.  The scope is epic, huge.  Kvothe is telling his own tale and is clearly much changed from the young man he describes, knowing that he is going to get to where he is now puts a limit on the story but also tells us that the author has a ways to go and books to write before he puts this one to bed.

Rothfuss breaks a rule, which is really a guideline, when it comes to explaining his magic system.  He spends a great deal of time on the details of how the magic works, but he does it well, never pedantic, always as part of the plot, and he still leaves much unexplained.

This tale has magic, music and mayhem.  It has love.  It has mystery.  Adventure leaps from the pages and your heart is bound to both leap for joy and cry in sadness.  It is a hard one to put down, and both tomes are just that, tomes.  If you love a long book rich in detail, deep as a calm lake at midnight this is for you.

I just wish that he wrote a wee bit faster!  Come on man, you have a duty to create.