Monday, May 30, 2005

A review at last, or a last review? Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebas was very enjoyable, and I look forward to reading the rest of the Culture novels. Which is odd, considering that I didn't feel that way the first time around, eight years ago. In fact, re-reading Banks' SF debut, I was struck by just how little I remembered about it. I had a pretty good inkling about the ending, and could remember some of the more poignant landmarks, notably the Vavatch Orbital -- Banks' own Ringworld -- but other than that, it's as if the book was brand spanking new to me; a novel novel, if you will. Had I not bought two copies of it -- one new way back when; one used a short while ago -- it could have been said that I got twice as much for the money, what with my poor memory.

And then I started and finished Rudy Rucker's Wetware and was onto a couple other books before I could think of anything worthwhile to say about Software's sequel (other than I really liked it). And that, ladies and gentlemen, made me wonder why I don't just read -- and enjoy -- the damn books and leave the reviews to the reviewers. Sheesh.

posted by media_dystopia @ 18:55 [ link | top | home ]

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Read it. Loved it. Wrote a one-paragraph review. I'm not in the mood for another one of my formulaic book reviews -- a pithy title followed by three paragraphs: what I gleaned from it, typically something to do with punctuation; how much I enjoyed it, or not; what I'm reading next and why -- so Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired will get the succinct treatment. A feral Roy Batty yelling, "That's the spirit!" after taking a few of Rick Deckard's desperate whacks to the head -- that's what kept coming to mind as I read the book; that scene from Blade Runner, with its ecstatic exclamation, sums up my reaction to Hardwired. In other words, it was just the sort of cyberpunk page-turner I was hoping for; in fact, I didn't want the story to end. (Surprising, then, that I launched straight into Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebas moments after finishing it instead of pulling its sequel, Voice of the Whirlwind, out of the wall of books.) Not unexpectedly, it had the fringe benefit of fueling my desire to get my hands on as much cyberpunk as possible. Online research has hit a fever pitch as a result, and John Shirley's A Song Called Youth trilogy and other books I hadn't previously known about or given much thought to have been added to my to-get list -- all thanks to Hardwired. There, review done.

posted by media_dystopia @ 15:19 [ link | top | home ]

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

The unfettered imagination. If I can praise John Brunner for anything, it's that in A Maze of Stars he didn't let himself be constrained by science. I have absolutely no affinity for so-called "hard" science fiction, where the story is fiction but the science isn't; in fact, I avoid it like the proverbial plague. (This is why I've been hesitant to read acknowledged science geek Robert J. Sawyer's books, despite enjoying Golden Fleece recently and respecting the Canadian author well before that. If not for that hesitance, I'd have his entire bibliography -- minus the just-released Mindscan -- instead of just a couple of his space operas; the used bookstores I've been frequenting have provided me ample opportunities to acquire his works.) I read the books that I do to escape our reality; why then do I want to be manacled by that of science, to have conditions set on the suspension of my disbelief? Speculation or extrapolation based upon fundamental precepts is all well and good, but it lacks the freedom -- and just plain wackiness -- of making shit up. I like my reality skewed, thank you very much; if that means -- gasp! -- exceeding the speed of light and ignoring other dos and don'ts of science and technology, then so be it. It's fiction: boundaries are meant to be pushed; extremes are meant to be gone to. For me, the whole point is to be able to ask, "What if...?" (or, when confronted with the laws of nature, "Yes, but what if...?"). In the case of A Maze of Stars, I didn't need to know how protagonist Ship does what it does -- only that it does.

I also appreciated Brunner's use of dashes (not to let the punctuation fixation go unheeded); unfortunately, I can't say the same for A Maze of Stars' story. Of all the books I've read recently, this one did the least for me. That's not to say that there wasn't an interesting concept behind it; it just wasn't the sort of page-turner I was hoping for, is all. Part of the problem, I think, is that the story actually consisted of a series of disparate, yet loosely connected, mini-stories; chapters were de facto new beginnings. The resulting structural repetition reminded me of a sine wave, complete with the ups and downs: some mini-stories didn't appeal to me as much as others. At least, that's how I felt halfway through the book; it did pick up towards the end.

The moral of the story (no pun intended) is that you can't expect to hit the mark every time you throw that dart at the wall of books. Speaking of which, what's next? I think I'll cleanse my literary palette with some '80s cyberpunk: Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired. To avoid further disappointment, I'll avoid the temptation of going into it with my hopes raised; then again, if Metropolitan was any indication...

posted by media_dystopia @ 16:45 [ link | top | home ]

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

"Needs must when the devil drives." That's the answer; here's the question: What does Red Dwarf's Series V episode "The Inquisitor" have in common with John Brunner's A Maze of Stars? Both the show and the book used it, Arnold Rimmer the full expression (although, "when" was replaced with "as") and Brunner the shortened "needs must"; in so doing, they informed me of an ages-old proverb-turned-idiom that I had heretofore never heard or read, much less used in any way -- and probably won't, so long as I keep picturing Satan behind the wheel. In the fortnight before reading the two-word version in A Maze of Stars, I heard the expanded one several times courtesy of my just-bought Red Dwarf DVD, which is the only reason why I noticed the former; prior to Rimmer's usage -- the first that I can recall -- "needs must" had always escaped my attention. Point being, if the expression ever finds its way into my writing or speech, I can now trace its source. Speaking of sources, given that I've just used the word "fortnight" for the first time, it's safe to assume that my burgeoning collection of British books and DVDs is subtly altering my brain. Pretty soon, I'll be calling guys "blokes," fries "chips," trucks "lorries," and replacing who knows what other words in my North American vocabulary with Briticisms.

Follow-up: Thanks to BBC Kids' presentation of Blackadder II episode "Money" a week later, I heard it again; although, cash-strapped -- and, consequently, house-selling -- Edmund Blackadder put a not-unexpected sardonic twist on the expression: "But needs must when the devil vomits into your kettle."

posted by media_dystopia @ 16:21 [ link | top | home ]