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tachyondecay
Two years ago my friend Vivike gave me Kafka on the Shore for Christmas, assuring me that I would like it—and she was right. I also found it confusing and daunting and knew that, in Haruki Murakami, I had found yet another author whose works I will continue to digest long after I devour them with all the tenacity my love of reading requires. So for this Christmas as I considered which book to inflict upon Viv, Murakami’s latest was a natural choice. And I prefer to give people books that I have already read, so that my recommendation is all that more genuine. Of course, when I went to buy 1Q84 last Thursday, I didn’t quite realize it was 925 pages. Since I planned to give it to Vivike when I saw her on Monday, I had an intense few days of reading to do. But I made it!
I liked 1Q84 better than Kafka on the Shore almost immediately. It might be owing to the more overtly science-fictional premise, this idea that Aomame might just have slipped into a parallel world. It might be that the mystery in this novel develops at a much less sedate pace than its impressive length suggests. It could be that, unlike the somewhat unequal relationship between Kafka on the Shore’s two main characters, Aomame and Tengo are a much more evenly-matched duo. Watching their stories converge, seeing the foreshadowing that Murakami uses, is one of the most delightful things about this book. I kept developing—then discarding—various theories as to what was going on. There were moments when I was so sure of an answer, only for Murakami to pull the carpet out from beneath my feet a hundred or two hundred pages later. Yeah, occasionally I was right—but who am I to keep score?
1Q84 is a mystery and also a little bit of a fairy tale. Aomame is the investigator, and she is also an Alice in a Wonderland that is uncomfortably similar to her own world. Quickly it becomes apparent that the cult at Sakigake, the Little People, and Air Chrysalis all have something to do with Aomame’s sudden transition to this alternative worldline—but what, precisely, is the connection? Meanwhile, Tengo struggles with the ethics of his role as the ghostwriter of Air Chrysalis; he has also begun to wonder how the novel relates to Fuka-Eri’s real experiences at Sakigake. It’s a rich and multi-layered mystery. Wanting to know the answers was definitely one reason I kept reading (aside from my self-imposed deadline!). But the style and substance in which Murakami steeps his mystery makes the experience all the more enjoyable.
1Q84 reminds me of Bridge of Birds in the way that many of its characters are less like actual people than they are like characters from a myth or a fable. (Alice in Wonderland has a similar quality to it.) The Leader, Professor Ebisuno, the Dowager, and even Fuka-Eri all have an advisory aspect to their personae. Even their names (Ebisuno is commonly addressed as “the Professor”, and while we do learn the dowager’s name late in the book, no one ever calls her by it) suggest the roles they play rather than people. The effect of this characterization is two-fold. Firstly, it supports the Jungian archetypes that Murakami explicitly employs throughout the novel. Secondly, it emphasizes the almost meta-fictional nature of the book—I say almost because 1Q84 never quite reaches the point where I would call it meta-fiction, but it comes very close. As novels that feature novelists as characters often are, it is a novel that is very keen to discuss and allude to various aspects of the conversation around literature.
And like Bridge of Birds, 1Q84 has a happy ending because it has something to say about the nature of happiness. Both Aomame and Tengo have solitary lifestyles that they believe have made them happy, so they must confront whether this happiness to real or merely a wishful delusion (and if it is the latter, does that matter as long as it feels real?). Aomame finds herself making a friend just as she learns her next assassination will result in her going underground and changing her face and name. The death of Tengo’s father, and his mounting foreboding over his relationship to Fuka-Eri and the Little People, make Tengo realize that he is not really close to anyone and that he has no one on whom he can rely. As someone who has few close friends and leads a sparse social life with an emphasis on solitude accompanied by tea and a good book, I appreciated seeing this nuanced and complex take on such lifestyles. Murakami doesn’t draw conclusions so much as present possibilities.
One person noted on my review of Kafka on the Shore that “the best authors (and I include Murakami here) do not set out to write a novel within the boundaries of a particular genre”. I would tend to agree, and 1Q84 is an excellent example where this appears to be the case. This novel flirts with so many genres but ultimately transcends them all. Much like China Miéville, Murakami seems very comfortable taking complete ownership of his story. He very clearly has influences (1984 being only the most obvious one, and perhaps the least significant). Yet like Miéville he seems less concerned with genre than with setting and character, as he should be. Yet Miéville and Murakami approach worldbuilding in totally different ways. Miéville is like the medieval artist who would sea serpents into the corners of maps: he describes his wonderful and terrifying new worlds to us with a level of detail that makes them come alive. Murakami, in contrast, is more minimalist, allowing the reader to build up a world through a relationship with the characters who traverse it. Aside from what Aomame learns, we don’t really know how 1Q84 differs from 1984—and it isn’t all that important. Although these two approaches are different, they achieve the same end: a work of fantasy that is not mired in the medieval tropes embraced by those who seek to emulate Tolkien and Vance. Both are extremely creative and talented authors with original voices.
Maybe it’s because I’m slightly more familiar with the theories of Jung than those of Hegel or Kafka that I preferred 1Q84 over Kafka on the Shore. That said, familiarity with Jung is certainly not a prerequisite to understanding or enjoying this book. There’s room to interpret 1Q84 through the lens of the Shadow and the Magus, but there are many additional layers of meaning. You will notice that this review focuses on the literary qualities of 1Q84 almost to the exclusion of other concerns. That’s just my particular hang-up, and I hope you won’t come away with the impression that this is a book only book-lovers can love.
There are so many other topics that 1Q84 covers. In general it’s a fascinating window into Japanese culture back in 1984. It deals with issues of abuse, of both women and children, and does not shy away from the ugly truths around this subject. It addresses the fine line between religion and cultism. Also, it’s an interesting example of a novel that wouldn’t work the same if it were set after the advent of the Internet. Murakami refers to computers a few times in the novel—Tengo notably buys a dedicated word processor—but I get the sense that if the novel were set in, say, the 2000s, its tone would be completely altered. The march of digital technology has changed us in ways that we don’t necessarily perceive until we read fiction written now about then.
I can’t quite bring myself to give this book five stars. Unlike some people I’m not going to criticize it for its length, and I was pretty satisfied with the pacing. However, some parts of the book did feel repetitive (and perhaps this was because the three books were published as separate volumes in Japan). For example, I’m not convinced that Ushikawa as a character adds enough dimension to the story to merit his own chapters. (Yet Murakami chose to introduce a third character to the existing duet, altering the structure of the narrative rather significantly, so there must be more to it.) Combined with the extremely compressed time frame over which I read it, this repetition meant that there were moments when I wished Murakami would just get on with it.
For each of those moments, however, there was definitely another moment when I was so invested in this story, so completely sold on its premise and determined to find out what would happen. Without a doubt, 1Q84 is a novel expansive in its philosophical and literary scope in a way that does not sacrifice the true core of any tale of fiction: the story. This is the second Murakami novel I’ve read, and it’s even more enticing than the first. With his careful eye for detail and for balance, Murakami is a first-class writer—and as always, kudos to the translators as well, for their dedication is responsible for helping Murakami’s voice cross the gap between our languages.
I liked 1Q84 better than Kafka on the Shore almost immediately. It might be owing to the more overtly science-fictional premise, this idea that Aomame might just have slipped into a parallel world. It might be that the mystery in this novel develops at a much less sedate pace than its impressive length suggests. It could be that, unlike the somewhat unequal relationship between Kafka on the Shore’s two main characters, Aomame and Tengo are a much more evenly-matched duo. Watching their stories converge, seeing the foreshadowing that Murakami uses, is one of the most delightful things about this book. I kept developing—then discarding—various theories as to what was going on. There were moments when I was so sure of an answer, only for Murakami to pull the carpet out from beneath my feet a hundred or two hundred pages later. Yeah, occasionally I was right—but who am I to keep score?
1Q84 is a mystery and also a little bit of a fairy tale. Aomame is the investigator, and she is also an Alice in a Wonderland that is uncomfortably similar to her own world. Quickly it becomes apparent that the cult at Sakigake, the Little People, and Air Chrysalis all have something to do with Aomame’s sudden transition to this alternative worldline—but what, precisely, is the connection? Meanwhile, Tengo struggles with the ethics of his role as the ghostwriter of Air Chrysalis; he has also begun to wonder how the novel relates to Fuka-Eri’s real experiences at Sakigake. It’s a rich and multi-layered mystery. Wanting to know the answers was definitely one reason I kept reading (aside from my self-imposed deadline!). But the style and substance in which Murakami steeps his mystery makes the experience all the more enjoyable.
1Q84 reminds me of Bridge of Birds in the way that many of its characters are less like actual people than they are like characters from a myth or a fable. (Alice in Wonderland has a similar quality to it.) The Leader, Professor Ebisuno, the Dowager, and even Fuka-Eri all have an advisory aspect to their personae. Even their names (Ebisuno is commonly addressed as “the Professor”, and while we do learn the dowager’s name late in the book, no one ever calls her by it) suggest the roles they play rather than people. The effect of this characterization is two-fold. Firstly, it supports the Jungian archetypes that Murakami explicitly employs throughout the novel. Secondly, it emphasizes the almost meta-fictional nature of the book—I say almost because 1Q84 never quite reaches the point where I would call it meta-fiction, but it comes very close. As novels that feature novelists as characters often are, it is a novel that is very keen to discuss and allude to various aspects of the conversation around literature.
And like Bridge of Birds, 1Q84 has a happy ending because it has something to say about the nature of happiness. Both Aomame and Tengo have solitary lifestyles that they believe have made them happy, so they must confront whether this happiness to real or merely a wishful delusion (and if it is the latter, does that matter as long as it feels real?). Aomame finds herself making a friend just as she learns her next assassination will result in her going underground and changing her face and name. The death of Tengo’s father, and his mounting foreboding over his relationship to Fuka-Eri and the Little People, make Tengo realize that he is not really close to anyone and that he has no one on whom he can rely. As someone who has few close friends and leads a sparse social life with an emphasis on solitude accompanied by tea and a good book, I appreciated seeing this nuanced and complex take on such lifestyles. Murakami doesn’t draw conclusions so much as present possibilities.
One person noted on my review of Kafka on the Shore that “the best authors (and I include Murakami here) do not set out to write a novel within the boundaries of a particular genre”. I would tend to agree, and 1Q84 is an excellent example where this appears to be the case. This novel flirts with so many genres but ultimately transcends them all. Much like China Miéville, Murakami seems very comfortable taking complete ownership of his story. He very clearly has influences (1984 being only the most obvious one, and perhaps the least significant). Yet like Miéville he seems less concerned with genre than with setting and character, as he should be. Yet Miéville and Murakami approach worldbuilding in totally different ways. Miéville is like the medieval artist who would sea serpents into the corners of maps: he describes his wonderful and terrifying new worlds to us with a level of detail that makes them come alive. Murakami, in contrast, is more minimalist, allowing the reader to build up a world through a relationship with the characters who traverse it. Aside from what Aomame learns, we don’t really know how 1Q84 differs from 1984—and it isn’t all that important. Although these two approaches are different, they achieve the same end: a work of fantasy that is not mired in the medieval tropes embraced by those who seek to emulate Tolkien and Vance. Both are extremely creative and talented authors with original voices.
Maybe it’s because I’m slightly more familiar with the theories of Jung than those of Hegel or Kafka that I preferred 1Q84 over Kafka on the Shore. That said, familiarity with Jung is certainly not a prerequisite to understanding or enjoying this book. There’s room to interpret 1Q84 through the lens of the Shadow and the Magus, but there are many additional layers of meaning. You will notice that this review focuses on the literary qualities of 1Q84 almost to the exclusion of other concerns. That’s just my particular hang-up, and I hope you won’t come away with the impression that this is a book only book-lovers can love.
There are so many other topics that 1Q84 covers. In general it’s a fascinating window into Japanese culture back in 1984. It deals with issues of abuse, of both women and children, and does not shy away from the ugly truths around this subject. It addresses the fine line between religion and cultism. Also, it’s an interesting example of a novel that wouldn’t work the same if it were set after the advent of the Internet. Murakami refers to computers a few times in the novel—Tengo notably buys a dedicated word processor—but I get the sense that if the novel were set in, say, the 2000s, its tone would be completely altered. The march of digital technology has changed us in ways that we don’t necessarily perceive until we read fiction written now about then.
I can’t quite bring myself to give this book five stars. Unlike some people I’m not going to criticize it for its length, and I was pretty satisfied with the pacing. However, some parts of the book did feel repetitive (and perhaps this was because the three books were published as separate volumes in Japan). For example, I’m not convinced that Ushikawa as a character adds enough dimension to the story to merit his own chapters. (Yet Murakami chose to introduce a third character to the existing duet, altering the structure of the narrative rather significantly, so there must be more to it.) Combined with the extremely compressed time frame over which I read it, this repetition meant that there were moments when I wished Murakami would just get on with it.
For each of those moments, however, there was definitely another moment when I was so invested in this story, so completely sold on its premise and determined to find out what would happen. Without a doubt, 1Q84 is a novel expansive in its philosophical and literary scope in a way that does not sacrifice the true core of any tale of fiction: the story. This is the second Murakami novel I’ve read, and it’s even more enticing than the first. With his careful eye for detail and for balance, Murakami is a first-class writer—and as always, kudos to the translators as well, for their dedication is responsible for helping Murakami’s voice cross the gap between our languages.
I don’t like werewolves as much as I like vampires. (And I don’t like vampires all that much.) This is some kind of fictional monster prejudice of mine, and I’m a little ashamed of it and would welcome a twelve-step program to help me overcome it. For now, though, I prefer my monsters with a veneer of civility. And while Ceridwen makes a good point about having sex with vampires, the whole transforming-into-a-dog and then having sex thing is not much better. Despite these reservations, however, I tried to keep an open mind while reading this book.
Kitty and the Midnight Hour has a lot going for it. Squeezing in at a slim 259 pages, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The pacing is tight, if somewhat linear, but it still allows the room necessary for Kitty to develop as a character. And to her credit, Carrie Vaughn doesn’t hit the reader over the head with the fact Kitty is a werewolf. She defers the origin story until the middle of the book, which keeps the exposition at the beginning light and allows us to get a sense of who Kitty is now. In fact, if one picked up this book and didn’t read the back cover, one wouldn’t even learn Kitty is a werewolf until page 8 or so. I have to commend Vaughn for not bludgeoning us to death with exposition in an eager attempt to showcase her wonderful urban fantasy world.
I also enjoyed the romance subplot—or lack thereof. Cormac is the dark and brooding antihero who waltzes into the book and could, if Vaughn so chose, become the dashing love interest of Kitty. Things could get hot and heavy fast. As it is, they share a kiss but go no further—not out of chastity so much as the fact that Kitty’s pretty shaken up from being attacked by another member of her pack. But that seems pretty realistic, because so often situations that could result in romance (or at least sex) get interrupted by more immediate and mundane concerns, like staunching the flow of blood from a wound. Such is life.
Vaughn lampshades Kitty and Cormac’s potential relationship on Kitty’s radio show, and if that kiss is any foreshadowing, then I suppose they develop it further in later books. That’s fine, though, because Vaughn is taking it gradually. Girl doesn’t just meet boy and fall automatically into his arms because that’s expected paranomal fantasy. And that made this book a lot more tolerable, especially when it came to Kitty’s other relationships.
Kitty’s situation in her werewolf pack is—and she admits this—abusive from the human perspective. As a junior member of her pack, she must defer to everyone and submit to the men who want her, unless she wants to fight about it, which is dangerous. In return for this submission (“loyalty”), the pack protects Kitty from external threats, such as the local vampire Family. It’s a twisted situation and very uncomfortable for the loss of agency it means for Kitty. As her radio show takes off and she uses it to explore her own feelings about being a monster, Kitty becomes more independent and strong-willed.
We are supposed to cheer her on in this, to recognize that she is breaking away from her abusive situation and celebrate this. And I do, because werewolves or not, it seems like what Vaughn is describing is, again, realistic. People in abusive situations often recognize the situation for what it is but still don’t (or can’t) take steps to leave. But Kitty’s situation is complicated by pack politics, by the fact that the alpha female has set up elaborate plots to get Kitty killed. It leaves the uncomfortable question lingering of what’s “acceptable” in a sane and stable pack—if your leaders aren’t trying to kill you, is it OK they still demand sex from you? I don’t know. This is where the whole humans turning into canines starts to freak me out.
So I’m glad that, in addition to the internal pack struggle, there are some external threats as well! Kitty’s radio show brings her into conflict with the local vampire Master, and she also learns about a faith healer who claims to be able to cure monster conditions. The nature of monstrosity—whether it’s a condition explainable by science and medicine or something wholly supernatural—is a motif that underlies Kitty and the Midnight Hour, and Vaughn mounts a very interesting investigation. I wish Vaughn had been more explicit about the status of the public’s belief in the existence of monsters in this world. At the beginning, it seems like everything is status quo: monsters aren’t real. But if that’s the case and Kitty’s revelation of being a werewolf changes everything, the amount of media fallout seems pretty tame. This should be a bigger deal than it seems, and that left me a little confused.
The end of the book is more of a cliffhanger than a resolution, for while it closes one chapter of Kitty’s life it still leaves many questions unanswered. It almost demands one read the sequel. This doesn’t bother me, because Vaughn carefully balances the need for resolution with her cliffhangers to set up the next book. The result isn’t perfect, namely when it comes to the loose ends about the state of Kitty’s world. Nevertheless, Kitty and the Midnight Hour is good. I won’t be shouting about it from the rooftops or rushing out to buy every book in the series, but I’ll read more if it.
My reviews of the Kitty Norville books:
Kitty and the Midnight Hour → (forthcoming)
Kitty and the Midnight Hour has a lot going for it. Squeezing in at a slim 259 pages, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The pacing is tight, if somewhat linear, but it still allows the room necessary for Kitty to develop as a character. And to her credit, Carrie Vaughn doesn’t hit the reader over the head with the fact Kitty is a werewolf. She defers the origin story until the middle of the book, which keeps the exposition at the beginning light and allows us to get a sense of who Kitty is now. In fact, if one picked up this book and didn’t read the back cover, one wouldn’t even learn Kitty is a werewolf until page 8 or so. I have to commend Vaughn for not bludgeoning us to death with exposition in an eager attempt to showcase her wonderful urban fantasy world.
I also enjoyed the romance subplot—or lack thereof. Cormac is the dark and brooding antihero who waltzes into the book and could, if Vaughn so chose, become the dashing love interest of Kitty. Things could get hot and heavy fast. As it is, they share a kiss but go no further—not out of chastity so much as the fact that Kitty’s pretty shaken up from being attacked by another member of her pack. But that seems pretty realistic, because so often situations that could result in romance (or at least sex) get interrupted by more immediate and mundane concerns, like staunching the flow of blood from a wound. Such is life.
Vaughn lampshades Kitty and Cormac’s potential relationship on Kitty’s radio show, and if that kiss is any foreshadowing, then I suppose they develop it further in later books. That’s fine, though, because Vaughn is taking it gradually. Girl doesn’t just meet boy and fall automatically into his arms because that’s expected paranomal fantasy. And that made this book a lot more tolerable, especially when it came to Kitty’s other relationships.
Kitty’s situation in her werewolf pack is—and she admits this—abusive from the human perspective. As a junior member of her pack, she must defer to everyone and submit to the men who want her, unless she wants to fight about it, which is dangerous. In return for this submission (“loyalty”), the pack protects Kitty from external threats, such as the local vampire Family. It’s a twisted situation and very uncomfortable for the loss of agency it means for Kitty. As her radio show takes off and she uses it to explore her own feelings about being a monster, Kitty becomes more independent and strong-willed.
We are supposed to cheer her on in this, to recognize that she is breaking away from her abusive situation and celebrate this. And I do, because werewolves or not, it seems like what Vaughn is describing is, again, realistic. People in abusive situations often recognize the situation for what it is but still don’t (or can’t) take steps to leave. But Kitty’s situation is complicated by pack politics, by the fact that the alpha female has set up elaborate plots to get Kitty killed. It leaves the uncomfortable question lingering of what’s “acceptable” in a sane and stable pack—if your leaders aren’t trying to kill you, is it OK they still demand sex from you? I don’t know. This is where the whole humans turning into canines starts to freak me out.
So I’m glad that, in addition to the internal pack struggle, there are some external threats as well! Kitty’s radio show brings her into conflict with the local vampire Master, and she also learns about a faith healer who claims to be able to cure monster conditions. The nature of monstrosity—whether it’s a condition explainable by science and medicine or something wholly supernatural—is a motif that underlies Kitty and the Midnight Hour, and Vaughn mounts a very interesting investigation. I wish Vaughn had been more explicit about the status of the public’s belief in the existence of monsters in this world. At the beginning, it seems like everything is status quo: monsters aren’t real. But if that’s the case and Kitty’s revelation of being a werewolf changes everything, the amount of media fallout seems pretty tame. This should be a bigger deal than it seems, and that left me a little confused.
The end of the book is more of a cliffhanger than a resolution, for while it closes one chapter of Kitty’s life it still leaves many questions unanswered. It almost demands one read the sequel. This doesn’t bother me, because Vaughn carefully balances the need for resolution with her cliffhangers to set up the next book. The result isn’t perfect, namely when it comes to the loose ends about the state of Kitty’s world. Nevertheless, Kitty and the Midnight Hour is good. I won’t be shouting about it from the rooftops or rushing out to buy every book in the series, but I’ll read more if it.
My reviews of the Kitty Norville books:
Kitty and the Midnight Hour → (forthcoming)
Genetic engineering used to be purely science fiction. It’s a mark of how far we’ve come that these things are now becoming part of our everyday world. The once-hypothetical question of how to deal with augmented athletes in events like the Olympics is no longer so hypothetical. In The Games, Ted Kosmatka deals with the question in a simple way: no tinkering with the human athletes, but attach a single event that allows countries to showcase their skills at genetic engineering. This is a blood match between designer monsters, and the United States has taken the gold every time. But the pressure is on to triumph again, and so the commission in charge takes control out of the hands of Silas Williams and has an experimental supercomputer design the monster instead. I’ll let you guess what happens.
At first glance, The Games seems like a cheesy science-fiction thriller, easily dismissed as “probably enjoyable but not all that fulfilling”. I gave it a try anyway, and my estimation was almost spot-on. It simmers for the first half, carefully laying out all the threads that will come together for the bloody climax. Then The Games discards that disguise in the second half to reveal itself as the adrenaline-fuelled thriller it wants to be.
There are some interesting ideas floating around here. The idea of designing creatures purely to fight to the death, while it rises moral qualms, is a fascinating look at the possible celebrity applications of genetic engineering. Kosmatka doesn’t spend much time explaining how his near-future society differs from the present day; he definitely shows instead of tells. His characters drive hybrids, and there are hints of eerie differences like a “track” system that uses testing to determine what field of study the government will finance for each person. These are all nice touches because they communicate a sense of difference without actually getting in the way of the story.
Likewise, I enjoyed the philosophical tension inherent in the gladiator competition. On one hand, this is the elevation of science to an art form. As Silas observes, this competition provides an opportunity for countries as well as individual scientists to show what they can do. And the byproduct of all this time spent designing killer creatures is nothing to shake a stick at: medicines, new gene therapies, and all sorts of important scientific discoveries. Although I can sympathize with the protesters outside the stadium, there is a lot to be said in favour of the competition.
On the other hand, there is a darker side. Winning the games has become a point of national pride for the United States. Chekhov once said, “There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.” And that is precisely how I feel about this competition: it’s a perversion of science, not because of what is being created but why it is being created at all. And there’s more than national pride at stake—the competition attracts large donors, and the companies in charge of manufacturing these creatures like that cash flow. Winning is an important way to secure contracts and accounts, and it’s this avarice that naturally leads to everything going FUBAR in the third act.
So Kosmatka sets up a very satisfying conflict on metaphysical as well as physical levels. Unfortunately, I hated the resolution of this thriller. I don’t mind what happens to Silas or to his reputation. (Is that cold and callous? Or is it merely a sign of how little I invest in one-dimensional thriller characters?) However, I wanted the bad guy to get his comeuppance in front of some kind of board of inquiry; I wanted him to answer for what he did. Instead he gets incinerated in a rather impersonal nuclear blast. What kind of justice is that?
Don’t even get me started about the relationship between Silas and Vidonia. Any hope The Games had of being anything more than a cheesy thriller went out the window the moment we learned the supporting character was an impossibly hot female scientist. Naturally enough, they hook up, because it just wouldn’t be right for the male and female leads in a thriller to be just friends. This is but one of the many branches The Games hit as it fell out of the cliché tree.
Oh, and there’s an entire subplot involving the nascent sentience of the supercomputer. As with everything else about this book, it is predictable and features nothing I haven’t seen done better elsewhere.
The Games isn’t quite as bad as Fragment. It restricts itself to a smaller cast of characters, to good effect, and its plot makes more sense, if it is somewhat dull in its plodding predictability. Both of these books have a biological bent to their science-fictional premises, which is probably why one reminded me of the other—but The Games’ premise has far more interesting social and ethical consequences than the reality-TV-show ideas in Fragment.
As I’ve said before, I’m somewhat biased against thrillers. They can’t help being what they are. The Games probably isn’t bad as far as thrillers go, nor is it all that good. It’s mostly just unremarkable. As a work of science fiction, it raises interesting questions about issues that are on our doorstep. But flat characters and an uncomplicated plot make this book difficult to praise as anything more than mediocre.
At first glance, The Games seems like a cheesy science-fiction thriller, easily dismissed as “probably enjoyable but not all that fulfilling”. I gave it a try anyway, and my estimation was almost spot-on. It simmers for the first half, carefully laying out all the threads that will come together for the bloody climax. Then The Games discards that disguise in the second half to reveal itself as the adrenaline-fuelled thriller it wants to be.
There are some interesting ideas floating around here. The idea of designing creatures purely to fight to the death, while it rises moral qualms, is a fascinating look at the possible celebrity applications of genetic engineering. Kosmatka doesn’t spend much time explaining how his near-future society differs from the present day; he definitely shows instead of tells. His characters drive hybrids, and there are hints of eerie differences like a “track” system that uses testing to determine what field of study the government will finance for each person. These are all nice touches because they communicate a sense of difference without actually getting in the way of the story.
Likewise, I enjoyed the philosophical tension inherent in the gladiator competition. On one hand, this is the elevation of science to an art form. As Silas observes, this competition provides an opportunity for countries as well as individual scientists to show what they can do. And the byproduct of all this time spent designing killer creatures is nothing to shake a stick at: medicines, new gene therapies, and all sorts of important scientific discoveries. Although I can sympathize with the protesters outside the stadium, there is a lot to be said in favour of the competition.
On the other hand, there is a darker side. Winning the games has become a point of national pride for the United States. Chekhov once said, “There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.” And that is precisely how I feel about this competition: it’s a perversion of science, not because of what is being created but why it is being created at all. And there’s more than national pride at stake—the competition attracts large donors, and the companies in charge of manufacturing these creatures like that cash flow. Winning is an important way to secure contracts and accounts, and it’s this avarice that naturally leads to everything going FUBAR in the third act.
So Kosmatka sets up a very satisfying conflict on metaphysical as well as physical levels. Unfortunately, I hated the resolution of this thriller. I don’t mind what happens to Silas or to his reputation. (Is that cold and callous? Or is it merely a sign of how little I invest in one-dimensional thriller characters?) However, I wanted the bad guy to get his comeuppance in front of some kind of board of inquiry; I wanted him to answer for what he did. Instead he gets incinerated in a rather impersonal nuclear blast. What kind of justice is that?
Don’t even get me started about the relationship between Silas and Vidonia. Any hope The Games had of being anything more than a cheesy thriller went out the window the moment we learned the supporting character was an impossibly hot female scientist. Naturally enough, they hook up, because it just wouldn’t be right for the male and female leads in a thriller to be just friends. This is but one of the many branches The Games hit as it fell out of the cliché tree.
Oh, and there’s an entire subplot involving the nascent sentience of the supercomputer. As with everything else about this book, it is predictable and features nothing I haven’t seen done better elsewhere.
The Games isn’t quite as bad as Fragment. It restricts itself to a smaller cast of characters, to good effect, and its plot makes more sense, if it is somewhat dull in its plodding predictability. Both of these books have a biological bent to their science-fictional premises, which is probably why one reminded me of the other—but The Games’ premise has far more interesting social and ethical consequences than the reality-TV-show ideas in Fragment.
As I’ve said before, I’m somewhat biased against thrillers. They can’t help being what they are. The Games probably isn’t bad as far as thrillers go, nor is it all that good. It’s mostly just unremarkable. As a work of science fiction, it raises interesting questions about issues that are on our doorstep. But flat characters and an uncomplicated plot make this book difficult to praise as anything more than mediocre.
The simulation hypothesis is perhaps the ultimate conspiracy theory, the one conspiracy theory to rule them all. It’s common enough that more than one blockbuster film has been based on the premise. Like many philosophical concepts that encourage exploration through science fiction, the simulation hypothesis can be imagined in a plethora of ways. I admit I find it compelling, but only to a certain point, since there’s really no way to know….
The Restoration Game is ostensibly about Lucy Stone’s involvement in her mother’s plot to trigger a revolution in Krassnia, a former Soviet country so unremarkable that most people don’t know it exists. Lucy is was born in Krassnia, though her mother is American, and now she works at a game development studio. As she gets pulled deeper into the complex intrigue surrounding Krassnia, we learn more about her childhood, how her mother came to be involved in the spy life, and Lucy’s family’s long-held interests in the region.
Ken MacLeod surrounds all this with a frame story. Set on Mars in perhaps the eleventh or twelfth century, it reveals that Lucy Stone’s world (our world) is a simulation created by an amoral artificial intelligence. In the “real” world, Rome succumbed to slave uprisings and developed spaceflight in less than a millennium. We learn all of this in the prologue, so I wouldn’t really call it a spoiler, even if the back of the book doesn’t mention it. I’ve gone ahead and marked this review for spoilers anyway—plus, I want to talk about the ending and how it let me down.
I have to admit that all of this is pretty cool. MacLeod narrates the prologue in the second person, and the main character talks about “points” as a type of currency in a way that makes her world sound very gamified. I would have liked to learn more about this world, but we spend extremely little time in it. Instead we’re treated to chapter after chapter of exposition about Krassnia and Soviet history … and it’s kind of boring.
MacLeod gives away that we’re in a simulation in the first few pages of the book. Throughout the story, Lucy learns about “the Krassnian truth”, and it becomes apparent that her mother’s plot involves finding out this truth. We already know the truth has to be that their world is a simulation. Consequently, the climax of The Restoration Game lacks any sort of big reveal. Lucy learns the truth … but so what?
And that’s the real problem with this book. It would have been OK for MacLeod to give everything away in the prologue if he were going somewhere with it … but he doesn’t. There are no consequences to Lucy’s discovery! We learn that her world will likely discover its simulated nature in the near future but don’t get to actually see it happen—that would have been a cool story. Instead, Lucy gets a visit from someone from the real world, who asks her never to speak of this to anyone else … and that’s it.
So what?
It’s been a while since I read a book with such a cool premise that inspired such ennui. Moreover, the plot seems fairly contrived and slapdash. Consider the explanation for the wall of code moving down a rockface that Lucy discovers on Mount Krasny. This phenomenon is the ultimate proof we are in a simulated reality. Lucy’s visitor from the real world explains that it’s “placeholder code” designed to let them monitor the simulation, and they put it in an “obscure location”. Firstly, MacLeod’s explanation for why the code manifests like it does is rather limp. It’s a “patch”, which I suppose means it doesn’t quite fit into the physics of our world. But you think people who build artificial intelligences could do better than that.
I’m more concerned with the fact that Mount Krasny was considered “an obscure location”. You know what’s a fucking obscure location? Try the Challenger Deep, not some mountain in Eastern Europe! (Maybe that’s what’s behind the door James Cameron found.) Really, when you stick something that reveals reality is simulated at a location someone can reach without needing oxygen, you are doing it wrong.
But of course, if the code were at the bottom of the Challenger Deep and not on Mount Krasny, there would be no reason for Lucy to go to Krassnia. There would be no reason to subject us to interminable narration, dialogue, and epistolary chapters about Krassnia’s transitions from independence to Soviet control to independence again. Really, the simulated reality story is a minor detail compared to the bulk of The Restoration Game, which is an intense discussion of the politics of this fictional European country. At times I found it fascinating, but mostly I just kept waiting for Lucy to do something other than talk about what she is wearing.
I haven’t read anything else by MacLeod, but in this book his idea of writing from a woman’s perspective seems to involve describing clothes a lot. And, fair enough, maybe Lucy’s the type of girl who just loves describing her clothes. But this seems to be related more to MacLeod’s writing style than his portrayal of women characters: I often encountered sentences that felt like they were sinking beneath the weight of the information he wants them to convey. For example:
You have got to be kidding me. Pick one or two things and tell me about them! Do I really need to know it was tikka chicken? Or that your fingernails match your clutch? Or that the pastry flakes were sausage-roll? Maybe MacLeod is trying to be efficient in packing his prose with as much information as possible, but the effect comes across as more annoying than anything—none of this information is essential. I try very hard not to nitpick about this sort of thing in my reviews, but it’s just so egregious here that I had to mention it. (Also, there just isn’t much else to talk about.)
The phrase “not a bad book” can mean so many things depending on the context. In this case, The Restoration Game is not a bad book, because it has a (fairly) coherent plot, an interesting main character, and tickles my fanciful ideas about simulated realities. Being a double negative, however, “not a bad book” is really just a more diplomatic way of saying it’s not all that good. I didn’t intend for this review to be so acerbic or negative, but I’m trying hard to think of more praise for this book and coming up short. There are things to like about this book, but overall it felt quite wanting.
The Restoration Game is ostensibly about Lucy Stone’s involvement in her mother’s plot to trigger a revolution in Krassnia, a former Soviet country so unremarkable that most people don’t know it exists. Lucy is was born in Krassnia, though her mother is American, and now she works at a game development studio. As she gets pulled deeper into the complex intrigue surrounding Krassnia, we learn more about her childhood, how her mother came to be involved in the spy life, and Lucy’s family’s long-held interests in the region.
Ken MacLeod surrounds all this with a frame story. Set on Mars in perhaps the eleventh or twelfth century, it reveals that Lucy Stone’s world (our world) is a simulation created by an amoral artificial intelligence. In the “real” world, Rome succumbed to slave uprisings and developed spaceflight in less than a millennium. We learn all of this in the prologue, so I wouldn’t really call it a spoiler, even if the back of the book doesn’t mention it. I’ve gone ahead and marked this review for spoilers anyway—plus, I want to talk about the ending and how it let me down.
I have to admit that all of this is pretty cool. MacLeod narrates the prologue in the second person, and the main character talks about “points” as a type of currency in a way that makes her world sound very gamified. I would have liked to learn more about this world, but we spend extremely little time in it. Instead we’re treated to chapter after chapter of exposition about Krassnia and Soviet history … and it’s kind of boring.
MacLeod gives away that we’re in a simulation in the first few pages of the book. Throughout the story, Lucy learns about “the Krassnian truth”, and it becomes apparent that her mother’s plot involves finding out this truth. We already know the truth has to be that their world is a simulation. Consequently, the climax of The Restoration Game lacks any sort of big reveal. Lucy learns the truth … but so what?
And that’s the real problem with this book. It would have been OK for MacLeod to give everything away in the prologue if he were going somewhere with it … but he doesn’t. There are no consequences to Lucy’s discovery! We learn that her world will likely discover its simulated nature in the near future but don’t get to actually see it happen—that would have been a cool story. Instead, Lucy gets a visit from someone from the real world, who asks her never to speak of this to anyone else … and that’s it.
So what?
It’s been a while since I read a book with such a cool premise that inspired such ennui. Moreover, the plot seems fairly contrived and slapdash. Consider the explanation for the wall of code moving down a rockface that Lucy discovers on Mount Krasny. This phenomenon is the ultimate proof we are in a simulated reality. Lucy’s visitor from the real world explains that it’s “placeholder code” designed to let them monitor the simulation, and they put it in an “obscure location”. Firstly, MacLeod’s explanation for why the code manifests like it does is rather limp. It’s a “patch”, which I suppose means it doesn’t quite fit into the physics of our world. But you think people who build artificial intelligences could do better than that.
I’m more concerned with the fact that Mount Krasny was considered “an obscure location”. You know what’s a fucking obscure location? Try the Challenger Deep, not some mountain in Eastern Europe! (Maybe that’s what’s behind the door James Cameron found.) Really, when you stick something that reveals reality is simulated at a location someone can reach without needing oxygen, you are doing it wrong.
But of course, if the code were at the bottom of the Challenger Deep and not on Mount Krasny, there would be no reason for Lucy to go to Krassnia. There would be no reason to subject us to interminable narration, dialogue, and epistolary chapters about Krassnia’s transitions from independence to Soviet control to independence again. Really, the simulated reality story is a minor detail compared to the bulk of The Restoration Game, which is an intense discussion of the politics of this fictional European country. At times I found it fascinating, but mostly I just kept waiting for Lucy to do something other than talk about what she is wearing.
I haven’t read anything else by MacLeod, but in this book his idea of writing from a woman’s perspective seems to involve describing clothes a lot. And, fair enough, maybe Lucy’s the type of girl who just loves describing her clothes. But this seems to be related more to MacLeod’s writing style than his portrayal of women characters: I often encountered sentences that felt like they were sinking beneath the weight of the information he wants them to convey. For example:
I tucked my lilac satin clutch bag under my left elbow, wedged the stem of my champagne flute between two spare fingers of the hand already holding a side plate of cucumber-and-tuna white bread triangels and tikka chicken wings, and with the lilac-polished fingernails of the other hand raked some flakes of sausage-roll pastry out of Alec’s beard.
You have got to be kidding me. Pick one or two things and tell me about them! Do I really need to know it was tikka chicken? Or that your fingernails match your clutch? Or that the pastry flakes were sausage-roll? Maybe MacLeod is trying to be efficient in packing his prose with as much information as possible, but the effect comes across as more annoying than anything—none of this information is essential. I try very hard not to nitpick about this sort of thing in my reviews, but it’s just so egregious here that I had to mention it. (Also, there just isn’t much else to talk about.)
The phrase “not a bad book” can mean so many things depending on the context. In this case, The Restoration Game is not a bad book, because it has a (fairly) coherent plot, an interesting main character, and tickles my fanciful ideas about simulated realities. Being a double negative, however, “not a bad book” is really just a more diplomatic way of saying it’s not all that good. I didn’t intend for this review to be so acerbic or negative, but I’m trying hard to think of more praise for this book and coming up short. There are things to like about this book, but overall it felt quite wanting.
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Every so often I read reviews that talk about a book or an author being “a breath of fresh air” to a genre or market, and I scoff and wonder what that means. Now I know, because that’s how I would describe Throne of the Crescent Moon. After so many fantasy novels based on a pseudo-medieval European setting, it’s just refreshing to see someone use a pseudo-Islamic setting. Moreover, Saladin Ahmed tells the story in a way that makes it feel like urban fantasy—just not urban fantasy set in the present day. The city of Dhamsawaat is in trouble indeed.
Throne of the Crescent Moon follows Dr. Adoulla Makhslood, an aged ghul-hunter, and his apprentice, the dervish Raseed. The halcyon days of ghul-hunting have long since passed, and Adoulla is one of the last of his order. He’s feeling his age, and his gruff and irreverent character is one of the best things about this book. It’s even better when juxtaposed with the serious seventeen-year-old Raseed, who is obsessed with honour, duty, and not being tempted by attractive young women. When the only survivor of a decimated Badawi tribe joins them, and she happens to be a young woman who can shapeshift into a lion and has a ferocious personality to match, Raseed runs into some difficulties in that last department.
Even the minor characters are far from stock. Ahmed hints at a backstory to each one, previous dealings with Adoulla or Adoulla’s friends that have left them in his debt. It gives the impression that even if Ahmed isn’t telling us everything (why would he?) he has a lot of it figured out—exactly the sort of impression an author should give.
Similarly, Ahmed avoids unnecessary exposition when it comes to describing his world or the history of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms. I suspect that some readers will find this unsatisfying and declaim a lack of worldbuilding. Yet what Ahmed chooses to reveal indicates his world is there and consistent—he just isn’t interested in showing it off at the expense of the story. Which is as it should be. It’s frustrating, sometimes, to hear Adoulla talk about something only in passing when it would clearly make for an interesting diversion—but the result is a book that is briskly paced and never dull.
This is fortunate. Though the plot has admirable layers of complexity, it is ultimately not very complicated, and I’m glad Ahmed did not try to build it up more slowly. Throne of the Crescent Moon has many qualities, but subtlety is not one of them. Instead of showing us the sexual tension between Raseed and Zamia, Ahmed tells us all about it almost from the first time they meet. Instead of gradually hinting and foreshadowing at the nature of the Falcon Prince’s involvement, he keeps us in the dark and then reveals everything just prior to the climax. Though there is nothing wrong with these decisions per se, they make the story feel more linear and much more predictable.
I also wish Throne of the Crescent Moon had a strong, compelling antagonist. As it is, the villain is literally without voice. Instead, its mouthpiece is its minion, Mouw Awa, who is quite insane. And when the climax comes and the good guys square off against Mouw Awa’s master for the fate of Dhamsawaat and maybe the world … well, without going into detail, it was disappointing. It was over too soon, and it was a little too easy. Despite all the groundwork Ahmed lays for Adoulla’s internal conflict about his age and Raseed’s insecurities about his dutifulness and righteousness, it never really comes together. This is all the more unfortunate because I was really enjoying the book up until the ending—which didn’t let me down so much as just not live up to the expectations the rest of the book had established.
Throne of the Crescent Moon is rich in refreshing imagery, magic use, and cool characters. It’s very original, in the sense that Ahmed is working outside the typical scope of mainstream fantasy settings, and he does it well. The ending needs work, and the characterization could have been a lot more subtle. But I’d still recommend it, because it has that refreshing voice reviewers are always prattling on about. I should know. Apparently I’m one of them now.
Throne of the Crescent Moon follows Dr. Adoulla Makhslood, an aged ghul-hunter, and his apprentice, the dervish Raseed. The halcyon days of ghul-hunting have long since passed, and Adoulla is one of the last of his order. He’s feeling his age, and his gruff and irreverent character is one of the best things about this book. It’s even better when juxtaposed with the serious seventeen-year-old Raseed, who is obsessed with honour, duty, and not being tempted by attractive young women. When the only survivor of a decimated Badawi tribe joins them, and she happens to be a young woman who can shapeshift into a lion and has a ferocious personality to match, Raseed runs into some difficulties in that last department.
Even the minor characters are far from stock. Ahmed hints at a backstory to each one, previous dealings with Adoulla or Adoulla’s friends that have left them in his debt. It gives the impression that even if Ahmed isn’t telling us everything (why would he?) he has a lot of it figured out—exactly the sort of impression an author should give.
Similarly, Ahmed avoids unnecessary exposition when it comes to describing his world or the history of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms. I suspect that some readers will find this unsatisfying and declaim a lack of worldbuilding. Yet what Ahmed chooses to reveal indicates his world is there and consistent—he just isn’t interested in showing it off at the expense of the story. Which is as it should be. It’s frustrating, sometimes, to hear Adoulla talk about something only in passing when it would clearly make for an interesting diversion—but the result is a book that is briskly paced and never dull.
This is fortunate. Though the plot has admirable layers of complexity, it is ultimately not very complicated, and I’m glad Ahmed did not try to build it up more slowly. Throne of the Crescent Moon has many qualities, but subtlety is not one of them. Instead of showing us the sexual tension between Raseed and Zamia, Ahmed tells us all about it almost from the first time they meet. Instead of gradually hinting and foreshadowing at the nature of the Falcon Prince’s involvement, he keeps us in the dark and then reveals everything just prior to the climax. Though there is nothing wrong with these decisions per se, they make the story feel more linear and much more predictable.
I also wish Throne of the Crescent Moon had a strong, compelling antagonist. As it is, the villain is literally without voice. Instead, its mouthpiece is its minion, Mouw Awa, who is quite insane. And when the climax comes and the good guys square off against Mouw Awa’s master for the fate of Dhamsawaat and maybe the world … well, without going into detail, it was disappointing. It was over too soon, and it was a little too easy. Despite all the groundwork Ahmed lays for Adoulla’s internal conflict about his age and Raseed’s insecurities about his dutifulness and righteousness, it never really comes together. This is all the more unfortunate because I was really enjoying the book up until the ending—which didn’t let me down so much as just not live up to the expectations the rest of the book had established.
Throne of the Crescent Moon is rich in refreshing imagery, magic use, and cool characters. It’s very original, in the sense that Ahmed is working outside the typical scope of mainstream fantasy settings, and he does it well. The ending needs work, and the characterization could have been a lot more subtle. But I’d still recommend it, because it has that refreshing voice reviewers are always prattling on about. I should know. Apparently I’m one of them now.
Nalo Hopkinson is not Margaret Atwood.
This may seem like a strange and perhaps obvious epiphany to have. Indeed, some of you might be advanced enough not to need to read an entire book before arriving at it. Some of you might be even further advanced (say, doctorate in philosophy) and question the veracity of this proposition. So allow me to explain what I mean, and you philosophers can decide for yourself.
I should explain that there are things about Nalo Hopkinson, or specifically about The New Moon’s Arms, that remind me of Atwood and her writing. Mainly, Calamity Lambkin is a woman coming to terms with the fact that she has accumulated a lot of past. She has reached a point in life where people have begun to treat her differently—she’s the matriarch instead of the woman, the mother instead of the lover. Calamity has reached the point where one becomes incredibly, sometimes dishearteningly, aware of the aging process. And as this slow internal crisis comes over her, she finds herself in the middle of an external one, personified in the form of a boy who washes ashore one night, parents nowhere to be seen. Throw in a strained relationship with a daughter Calamity had in her teens and an estranged onetime gay boyfriend who fathered the girl, and you have a recipe for a very interesting, character-driven novel.
Calamity reminds me a little of Elaine from Cat’s Eye. Both women spend a lot of time reflecting on significant events that have shaped the course of their lives. Both set themselves somewhat at odds with other members of their community—Elaine with her fellow artists, Calamity with family and friends. Like Elaine, Calamity’s voice is peppered with wry observations about societal expectations that result from her age, gender, and employment. Both characters have romantic and sexual relations, but these are not the central purpose of the plot.
So in many ways, Hopkinson’s writing and voice remind me of Atwood’s—but their styles are very different, as are the perspectives from which they arrive at these observations. Set in the Caribbean Islands, The New Moon’s Arms infuses Calamity’s quest for self-discovery with a post-colonial tinge. Calamity’s fictional nation is beholden to international agreements that, in turn, encourage it to make deals with unsavoury corporations. Some of the people in the story are involved in these matters at quite a high level, though the matters themselves are always tangential to the actual plot. Thus, as background scenery, these matters telegraph a sense of wanting to move on—and catch up with—the wider world. They broadcast an appetite for progress that is troubling to some.
In contrast, Calamity exhibits a pragmatic spirituality about the world around her. She has the ability to find lost objects—where in this case, find means that objects, including entire cashew orchards, will manifest spontaneously without her conscious effort. This somewhat random ability disappeared when she was younger, but it returns to Calamity while she is at her father’s funeral. Along with the cryptozoological nature of the boy she finds and Calamity’s own memory of encountering a quixotic girl in the ocean, this ability contributes to the label of “magical realism” that The New Moon’s Arms has earned.
There isn’t a lot of magic in this book though. Calamity’s ability is ancillary; I think it’s there more to demarcate her allegiance to the older, more superstitious world versus the modern world. (Her ancient car is another such symbol.) Although some aspects of the modern world are definitely negative—the various political shenanigans come to mind—the old world is not all puppy dogs and rainbows. Calamity also has some fairly outdated—i.e., bigoted—views on homosexuality and bisexuality as well.
The father of Calamity’s daughter, Michael, is gay. He suspected this in high school; Calamity, desperate because she had a crush on Michael, talked him into “testing it out” by having sex with her. Well it turns out that turning gay people straight is not among Calamity’s miracle powers, and Michael eventually settles down with another man, Orso. Calamity’s mistrust of Michael’s “lifestyle” causes her to keep him out of raising their daughter. It’s unclear how much of her bigotry is actually a misdirected, generalized sense of enmity towards Michael because of his role in her unexpected pregnancy. Would she still be homophobic if she had never had sex with Michael, if she had never gotten pregnant? I don’t know.
I like that Hopkinson leaves this open to interpretation, much as I like that she makes Calamity a very fallible and flawed person. Calamity is no saint, a textbook case of the unsympathetic protagonist. I like that she has flaws even if I don’t particularly like her.
Why only three stars? I wish the story had been developed somewhat more deeply. For example, there are some infrequent scenes in which a man who works at the Zooquarium is counting the number of monk seals in the habitat. Their varying number mirrors the observations of Hector Goonan, a marine biologist trying to take a seal census around the island. There’s a narrative purpose for these scenes, one related to the mystery of the child whom Calamity saves. Hopkinson draws on some very old and sometimes obscure mythology, and I feel that she could have made richer connections. Perhaps she didn’t want to become burdened by that same mythology—she picked exactly and only what she needed to tell the story. But I think it’s still missing something to make it truly compelling.
The New Moon’s Arms is a book that rests almost entirely on the strength of its narrator and main character, Calamity Lambkin. You might not like her—though it would be more accurate to say you’ll love her sense of humour and her independence but hate her when she is judgemental and closed-minded. She is, in that sense, a very real and three-dimensional character. The story doesn’t quite do her justice, for it doesn’t stretch enough to accommodate everything that Hopkinson has packed into her. But it’s sufficient. Like Margaret Atwood, Hopkinson succeeds in giving voice to a unique and sensible older woman whose self-determination is a central part of the story. In addition, she weaves elements of fantasy, mythology, and history into the book, creating an intriguing if not totally enjoyable work.
This may seem like a strange and perhaps obvious epiphany to have. Indeed, some of you might be advanced enough not to need to read an entire book before arriving at it. Some of you might be even further advanced (say, doctorate in philosophy) and question the veracity of this proposition. So allow me to explain what I mean, and you philosophers can decide for yourself.
I should explain that there are things about Nalo Hopkinson, or specifically about The New Moon’s Arms, that remind me of Atwood and her writing. Mainly, Calamity Lambkin is a woman coming to terms with the fact that she has accumulated a lot of past. She has reached a point in life where people have begun to treat her differently—she’s the matriarch instead of the woman, the mother instead of the lover. Calamity has reached the point where one becomes incredibly, sometimes dishearteningly, aware of the aging process. And as this slow internal crisis comes over her, she finds herself in the middle of an external one, personified in the form of a boy who washes ashore one night, parents nowhere to be seen. Throw in a strained relationship with a daughter Calamity had in her teens and an estranged onetime gay boyfriend who fathered the girl, and you have a recipe for a very interesting, character-driven novel.
Calamity reminds me a little of Elaine from Cat’s Eye. Both women spend a lot of time reflecting on significant events that have shaped the course of their lives. Both set themselves somewhat at odds with other members of their community—Elaine with her fellow artists, Calamity with family and friends. Like Elaine, Calamity’s voice is peppered with wry observations about societal expectations that result from her age, gender, and employment. Both characters have romantic and sexual relations, but these are not the central purpose of the plot.
So in many ways, Hopkinson’s writing and voice remind me of Atwood’s—but their styles are very different, as are the perspectives from which they arrive at these observations. Set in the Caribbean Islands, The New Moon’s Arms infuses Calamity’s quest for self-discovery with a post-colonial tinge. Calamity’s fictional nation is beholden to international agreements that, in turn, encourage it to make deals with unsavoury corporations. Some of the people in the story are involved in these matters at quite a high level, though the matters themselves are always tangential to the actual plot. Thus, as background scenery, these matters telegraph a sense of wanting to move on—and catch up with—the wider world. They broadcast an appetite for progress that is troubling to some.
In contrast, Calamity exhibits a pragmatic spirituality about the world around her. She has the ability to find lost objects—where in this case, find means that objects, including entire cashew orchards, will manifest spontaneously without her conscious effort. This somewhat random ability disappeared when she was younger, but it returns to Calamity while she is at her father’s funeral. Along with the cryptozoological nature of the boy she finds and Calamity’s own memory of encountering a quixotic girl in the ocean, this ability contributes to the label of “magical realism” that The New Moon’s Arms has earned.
There isn’t a lot of magic in this book though. Calamity’s ability is ancillary; I think it’s there more to demarcate her allegiance to the older, more superstitious world versus the modern world. (Her ancient car is another such symbol.) Although some aspects of the modern world are definitely negative—the various political shenanigans come to mind—the old world is not all puppy dogs and rainbows. Calamity also has some fairly outdated—i.e., bigoted—views on homosexuality and bisexuality as well.
The father of Calamity’s daughter, Michael, is gay. He suspected this in high school; Calamity, desperate because she had a crush on Michael, talked him into “testing it out” by having sex with her. Well it turns out that turning gay people straight is not among Calamity’s miracle powers, and Michael eventually settles down with another man, Orso. Calamity’s mistrust of Michael’s “lifestyle” causes her to keep him out of raising their daughter. It’s unclear how much of her bigotry is actually a misdirected, generalized sense of enmity towards Michael because of his role in her unexpected pregnancy. Would she still be homophobic if she had never had sex with Michael, if she had never gotten pregnant? I don’t know.
I like that Hopkinson leaves this open to interpretation, much as I like that she makes Calamity a very fallible and flawed person. Calamity is no saint, a textbook case of the unsympathetic protagonist. I like that she has flaws even if I don’t particularly like her.
Why only three stars? I wish the story had been developed somewhat more deeply. For example, there are some infrequent scenes in which a man who works at the Zooquarium is counting the number of monk seals in the habitat. Their varying number mirrors the observations of Hector Goonan, a marine biologist trying to take a seal census around the island. There’s a narrative purpose for these scenes, one related to the mystery of the child whom Calamity saves. Hopkinson draws on some very old and sometimes obscure mythology, and I feel that she could have made richer connections. Perhaps she didn’t want to become burdened by that same mythology—she picked exactly and only what she needed to tell the story. But I think it’s still missing something to make it truly compelling.
The New Moon’s Arms is a book that rests almost entirely on the strength of its narrator and main character, Calamity Lambkin. You might not like her—though it would be more accurate to say you’ll love her sense of humour and her independence but hate her when she is judgemental and closed-minded. She is, in that sense, a very real and three-dimensional character. The story doesn’t quite do her justice, for it doesn’t stretch enough to accommodate everything that Hopkinson has packed into her. But it’s sufficient. Like Margaret Atwood, Hopkinson succeeds in giving voice to a unique and sensible older woman whose self-determination is a central part of the story. In addition, she weaves elements of fantasy, mythology, and history into the book, creating an intriguing if not totally enjoyable work.
One of my favourite shows is Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I could get into why, but then we’d be here all day). One of the villains in the second season is a vampire named Spike. He’s a cold and ruthless antagonist, but then in season four he gets metaphorically declawed. With a chip in his head that causes him intense pain if he harms humans, Spike is neutralized as a threat. He spends a good deal of that season tied up in Xander’s basement. It becomes a running joke, in fact, how harmless he is, and gradually Spike transforms from villain to non-entity to ally. It’s one of the many subtle, long-term arcs that contribute to Buffy’s greatness.
The hostage situation in Bel Canto reminds me of this subtle transformation. It lasts a matter of months, but in those months Ann Patchett manages to make one care about a dizzying array of characters, hostages and terrorists alike. This is a beautiful book. The prose is lyrical without feeling like it’s overdone. At first the emphasis on description over dialogue annoyed me, but I gradually allowed myself to become seduced by the way Patchett would dip in and out of each character’s thoughts, sharing along the way some of their background story.
The multiplicity of these stories is key to Bel Canto and its ensemble cast. Although Patchett focuses on a small core of characters, even her most minor characters have a detailed, comprehensive backstory that provides their motivation. None of Patchett’s characters are stock, because she can always justify who they are. Normally this would be overwhelming, but the timeless, ambling quality of the narrative allow Patchett this type of freedom in her characterization.
See, Bel Canto exists in that fringe space of absurd that straddles reality and fiction. On the one hand, it seems so implausible that a group of terrorists this incompetent could show up at a party to kidnap a president who isn’t there and wind up babysitting hostages for four months. On the other hand, situations this long have happened before. In this case, however, the combination of the terrorists’ abject failure to get what they want and the duration of the standoff contributes to a kind of mutual Stockholm syndrome. While the distinction between terrorist and hostage never disappears, the barriers to civility do, and gradually the Vice President’s house becomes a kind of community of unhappy circumstance.
It’s a bit like a lab experiment. Patchett puts these people under the microscope in a controlled environment and watches them react. Because all of the characters have different ways of coping with their isolation, with the separation from their loved ones, with the sense of dread accompanying the knowledge that this can’t go on forever. Indeed, like many once-in-a-lifetime events, the standoff is a cathartic and life-changing experience for those involved. Mr. Hosokawa enters the house as a lover of opera—it is his passion to the exclusion of almost all other pleasures, including those of his family, who perplex and bewilder him more than they do provide warmth and companionship. Gen enters as an employee of Mr. Hosokawa, nothing more, but he gradually discovers within himself a capacity and ambition he had not recognized before. Vice President Iglesias undergoes perhaps one of the more interesting transformations, for he decides his role as host continues and begins obsessively tidying the house and cleaning up after people. In a situation where he is powerless to change their circumstances, he seizes upon what little power he has to make things better.
Strangely enough, however, Patchett captures the nature of this transformation best when describing a fairly minor character. Tetsuya Kato is one of Mr. Hosokowa’s corporate vice presidents and accompanied him to the party. When Roxanne Coss decides she must begin practising again, we learn that Kato can play the piano—he can, in fact, play it beautifully. At first this revelation is a convenient plot point and emphasizes one of the book’s themes, which is that people are full of surprises and have all these hidden talents we don’t know about because we don’t necessarily ask. But there’s something deeper going on here, and I’ll quote from the only paragraph I bothered sticky-noting in this book:
That last line really resonates with me. Hosokawa, Gen, Iglesias, Kato … the hostage situation prompts a profound crisis of identity in these people, and they find themselves not just stepping from their comfort zone but leaving it behind entirely. But Patchett makes it happen so fluidly and so beautifully that it feels natural.
I’m not a fan of opera. It’s not that I dislike opera; I just haven’t listened to it that much. I have enough trouble deciphering song lyrics I know are in English…. Anyway. I know for some people, Patchett’s decision to use opera as a metaphorical way to unify the story detracted from their enjoyment of it. Fair enough. However, Patchett is doing more than talking about opera. That’s how it starts, but pretty soon the metaphor extends into music in general. Patchett reifies the spiritual reverence we as humans accord to the experience of music. When Roxanne sings, she literally stops the terrorists in their tracks, momentarily making them hostages to her voice. I may not have listened to much opera, but I understand the power of the human voice. It’s in the orator whose speech sways the crowds not just because of the words but the way they’re spoken. I love just sitting in my reading chair late at night, a cup of tea by my side, with the haunting vocals of someone like Florence + The Machine as company. In a medium with no sound, Patchett harnesses something primal about our sense of hearing and asks one to listen.
In case it’s not clear, I’ve fallen for Bel Canto. It’s beautiful as a work of literature. It’s beautiful as a reading experience. I’ve fallen for it so hard that it’s difficult for me to evaluate it critically, because honestly, I just want to close my eyes and bask in Patchett’s luxurious narration of everyone’s thoughts and desires.
And then there’s the ending.
It’s not a stretch to say I felt betrayed by the ending, at least in the first few seconds of seeing the scene play out on the page. To be fair, Patchett foreshadows the hell out of this thing, reminding us that despite what some of the characters might hope, nothing can last forever. Except that, thanks to the way Patchett writes, this situation seems like it could defy such a truism. The story has a quality of timelessness to it. Yet something, as they say, has to give. I understand that, but I was so invested in these characters that I wanted them to get out alive. Not all of them, mind you—I didn’t care what happened to the Generals, not even Benjamin. But to see Hosokawa and Carmen brutally cut down like that … that hurt. I wanted a happy ending for Carmen and Gen so badly.
I don’t feel cheated though. As I said, the ending makes sense given the story Patchett has written. The characters who survive are changed, their paths in life altered, even warped unrecognizably by their experience. They have a new perspective on what it means to live. Fortunately, I don’t have to endure four months of being hostage for such transformation, or even a few weeks in Xander’s basement … I just have to read books like Bel Canto.
The hostage situation in Bel Canto reminds me of this subtle transformation. It lasts a matter of months, but in those months Ann Patchett manages to make one care about a dizzying array of characters, hostages and terrorists alike. This is a beautiful book. The prose is lyrical without feeling like it’s overdone. At first the emphasis on description over dialogue annoyed me, but I gradually allowed myself to become seduced by the way Patchett would dip in and out of each character’s thoughts, sharing along the way some of their background story.
The multiplicity of these stories is key to Bel Canto and its ensemble cast. Although Patchett focuses on a small core of characters, even her most minor characters have a detailed, comprehensive backstory that provides their motivation. None of Patchett’s characters are stock, because she can always justify who they are. Normally this would be overwhelming, but the timeless, ambling quality of the narrative allow Patchett this type of freedom in her characterization.
See, Bel Canto exists in that fringe space of absurd that straddles reality and fiction. On the one hand, it seems so implausible that a group of terrorists this incompetent could show up at a party to kidnap a president who isn’t there and wind up babysitting hostages for four months. On the other hand, situations this long have happened before. In this case, however, the combination of the terrorists’ abject failure to get what they want and the duration of the standoff contributes to a kind of mutual Stockholm syndrome. While the distinction between terrorist and hostage never disappears, the barriers to civility do, and gradually the Vice President’s house becomes a kind of community of unhappy circumstance.
It’s a bit like a lab experiment. Patchett puts these people under the microscope in a controlled environment and watches them react. Because all of the characters have different ways of coping with their isolation, with the separation from their loved ones, with the sense of dread accompanying the knowledge that this can’t go on forever. Indeed, like many once-in-a-lifetime events, the standoff is a cathartic and life-changing experience for those involved. Mr. Hosokawa enters the house as a lover of opera—it is his passion to the exclusion of almost all other pleasures, including those of his family, who perplex and bewilder him more than they do provide warmth and companionship. Gen enters as an employee of Mr. Hosokawa, nothing more, but he gradually discovers within himself a capacity and ambition he had not recognized before. Vice President Iglesias undergoes perhaps one of the more interesting transformations, for he decides his role as host continues and begins obsessively tidying the house and cleaning up after people. In a situation where he is powerless to change their circumstances, he seizes upon what little power he has to make things better.
Strangely enough, however, Patchett captures the nature of this transformation best when describing a fairly minor character. Tetsuya Kato is one of Mr. Hosokowa’s corporate vice presidents and accompanied him to the party. When Roxanne Coss decides she must begin practising again, we learn that Kato can play the piano—he can, in fact, play it beautifully. At first this revelation is a convenient plot point and emphasizes one of the book’s themes, which is that people are full of surprises and have all these hidden talents we don’t know about because we don’t necessarily ask. But there’s something deeper going on here, and I’ll quote from the only paragraph I bothered sticky-noting in this book:
They spoke to one another by handing leaves of music back and forth. While their relationship was by no means a democracy, Kato, who read the music the priest’s friend had sent while lying on the pile of coats he slept on at night, would sometimes pick out pieces he wanted to hear or pieces that he felt would be well suited to Roxanne’s voice. He made what he felt to be wild presumptions in handing over his suggestions, but what did it matter? He was a vice president in a giant corporation, a numbers man, suddenly elevated to be the accompanist. He was not himself. He was no one he had ever imagined.
That last line really resonates with me. Hosokawa, Gen, Iglesias, Kato … the hostage situation prompts a profound crisis of identity in these people, and they find themselves not just stepping from their comfort zone but leaving it behind entirely. But Patchett makes it happen so fluidly and so beautifully that it feels natural.
I’m not a fan of opera. It’s not that I dislike opera; I just haven’t listened to it that much. I have enough trouble deciphering song lyrics I know are in English…. Anyway. I know for some people, Patchett’s decision to use opera as a metaphorical way to unify the story detracted from their enjoyment of it. Fair enough. However, Patchett is doing more than talking about opera. That’s how it starts, but pretty soon the metaphor extends into music in general. Patchett reifies the spiritual reverence we as humans accord to the experience of music. When Roxanne sings, she literally stops the terrorists in their tracks, momentarily making them hostages to her voice. I may not have listened to much opera, but I understand the power of the human voice. It’s in the orator whose speech sways the crowds not just because of the words but the way they’re spoken. I love just sitting in my reading chair late at night, a cup of tea by my side, with the haunting vocals of someone like Florence + The Machine as company. In a medium with no sound, Patchett harnesses something primal about our sense of hearing and asks one to listen.
In case it’s not clear, I’ve fallen for Bel Canto. It’s beautiful as a work of literature. It’s beautiful as a reading experience. I’ve fallen for it so hard that it’s difficult for me to evaluate it critically, because honestly, I just want to close my eyes and bask in Patchett’s luxurious narration of everyone’s thoughts and desires.
And then there’s the ending.
It’s not a stretch to say I felt betrayed by the ending, at least in the first few seconds of seeing the scene play out on the page. To be fair, Patchett foreshadows the hell out of this thing, reminding us that despite what some of the characters might hope, nothing can last forever. Except that, thanks to the way Patchett writes, this situation seems like it could defy such a truism. The story has a quality of timelessness to it. Yet something, as they say, has to give. I understand that, but I was so invested in these characters that I wanted them to get out alive. Not all of them, mind you—I didn’t care what happened to the Generals, not even Benjamin. But to see Hosokawa and Carmen brutally cut down like that … that hurt. I wanted a happy ending for Carmen and Gen so badly.
I don’t feel cheated though. As I said, the ending makes sense given the story Patchett has written. The characters who survive are changed, their paths in life altered, even warped unrecognizably by their experience. They have a new perspective on what it means to live. Fortunately, I don’t have to endure four months of being hostage for such transformation, or even a few weeks in Xander’s basement … I just have to read books like Bel Canto.
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Redshirts wasn't in stock Tuesday, and Kobo's DRM shenanigans made me loath to purchase the ebook despite my shiny new tablet. Fortunately, I had already borrowed The Android's Dream from the library. I try to pace myself between books by the same author, but in this case I suppose I'm making an exception. Not that I mind in John Scalzi's case.
The Android's Dream is what I would call clever but zany SF. It's about the race against time to find a breed of sheep to prevent a diplomatic investment from erupting into all-out war with an alien species. The key here is the mundane nature of the quest object, combined with the human fallibility and craziness of the good guys and the bad guys. While the stakes are the usual "survival of humanity" thing, the major plot twists are almost always the result of mundane actions or coincidences. As a result, the book manages to be humorous without, for the most part, overstepping itself.
Reading this so soon after reading Old Man’s War was an interesting experience, because in both books Scalzi depicts humans as a species among many in the galaxy. In this book, Earth and its few colonies are members of the Common Confederacy, which is exactly what it sounds like. In Old Man’s War the galaxy is a little more overtly hostile, and that kind of alliance doesn’t seem to exist—indeed, Earth itself is a lot less relevant to human society in that book. Although I love watching authors build their worlds (or in this case, universes) through successive books, it’s also gratifying when an author shows he or she can build entirely different universes as well.
Yet the different details do not diminish Scalzi’s particular way of constructing aliens or portraying human–alien interaction. Firstly, he’s fond of very creative (albeit predominantly humanoid) alien physiology, and his cultures are quite distinct as well. This creativity leads to a tendency to show off, through digressions, worldbuilding that isn’t all that essential to the story (e.g., the explanation about the Kathungi). In some books this would be a death knell—Scalzi’s saving grace is that, despite his tendency to ramble, when he decides it’s time for an action scene, he delivers an action scene.
From mall shootouts to battles with alien marines inside a cruise spaceship, there is no shortage of such scenes in The Android’s Dream. Scalzi maintains a fine balance between skill and luck when it comes to his protagonists getting out of (or into) scrapes and threatening situations. The bad guys are very competent (and it’s hilarious when they realize that they’ve been so successful in stirring up trouble they might actually have started a war). And there are several levels of antagonists to contend with: beyond the obvious ones, we eventually learn about deeper plots that are coming to fruition after decades of work. So it would be fair to say The Android’s Dream is an often light, action-packed thriller of a novel—but that would ignore how tightly and carefully plotted it is. There’s more going on here than just shoot ’em up scenes (though they are there!).
I love Scalzi’s characters, although I can see why some people complain they tend to sound the same. His default characterization mode is “sassy” or some subtle gradation thereof, so when characters begin making quips their individual attributes tend to blur. But Harold Creek is a very different protagonist from John Perry. He’s much less of a Mary Sue, fortunately—ultimately, as his best plans come apart the seams, help arrives from a timely ally that provides enough information to concoct a last-ditch plan.
Curiously, the cast is almost entirely male. Robin Baker is the only main female character, and the number of minor female characters is paltry indeed. Now, I don’t consciously tally up the ratio of male to female characters when I read books, but I notice when it’s really uneven—especially in books by authors who are otherwise quite outspoken about gender equity, as is the case with Scalzi. I’m not sure what happened here, but it’s a little disappointing that there aren’t any other interesting women in this book except for Robin.
That being said, she’s pretty cool. To be honest, I like her even better than Creek. Creek is capable—but he’s just like every other highly-skilled protagonist out there: little bit detective, little bit rock and roll. Scalzi writes him well, but there’s nothing new to see. Robin, on the other hand, is an interesting combination. Sarcastic by nature, she seems to take a lot of what happens to her in stride. But at certain points in the book, it becomes painfully obvious she’s really just coping, running on physical and psychological adrenaline (so to speak) until she can sit down and work through all of the revelations thrust upon her. Robin, as the asset, is someone not of Creek’s shadow world, pulled out of her depth and into something far bigger than she ever expected to experience. It’s cool to watch her grow and start owning that.
I’m ambivalent about the climax. In many ways, I prefer the tight direction of The Android’s Dream over the somewhat meandering Old Man’s War. Unfortunately, the climax hinges on a technicality, an “oh, by the way,” revealed through some exposition just prior to its execution. I loved the ride all the way, from the opening line up to the very end, but the ending itself leaves much to be desired.
The Android’s Dream confirms that, at least with my sense of humour, Scalzi’s a great contemporary writer. He knows how to make science-fiction a tool for compelling stories rather than a soapbox or a paint-by-numbers canvas of tropes. Sometimes I think he gets a little carried away with the clever nuances of his plots … but I can forgive that, just like I can forgive any number of little glitches, because his style is smooth and his writing is just good.
The Android's Dream is what I would call clever but zany SF. It's about the race against time to find a breed of sheep to prevent a diplomatic investment from erupting into all-out war with an alien species. The key here is the mundane nature of the quest object, combined with the human fallibility and craziness of the good guys and the bad guys. While the stakes are the usual "survival of humanity" thing, the major plot twists are almost always the result of mundane actions or coincidences. As a result, the book manages to be humorous without, for the most part, overstepping itself.
Reading this so soon after reading Old Man’s War was an interesting experience, because in both books Scalzi depicts humans as a species among many in the galaxy. In this book, Earth and its few colonies are members of the Common Confederacy, which is exactly what it sounds like. In Old Man’s War the galaxy is a little more overtly hostile, and that kind of alliance doesn’t seem to exist—indeed, Earth itself is a lot less relevant to human society in that book. Although I love watching authors build their worlds (or in this case, universes) through successive books, it’s also gratifying when an author shows he or she can build entirely different universes as well.
Yet the different details do not diminish Scalzi’s particular way of constructing aliens or portraying human–alien interaction. Firstly, he’s fond of very creative (albeit predominantly humanoid) alien physiology, and his cultures are quite distinct as well. This creativity leads to a tendency to show off, through digressions, worldbuilding that isn’t all that essential to the story (e.g., the explanation about the Kathungi). In some books this would be a death knell—Scalzi’s saving grace is that, despite his tendency to ramble, when he decides it’s time for an action scene, he delivers an action scene.
From mall shootouts to battles with alien marines inside a cruise spaceship, there is no shortage of such scenes in The Android’s Dream. Scalzi maintains a fine balance between skill and luck when it comes to his protagonists getting out of (or into) scrapes and threatening situations. The bad guys are very competent (and it’s hilarious when they realize that they’ve been so successful in stirring up trouble they might actually have started a war). And there are several levels of antagonists to contend with: beyond the obvious ones, we eventually learn about deeper plots that are coming to fruition after decades of work. So it would be fair to say The Android’s Dream is an often light, action-packed thriller of a novel—but that would ignore how tightly and carefully plotted it is. There’s more going on here than just shoot ’em up scenes (though they are there!).
I love Scalzi’s characters, although I can see why some people complain they tend to sound the same. His default characterization mode is “sassy” or some subtle gradation thereof, so when characters begin making quips their individual attributes tend to blur. But Harold Creek is a very different protagonist from John Perry. He’s much less of a Mary Sue, fortunately—ultimately, as his best plans come apart the seams, help arrives from a timely ally that provides enough information to concoct a last-ditch plan.
Curiously, the cast is almost entirely male. Robin Baker is the only main female character, and the number of minor female characters is paltry indeed. Now, I don’t consciously tally up the ratio of male to female characters when I read books, but I notice when it’s really uneven—especially in books by authors who are otherwise quite outspoken about gender equity, as is the case with Scalzi. I’m not sure what happened here, but it’s a little disappointing that there aren’t any other interesting women in this book except for Robin.
That being said, she’s pretty cool. To be honest, I like her even better than Creek. Creek is capable—but he’s just like every other highly-skilled protagonist out there: little bit detective, little bit rock and roll. Scalzi writes him well, but there’s nothing new to see. Robin, on the other hand, is an interesting combination. Sarcastic by nature, she seems to take a lot of what happens to her in stride. But at certain points in the book, it becomes painfully obvious she’s really just coping, running on physical and psychological adrenaline (so to speak) until she can sit down and work through all of the revelations thrust upon her. Robin, as the asset, is someone not of Creek’s shadow world, pulled out of her depth and into something far bigger than she ever expected to experience. It’s cool to watch her grow and start owning that.
I’m ambivalent about the climax. In many ways, I prefer the tight direction of The Android’s Dream over the somewhat meandering Old Man’s War. Unfortunately, the climax hinges on a technicality, an “oh, by the way,” revealed through some exposition just prior to its execution. I loved the ride all the way, from the opening line up to the very end, but the ending itself leaves much to be desired.
The Android’s Dream confirms that, at least with my sense of humour, Scalzi’s a great contemporary writer. He knows how to make science-fiction a tool for compelling stories rather than a soapbox or a paint-by-numbers canvas of tropes. Sometimes I think he gets a little carried away with the clever nuances of his plots … but I can forgive that, just like I can forgive any number of little glitches, because his style is smooth and his writing is just good.
I love physics. I love that we know so much about physics, and that we still have so much left to learn! I love reading about how far we have come from Ptolemaic ideas of geocentricity to mapping the cosmic microwave background radiation itself. And don’t get me started about the Large Hadron Collider: 7 TeV? Really? Up to 14 TeV in the next few years? Various atrocious self-help books claim they’ll help you unlock “the secrets of the universe”. The scientists and engineers at CERN are quite literally doing that as we speak. Science is awesome.
Lisa Randall is a good companion to have along for a ride on the “science-is-awesome” rollercoaster. Her enthusiasm is inescapable as she explains everything from effective theories to the mystery of missing antimatter—it’s clear that Randall is more than a science writer, that she not only studies these topics for a living but loves them too. This makes the book so much more enjoyable, which is a must for something so steeped in particle physics.
Knocking on Heaven’s Door has something of a chimeric feel to it. At first it seems like a standard popular science book. Randall begins with an exploration of scale from the subatomic end: “The universe is big! Atoms are small! Protons are smaller! Quarks are smaller still!” It’s fascinating and, for the neophyte, probably enlightening, but it was nothing I hadn’t seen before. When she does branch out, she branches out into tangents … she spends an entire chapter talking about the 2008 economic crisis, risk management and analysis, etc., and comparing it to how scientists do their research. If I want to read a book about why short-sighted and greedy bankers caused the economic crisis, I’d do that. I came here for particle physics, Randall! And call me an expert snob, but I prefer to read about economics from economists and physics from physicists—Randall’s attempts at some kind of comparison or syncretism leave much to be desired and feel like a stretch.
The rest of the philosophy part of this book varies greatly, from somewhat flat to outright inspirational. While I agree with a lot of what Randall says about the science versus religion quagmire, she’s not really saying anything new. On the other hand, I loved her discussion of Galileo’s contributions to science and her explanation for why scientific thinking and inquiry is valuable. In particular, her explanation of effective theories and domains of validity remind me a lot of Hawking and Mlodinow’s discussions of model-dependent reality in The Grand Design.
Randall clears up some of the confusion that seems to accumulate as a result of the annual tradition known as “everything you learned in last year’s science class is wrong … here’s how it actually works”. She mentions this phenomenon herself, and I hated it when I was in school. Obviously I don’t expect us to try using the same kind of language to describe the universe to small children as we do to adults, but that’s no reason we need to perpetuate things like the solar-system model of the atom without even mentioning that it’s rather inaccurate. I’m a fairly enthusiastic and literate person when it comes to science, and if I’m working very hard in my spare time to undo the misunderstandings I’ve inherited from formal education, I can only imagine the harm done to my peers who aren’t on a similar quest. Hence, I once again wish philosophy were a more explicit part of the curriculum, for learning about science requires the ability to think like a scientist (and maybe a little bit like a philosopher).
The bulk of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is an explanation of the workings and goals of the Large Hadron Collider. The former will make even the most devoted engineer’s eyes glaze over—nonetheless, Randall succeeds in conveying the impressive sense of scale and achievement that the LHC represents. It’s the largest machine we’ve built, and it’s designed to look at the smallest things we can imagine! So the technical details can be a bit much at times, but Randall certainly clarifies each detector’s role in the experiments, as well as how particle accelerators in general worked. I liked hearing her explanations of when one would want to collide a particle and its antiparticle versus a particle and itself. However, I would have liked to learn more about how the LHC might provide insight into the matter/antimatter asymmetry.
I was quite pleased by the opening of this book in terms of its accessibility to various audiences. Now I’m not so sure to whom I would recommend it. Parts of it are too simple for most science geeks, while others are too complicated unless one pretty much has a degree in the subject. This unevenness of difficulty level means that Knocking on Heaven’s Door, while comprehensive, is not likely to be uniformly enjoyable by anyone. It’s one of the most detailed physics books I’ve encountered, and when I did understand them, Randall’s explanations were enlightening. Plus, it provides very cogent explanations of how particle accelerators operate. If this sounds like your cup of tea, check it out. Otherwise, I suspect there are plenty of other popular physics texts that replicate much of these explanations and ideas.
Lisa Randall is a good companion to have along for a ride on the “science-is-awesome” rollercoaster. Her enthusiasm is inescapable as she explains everything from effective theories to the mystery of missing antimatter—it’s clear that Randall is more than a science writer, that she not only studies these topics for a living but loves them too. This makes the book so much more enjoyable, which is a must for something so steeped in particle physics.
Knocking on Heaven’s Door has something of a chimeric feel to it. At first it seems like a standard popular science book. Randall begins with an exploration of scale from the subatomic end: “The universe is big! Atoms are small! Protons are smaller! Quarks are smaller still!” It’s fascinating and, for the neophyte, probably enlightening, but it was nothing I hadn’t seen before. When she does branch out, she branches out into tangents … she spends an entire chapter talking about the 2008 economic crisis, risk management and analysis, etc., and comparing it to how scientists do their research. If I want to read a book about why short-sighted and greedy bankers caused the economic crisis, I’d do that. I came here for particle physics, Randall! And call me an expert snob, but I prefer to read about economics from economists and physics from physicists—Randall’s attempts at some kind of comparison or syncretism leave much to be desired and feel like a stretch.
The rest of the philosophy part of this book varies greatly, from somewhat flat to outright inspirational. While I agree with a lot of what Randall says about the science versus religion quagmire, she’s not really saying anything new. On the other hand, I loved her discussion of Galileo’s contributions to science and her explanation for why scientific thinking and inquiry is valuable. In particular, her explanation of effective theories and domains of validity remind me a lot of Hawking and Mlodinow’s discussions of model-dependent reality in The Grand Design.
Randall clears up some of the confusion that seems to accumulate as a result of the annual tradition known as “everything you learned in last year’s science class is wrong … here’s how it actually works”. She mentions this phenomenon herself, and I hated it when I was in school. Obviously I don’t expect us to try using the same kind of language to describe the universe to small children as we do to adults, but that’s no reason we need to perpetuate things like the solar-system model of the atom without even mentioning that it’s rather inaccurate. I’m a fairly enthusiastic and literate person when it comes to science, and if I’m working very hard in my spare time to undo the misunderstandings I’ve inherited from formal education, I can only imagine the harm done to my peers who aren’t on a similar quest. Hence, I once again wish philosophy were a more explicit part of the curriculum, for learning about science requires the ability to think like a scientist (and maybe a little bit like a philosopher).
The bulk of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is an explanation of the workings and goals of the Large Hadron Collider. The former will make even the most devoted engineer’s eyes glaze over—nonetheless, Randall succeeds in conveying the impressive sense of scale and achievement that the LHC represents. It’s the largest machine we’ve built, and it’s designed to look at the smallest things we can imagine! So the technical details can be a bit much at times, but Randall certainly clarifies each detector’s role in the experiments, as well as how particle accelerators in general worked. I liked hearing her explanations of when one would want to collide a particle and its antiparticle versus a particle and itself. However, I would have liked to learn more about how the LHC might provide insight into the matter/antimatter asymmetry.
I was quite pleased by the opening of this book in terms of its accessibility to various audiences. Now I’m not so sure to whom I would recommend it. Parts of it are too simple for most science geeks, while others are too complicated unless one pretty much has a degree in the subject. This unevenness of difficulty level means that Knocking on Heaven’s Door, while comprehensive, is not likely to be uniformly enjoyable by anyone. It’s one of the most detailed physics books I’ve encountered, and when I did understand them, Randall’s explanations were enlightening. Plus, it provides very cogent explanations of how particle accelerators operate. If this sounds like your cup of tea, check it out. Otherwise, I suspect there are plenty of other popular physics texts that replicate much of these explanations and ideas.
I’m not the right person to read this, at least not right now.
I know it’s kind of my hang-up to turn everything into a generational thing, but I think that’s in operation here. I didn’t live through the 1960s or the 1970s. I don’t get what the political climate was like then, either in North America or in Europe, and I come to New Wave science fiction experiencing everything second hand. That doesn’t mean one needs to be of that age to grok or even enjoy books like this—but I suspect those readers have a bit of a head start. As it is, Moorcock’s constant reference to sex and drugs are baked into a zeitgeist I could never take part in. Sex and drugs are themselves rather constant, yes, but their modes and moods change with the times, and the Cornelius Chronicles of the twenty-first century would probably look different from the ones written in the 1960s.
As I attempted, however diligently, to make my way through this 974-page behemoth of a collection, I found myself turning too often to my dad, who was sitting next to me at the baseball games where I tried reading this, and said, “This book makes no sense.” But I understand that’s kind of the point, and to criticize it entirely for that reason would be, if not unfair, then missing the point. However, I can’t bring myself to finish it. I cannot just keep stumbling from page to page with absolutely no idea, none whatsoever, of what is going on, because it seems like every page the characters are different, with different motivations, like they’re all following a script we never get to see. One moment a character is an enemy, and then suddenly they’re an ally, and I have no idea what is going on. I get there are multiverse hijinks happening, but they are too inscrutable for my pay grade.
So there you have it. I wish I were the right kind of person to like this book, or at least to finish it, but I don’t think I am. So I won’t make myself. I make myself finish a lot of things, and sometimes that results in a very fun bad review. But The Cornelius Chronicles aren’t worth it—I don’t think I bring myself to hate them, and I don’t want to read another 500 pages to find out.
I know it’s kind of my hang-up to turn everything into a generational thing, but I think that’s in operation here. I didn’t live through the 1960s or the 1970s. I don’t get what the political climate was like then, either in North America or in Europe, and I come to New Wave science fiction experiencing everything second hand. That doesn’t mean one needs to be of that age to grok or even enjoy books like this—but I suspect those readers have a bit of a head start. As it is, Moorcock’s constant reference to sex and drugs are baked into a zeitgeist I could never take part in. Sex and drugs are themselves rather constant, yes, but their modes and moods change with the times, and the Cornelius Chronicles of the twenty-first century would probably look different from the ones written in the 1960s.
As I attempted, however diligently, to make my way through this 974-page behemoth of a collection, I found myself turning too often to my dad, who was sitting next to me at the baseball games where I tried reading this, and said, “This book makes no sense.” But I understand that’s kind of the point, and to criticize it entirely for that reason would be, if not unfair, then missing the point. However, I can’t bring myself to finish it. I cannot just keep stumbling from page to page with absolutely no idea, none whatsoever, of what is going on, because it seems like every page the characters are different, with different motivations, like they’re all following a script we never get to see. One moment a character is an enemy, and then suddenly they’re an ally, and I have no idea what is going on. I get there are multiverse hijinks happening, but they are too inscrutable for my pay grade.
So there you have it. I wish I were the right kind of person to like this book, or at least to finish it, but I don’t think I am. So I won’t make myself. I make myself finish a lot of things, and sometimes that results in a very fun bad review. But The Cornelius Chronicles aren’t worth it—I don’t think I bring myself to hate them, and I don’t want to read another 500 pages to find out.