I consider Neal Stephenson to be one of the modern Grandmasters of science fiction, right up there with David Brin, Greg Bear, or William Gibson. I have not, however, obsessively read everything he's written, as I did with earlier Grandmasters (Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke). For one thing, I'm a grownup now and don't have the time I once did. Also I have branched out quite a bit in my reading, and have come to concede that even Grandmasters do not create all their works equally. I could not manage to get into The Baroque Cycle and put it down after Volume 1. But I got Seveneves as a gift and looked forward to reading it.
And am really glad I did. This is throwback SF in the best possible way--informed socially by the present, and packed with fascinating descriptions of ideas for what's coming in the future.
We start out with a bang as something that comes to be known as the Agent rams through the Moon and breaks it up into seven big pieces. Pretty shocking stuff, but it looks like life will go on, until scientists start crunching the numbers and figure out that life won't, in fact, go on. The Moon will continue to break up into smaller pieces, and those pieces will come down on the Earth in a five thousand year firestorm.
Stephenson plays out the story in Grandmasterly fashion from there, telling a compelling story of humanity's efforts to allow at least a few to survive. The focus is on setting up a space colony. That colony barely squeaks by, but get by it does, and eventually builds a thriving society that prepares to resettle earth.
There are several well-done characters in this book, but in truth it stands out as a work of ideas. We have the survivors deciding to divide the human race into seven different races, for the most part cooperating but with some deep divides. Lots of orbital mechanics and physics along the way. The story is a great one for geeks and keeps you wanting more all the way through.
Stephenson is good with different literary voices. Cryptonomicon (a follow-on to the Baroque Cycle, but written first--a post-quel?) is very geeky but businesslike, and The Baroque Cycle somewhat flowery, as one would expect. Snow Crash (his breakout) is very Cyberpunky. For Seveneves, he chose--dry. Not as dry as Jack McDevitt, but dry nonetheless. I wondered why, as he doesn't have to write that way, and have not sorted it out. Most of the characters are scientists, maybe he's trying to be true to their type? The bartender departs from this with somewhat--dry--humor.
Also, the book jacket kind of has spoilers in it. It gives away that humanity really does survive, which was in suspense for awhile.
All in all, it's a terrific book and you should go read it if you haven't. I give it 4 stars.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Thursday, October 22, 2015
The Peripheral, by William Gibson
William Gibson occupies a pretty amazing space in speculative fiction, for the genre as a whole and for me personally. I ate up the Sprawl Trilogy, as pretty much anyone reading SF at the time did. He took us to a completely different world than we were used to, but one more thoroughly plausible than space travel novels. The early Cyberpunks well understood that with the birth of the Internet we were finally going to let go of the notion that our future was off planet--inner space was going to become much more fascinating than outer space. Gibson established his thick descriptive style and clipped dialog in the Sprawl, and it really worked for that setting.
I've read several of his novels since then, the most recent one being Pattern Recognition. He seemed to get away from his older style of dialog there, but it was a pretty good book (from back before I was reviewing, and I don't think I'll go back to do one). But it wasn't good enough that I went out to pursue the other two in the series.
Fast forward to 2014, and I receive The Peripheral as a gift. I let it age on my to-read list for awhile, as I am wont to do, and finally got around to reading it.
And I'm a little sad. It's not a terrible book, but it's kind of a poor reflection of the early groundbreaking work.
Gibson's plot driving speculation is a mysterious "server" that sets up a connection between the present and some point in the past. This "server" is somehow to be thought of as not just "a magic spell" by being Chinese. Once the server establishes that connection, information can be exchanged between the present and that past. Once the connection is established, though, that past is altered and no longer leads to the present. The few people who survived a devastating depopulation event (the "jackpot") include some who have become very interested in these "continua" as hobbies.
The characters in the book are very much types, as opposed to people. The protagonist is an Ingenue. Her brother and his friends are Wounded Warriors. We have a Drunk, an Agent, and some dissolute wealthy Villains. The chapters alternate between the present and the now-altered past.
Gibson does differentiate the voices--the past people all speak in the same clipped way the people in the Sprawl do--the eras seem related. The future people are wealthy and refined, and speak in complete sentences. Within that, it's kind of hard to tell who's talking, particularly for those in the past.
It takes awhile for the action to get going, but it does. The climax is good fun but awfully brief. I don't know. It just seems forced. Hopefully he can get it going again, but we'll see. Two stars for this one.
I've read several of his novels since then, the most recent one being Pattern Recognition. He seemed to get away from his older style of dialog there, but it was a pretty good book (from back before I was reviewing, and I don't think I'll go back to do one). But it wasn't good enough that I went out to pursue the other two in the series.
Fast forward to 2014, and I receive The Peripheral as a gift. I let it age on my to-read list for awhile, as I am wont to do, and finally got around to reading it.
And I'm a little sad. It's not a terrible book, but it's kind of a poor reflection of the early groundbreaking work.
Gibson's plot driving speculation is a mysterious "server" that sets up a connection between the present and some point in the past. This "server" is somehow to be thought of as not just "a magic spell" by being Chinese. Once the server establishes that connection, information can be exchanged between the present and that past. Once the connection is established, though, that past is altered and no longer leads to the present. The few people who survived a devastating depopulation event (the "jackpot") include some who have become very interested in these "continua" as hobbies.
The characters in the book are very much types, as opposed to people. The protagonist is an Ingenue. Her brother and his friends are Wounded Warriors. We have a Drunk, an Agent, and some dissolute wealthy Villains. The chapters alternate between the present and the now-altered past.
Gibson does differentiate the voices--the past people all speak in the same clipped way the people in the Sprawl do--the eras seem related. The future people are wealthy and refined, and speak in complete sentences. Within that, it's kind of hard to tell who's talking, particularly for those in the past.
It takes awhile for the action to get going, but it does. The climax is good fun but awfully brief. I don't know. It just seems forced. Hopefully he can get it going again, but we'll see. Two stars for this one.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
My Real Children, by Jo Walton
My Real Children wraps up my World Fantasy Award reading, and award books generally, for this year. I very much enjoyed Among Others from 2012 and was looking forward to this one. Overall I'd say it was a nice read, but not a super standout.
The basic premise of the book is that P. A. Cowan (known by Pat or Patty or Tricia or Trish) has led two parallel lives, and at the end of her life is aware of both. It's one life up to the point where she decides to marry or not marry Mark, and splits at that point. Both lives seem very solid and real, and at the end she is in one or the other life pretty much on alternate days. Most of the book is the stories of these parallel lives, one unhappy but eventually fulfilling in an ordinary way, and one quite happy and perhaps more fulfilling. The world around her, though, is much better off in the world where she is less happy.
And as I said, the book is mostly spent relating details of these two lives. We care about the protagonist, but not in any profound way. Jo Walton is an accomplished writer so the book was easy and entertaining to read, but that's what you'll get here--no real stretch.
Give it 3 ordinary stars from me.
As for a world fantasy award favorite--I have not changed my mind about The Bone Clocks, it is still by far the best.
The basic premise of the book is that P. A. Cowan (known by Pat or Patty or Tricia or Trish) has led two parallel lives, and at the end of her life is aware of both. It's one life up to the point where she decides to marry or not marry Mark, and splits at that point. Both lives seem very solid and real, and at the end she is in one or the other life pretty much on alternate days. Most of the book is the stories of these parallel lives, one unhappy but eventually fulfilling in an ordinary way, and one quite happy and perhaps more fulfilling. The world around her, though, is much better off in the world where she is less happy.
And as I said, the book is mostly spent relating details of these two lives. We care about the protagonist, but not in any profound way. Jo Walton is an accomplished writer so the book was easy and entertaining to read, but that's what you'll get here--no real stretch.
Give it 3 ordinary stars from me.
As for a world fantasy award favorite--I have not changed my mind about The Bone Clocks, it is still by far the best.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell
The Bone Clocks is the next World Fantasy Award nominee I've read, and to say it's my favorite is at this point too faint praise. David Mitchell is more famous at this point for Cloud Atlas, so at some point I'd like to read that too--but for now, savoring this one is just fine.
Like Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks is an interconnected set of stories that spans many years. This seems to be Mitchell's main claim to fame--that he can pull so many threads together. I find it ambitious but not that unusual. And the speculative element of the book--dueling secret societies of immortals, with the afterlife explained--is somewhat conventional.
What's special about the book is how strong each section of the story is. They all develop interesting and complex characters. Both heroes and villains are (mostly) three-dimensional characters with multiple motivations. They are not easy on themselves. The spacing in time gives the story-made-of-stories a natural depth.
I don't want to summarize the plot here because it's fairly simple and a summary would give too much away. So I'll just highly recommend the book for the way the characters bring out the best in the plot. Four stars from me.
Like Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks is an interconnected set of stories that spans many years. This seems to be Mitchell's main claim to fame--that he can pull so many threads together. I find it ambitious but not that unusual. And the speculative element of the book--dueling secret societies of immortals, with the afterlife explained--is somewhat conventional.
What's special about the book is how strong each section of the story is. They all develop interesting and complex characters. Both heroes and villains are (mostly) three-dimensional characters with multiple motivations. They are not easy on themselves. The spacing in time gives the story-made-of-stories a natural depth.
I don't want to summarize the plot here because it's fairly simple and a summary would give too much away. So I'll just highly recommend the book for the way the characters bring out the best in the plot. Four stars from me.
Monday, September 7, 2015
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Looks like the World Fantasy Award is going to have the really interesting books this year. City of Stairs was my next read on this list, and it's a very good one.
City of Stairs' surface plot is a murder mystery, set in a world where the gods are very present. They are pretty much high-powered versions of humans (the truth of this slowly unfolds throughout the book). For a thousand years they played favorites with the Continent, leaving the rest of the world in their shadow. Then the Saypuris, slaves to the Continent, received one last humiliation they could not tolerate. Their Kaj found a way to kill the gods, and the ragtag Saypuris turned the tables on the Continentals.
Seventy-five years later the Saypuris are trying to maintain control of this firekeg. The gods are gone, but their miracles and the damage from the struggles as they passed are still all over the Continent and its most prominent city, Bulikov. The protagonist, Shara Komayd, comes in to investigate the mystery of the murder of a prominent Saypuri scholar.
Bennett has a lot of interesting things to say about the relationship between the human and the Divine. They are not new things, at least not to me, but they are true and powerful nonetheless, and this is a pretty good introduction. They aren't highbrow things, either--this is a novel of action, not a theology exposition. Shara and her powerful secretary, Sigrud, make a good superhero team. Much gets torn up and blown up along the way to the explanations.
This is the first of a series, The Divine Cities, and I am finding it reminds me of N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy (Example here) in that the gods are very present and accessible to at least some of the people, and have apparent limitations. Maybe what we have here is an interest in how highly powerful beings discharge their responsibilities? Sounds reasonable to me. Kings, gods, the fabulously wealthy, the once humble but suddenly empowered--in some way it's a central narrative, that burden, potentially terrifying, of being able to actually do something to save everything,
Highly entertaining, I give this one four stars.
City of Stairs' surface plot is a murder mystery, set in a world where the gods are very present. They are pretty much high-powered versions of humans (the truth of this slowly unfolds throughout the book). For a thousand years they played favorites with the Continent, leaving the rest of the world in their shadow. Then the Saypuris, slaves to the Continent, received one last humiliation they could not tolerate. Their Kaj found a way to kill the gods, and the ragtag Saypuris turned the tables on the Continentals.
Seventy-five years later the Saypuris are trying to maintain control of this firekeg. The gods are gone, but their miracles and the damage from the struggles as they passed are still all over the Continent and its most prominent city, Bulikov. The protagonist, Shara Komayd, comes in to investigate the mystery of the murder of a prominent Saypuri scholar.
Bennett has a lot of interesting things to say about the relationship between the human and the Divine. They are not new things, at least not to me, but they are true and powerful nonetheless, and this is a pretty good introduction. They aren't highbrow things, either--this is a novel of action, not a theology exposition. Shara and her powerful secretary, Sigrud, make a good superhero team. Much gets torn up and blown up along the way to the explanations.
This is the first of a series, The Divine Cities, and I am finding it reminds me of N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy (Example here) in that the gods are very present and accessible to at least some of the people, and have apparent limitations. Maybe what we have here is an interest in how highly powerful beings discharge their responsibilities? Sounds reasonable to me. Kings, gods, the fabulously wealthy, the once humble but suddenly empowered--in some way it's a central narrative, that burden, potentially terrifying, of being able to actually do something to save everything,
Highly entertaining, I give this one four stars.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Acceptance, by Jeff Vandermeer
Acceptance concludes Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, and does a good job of it. Though I wouldn't say "concludes", rather "rides off into the sunset". This volume rotates between four points of view--Control (current Southern Reach directory), Gloria the previous director (who, it turns out, lived in Area X as a child), Saul Evans the lighthouse keeper, and Ghost Bird, who is and is not the biologist from the last expedition. At the end of the previous volume Area X had expanded catastrophically, and desperation is in the air. Control and Ghost Bird have gone into Area X and are exploring.
The book brings out the story of each character while moving things forward. At the heart, there is no comprehending Area X--might be magic, might be an alien life form beyond our understanding (a favored theory), but none of the speculations seem to bring any sort of enlightenment. So the story proceeds with a sort of melancholy horror, a simple sadness. There are signs of resistance within Area X, and Control and Ghost Bird find familiar faces. But resistance appears to be futile.
This is a sort of existential horror/supernatural story, so if you like Camus or maybe semiotics (Vandermeer credits it for inspiration) then you'll fully enjoy this book. Otherwise it's mostly about the writing. Vandermeer is a master of describing the points of energy within a rotting system (rotting, as opposed to breaking or otherwise failing). If the second two books in the series had not been nominated for the World Fantasy Award I might not have picked them up, but in the end am not sorry I did. 3 stars from me.
The book brings out the story of each character while moving things forward. At the heart, there is no comprehending Area X--might be magic, might be an alien life form beyond our understanding (a favored theory), but none of the speculations seem to bring any sort of enlightenment. So the story proceeds with a sort of melancholy horror, a simple sadness. There are signs of resistance within Area X, and Control and Ghost Bird find familiar faces. But resistance appears to be futile.
This is a sort of existential horror/supernatural story, so if you like Camus or maybe semiotics (Vandermeer credits it for inspiration) then you'll fully enjoy this book. Otherwise it's mostly about the writing. Vandermeer is a master of describing the points of energy within a rotting system (rotting, as opposed to breaking or otherwise failing). If the second two books in the series had not been nominated for the World Fantasy Award I might not have picked them up, but in the end am not sorry I did. 3 stars from me.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Authority, by Jeff Vandermeer
Authority is the second book in the Southern Reach trilogy, and I'm reading it as part of the World Fantasy Awards for this year. Usually second books are kind of the weak point in a trilogy, but I would say this is not the case here. I liked this one better.
The first book, Annihilation, seemed pretty simply a horror story, told from one character's perspective and a dry character at that. The second book introduces John Rodriguez, aka Control (apparently a childhood nickname) as the successor to the previous director of the Southern Reach. This is something of a rehab assignment--Control has screwed up some previous ones, sometimes badly. He is a secret agent in a line of secret agents, and has been saved for this by his mother. Now he is thrown into the insane mess that is the Southern Reach's study of Area X. Even a high talent would be hard pressed to succeed, but he gives it a try.
And of course things get weirder and weirder, but I'll leave you to read about that part. My own opinion here is that Control struggles for control, as it were, because he is a bit too human to be a good agent. He recognizes his limitations. He loves his cat, which is a soft spot for me. He tries to be detached, as good agents seem to need to be, but it doesn't help him enough. He is utterly in over his head as he tries to get information out of the biologist from the last expedition.
I give this one a solid 3 stars and look forward to the last one. It's not the greatest thing I've ever read, but he has the weird factor going well.
The first book, Annihilation, seemed pretty simply a horror story, told from one character's perspective and a dry character at that. The second book introduces John Rodriguez, aka Control (apparently a childhood nickname) as the successor to the previous director of the Southern Reach. This is something of a rehab assignment--Control has screwed up some previous ones, sometimes badly. He is a secret agent in a line of secret agents, and has been saved for this by his mother. Now he is thrown into the insane mess that is the Southern Reach's study of Area X. Even a high talent would be hard pressed to succeed, but he gives it a try.
And of course things get weirder and weirder, but I'll leave you to read about that part. My own opinion here is that Control struggles for control, as it were, because he is a bit too human to be a good agent. He recognizes his limitations. He loves his cat, which is a soft spot for me. He tries to be detached, as good agents seem to need to be, but it doesn't help him enough. He is utterly in over his head as he tries to get information out of the biologist from the last expedition.
I give this one a solid 3 stars and look forward to the last one. It's not the greatest thing I've ever read, but he has the weird factor going well.
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