octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

Interesting take on a planned dystopia, one where the determination to bring about apocalypse is mitigated somewhat by provision for the survivors. That provision, however, is dependent on ignorance - as soon as the survivors know what's going on, there's a risk that they'll manage to off themselves as a consequence. This is a premise dependent on one of my most hated tropes, to be fair - the You Can't Handle The Truth!!! trope, one which is deeply patronising and one which I've always felt to be mostly inaccurate. Case in point here is Juliette: when she does find out, she's able to adapt. It's still a really entertaining read, if one that's a trifle long for my taste. What it's missing, I think, is a slightly more aware exploration of that trope - there's a difference between an uprising prompted by knowledge of origins and an uprising prompted by the fact that people you work with every day are actively lying to you. Wool is very much an environment of the present, and doesn't quite differentiate between present and past enough for me, but I still really liked the heroine and the setting is a compelling one.

This is an anthology consisting of short stories published in the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. The selected stories cover 60 years in the life of the magazine, with initial publications ranging from 1928-1983. It's interesting to see the changes over time, but there seems to be quite a leap in quality to the stories I read that are published today; many of the ones collected in this volume are pretty old-fashioned, and some of them are pretty basic. Honestly I prefer the more modern stories generally, but, you know, I like reading older collections too, simply because I enjoy short stories and like to see how they evolve within the genre.

Overall, this is pretty average. There are stories here by Le Guin and Tiptree, but in neither case is it their best work I think. Most of the rest I can take or leave; as with most collections some of the stories appeal much more than others. On the down side is the truly execrable "There's No Vinism Like Chauvinism" by John Jakes, but to balance that out there was one genuinely outstanding story here, that dragged up the anthology rating to three stars by main force. "Requiem", by Edmond Hamilton, originally published in 1962, is a very quiet, very restrained story about the observation of the dying Earth, and it was absolutely lovely.

Okay. This was pretty damn amazing. Not perfect - there are a couple of stories in here that are unconvincing, or that border on the clichéd - but when the horror hits it really hits hard. Moreover, the bulk of the stories here are creature horror, which I love, with repulsive and terrifying creatures coming up out of foundations and underground caverns and lakes. It's a little bit Lovecraftian, but without the racism and awful overwrought prose.

There are three really outstanding stories here, I think. "Feesters in the Lake", the title story, in which really disgusting wormlike creatures infest an old house and its nearby lake (and when I say "disgusting" I mean it; Leman's creatures can produce genuine revulsion). There's also "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming", which is a chilling but deeply sad story about a man who loses his wife and is subsequently haunted by her... or something which appears to be her. It's a really interesting take on the haunted house genre, anyway. But the best in this collection, bar none, is "Window". A portal appears in the everyday world, showing on the other side a happy family, living in their beautiful home. I won't spoil it, but I was creeped out for a long, long time after reading that story. The end is just terrifying... in a wonderful way, of course, but still.

Oh, what an excruciatingly ugly cover this edition has...

But now that superficial judgement is over with, this is an extremely interesting book. I saw the movie some time back, and the thing that most sticks out to me, now that I've read the text, is how compressed the film made it seem. In reality, this investigation went on for months and months, while Bernstein and Woodward did interview upon interview, literally hundreds of them, trying to piece everything together. Seriously, the amount of work they put into this is staggering. All credit to them, and to the Washington Post for backing them to the hilt even under heavy fire. It really shows the value of investigative journalism, and how it can act as a break on political power. What the two of them uncover just gets worse and worse, and it just rolls on as an increasing juggernaut of consequence.

As fascinating as the subject matter is, however, it's also a tangle of names, most of which are unfamiliar to me. I imagine this was less of a problem at the time, given that all the people concerned were plastered over papers and thus familiar to most readers, but as the scale of the conspiracy was uncovered it seems to me that the authors might have been a little more aware of the historical value of what they produced, and futureproofed their book for later generations. This book would have benefited immensely, for example, from a few simple diagrams showing how the President's men actually related to each other. There's a character list at the beginning of the book, but it's not enough, and at times I had to resort to Wikipedia to sort it all out.

I read and reviewed each of the five volumes collected here separately, so this is really just for my own records. The rating for the collection is the average of the individual ratings - everything got three stars, apart from The Lost Road (also the last read) which got two. It dropped down to two stars because I was, frankly, sick to fucking death of all the repetition. It's long been a reading goal of mine to work through the histories of Middle-earth, because The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are some of my favourite books of all time, but talk about sucking all the joy out of things...

I would like to credit Christopher Tolkien with all the work he's done on this series - and it's been a lot, credit where credit's due - but my goodness are his endless notes pendantic, dull, and deeply, deeply repetitive. By the time the reader has waded through these five volumes, plus The Silmarillion, they've had to read through same stories multiple times. With only very minor differences in each volume. (I never liked goddamn Turin but I fucking HATE him now. Frankly I'm siding with the dragon.)

The original material is genuinely interesting. But it becomes ever more apparent, as the histories go on, that they are as much a money-making exercise as anything else, because the sheer weight of repetition that readers are expected to both buy and swallow as these volumes go on is just plain exploitative. It's so bad I've actually taken a break from reading the histories because I'm so fed up with the same damn thing all over again.

I'm currently doing a rewatch of the very first series - it's been a long time since I saw it! - and got this from the library for comparison. There's a lot to like about the first episode of what would become one of the biggest franchises in science fiction, but surprisingly none of what's likeable is the Doctor. He's an old grump here, and not in a good way. It's the two teachers, Barbara and Ian, who are the most attractive characters, and as they're acting as audience substitutes I suppose that's intended. Anyway, away from the dodgy sets of the television programme, the novelisation is pretty good. It's a bit basic - there's not a lot added here, and I tend to expect more from novelisations than bare transcription - but it's still a fun read that zips along quickly. A bit pacier even than the actual episodes, I think.

This is really 3.5 stars for me, rounding up to 4. It's the third book in this series that I've read, and it sort of sits in the middle, with Shriek still being the high point of the bunch. And before I say anything else, I should point out that the cover of the edition I read is stunning. Seriously, best book cover I've seen in ages.

More than anything, though, reading this book reminded me of The City and the City by China Miéville. Not so much for the subject matter - although both books deal with doubled cities and crime that spans the pair of them, they take a very different approach. It's more because of my reaction to them, which in both cases was entirely unemotional. I just couldn't connect with either of them in that way. But what makes VanderMeer's book more interesting to me than Miéville's is the imagery. The sheer grotesque, fungal, deeply weird imagery. It's fantastic, and it's why Finch gets more stars from me than City. There's something so very visual about Finch, certainly more so than most fantasies, and I appreciate that so much that it sort of counteracts the fact that I don't give the tiniest damn about the plot or any of the characters... except maybe the cat, and with the best will in the world Feral is a very bit part.

Look, there's no getting round it. "The Lottery" is a five star short story if ever there was one. It's absolutely excellent, and one of my favourites. That said, while the other stories in this collection are good - often very good - there's nothing else that stands up with it for sheer punchy quality. The better stories in here, stories like "Flower Garden" and "Of Course" and "Men with Their Big Shoes", are stories of petty creeping unease more than anything else. They're slow moving and you can see the end coming, very clearly, and while you hope the characters will find it within themselves to subvert that expected end, the fact is that in most cases they just don't have the gumption or the self-awareness or the decency to avoid it. Oh, they'll tell you they're decent people, I'm sure, and feel absolutely truthful as they do, but there's nothing idealised about them. They're petty in every sense of the word.

There's something genuinely fascinating about that, about the sheer mild everyday grubbiness that Jackson describes. She's got a beautiful prose style, that's for sure, and her stories are always horribly observant. From the title, however, I was expecting more actual horror and not, you know, irritations between neighbours and the hired help. "The Lottery" is flat out horror, but I think the rest of this falls more into general fiction. And while it's undoubtedly (and painfully) accomplished fiction, it's the title story that sticks most to the mind, and I think that's probably true for every reader.

This series has gone downhill so damn quickly... I gave the first volume four stars, if I recall correctly. The second volume got three stars and here we are on book number three and two stars is all I can offer. The worst parts of the last book have been doubled down on and given I'm only halfway through the series the trend seems clear. It's gore and violence above plot and common sense.

Still, you know, this is a thriller about a serial killer. I expect gore and violence. If I didn't like gore and violence in this context I would be reading something else. It's just I can't get over how much I hate Archie Sheridan. You have a serial killer, Archie. You and your merry band of incompetents have been following her for years now, as she tortures and butchers literally hundreds of people. You have many, many chances to kill her - three in this book alone. And every time you blow it, because you don't want to be a killer. Well boo-fucking-hoo. At this point you're complicit with everything she does, every person she hurts, because you have continuous chances to stop it and never do. I simply cannot stand you, and the relationship you have with Gretchen Lowell has stopped being entertainingly creepy and started being flat out pathetic.

Debbie was right to leave your arse. Henry would be right to dump you in an unmarked grave himself; all you do is get in his way. At least he's trying, you feckless piece of shit.

I didn't add this at time of reading, which was a while back, but I've just been going through it again so here we are. This is only a very short review, as a much longer version is coming up soon on Strange Horizons, but I was delighted. This is so delicate, and so subtle, and the themes repeat in new and interesting ways throughout the collection. There's Herland and Mars colonies and the introduction of the alien, but mostly there's a sense of expectation, of instability and ephemera. It's very, very effective. Anyway: favourite poems in here include "When the First Ship Left", "Reasons for Leaving", "The Tea Kettle Awaits the New Widow's Return", and "Alima Among the Trees".