My mad love affair with the work of Thomas Hardy deepens and continues with The Woodlanders, the latest of his novels to grace my shelves. I found this well-preserved Penguin Classics paperback in a used book shop in Edinburgh for £2. I bought it (and a few other books) more so I could say I bought some books from a used bookstore in Scotland than for any other reason. But Hardy is one of those authors whose entire oeuvre I intend to consume, book by book. Though The Woodlanders is a relatively slim volume compared to some of his other works, and though I had the entire week off work thanks to the half-term, it took me an entire week to read it (compare this to the three days over which I read Tess of the d’Urbervilles). Sometimes, when it takes me that long to read a book, I lose patience with the plot, and my enjoyment suffers no matter how great the book is. This was not the case with The Woodlanders. I’m aware I come across as an insufferable fanboy, but I want to be honest from the start of this review: with each Hardy novel I read, my appreciation of him as an author grows more than I ever expected. Words alone cannot express the intense enjoyment that devouring Hardy’s words provides.

In many ways, the plot doesn’t start simmering until Grace and Fitzpiers tie the knot and those inevitable dominoes of marital woes begin to fall. However, I love the chapters that lead up to their marriage precisely because Hardy does such a good job of showing the reader why this marriage will be a rocky one, while at the same time keeping us interested. Hardy could have started the book just prior to their marriage and forced a bitter pill of an unwieldy prologue down our throats, but it wouldn’t have been the same. Thanks to my familiarity with Marty South, Giles Winterbourne, the Melburys, and Fitzpiers, Grace and Fitzpiers’ marriage had a lot more significance when it finally happened. I tweeted, “Grace just married that scoundrel Fitzpiers. This will all end in tears.” (Actually, I’m pleasantly surprised by the ending, but we’ll get to that.)

I’m not sure what it is about Hardy that gives me the urge to tweet as I read; I did it quite often for Tess, and I did it a few times for this book as well. I think it’s the operatic nature of the plot, the fact that the narrative deviates well into melodrama at several points. From the dashing but somewhat dastardly Fitzpiers to confused, uncertain Grace Melbury, Hardy’s characters are a complex mixture of conflicting and contradictory desires and deeds. There is plenty of interpersonal conflict in this book, but almost all of it originates not in malice but simpler, more sympathetic misunderstandings owing to differences in class, education, temperament, and opinion. As a result, bad things happen—quite a bit—but the question of whether any of them happen to bad people is more complicated.

This is the chief reason I fell so hard for The Woodlanders. Coming off the juggernaut of Tess, I was sceptical that this more obscure work would have anywhere near the same impact. I had calibrated myself for enjoyment more of the Two on a Tower or perhaps Jude the Obscure level. (I have to revisit the latter now, because so many people comment on how it is a maturation of the themes Hardy explores in this book. So if I loved The Woodlanders, maybe there is hope for Jude yet.) While this book might lack the central, defining incident of Tess, it shares Hardy’s incredible grasp of the subtle shades of human character.

Even the people in this book who serve as antagonists, such as Fitzpiers with his philandering, are sympathetic. Through judicious use of the limited third person narrator, Hardy allows the reader to understand why each character makes the choices that they do. So yes, Fitzpiers is a cad, and it’s easy for us to see what will happen to their marriage before Grace does … but he’s not a cad of the irredeemable, moustache-twirling variety. He’s a complex person trapped by his upbringing, his prejudices, and his flaws. Similarly, Grace—who, by her very name, is supposed to be the sympathetic heroine of this story—is trapped by her own naivety, as well as her father’s confused ideas about what will be the best for his little girl.

Mr Melbury’s designs on Grace’s future tugged at my heartstrings. He loves his daughter deeply and, having the means at his disposal, invested in her future by sending her away to an expensive school. As a result, she is more educated and more refined than the other inhabitants of Little Hintock. Melbury has promised himself that he will marry Grace to Giles Winterbourne, as a kind of apology for marrying the woman Giles’ father wanted to marry. Yet he worries that Grace is now too good for Giles, that having her settle for him will doom her to a simpler life than she deserves. Melbury vacillates throughout the entire first part of the book, debating whether to go ahead with his cockamamie attempt at karmic balance or to encourage Grace to follow her heart. This essential indecision in his character returns later, after he debates how to advise Grace during her estrangement with Fitzpiers.

I can sympathize with the class conflicts Hardy presents in these events. Little Hintock is a very isolated place, something I think Hardy tries to emphasize from the beginning, with the slow, rambling cart ride that takes us into the town and ultimately to the house of Marty South. Melbury, as a wood merchant, is one of the most successful and powerful men in the village, and he wants to give his daughter the best. If that best means escaping life in the village—as the companion of the young widow, Mrs Charmond, or the wife of the village’s new, up-and-coming doctor—then so be it. Of course, it doesn’t quite cross Melbury’s mind to ask Grace what she wants.

It is tempting to read The Woodlanders and interpret it as a criticism of the institution of marriage. Indeed, in his study here, Hardy shows how it can be found wanting—for both sexes. Yet there is more to it than that, for Hardy portrays all different manners of relationships. In Grace and Fitzpiers we have the unhappy marriage. Felice Charmond provides the perspective of a widow, as well as Fitzpiers’ latest and most enduring object of infatuation. And Marty South wants nothing more than to be married to Giles, who wanted to be married to Grace! In this complex daisy chain of relationships, Hardy demonstrates that happiness is not as simple as being or not being married. It depends on subtler, more elusive alchemy than that.

Will Grace and Fitzpiers eventually be happy? Hardy, unlike Dickens, does not provide a neat little epilogue with any definite conclusions. If Grace’s father is correct, Fitzpiers’ infidelity will continue in time, and it remains to be seen whether Grace can cope with that. But it’s notable that Hardy ends the book not with Grace and Melbury but where he started it, with Marty South. He ends the book with Marty at Giles’ grave, alone because Grace is no longer there to accompany her:

“Now, my own, own love,” she wispered, “you are mine, and only mine; for she has forgot ’ee at last, although for her you died! But I—whenever I get up I’ll think of ’ee, and whenever I lie down Ill think of ’ee again…. But no, no, my love, I never can forget ’ee; for you was a good man, and did good things!”

This choice to end reflecting upon Giles’ role in events seems to hint that Grace’s time with him, and particularly his death, has altered her forever. Grace “forgets” Giles because his death, and Fitzpiers’ subsequent absolution of her role in it, is a catalyst that allows her to reconsider her estrangement from her husband. Here, Hardy reminds us that even if Fitzpiers remains unchanged, Grace has been through much, and that will be a factor in whatever lies ahead for them.

The ending, then, is not a happy one. Marty’s unfulfilled love for Giles notwithstanding, it is not a tragic one either. It seems that, with The Woodlanders, Hardy strikes the balance of the human condition: real life seldom admits purely happy or tragic endings, but rather tends towards a solemn compromise of the mediocre. Grace and Marty’s respective choices result in their respective outcomes, neither of which are very dramatic but are simply … life.

And so, in an isolated village in one part of his Wessex, Thomas Hardy manages yet again to impress and astound. The Woodlanders is powerful because it is simple on the surface but profound in its subtext. With a small but complex cast of characters and straightforward but compelling plot, this book reaffirms my admiration for one of the greatest novelists of the nineteenth century. As I wrote in one of my comments below, Thomas Hardy is off the fucking chain. In my opening, I referred to “devouring Hardy’s words”, and that’s precisely the type of verb necessary to describe the intense pleasure of reading his work. Some books are meant to be read; others are meant to be inhaled and consumed. The Woodlanders is certainly one of the latter.

There are a few different types of people who read War and Peace. I am some of them. I am a rigorously-educated, uber-literate intellectual who lives high enough up the ivory tower to get nose bleeds but not so high that I need an oxygen mask. I am intensely but not indiscriminately interested in history—not just the particulars of history, mind you, but the ways in which history happens. I take perverse enjoyment from carrying 600 g (actual mass of this book) novels from place to place and figuring out new and inventive ways of juggling the book and a cup of tea while simultaneously trying to turn a page without snapping the book’s spine (or mine, for that matter). And, finally, I am interested in war, and I am interested in peace. So this book is kind of a no-brainer for me.

I realize that a few people in this world do not share the entirety of my life experience and world view, however, and as such might not fully appreciate the majesty of this novel. Indeed, some might downright loathe and despise it to its very core—others might just feel a kind of contemptuous indifference, similar to how I feel about cooked fruit on pizza. And I get that. Marketing and tradition have cast War and Peace into the form of a novel, and so people read it with the expectations we have for novels (and especially modern novels). It is nothing of the sort, which disappoints most people.

I don’t think that War and Peace is difficult to read, but I’d agree that it is difficult to enjoy. Reading it, like a lot of so-called “great literature” can be an undertaking. War and Peace is more of an intricate collection of connected plots and philosophical treatises bound within the scope of a span of years at the start of the nineteenth century. It’s Tolstoy’s attempt to interrogate both a specific period of Russian history as well as the philosophy behind history itself. To do this, he fictionalizes some characters—most notably, Napoleon and Alexander I—and creates a vast cast of new ones to tell the stories he thinks will help him explore these topics. And while this book is neither as confusing nor as dull as its ponderous weight and aggressively small print might signal, it has a certain authentic convolutedness about it that doesn’t help the uninterested reader.

What I’m trying to say is that War and Peace might end up defeating you, and there is nothing wrong with that. The same could be said for Lord of the Rings (and I personally am completely unable to muster any enthusiasm for Catch-22). I am not going to try to convert anyone here, but I am going to rhapsodize about why I have enjoyed War and Peace so much. Though not one to jump aboard the hyperbolic bandwagon proclaiming it “the greatest novel in any language” (as my Penguin Classics edition does, adding that “few would dispute” this), I’d go as far as declaring this a damn good book.

Another reason that War and Peace can be difficult to joy is its chimeric makeup. Perhaps unsurprisingly, parts of this book deal with war and parts with peace. Some parts are devoted almost exclusively to the intrigues and relationships among Russian aristocrats—who is courting whom, who needs to borrow money from whom, etc. Other parts follow the exploits of some of these aristocrats on the battlefield, engaging the French (or decidedly not engaging, as the case may be). Tolstoy shifts settings and timbres so effortlessly that this, along with his amazing characterization, demonstrates why so many regard him as a great writer in, to borrow from that awful Penguin quotation above, “any language”. It also means, though, that every few chapters the book suddenly decides, “Hey, I’m going to change topics now!” and anyone not very interested in the other topics is left out in the cold.

I’ll confess that the “war” parts of War and Peace didn’t interest me as much as their “peace” counterparts. I think this had a lot to do with the way Tolstoy would drone on for pages at a time, particularly during the introduction of a new part, about various philosophies of history and warfare and military strategy. I imagine the effect is similar to having a somewhat bearded Russian professor in the same room as me for several hours a time (along with a kindly British woman translating idiomatically). The epilogue is the most egregious example of this: Part One is a depressing glance at our surviving main characters, eight year on (more on that in a moment); Part Two could very well live on its own as an essay on the philosophy of history. It is connected to the book only insofar as it is about war and peace.

I did enjoy Tolstoy’s portrayal of the different attitudes towards war through different characters. As Andrei Bolkonsky, Nikolai Rostov, and Boris Drubetskoy march off to war, their experiences differ wildly. Moreover, each of their attitudes change drastically over the course of their brush with war. Andrei starts off naively idealistic about his potential for heroism, but a brush with death causes him to retreat from the world of war and peace for quite some time. Nikolai is disdainful of war, for the most part, but not interested in becoming a diplomat. He’s in it for the political distinction it will bring, and yearns for a chance to get noticed by the Tsar. Boris lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. He has ambitions (somewhat foisted upon him by his overbearing mother) to rise high in whatever fashion possible. In fact, Tolstoy’s treatment of Boris is rather dismissive: he marries well and then disappears.

I’m most intrigued by Andrei’s character arc. His personality has been heavily influenced by his reclusive and incorrigible father, who withdrew from court life after being snubbed by the previous emperor. Andrei has high ideals and a tight code of honour; he also seems to genuinely love his wife. He hates that he has to abandon her when he rides off to war, but he is thrilled by the prospect of leading men into a heroic, triumphant battle. Tolstoy constantly describes how Andrei has his eyes open, ready to seize the day at any moment. Then his time finally comes—and though he is every bit the hero he wants to be, he very nearly dies. Andrei mellows out, returns home, and swears to live his life in contemplation. Yet Tolstoy has other plans, and later Andrei finds himself in the military again. In many ways, Andrei’s arc is a synecdoche of imperial Russia’s experience with the Napoleonic Wars: at first the military and aristocracy are eager to fight Napoleon, who seems like a worthy foe; then they are tired, weary, and ready for peace; when he breaks that peace, they rise reluctantly only to find their old fire has never left them.

It’s important to remember that this is truly a work of historical fiction, that Tolstoy is writing some fifty years after the events in this book. He possesses the benefit of hindsight, of other resources and research that provide perspectives on the various “great men” involved in the wars. Yet he doesn’t glamourize the Russian army or gloss over the division within the military. He frankly depicts the political in-fighting among supporters of various generals and the massacres, routs, and various other defeats that resulted from the poor and half-baked plans this in-fighting produced. There are some, but very few, actual battle scenes. His is a war full of maps and marches. And this seems appropriate for a period of hostility that dragged on, vacillating between peace and war more than once, and ending only after Napoleon’s miscalculations and the Russian army’s good luck at miscommunication.

Meanwhile, the “peace” part of War and Peace offers fascinating insights into the life of Russian aristocracy at the time. Though Tolstoy does not give his women characters quite as much page time as some of the men, they are three-dimensional in their own right. Natasha Rostov, who begins the book enamoured of Boris and certain she will marry him, changes quite a bit. As she grows up, she has to deal with her attractiveness and the type of men who orbit her in society. She becomes engaged, breaks the engagement, pines for her lover, grieves for her once-betrothed, and so on. With each episode, Tolstoy explores different stages of the Russian socialite’s life. His characters seldom, if ever, get what they initially want. Often, however, they end up changing and, in the process, develop new desires that they can fulfil.

I’m less happy about that epilogue. Just as the Harry Potter series ends with a look at all the main characters 19 years later, War and Peace jumps forward by 8 years to show what has happened to the characters who still live, focusing mainly on two couples (neither of whom originally planned to marry). It’s a depressing way to end the book. The characters are past their primes—that’s why this is an epilogue, not the main part of the story—and though they might be “happy”, they do not have the same vivacity that made them so interesting. (I particularly mourn the Natasha of old.) Chiefly, the epilogue just doesn’t signify in the way the rest of the book does. I don’T particularly care about how Pierre is getting on in Petersburg, because I know that the story is over and it will have very little importance. I would be just as happy to end the story at the end of Book Four.

This doorstop of a literary experience endures. It is a masterpiece of characterization. Tolstoy depicts men and women as they grow and change against the backdrop of the Napoleonic War. It is a careful, deliberate prosecution of a specific idea of what history is and how it actually happens—but Tolstoy is clever enough to couch his rhetoric in a story, even if he does get a little carried away and forgets that at times. Finally, it is a fascinating story in its own right, with a diverse cast. However, the book itself changes character and flavour periodically, which I expect will disappoint anyone anticipating a linear, unvarying read. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that War and Peace deserves its status as a literary classic. It might not be “the greatest novel in any language”, but it is a great novel. And since it has many elements that interest and entertain me, it is one of my personal greats.

Now, I am a lucky and spoiled person who is reading Saga collected in volumes, rather than reading each issue as it is released like a chump—er, I mean, true fan. I guess it’s comparable to binge-watching a show after the entire season has been released rather than watching it week-by-week. In the end, you get to the same place. But the experience is totally different.

Saga, Volume Two raises the stakes after Volume One set up the universe and the conflict. Alana and Marko are still on the run, and now they have a destination: Quietus, home of schlock romance writer D.O. Heist, who is apparently Alana’s idea of a sage who can advise them on how to spend the rest of their fugitive lives. But there’s a twist—because Marko’s parents have tracked him down, and they aren’t thrilled at his choice of wife. The ensuing family drama really showcases Brian K. Vaughan’s ability to synthesize different levels of conflict.

The centre of Saga is Hazel, the child of two worlds (TVTropes) who is also the narrator. This is her saga, it’s implied, her genesis and coming of age. She is important because her heritage is unique—Landfall and Wreath hate each other so much that both sides are terrified at the prospect that two of their soldiers could possibly have fallen in love and had a child. She is also important because of her parents—not only did they make her, but they have the drive and desire to raise her peacefully. In addition to the struggle to survive and stay one step ahead of everyone who wants to kill or capture them, Alana and Marko’s biggest struggle, and the centre of this story, is going to be about how to raise Hazel. We can already see that happening in these early issues.

I think it’s interesting that even as Alana and Marko adjust to being a parent, both of the antagonists hunting them are dealing with the possibility of fatherhood. Prince Robot IV learns that his wife is pregnant while he is on the hunt for the fugitives. His appears to be a marriage of state; though he seems to have some fondness for his wife, so far I get the impression he’s more concerned about perpetuating his robot line. (Generally, I think he’s kind of a dick.) The Will, on the other hand, has essentially adopted Slave Girl, whom he busts out from Sextillion because he’s down with killing children but not having sex with them. (I like the Will, unlike my feelings towards Robot IV—I feel like, despite his past, he seems like he can be redeemed with the right sort of experience.)

Even as Vaughan’s storytelling expands the universe and advances the plot, Staples’ art once again elevates Saga above simply “a good space opera.” Her characters are fun and diverse: robots, humanoids, mice medics…. This time I want to remark on the backgrounds and the scenery. Thanks to the different POVs and the magic of flashbacks, we see quite a few planets: Cleave, Landfall, Wreath, Quietus, and others. Staples gives each different characteristics and climates. I suspect that is difficult to do given the limited page space and how much has to be taken up by characters, action, or dialogue. But this, combined with the dialogue and narration, really helps lend a sense of grandeur to the setting of Saga. People in this universe get around. They planet hop, whether on their own ships, like the Will does, or chartered cruisers, like Prince Robot IV does when he goes from Landfall to Cleave (until he gets his own wheels, because reasons).

Volume Two ends on a sweet twist/reveal and cliffhanger that left me really excited to read Volume Three. I loved watching Robot’s confrontation with Heist only for the “camera” to “pan up” and narrator!Hazel to reveal that, in fact, they preceded the Prince to Quietus. Sweet! Can’t wait to see how this turns out.

If Volume One hooked me into Saga, then Volume Two only reaffirmed that feeling. This is premium grade crack storytelling. Don’t look at me funny when I say that, or I will cut you.

My reviews of Saga:
← Volume One | Volume Three →

Are you familiar with the works of John Irving? Then you’ll be familiar with the works of Haruki Murakami—because this is perhaps the antithesis of Irving in many ways. Both authors produce profoundly character-driven novels, often centred on young men trying to find their way through a life clouded by attachments to a deep past. Whereas Irving seems determined to wrap his characters in layers of the complex darkness of the human soul, Murakami instead proffers to his characters hope for a more optimistic resolution.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is not difficult to follow, and it is very moving and very reassuring. It’s the kind of novel I can sit down and read for hours without a break, if I have the time, and despite almost nothing ever happening in the modern sense we spoiled readers are accustomed to … I wanted to keep reading, to find out what would not happen next. We talk about character- versus plot-driven fiction a lot. Like any categories, these are generalizations, and there are always exceptions and shades of grey and fine lines. But I compare Murakami to Irving above because I think the two are similar in that they practise the art of character-driven stories almost lacking in plot.

I love the title of this book. Murakami wastes no time explaining the first part: Tsukuru means “to make” or “to create” (depending on which Chinese character one uses to write it). Alone among his four friends, Tsukuru does not have a name that contains a colour—hence, he is “colorless Tsukuru Tazaki” when all the others can be called by their colours. This sense of difference becomes a defining aspect of Tsukuru’s relationship with this circle of friends, who exile him totally and without explanation a few months after he leaves Nagoya to go to school in Tokyo. Despite achieving his goal of becoming a railway station designer/engineer, Tsukuru feels that his lack of colour is a symbol of how bland or uninteresting he is. As the years roll by, he develops only one lasting friendship that ends almost as abruptly and mysteriously as the one with his high school friends did. He has some girlfriends, but nothing serious.

It’s interesting that Murakami presents Tsukuru in this way. By many external measures, Tsukuru is a successful individual. He has a good job, and in fact, his dream job—unlike some of his friends, he never compromised nor wavered in what he wanted. Although he doesn’t have close friendships, he emphasizes that he is alone but not lonely—a difference I can definitely appreciate. Yet Tsukuru seems to feel there is an emptiness in his life, something missing. That’s why Sara is successful in motivating him to reconnect with his four friends after decades of silence to find out why they exiled him. It’s not that she’s being nosey and manipulating him—everything else Murakami shows us about Tsukuru’s life shows us that he needs this closure.

I appreciate how simple Murakami makes it for Tsukuru to find and talk to these friends. There is no drama about hunting them down. When they see him after all this time, they receive him neutrally or warmly, with no animosity or displeasure, despite the circumstances that led them to exile him. This simplicity allows Tsukuru and his friends to talk instead about the truly meaningful parts of their lives. In so doing, Murakami comments on the choices we make that shape who we become. I’m sure there are aspects here that I’m missing because of my unfamiliarity with Japanese society. From my point of view as a Westerner, however, it looks like Murakami explores how each of the friends prioritized different aspects of their lives, which has led them to where they are today.

In a sense, we all have the “years of pilgrimage” that Tsukuru does, though most of us do not experience the same kind of abrupt and painful cutoff with our high school associates. Delving into the reason for this exile is the most sensitive part of the book. It’s uncomfortable and sometimes disturbing, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the way Murakami deals with it. Time and secondhand narration muddle the story until it becomes something very different from what actually happened. But I keep telling myself the reality of what happened is beside the point, because this is not Shiro’s story. If it were, then matters would be different—but we would also have access to perspectives and information we don’t get here. No, this is Tsukuru’s story. And it seems like what Murakami is trying to say here is that sometimes your relationships with people change through no fault or action of your own; rather, they or their other relationships dictate that they take steps that might be to your detriment. Ao and Aka’s discomfort with how they treated Tsukuru is clear; Kuro’s attempt to frame it in terms of Tsukuru’s “strength” demonstrates her strong sense of responsibility and regret for what happened.

In the end, we don’t get much closure though. We find out why Tsukuru was exiled. We don’t learn more about his aborted friendship with Haida, however, and his nascent relationship with Sara remains up in the air. I remember approaching the end very rapidly, the width of pages remaining diminishing with frightening speed even as I realized that there is no way Murakami could wrap things up in time. As the narrative itself slowed and thickened, as Tsukuru and Sara seemed to stand still in their respective lives, I realized that Murakami had no intention of giving me closure. He wanted to leave it open, to let us conjecture and fantasize about what could be and what might be. I can respect that, even though as a reader, I kind of wish he had just ended it happily ever after. So it goes.

Bottom line: Murakami makes writing novels like this look effortless. Seen from a distance, there is almost nothing here … everything is gossamer and glitter. But substance does lie beneath. I can’t pretend I can fully articulate why I enjoyed this novel so much. It’s just a very fulfilling experience, both reassuring and discomforting, clever and thoughtful yet also relaxing in its simplicity. I know a lot of people talk about how Murakami’s stories are repetitive and trope-ridden—and after three novels, all I can say is I must not be paying enough attention, because I don’t see it, or at least, not on the same level as Irving. Regardless, he certainly tells interesting stories.

I was a little harsh on Robopocalypse. I said its subtext was spread thinly; it’s a thriller in a science fiction setting that seems to be bagging for a Michael Bay adaptation. I stand by those words. And Robogenesis isn’t much better. But it is better. Daniel H. Wilson throws in a few twists and expands on some of the characters, and the result is a more entertaining, slightly deeper, slightly more thought-provoking novel about the ongoing robot apocalypse.

Spoilers for the previous book, but not for this one.

Basically, Wilson revises Archos-14’s strategy. It turns out that Archos was trying to save humanity after all, because humans are the most complex form of life it knows of, and the complexity of life is what makes the universe interesting. It was actually working against an older AI, its sibling Archos-8, aka Arayt Shah. This, apparently, is the Skynet-like “kill all humans” AI we were promised but not given in Robopocalypse. Arayt Shah co-opts and corrupts various humans in an attempt to create some armies powerful enough to seize the Freeborn City of robots at Cheyenne Mountain and get all the yummy yummy computing power buried there. (I’m pretty sure this is a lie and it’s after control of the Stargate.)

If you liked Robopocalypse, you’ll like Robogenesis. It is more of the same.

What surprised me was how much I enjoyed Robogenesis given how much I found the first book repetitive and conventional. For this I credit Wilson’s background knowledge and ability to put that on the page. I call Arayt Shah Skynet somewhat tongue-in-cheek, because Terminator is pretty much the Star Wars of killer robot movies. But Wilson, unlike Cameron, has a PhD in robotics, which means he knows his shit. And this means he’s able to explore so many different types of artificial intelligence and each type’s ramifications for human existence. Many novels manage to evoke one particular possible evolution of AI, but few consider that there are so many different paths for AI evolution to take. From the “deep” minds lurking in the ocean to the genocidal Arayt Shah to the messianic-but-also-kind-of-genocidal Archos-14, not to mention the freeborn robots like Arbiter Nine Oh Two, Wilson reminds us that when the robot apocalypse comes, it might not be like anything we expect.

The downside to portraying so many different types of AI is that you have much less time to focus on each type. And this really shows in Robogenesis. I could have read an entire novel just about Arbiter Nine Oh Two, who was probably my favourite character. There’s so much going on there, but because Wilson has to cover all these other characters and the overall plot about Arayt Shah’s attempt to take Cheyenne Mountain, we just don’t get the depth we could otherwise have. I know that there is some good characterization with Mathilda and Nolan, but it’s still surface-level compared to what it could have been.

This is why I keep comparing these novels to Hollywood SF movies, and why I give them two stars instead of one. This is not a poorly written novel. Wilson is a good writer. It’s just that his style is far broader than I personally enjoy. I want a novel that blows my mind with the way it takes one idea and shows how that change affects the lives of characters I come to care about. Wilson has so much going on here and writes it so cinematically that I can’t really get attached. This is a good thriller and a good “action book,” but as far as deep and thoughtful SF goes, it comes up short.

This is totally unrelated to the content of the book, but I keep wanting to call this Sum: Forty-One Tales from the Afterlives, after the band Sum 41. And I kind of feel like David Eagleman missed out on some tie-in gold there. Call me, Eagleman.

Let’s start with one huge positive of this book: it’s short. I’m saying that’s a positive not because I disliked the book—quite the opposite, in fact. And yeah, maybe I am reading a whole bunch of short books in the last few days of 2014 to bump up my read count, just so I don’t fall quite so short of my goal. No, despite containing forty tales—essentially flash fiction—Sum is just over a hundred pages, barely novella-length, and eminently readable in a single sitting, if you are so inclined. (I broke it into two, because I’m a rebel that way.) And this is a positive because all forty tales are second-person stories about what happens after you die. They aren’t necessarily repetitive, but there’s only so much one can take of, “After you die, you find out that …” in all its myriad forms before you kind of want to read about life again. Eagleman seems to understand this and keeps each piece short and sweet.

I don’t have to give a summary of this anthology, because the subtitle says it all. Eagleman tries to come at the concept of afterlife from as many different angles as possible. Some of them will be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in speculative fiction; others are fascinating and perhaps new to the reader. Eagleman has a fancy degree in neuroscience, which is the study of brain things. As such, most of the stories focus on the issue of selfhood and how one’s self can maintain a continuous and consistent identity, not just after life, but during life as well. These sorts of issues, related to philosophy of mind, are some of my favourites in the field, and in this respect, Sum hooked me.

That being said, my familiarity with some of these ideas from other fiction means that many of what could have been the collection’s highlights tended to fall flat. They were well-executed, but I’ve seen the “it’s a simulation,” “we’re all part of a computer program,” “we created the gods,” etc. so much, and usually, explored much more richly than Eagleman can afford to do here. I can laud Eagleman for bringing them to a wider audience, but I can’t derive a lot of personal enjoyment from it.

I think Sum exemplifies how shorter works can really get it right. It would be a mistake to call this shallow despite its brevity or repetitive despite its consistent theme. Rather, Eagleman is adept at the variations to a dazzling degree. It’s a rewarding read, but unlike so many larger, thicker collections, it isn’t intimidating at all. I’m not enthusiastic enough about it to recommend it to everyone, but I could see myself recommending it to the right person. (For a price. Call me, Eagleman.)

If you’ve ever wondered what happens after we die but find the Bible too long and poorly edited, then Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives is probably for you.

Damn you, Ursula K. Le Guin, for writing books that are so good, sometimes they hurt.

Like A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan follows a single protagonist over a long span of her life. Tenar, identified as the reincarnation of the First Priestess of the Nameless Ones, is taken from her parents at a young age. Her soul ceremonially consumed by the Nameless Ones, Tenar becomes Arha, "the Eaten One," and paradoxically nameless herself. She grows up among other priestesses and eunuchs. And she's a very bored girl. She goes through the motions of learning the ways of the High Priestess, sacrificing prisoners to the Nameless Ones, etc., but her heart isn't in it. Then one day, a wizard from the Archipelago shows up in the Labyrinth beneath the tombs, a place where only Arha is allowed to go.

This wizard is, of course, Ged, the protagonist of the previous book. I'm sure that if the entire book were from Ged's perspective the story of how he sneaked into the Labyrinth to steal something would sound a lot better; as it is, he comes off as a bit of a mysterious jerk. Yet Ged's arrival is the event that changes everything. Locked in the dark tombs with little light and precious little food or water, he does something that might seem meaningless to most of us, but to Arha, it is the most potent act possible: he gives her back her name. Taken from her by the priestesses, Ged divines it and utters it almost casually at a parting, and in so doing he returns to Arha her true identity as Tenar, setting her off on the path to liberation.

Now that I have re-read the first two books, it seems so obvious to me that the entire Earthsea series is about, among other things, identity. Generally, it is a world where identity is part of the fabric of magic: to know something's true name is to know the thing, to have command over it. In A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged finds out who he is even as he learns more about the gebbeth hunting him, a creature that almost is not. And thanks to his adventures and deeds during and after that book, he gets all these additional titles bestowed upon him—dragonlord, and the like—for which he never asked. It's the same in The Tombs of Atuan; if anything the motif is much more pronounced. Tenar's identity is stolen from her in childhood, and her relief to have it back came like a sucker punch to my gut:

It was not long past sunrise, a fair winter's day. The sky was yellowish, very clear. High up, so high he caught the sunlight and burned like a fleck of gold, a bird was circling, a hawk or desert eagle.

"I am Tenar," she said, not aloud, and she shook with cold, and terror, and exultation, there under the sunwashed sky. "I have my name back. I am Tenar!"

The golden fleck veered westwards towards the mountains, out of sight. Sunrise gilded the eaves of the Small House. Sheep bells clanked, down in the folds. The smells of woodsmoke and buckwheat porridge from the kitchen chimneys drifted on the fine, fresh wind.

"I am so hungry.… How did he know? How did he know my name? … Oh, I've got to eat, I'm so hungry.…"

She pulled up her hood and ran off to breakfast.

It is as if having her true name restored to her has re-awakened her entire being, given her a new life. Everything is fresh, more real—hence the hunger, the need for energy to confront this wonderful new world. Just like that, Le Guin smites us with a sense of joy that has heretofore been totally absent from Tenar's life.

A lesser writer might have ended the book after Tenar and Ged escape the Tombs of Atuan. Maybe there would be a coda explaining how they lived happily ever after, but that would be it. Le Guin, however, does not succumb to this temptation for the fairy tale ending. After they escape, their trials are not over. Tenar does not fall into Ged's arms, swooning over the hero who has rescued her from her spiritual imprisonment. Their journey across Atuan to the sea is slow, and at times it is as precarious as their time deep in the tombs. Tenar's trust in Ged is nascent and uneasy, made all the more difficult by psychic warfare on the part of the Nameless Ones. She comes close to killing Ged, but he responds to her only with kindness and reassurance:

"Now," he said, "now we're away, now we're clear, we're clean gone, Tenar. Do you feel it?"

She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.

What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.

This is why Le Guin is so awesome: even though she's telling us a story, a work of fiction, she never lies to us. She shows us the joy, but she also shows us the sorrow that accompanies it like shadow accompanies light. And she does not cheapen the significance of Tenar's journey—whether it's the freedom she has gained or the life she has lost—by trying to simplify, to pander, or to sex it up.

Speaking of which, re-reading The Tombs of Atuan, even more than my re-reading of A Wizard of Earthsea, has only increased my ire toward the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries. The whitewashing of the cast is regrettable, but now I have a much better perspective on how they butchered the story. The miniseries uses material from both of these books, but rather than connecting them chronologically, which could make sense, the miniseries conflates them. Ged's battle against the gebbeth is combined with his search for the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. But Tenar's story is almost unrecognizable: everyone calls her Tenar, none of this "Eaten One" business, and she's treated more like an uppity novice than any kind of reincarnation of the High Priestess. And as the series draws to a close, Ged and Tenar meet up and reunite the two halves of the Ring and bring peace, etc., and there's no crying. There is no significance to Tenar's journey—pretty much there is almost no character development, aside from Tenar's change of allegiance. There is no depth, and if Gavin Scott had ever encountered the word "nuance" before, he certainly did not bother to look up its definition.

I did not remember this book as well as I remembered A Wizard of Earthsea, though I'm sure I've read it before. So I began re-reading it with the expectation that it would be good but not in the way its predecessor is. Instead, I find myself adding a third Le Guin book to my shelf of all-time favourites, an honour I do not bestow lightly. But The Tombs of Atuan is just that good. It's more than good: it's beautiful and poignant and strong. Shame on you, Le Guin, shame!

My Reviews of the Earthsea series:
← A Wizard of Earthsea | The Farthest Shore →

Some books are better if just don’t expect them to make sense. The Sirens of Titan actually surprised me in how accessible it was for a Vonnegut novel. For the first few chapters, everything was pretty mundane. Weird, yes—but I followed everything that was going on. It’s not until about Chapter Four, when Malachi ends up on Mars, that everything gets super-strange. From there it’s just deeper down the rabbithole as Vonnegut spins layer upon layer of story.

Malachi Constant isn’t a nice man. He is hedonistic at best, overly complacent in his inherited fortune and prone to parties and womanizing. But Wilson Rumfoord is an even worse man. Discorporated and scattered throughout the solar system by a chronosynclastic infundibulum (try saying that three times fast), Rumfoord materializes periodically on various planets as the waveform of his being intersects them. He—along with his dog—exists outside of time, able to perceive all moments of his life at once. (This is reminiscent of the Trafalmadorians of Slaughterhouse-Five—though aliens under the same name appear in this book, they don’t seem to have the same non-linear existence.) Through Rumfoord’s prophecies and Malachi’s arranged suffering, Vonnegut once more explores the tension between determinism and free will and whether we are really able to make choices at all.

That last sentence sounds grand, but it actually requires a great deal of unpacking. Just as Slaughterhouse-Five is about more than non-linear time, this book is about more than determinism vs. free will. Vonnegut raises questions of morality and responsibility, and context-aware readers won’t be able to help but draw parallels to the horrific events of World War II and the refuge fatalism offers from the abyss of nihilism.

At first, we have to wonder about the fate of Malachi Constant. According to Rumfoord, he is destined to end up on Titan—along with Rumfoord’s wife, Beatrice, with whom Malachi will have a child. Malachi decides to rebel against this prophecy by selling all of his company’s shares in a spaceship company—but this, along with some other bad luck, ruins him.

From here, Vonnegut recounts the story of how Malachi’s father lucked into his riches. Luck is the word he uses, which is interesting, because we typically perceive luck as the force opposing fate or destiny. In this case, however, luck is clearly just another manifestation of fate—perhaps the baldest manifestation of fate. This thesis gains further definition much later, as Malachi further comes to accept his strange role in events and says, “I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.” This is the “so it goes” of The Sirens of Titan: we are all, like Malachi Constant, merely victims of a series of continuous accidents, and that is what we call life.

The whole Martian invasion of Earth subplot is silly and very Vonnegut—it’s a pastiche, really, of a more sinister idea played straight in Watchmen and the machinations of Ozymandias. (Obviously the latter book came after this one; what I mean to say is that it is a good example of the trope Vonnegut mocks here.) But that’s why he doesn’t spend much time on the particulars and instead focuses on Unk’s evolution as a moral agent.

Is Unk culpable for the death of Stony Stevenson? The answer seems to be “no.” The reasons, however, could vary. At the time he kills Stony, it’s arguable whether Unk is much of a person at all. (Vonnegut is vague at first about the amount of control an individual retains in the Martian Army, though later I’d argue it becomes clearer. It seems that Unk probably had more volition than he exerts, but the combination of memory wipes and his conditioning means he isn’t in a fit state to exercise that volition.) On a more thematic note, Vonnegut seems to suggest that Stony’s death, like everything else, is merely a foreordained part of events in the universe, as told by Wilson Rumfoord.

So is Rumfoord God? His near-omniscient, near-omnipresent state and the skill with which he manipulates both Earth and Mars affairs certainly sets him up as god-like. But he’s probably not God per se—Vonnegut is definitely using the religion he creates on Earth to mock how seriously organized religion takes itself and the concept of a higher power that is anything other than indifferent to the well-being of humanity.

There is a certain irony, I suppose, in the way Rumfoord reacts when he finds out how the Trafalmadorians have been sending messages to Salo. They are monstrous for influencing Earth affairs, but he is apparently justified? Depending on how you view it, Rumfoord is either the most or least culpable character in the book—for surely knowing all of one’s actions and their consequences down throughout one’s entire existence either makes one completely responsible or not at all responsible for those actions and consequences.

I didn’t like the ending though. I appreciate it from an artistic perspective, but as a value judgement, I just find it so empty. Vonnegut’s style is similar to Douglas Adams’—both authors have a specificity that lends itself well to their absurd humour. The ending to The Sirens of Titan, alas, is much like the ending to Mostly Harmless (albeit without the apocalyptic elements)—there is a sense that the entire story leading up to it is rendered moot, which, as a reader, is not a nice feeling to have.

Don’t let that minor criticism make you think that I disliked the book, however. I thoroughly enjoyed The Sirens of Titan. It doesn’t quite have the gravitas of Slaughterhouse-Five, but I understand why some people prefer this book. At the very least, Vonnegut demonstrates he can bottle lightning a second time.

The human body is weird. I mean, it’s a wonder we function at all. We’re fragile bags of mostly water that support a strange and wonderful organ that seems to give us consciousness. All this happens through a complex set of interconnected systems that work to keep us alive. I’m really not down with the ickiness of my biology: bring on the robot bodies! Until that happens, though, I’m forced to agree with Lawrence Hill: Blood really is The Stuff of Life. Furthermore, how we treat blood and how, historically, our understanding of blood has led us to treat others, is a fascinating and important topic to consider.

I’m seeing a lot of reviews of this book that express dissatisfaction with the lack of scientific information and the excess of anecdotes from Hill’s life. And, fair enough: if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for, you will be disappointed. Although Hill gives a basic précis of how blood breaks down and when we learned all this, Blood is more about culture and history than it is about science—the science, when it’s there, is to illuminate the historical attitudes, rather than the other way around. Being disappointed with this is a totally legitimate attitude, but I think it’s a little disingenuous when the book never bills itself as popular science. My copy, at least, claims to be “a bold meditation on blood as an historical and contemporary marker of identity, belonging, gender, race, class, citizenship, athletic superiority, and nationhood” (woo, Oxford comma!). Laundry list aside, there’s no claim to scientific discourse here. Let’s not ignore the impulse of the Massey Lectures either, which is to discuss a topic as it relates to culture and philosophy. The whole point of this exercise is for Hill to remove blood from beneath the microscope and look at how it has affected our societies.

One point Hill wants to hammer home is that despite differences in blood types, all our blood is the same. That is, no one has ever managed to use blood to successfully replicate the cultural constructs of race and ethnicity. He examines the futility of trying to establish ancestry and descent through blood quanta. Your skin might be lighter or darker than other people; you might have hair that coils or curls or waves or stay straight; but as long as your blood types are compatible, you can share blood regardless of these surface-level characteristics. Hill reminds us that the idea we can neatly compartmentalize humans into categories like “race” is only that—an idea, promoted and perpetuated throughout the centuries whenever it is a convenient way for people in power to oppress others.

Obviously, Hill’s identity as a black man contributes heavily to this discussion, as does his identity as the child of Americans who immigrated. But he also talks about other ways in which blood has been used to oppress, separate, or otherwise distinguish people into less- and more-deserving groups. In particular, he mentions the ongoing struggle Aboriginal peoples of Canada have even in being recognized as being Aboriginal. Blood, blood quantum, and the idea that who one marries can affect whether your children are members of a certain group all contribute to allowing or denying access to certain privileges. This is a pattern of behaviour that has gone on for millennia and continues to this very day—but it has no basis in fact.

In this way, blood is one of the properties by which we determine what is human. Hill examines this from another angle when he discusses blood-doping and other steroid usage. As an amateur runner who gave up his athletic aspirations for literary ones, Hill knows a lot about the mechanics of running and the obstacles athletes face to run faster and longer. Blood plays an immensely important role in this. I never followed the blood-doping scandal when it was in the news—sports is of little interest to me. The transhumanist aspect of steroid use, however, is fascinating. Hill teases out the difficult ethical quandaries surrounding these issues, speculates how we will deal with more and more innovative ways of enhancing athletes.

Blood is definitely thoughtful and moving. It is somewhat repetitive. Though Hill promises a careful division of topics into the five chapters/five lectures of the series, he revisits the same ideas—albeit from slightly different angles. Each chapters, as a result, has some high points mixed among a lot of, “Didn’t I already read this?” Though the book never goes so far as to be boring, it is not as insightful as its length might suggest.

It’s just a coincidence that I read this just as the adaptation of Hill’s The Book of Negroes premieres on CBC. Hill’s choice of subject for the Massey Lectures was certainly apt: his writing is often about blood and the effect it has on our lives. I haven’t actually read The Book of Negroes yet, but even from his non-fiction writing I can tell that Hill is a talented and thorough author. If the subject interests you, then Blood will be satisfying guide through the cultural baggage that courses through our veins and arteries. If you’re looking for a popular science book, though, you should continue your search elsewhere.

The Ghost Brigades is set a few years after Old Man’s War. Scalzi fleshes out this universe a little more, introducing us to a few more species and providing some more hints at interstellar politics beyond the Colonial Union. Like the first book, though, this is a story of the soldiers on the ground rather than the bigwigs in some legislature. The closest we get to that are the conversations between Generals Mattson and Szilard, which are reminiscent of similar conversations in Ender’s Game: they’re more about the soldiers than the war.

As the title declares, though, the focus of this book is on life in the Colonial Defense Force Special Forces. Nicknamed the Ghost Brigades because their soldiers are created from the genomes of dead CDF recruits, the Special Forces do the jobs too dirty or difficult for regular CDF detachments. The protagonist, Jared Dirac, is a special Special Forces member. When General Brahe announces that the Special Forces are different because each and every one of them was “born with a purpose”, his statement goes double for Jared. Cloned from traitor Charles Boutin, Jared carries the remnants of an imprint of Boutin’s consciousness in his brain. Mattson and Szilard wanted to see if Jared could remember what Boutin remembered and, most importantly, tell them why he defected and what he was planning.

I certainly liked the action The Ghost Brigades. There’s a lot less exposition than there was in Old Man’s War, and of course, there’s no prelude portion set on Earth. We get quite a few cool scenes, from training to deployment—the sequence on Enesha is probably my favourite. John Perry is mentioned near the end but doesn’t put an appearance into this book; Jane Sagan, however, is a major character—Jared’s immediate superior. Her beliefs and behaviour have a major influence on Jared, even if she isn’t aware of it herself. It was nice seeing certain parts of the story almost from her perspective (in a third-person sense).

And as in the previous book, Scalzi uses several different technologies to explore some of the ramifications of humanity’s spread throughout a galaxy studded with life. Genetic engineering and consciousness transfer are the two major technologies here. There are several discussions of how Special Forces differs from ordinary humans or even other CDF troops, along with that uncomfortable realization that Special Forces troops are essentially slaves, albeit with a limited term of indenture. I like that Scalzi brings up all of these ideas and offers the reader the chance to mull them over. However, at times it feels like this is more of a drive-by tour of them—“oh look, this is the part of the story where it’s a metaphor for slavery”. None of these big ideas really seem to resonate with the rest of the plot.

I liked Jared a lot better than John, if only because he isn’t as much of a Mary Sue. He’s far from perfect, and not everyone likes him. He shares a few irritating traits with John—like John, he seems to come up with innovations that eluded everyone else for a long time as if they were nothing—and I wish he had more serious conflict in this book. Most of his conflict is internal, as he wrestles with whether to become more lik Boutin or not. And even though all the other characters declare that he has changed, become more assertive, etc. … I confess I don’t see it. He’s pretty much Jared, the entire time.

Of course, if one is looking for heavy implications into humanity’s future, the climactic confrontation with Boutin and the ensuing conversation is perhaps the best part of the book. Boutin might be misguided, but he has apprehended aspects of the big picture that are certainly troubling. If he is correct, the Colonial Union is lying to a lot of people. Yet Mattson and Szilard imply that Boutin didn’t have all the information—and as any scientist knows, making decisions based on incomplete data is worse than reserving judgement. So I appreciate the way in which Scalzi weaves this moral ambiguity into the story. It’s clear that the Colonial Union’s actions are far from on the level, but there is more going on than what Boutin reveals to Jared.

The Ghost Brigades is definitely a worthy sequel to Old Man’s War. I’m not sure if it’s better—I think I was a little more taken with the story in Old Man’s War—but it’s certainly not worse. Indeed, if you haven’t read Old Man’s War, you could certainly still pick up this book and not feel like you’re missing out. Scalzi delivers a good balance between action and introspection, even if I did wish there were a little more depth when it comes to the latter. This is a book packed with explosions and clones and excellent alien creatures, not to mention questions about identity, consciousness, and the nature of self.

My reviews of the Old Man’s War series:
← Old Man’s War | The Last Colony →