This is one of those books that appeared on my radar from time to time, gently nudging me until I eventually broke down and decided to read it. I was sceptical of how interesting a book could be when its premise is a world without . . . well, us. In hindsight, that seems like a silly way of thinking about this book, since the only way to envision the "world without us" is to first consider the impact we've had on the world.

And impact it we have. Alan Weisman carefully, painstakingly discusses the ways in which humanity has made its mark on the Earth. In some cases, such as modern cities, most art, and digital music, little vestiges will remain after a couple of hundred years. Other contributions of humanity, from bronze sculptures to the Statue of Liberty to isotopes from nuclear fallout, will remain much longer, extending into geological time. It's oddly comforting and disturbing to realize that we have permanently marked this planet.

Weisman covers a plethora of topics in this book, to the point that it's almost unwieldy. Reading this in only a few days was probably a mistake; in retrospect, it's the sort of book that benefits from a chapter read here and there over the course of a month. And this book is, in some ways, a crash course in human history. Before we can know where the Earth is going, with or without us, it's worth looking at where the Earth was before we arrived on the scene. Even if you're not that interested in the book's main proposition, Weisman's depictions of how human evolution and development have changed the planet are fascinating.

My favourite chapter concerned plastics and their eventual fate—grim, for the environment, according to Weisman. I'm young, so I take everything in this world for granted, including readily-available, omnipresent plastics in a variety of flavours and styles. So it's a reality check when Weisman points out that plastic is pretty much an artificial human invention. The polymers from which it's constructed are natural, but we've chained them together in synthetic ways, and we've only been doing it for about sixty years now. More to the point, all the plastic we've ever manufactured still exists (with the exception of a small cumulative amount destroyed when it's burnt). Where does the plastic go? We throw it away, and it lies in landfills, leaches into the water tables, ends up in the oceans . . . where it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces of powder and gets taken up by even the tiniest sea creatures, who don't find it very healthy. And I knew, before reading this book, that carelessly wasting plastic and throwing it away wasn't a smart or environmentally-conscious attitude, but I didn't know exactly how plastics affected our environment.

Also a twentieth-century artifact, the atomic era has fundamentally changed our planet. Detonations from nuclear bombs and waste from nuclear reactors have released isotopes into the atmosphere that don't occur in nature. Some of these isotopes will remain long, long after we're gone, probably until the Earth itself gets swallowed by the expanding sun. As with the discussion about plastics, it's mind-boggling to think that we're forced to sit down and consider ways of labelling nuclear waste dumps so that people 100,000 years from now (or something that replaces us in that time) won't stumble into them.

I was less fascinated by the less permanent effects of our presence. Weisman's analysis of how modern cities like New York would hold up without human maintenance and activity didn't enchant me, but your mileage may vary. The same goes for the penultimate chapter about sea life . . . thematically and structurally, it brought the book back to the beginning, but it felt very stale. There's a great deal of literature about the unique biodiversity of the oceans, so I'm glad Weisman only re-tread that ground for a single chapter. Finally, the epilogue took on a weird, pseudo-spiritual tone probably designed as an appeal to pathos that I just found distracting. I don't need to hope for paranormal thought re-incarnation; for me, the beauty is in the science.

That beauty is manifest whether or not humanity exists. And let's face it: one day, we'll go extinct. It happens to the best of species. The best we can do is make the most of our situation, try to hang on for a while longer, and enjoy our time while it lasts. So why not take care of the planet? The World Without Us is mostly a thought experiment, with little "practical application." Obviously we won't be able to do anything to affect the world after we're gone.

So why bother with this book? Firstly, it gave me insight into what various scientists and experts do to study the world around us. There are people who devote their lives to studying plastic levels in the ocean or making sure that the New York subways don't flood (and I have a great deal more respect for them!). Secondly, it encourages us to think about our impact, not just on a massive climatic level—global warming is only a part of the problem—but on a systemic, component-based level.

Weisman clearly has strong feelings on what we need to do to strike a better balance, but the book itself is rather unbiased. It doesn't say we have to massively restructure society to bring it into harmony with nature. Weisman mentions some proposed solutions by various people and identifies certain practices that we still need to phase out (remember those nasty chlorofluorocarbons? Yep, still around). Overall, however, this isn't a book that advocates dumping your car and riding a bike; Weisman isn't telling you to stop using toilet paper.

Instead, The World Without Us is about environmental awareness in the truest sense of the word. Globalization has made human civilization so connected and complex that it's difficult for individuals to understand how their actions impact the planet. The food I eat may come from halfway around the world; the materials used to manufacture my desk or electronic devices or car were mined and processed and fabricated on every inhabited continent. The World Without Us offers a glimpse of the global chain reaction our consumption and production perpetuates. At times it's long-winded and disorganized . . . Weisman tends to repeat himself, and I admit I skimmed some of the chapters that I found less captivating. But that doesn't detract much from the quality of the book. It covers so much that there's bound to be one item that resonates you . . . and that's all it takes. While far from perfect, this is a thought-provoking read that I recommend to pretty much anyone who wants to expand his or her horizons.

Recipe for a historical mystery: 1) Find an unsolved mystery from a past time period. 2) Think up a plausible solution for the mystery, then take some historical characters and have them discover the truth. 3) Come up with a plausible explanation for why, if these people solved the mystery, it remains unsolved to this day.

Recipe for a historical literary mystery: repeat the steps above, shake vigorously, and add a dead writer of your choice. Missing manuscripts and unfinished novels are a bonus. Serve cold, with a nice white wine.

The Last Dickens is an interesting breed of mystery. It's mysterious, all right, but also historical. And it's literary! It's like someone has taken three of my favourite ideas: mysteries, histories, and dead writers, and caused them to collide in the Victorian era, just to see what happens. What fun! Unfortunately, I didn't like The Last Dickens as much as I wanted to.

I suppose this book will inevitably be compared to Drood, so I'll get that out of the way and then not mention it again. This book is much better than Drood. Its story is superior; its characters are more enjoyable; and it does a much better job exploring the mystery of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Still, I found both books difficult to enjoy, and now I realize why. I'm not convinced there is much mystery to be had. To some extent, sure, it's fun to wonder what ending Dickens had in mind for his final novel. But the idea that it was semi-biographical, "based on a true story," and the idea that an American publisher would cross the Atlantic to go on a dramatic quest for the lost installments of Edwin Drood . . . it's a stretch, and apparently not one I'm willing to take.

Let's suppose, for the sake of this review, that I do believe. How compelling is this mystery that Matthew Pearl weaves?

James Ripley Osgood is an earnest individual. And I hate him. He has no depth. I know I'm supposed to like him, to see him as the hero, and to applaud his fortitude and courage. To be fair, he has good moments—and as a mouthpiece for the pro-literary themes of this book, he serves his purpose. Yet he changes very little in this book, and I never feel like I connect with him as a protagonist. The same goes for his companion and obvious romantic interest, Rebbecca Sand. Indeed, most of the characters in The Last Dickens are disappointingly drab set pieces instead of actual people. Pearl has done a wonderful job recreating the atmosphere for 1870s England and America, but it feels like a town full of actors playing very scripted roles: Osgood is earnest, Rebbecca is clever, Major Harper is devilish, and Wakefield is diabolical and double-crossing. Even the great Chief himself, Charles Dickens, is a mere shadow in this book.

And what was with that subplot in India with Dickens' son Frank all about? I had hoped it would have some sort of relevance, but all it does is demonstrate how the opium trade has affected India. But it only directly connects to the main plot once, when we learn that the thieves behind the opium heist Frank investigates are suppliers for the book's shadowy villain. Which we didn't really need to know. And once again, Turner and Mason were stock characters: Turner is pompous, thinks that Dickens got his post as superintendent only on his name, and turns out to be dirty; Mason is a well-meaning idiot. The entire plot felt superfluous, I'm sad to say.

This careful but ultimately unimpressive construction is endemic to the book as a whole. Pearl has created an interesting little simulacrum of Boston, complete with wind-up publishers, police officers, and some Irish discrimination every second page. But it's a surface world; scratch that surface, and there's little of interest beneath it. Neither the characters nor the story drew me in, gripped me, and made me want to read more. The journey, in this case, was a disappointment. However, the destination was still a pleasant place to end up.

The redeeming aspect of The Last Dickens is thematic. Mysteries, publishing, and poppies aside, Pearl manages to capture the atmosphere of a time when people hung on the every word of one man, Mr. Charles Dickens. He conveys the extraordinary lengths to which people will go to discover—or to conceal—Dickens' last words and the allure of a literary mystery. In the final chapter, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow makes a little author-inspired speech:

I sometimes think, dear Mr. Osgood, that all proper books are unfinished. They simply have to feign completion for the convenience of the public. If not for publishers, no authors would ever reach the end. We would have all writers and no readers. So you mustn't shed a tear for Drood. No, there is much to envy about it—I mean that each reader will imagine his or her ideal ending for it, and every reader will be happy with their own private finale in their mind. It is in a truer state, perhaps, than any other work of its kind, however large we print those words, The End. And you have made the best of it!

It's a wonderful, very true speech, and one you can tell Pearl has been waiting to spring on us from the beginning of the book. So what now? Should I feel vindicated that my original position, that the mystery of how Drood ends is immaterial? Should I feel angry or cheated that I've been dragged through a mystery populated by flimsy historical recreations only to have what I already know flung back into my face? I could, but no good would come of it. That ship has sailed. All that's left for me to do now is to conclude that Pearl's heart is in the right place. He's got some good messages. But his execution is lacking. Personally, I think the premise was his undoing, but your mileage may vary.

Just remember the moral of the story: if you don't like the end, you can always make your own up! (I'm pulling for a sequel in which we find out Dickens didn't die but faked his own death and fled to Australia to join a carnival.)

This is one of the scariest books I have read in a long time. Good science fiction, good posthuman fiction, challenges the idea of what it means to be human. Octavia E. Butler goes beyond that, way beyond, challenging not just what human means but how open-minded I am to such challenges. This book blew my mind.

As a huge fan of science fiction, and as a relatively erudite person, I like to think that I have an open mind. I like to think that I'm receptive to the idea of drastically alternate human futures. I believe the Singularity, if we survive long enough, is inevitable—and I welcome it. After reading Lilith's Brood, especially the first book, Dawn, I'm no longer so sure of my open-mindedness. As I read the book, I found Butler's ideas running up against walls of prejudice and bias I didn't even know I have.

The Oankali rescue humanity from the brink of total annihilation by global warfare. They offer humanity the chance to survive, but at the price of human independence: humans and Oankali would hybridize, their mating supervised and controlled by the third-gendered Oankali ooloi, who can manipulate DNA of individual cells. Some humans don't like this idea, so they resist. This surprises the Oankali, who are continually frustrated by "the human contradiction" of "intelligence and hierarchical society." It takes a human, at first, Lilith, to help the Oankali succeed in their plan to save humanity. Later, two of Lilith's human-Oankali construct children, Akin and Jodahs, make valuable contributions toward ensuring the future of both humans and the human-Oankali species being born on Earth. Of course, the question remains: is it enough? Can we ever triumph over "the human contradiction" and survive, whether independently or in a merger with the Oankali?

Butler doesn't seek answers to these questions. She addresses their existence, which may or may not have been obvious to the reader, and then explores the idea of merging with an alien species. This isn't a trashy SF novel with tentacle sex and mind-blowing orgasms. It's a deeply seductive, profound, and repulsive SF novel with tentacle sex and mind-blowing orgasms. The Oankali are terrifying because they are truly alien, and it's impossible for humans to negotiate with them on human terms. Probably the most potent example occurs at the end of Dawn, when Lilith tells her ooloi mate, Nikanj, that she is not ready to have children with it. Yet ooloi are perceptive to the cellular level, and Nikanj knows that even if Lilith claims that she does not want children, her body wants children. So he makes her pregnant. This abrogation of Lilith's free will and control over her body recurs throughout the series, and is explicitly codified in Imago by Jodahs. It is undergoing its first metamorphosis, changing from child to subadult ooloi—an unexpected change, and one that may mean exile to the orbiting ship. Nikanj again makes a promise, this time to Jodahs, to let Jodahs stay with it "for as long as you want to stay." Jodahs interprets:

It meant as long as I was not more miserable alone with the family than it believed I would be if I were cut off from the family and sent to the ship. Humans tended to misunderstand ooloi when ooloi said things like that. Humans thought the ooloi were promising that they would do nothing until the Humans said they had changed their minds—told the ooloi with their mouths, in words. But the ooloi perceived all that a living being said—all words, all gestures, and a vast array of other internal and external bodily responses. Ooloi absorbed everything and acted according to whatever consensus they discovered. Thus ooloi treated individuals as they treated groups of beings. They sought a consensus. If there was none, it meant the being was confused, ignorant, frightened, or in some way not yet able to see its own best interests. The ooloi gave information and perhaps calmness until they could perceive a consensus. Then they acted.

Through the ooloi model of decision-making and action, Butler challenges our individuality by removing our prerogative for self-deception. Suddenly, our wants and needs are determined biologically, regardless of what we say we want. Is there a difference? Should there be a difference? I don't know, but the idea of some third party disregarding my wishes, whether those wishes are right or wrong, certainly scares me.

This emphasis of the biological over the social is a major theme of Lilith's Brood and also the source of my only real disappointment with the series. I dislike how strongly Butler emphasizes the biological construction of gender and ignores pretty much anything except the "traditional" heterosexual masculine male and feminine female. Yes, the mating of humans and Oankali challenges our ideas of sex, but not really gender—aside from the act being performed, men are still masculine and females are still feminine. There are no gay men or lesbian women—I don't think the Oankali would have an equivalent relation, because they would not understand the idea of "sexual orientation." To them, sex is purely physical. Love, as humans define it, does not exist. Mating is based on attraction, maintained by permanent neurochemical attraction, and for the purpose of procreation. The gender roles of the Oankali are even more strictly partitioned than human genders have ever been, to the point of being indistinguishable from biological sex. I'm not certain how much of this omission is deliberate on Butler's part or to what purpose, but I think it's an avenue of exploration that shouldn't have been left fallow.

Aside from this disappointment, this book's brilliance compensates for its other faults. Adulthood Rites and Imago are somewhat less compelling than Dawn, partly because of the changes in perspective—although it's interesting how Butler begins the series with a human protagonist, then switches to a male human-Oankali construct, and concludes with an ooloi human-Oankali. These increasing degrees of Otherness are an effective narrative strategy, but sometimes the later two books failed to hold my interest. Sometimes the Resister characters felt too thin—not that I disbelieved that humans could act so harshly and shortsightedly, but that everyone seemed to act that way. Butler explores the psyche of the very alien Oankali and human-Oankali constructs, but she seldom delves into the minds of regular humans, save for Lilith in Dawn.

Lilith's Brood made me look at my own psyche, however, and question how well I knew myself—that is, to what extent I was deceiving myself when it came to my tolerance for change. I still like to think I'm eager for the posthuman future, but Butler has helped show me that it could be far more frightening, on both a visceral and conceptual level, and far more seductive, than I previously thought. This series is a masterwork combination of thought experiment and character conflict, and it has accomplished what all books set out to do but few books can achieve: it has changed me. A thought-compelling exploration of possibilities, Butler creates verisimilitude even as she pulls us away from any sense of normal, removes any sense of safety, and refuses to reassure us that the questions we ask ourselves will have nice, comforting answers.

Read this book.

I have to admit that I'm not a Harry Turtledove connoisseur. I read a couple of his books when I was younger and have somehow retained romantic memories of how great a writer he was. This has motivated me to go back and read his oeuvre. I started with this series more by coincidence than anything: I noticed [b:The Breath of God|3401067|The Breath of God (Gap, Book 2)|Harry Turtledove|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dxe8UMMyL._SL75_.jpg|3441129] on my library's New Books shelf and took out both it and this book. Unfortunately, Beyond the Gap didn't live up to my expectations, and now I'm wondering if my fond memories of Turtledove are faulty.

The premise is interesting enough. To the north, a vast Glacier blocks any further travel—until a Gap opens up, through which a barbarian Bizogot by the name of Trasamund discovers that there's a world beyond the Glacier. And there are people in it, people who call themselves the Rulers and have a serious desire to invade every land they can and subjugate the people—whom they view as lesser animals or vermin—in those lands. Aside from Trasamund, most of our protagonists come from the more "civilized" empire to the south, Raumsdalia, which isn't in as much danger from the mammoth-riding Rulers—yet.

Like I said, the premise is cool. Turtledove has mixed elements of "traditional" medieval fantasy with Iron Age society and Ice Age climate. It was nice to see a quest-style, travel-based plot where the characters had to deal with such problems as lice, bed bugs, the sparse food in the northern lands, and the lack of wood. Aside from the somewhat interesting setting, however, Beyond the Gap does very little to make itself entertaining.

Take the Rulers, for instance. There's nothing really unique about them. Culturally they're distinct from the rough Bizogots and avaricious Raumsdalians; I'll give Turtledove that. But they're just the stock foreign invaders doped up on a manifest destiny. I can't help but feel that Turtledove took something with great potential, the idea of a gap in this great, impenetrable Glacier, and somehow made it feel . . . boring. Ordinary. Just another fantasy story with masculine heroes and evil invaders. There's so much he could have done with the land beyond the Glacier, so many things he could have chosen to populate it, and he chose what was perhaps the least interesting.

Not that we would ever know, for we spend precious little time in the land beyond the Glacier. It takes more than half the book to get there, and then when our protagonists arrive, they meet the Rulers, have dinner, and are promptly shown the way back to the Gap. The rest of the book consists of the group going south back to Raumsdalia, then coming back north toward the Gap. Following me? The long journey to the north the first time comes with a promise that we'll get to see something interesting beyond the Glacier. In my opinion, the Rulers don't live up to that promise. Even if they did, it doesn't justify the repetitive travel that comprises most of the second half of the book. Turtledove's characters spend most of their time talking and travelling and very little time actually doing something, probably because he's made the Rulers such a formidable threat that he can't have a group of five people beat them. That would, admittedly, be zany.

This roundabout plotting would be forgivable if we had some interesting character development to go with it. There is character development, but it's very tame and usually simmers rather than coming to a boil. The main character, Hamnet Thyssen, is obsessed with his adulterous wife (until he falls for a Bizogot shaman). She happens to be married to a scholar going on this quest up north, and she decides to come along just to torment Hamnet. Most of the relationship issues in the rest of the book centre around how horrible this woman, Gudrid, is to everyone, even the men who sleep with her. Apparently she wants only attention and acknowledgement of how much more attractive she is than other women, especially from her ex-husband, for some reason. Instead of shutting her up, however, Hamnet just banters with her in not-very-witty moments. If there's one reason to enjoy his relationship with Liv, it's that he finally feels good enough to begin moving past Gudrid. Most readers will have started this process several hundred pages before then and sigh with relief when Hamnet catches up.

Rather than constructing plausible reasons for ignoring the threat of the Rulers, Turtledove just breaks one of his characters, Sigvat the Emperor, turning him from discerning ruler into an idiot who cares more about sleeping with Gudrid than paying attention to possible threats from the north. So what does he do when Hamnet decides to go north and help the Bizogots organize a defence? Send an "imperial order" to recall Hamnet, an order that Hamnet eagerly ignores. The only duel in this book is a fistfight between Trasamund and a Ruler—and toward the end, we get a little bit of combat between the Bizogots and some Rulers. Other than this, there's plenty of talk about fighting, and Hamnet likes to mention he killed one of Gudrid's lovers in a duel, but very little fighting. I'm not a bloodthirsty person by nature, but if I ever thought a fantasy book without fighting would be interesting, Beyond the Gap has convinced me otherwise.

This is just bad, lazy storytelling. The characters and cultures and climates of Beyond the Gap are very well differentiated from each other. I like that Hamnet's noble and strong, Ulric's witty and wily, Trasamund's boastful but fair, etc. But everything is so bland. The conflicts are unremarkable, and the stakes, while high, never really seem to materialize until the very end of the book.

There's an oh-so-helpful blurb on the front cover from Publishers Weekly: "Vivid!" I'm wondering if they stuck to one word because of space limitations or because any specificity would belie the compliment. The only "vivid" thing that comes to mind are the relentless references to sex, adultery, and more sex. Every second page is, "the Bizogots often have sex in the same tent as others" or "Gudrid loved to spread her legs for men," etc. Meanwhile, all I'm thinking is, "And I don't really care. Can we return to the story now, please?" And the book replies, "No. Screw you, I'm going to talk at length about how Hamnet feels wounded by Gudrid's betrayal!" And I say, "Well fine then. I'm going to give you a poor review on Goodreads."

And then book tries to eat me, and I remind it that it is made of paper and I am made of opposable thumbs and digital watches, the former of which are great for closing the book and throwing it across the room. (Digital watches are just neat.)

Anyway, I digress. I did not enjoy this book. It is like an unflavoured meal: the structure and maybe even the nutrients are there, but without the spices and herbs to give it flavour, it's tasteless and hard to get down. Then again, I haven't tried roasting it over a dung fire, which the Bizogots claim will infuse food with a "unique taste." Not that I'm advocating book-burning, mind you. That would be silly (not to mention a bad idea in my case, since this is a library book). If you happen to own a copy, do the sensible thing and sell it to a used bookstore so you can profit from somebody else's poor taste.

So I've done it again. I don't know why I do this. Sometimes literary fiction appeals to me, but most of the time it comes off as bland or just unremarkable. Nothing about The Pages indicated to me that it would be any different, and I was predictably unimpressed with it. But I can't very well write a review that says, "More of the same." I feel an obligation to provide a full explanation of my displeasure, especially because, at the time I'm writing this, the other two poor reviews of this book both consist of single sentences.

Erica and Sophie are gal pals, the former a philosophy and the latter a psychoanalyst. When a recluse named Wesley Antill dies, his surviving siblings invite someone from the University of Sydney's philosophy department to read over his epic philosophical tract and determine which bits are worth publishing. Sophie tags along for the ride, because she's got a hole in her schedule of having affairs with married men. Instead of getting to work, however, upon arriving on the farm, Erica does everything she can to avoid revealing Wesley's philosophy to us even as she stokes some sexual tension with Roger Antill, Wesley's brother. Oh, and she was sleeping with Sophie's dad.

There's a certain sense of majesty in the way Murray Bail describes both the setting and its characters. I love his descriptions of Sydney in the second chapter, the way he explains that it's a city that embraced psychoanalysis instead of philosophy as a result of how it grew from the forced immigration of convicts and other social misfits. This descriptive quality stays constant throughout the book and testifies to Bail's abilities as a writer. In fact, Bail's ability to make Australia come alive for me not just as a setting but as an atmosphere almost makes this book a worthwhile read:

Travellers and strangers to all parts of Australia, especially away from the coast, can expect wonderful hospitality. The coutnry has its faults, as any country does, but lack of hospitality is certainly not one of them. Only when hospitality is little more than an excessive informality, when an entire nation breaks into premature smiling and all-teeth, small-talk mode—which betrays an absence of philosophical foundations—does it appear as nothing more than an awkward type of lightness.

I could go on and quote more of the opening to chapter 8, which establishes a character to Australian life even as Bail continues his thematic contrast of philosophy and psychoanalysis. And to some extent, Australia becomes a better-realized character than either Erica or Sophie, for we at least better understand it. While Bail provides plenty of pithy descriptions of his other characters, there's very little conflict to accompany these pictures, and what conflict there is feels contrived and very confusing.

It's a sneaky thing, a novel without conflict. Hard to accomplish, of course, because a story needs conflict, but doable when you can distract with description and dialogue. I didn't notice it until after I finished the book and began to think about how to write this review. Then it struck me: nothing happens.

As with most damning statements, this one is not entirely true. More specifically, what does happen feels unsubstantiated by the plot. The only hint of conflict for our two main characters occurs toward the end of the book, where Sophie storms into the shed full of Wesley's papers and accuses Erica of sleeping with Sophie's father. Erica admits that she has been, and Sophie intentionally or accidentally spills her coffee over a number of the pages of Wesley's tract.

I was taken aback—not over Erica's misdemeanour or the coffee spilling incident, but because I didn't see this coming. It was entirely unexpected because I had sense of the relationship between Erica and Sophie's father. The only hint we got was when Sophie's father phones her only to ask to speak to Erica. Maybe I'm dense, but I don't always assume that if a father wants to speak to one of his daughter's friends he is sleeping with that friend. . . . Moreover, we never meet Sophie's father or her evil step-mother. All we know of them comes from Sophie herself. I feel like I'm missing an entire layer of story that would have made The Pages more interesting.

This conflict between Sophie and Erica never gets resolved. Sophie ends up leaving, taking Erica's car back to Sydney. I realize that this is a trend in literary fiction, this idea that "life goes on" after the story, but now I have to ask what the point was of having Sophie discover Erica and her father's relationship. How does it affect the story? Erica doesn't really seem to change much, and I don't know what Sophie does, because we don't hear from her after she leaves. As beautifully established as these characters are, neither of them has any development.

The same goes for poor Wesley's philosophy. Here I was shallowly expecting to actually learn about it before the end of the book. I wasn't expecting some revolutionary secret to the meaning of life, but I wanted to see something . . . different. Instead, not only does Erica avoid Wesley's philosophy for the majority of the novel, but we get a serious of disjointed statements at the very end of the book, with very little moderation or interpretation. So I'm left to interpret things for myself—always a dangerous task—and conclude that the moral of the story is that amateurs don't make good philosophers!

Really, the entire exploration of philosophy and its juxtaposition with psychoanalysis is shallow and pretentious. I can say this because I have examples of literary fiction that does exactly this and does it well. Take, for instance, any novel by [a:John Irving|3075|John Irving|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1257375547p2/3075.jpg], who demonstrates that a fascinating plot is not anathema to deep characters with psychological issues. More appropriate even to our discussion would be the Deptford trilogy by [a:Robertson Davies|23129|Robertson Davies|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1225671081p2/23129.jpg], which draws heavily on Jungian psychology, and features actual scenes of psychoanalysis in the later books. Davies uses a full cast of characters to illustrate his themes on psychology and philosophy. Bail's minimalist and tightly lyrical approach, while artistically intriguing, is not as successful nor as satisfactory.

I can't, in good conscience, recommend it, not when there are so many better executions of similar themes in the works of Irving, Davies, et al. Yet you may decide otherwise. I'm finding that the statement "your mileage may vary," while applicable to any matter of taste, is doubly applicable to taste in works of literary fiction. Judging from the blurbs on the back of this edition, Bail has a strong following—and all the more power to him. I won't be joining that following, however. The Pages didn't strike any chords with me.

I highly recommend you read my review of Beyond the Gap if you haven't already, since it will save me time if I don't have to reiterate all the points there that apply to The Breath of God as well. To recap: had fond memories of Turtledove, opinion of his steadily decreasing, this series is terrible, and I don't know why I've bothered.

The opening of The Breath of God foreshadows how deeply inadequate the book becomes by its end. For about the first ten pages, every second paragraph consists of an interjection of exposition to make sure that those who haven't read the first book can keep up with the proper terms and social dynamics. If there's anything good to say about Beyond the Gap, it's that its exposition is far more subtle than what happens at the beginning of The Breath of God. Still, I ignored it and read onward. Little did I know that this would be the least of my worries.

For a little while, this book was actually good, and it improved to the point that I considered it better than the first book by a fair measure—perhaps not three stars, but definitely two stars. I'll first explain what impressed me so much, and then I'm going to provide some spoilers that demonstrate why I lost all faith in this book before it was over.

Firstly, there's much more action in The Breath of God than there is in the first book. I don't want to be shallow and claim that a fantasy book must have action scenes in order to be good. However, in the setting that Turtledove has created, with the shadow of the Rulers falling over the Bizogots and Raumsdalia, the inaction on the part of the protagonists in Beyond the Gap irked me. In this book, there's many more skirmishes, retreats, victories—you name it. The protagonists win some and lose some, which makes for some balanced storytelling. None of the action sequences are too cumbersome or too long, and Turtledove capitalizes on the unique aspects of his creation: war mammoths! Oh yes. They are fearsome.

Secondly, for most of this book, there is no Gudrid. If you have read the first book, you'll know why this is a big relief.

Thirdly, while the narrative once again consists of a great deal of travelling and very little interesting development on the part of the characters or the plot, there's more variation. Instead of a long trek north beyond the Glacier followed by a long trek south followed by a long trek north, but not as far north, we get a long trek up the Glacier followed by a long trek down, then there's another trek south and finally a trek north. With fighting interspersed, it's easier to stomach. And at no point did I feel like I wanted to just stop reading, a sentiment all too familiar with Beyond the Gap.

So far the book seems tolerable, eh? Not great by any means, but something for the fantasy fan looking to relax. So what is the deal-breaker? As usual, it's characterization. The way Turtledove handles his characters in The Breath of God goes from bad to worse to unbelievable. This book moved me, but not in a profound way—it moved me to express my disbelief and my outrage over how unrealistically these characters behave.

There are plenty of minor examples, most of them toward the end of the book (hence why it seemed so good at the beginning). Once Hamnet (alternatively, "Count Hamnet" or "Hamnet Thyssen," since Turtledove can't seem to settle for just using Hamnet's first name and saving my nerves) and his party return to Nidaros, there's a seemingly-inexhaustible supply of nitwit guards, all of whom are programmed to say something like the following:

"What are you doing here?" . . . .

"Reporting to His Majesty," Hamnet answered. "I know more about what's going on in the Bizogot country than anybody he's talked to lately. I hope he'll listen to me, for the Empire's sake."

"But he's angry at you. Didn't you know that?" the guard said.

Some variation of this exchange, complete with rhetorical questions that end in "do you?" and query whether Hamnet is aware that the emperor is dissatisfied with him, populate the majority of the subsequent three pages. Also, Turtledove seems to think that having his characters state the obvious is the same as humour. All in all, this makes for very uninspiring dialogue.

All these minor problems with characterization pale in comparison to what I can only call the betrayal that occurs in chapter 14. A little background: prior to the first book, Hamnet's wife, Gudrid, left him for another man. She was malicious about it, so he spent most of Beyond the Gap nursing his emotional wound and thinking ill of women in general. He still managed to fall for Liv, a Bizogot shaman, and it looked like it was True Love. They're still happily together in The Breath of God, but now Hamnet becomes suspicious because Liv and Aulun, a Raumsdalian wizard, are spending so much time together. At first he thinks it's just shop talk, yet he can't help voicing his suspicions—which Liv promptly dismisses.

Then, out of the blue, he stumbles upon Liv and Aulun kissing. And she says:

"Don't be foolish, Hamnet," Liv said. "It's over. You know it is. It's been over for a while now. You know that, too. . . . You caused what you wanted to cure."

What a hackneyed breakup line: "It's been over for a while now." I shudder. Still, that's not what I found unforgivable. Simply put, I couldn't believe this was happening. And here Turtledove manages to demonstrate the difference between foreshadowing and justifying future events. I understand that Liv is claiming Hamnet pushed her away because of his overprotectiveness. That makes sense. Yet we suddenly go from Hamnet being suspicious to Liv leaving him, with no intermediate troubles or arguments beyond a few sparse discussions. If this was some sort of tactic to make me keep reading, it worked, because I was turning the pages as quickly as possible to see if some sort of spell was influencing their actions or if this was all just a feverish dream.

Worse still, everyone is OK with this sudden change in relationship status. At breakfast, Hamnet finds out that everyone else knows already. And none of them think it's a big deal. Ulric just recommends that Hamnet sleep with someone else.

So he does. Not immediately, but after a couple of chapters, he takes up with another wizard—this time a woman from the tribe of cannibals who live on top of the Glacier. And apparently, she makes him happy now.

It's a simple affliction, but I'm afraid it's incurable: The Breath of God is just so frustrating. Relationships between characters change based on authorial fiat, not on any logical chain of cause and effect. Characters are idiots to serve the plot or annoyingly obvious. All of these distractions woke the critic in me from his deep slumber, and I began paying more attention to how the book was written than the story itself (which is seldom good). It pains me to say this, but I actually liked some of The Sword of Truth books better than this book. The ostentatious caricature of collectivism called Emperor Jajang would be a welcome relief from the one-dimensional vacillating idiot this book calls Sigvat II.

This book's inconsistency is such a fatal flaw because it destroys the most important part of the experience, especially for a fantasy: suspension of disbelief. This act is always contingent on the author promising to create an internally consistent universe. And with unrealistic characters and uninspiring plotting, the universe of the Opening of the World trilogy just doesn't deserve my suspension of disbelief. The Breath of God sags, wheezes, and groans beneath the weight of its own implausibility.

The genius of The Gone-Away World sneaks up on you in a loud and bombastic way. Nick Harkaway's writing reminds me two Douglases who are masters of the absurd and apocalyptic: [a:Douglas Coupland|1886|Douglas Coupland|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1210858151p2/1886.jpg] and [a:Douglas Adams|4|Douglas Adams|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1189120061p2/4.jpg]. Sardonic and observant, Harkaway tosses off scene after scene of unrelenting zany fun. Yet when the smoke clears and the score is tallied, The Gone-Away World is ultimately, like [b:JPod|221059|JPod A Novel|Douglas Coupland|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172821182s/221059.jpg|820439] or [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|11|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy, Book 1)|Douglas Adams|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156039839s/11.jpg|3078186], about what it means to be human.

The title of the book comes from the most terrible superweapon ever invented, the "Go-Away Bomb." When deployed, the bomb makes information instantly cease to exist. Unfortunately, a side-effect of going away is the creation of nebulous "Stuff", which responds to random thoughts and memories in a person's mind and makes those thoughts real. The result: mutants, monsters, and even entirely "new" people made real by Stuff. When multiple countries deploy Go-Away bombs in a fantastic feat of mutually-assured destruction, the Gone-Away World begins.

After a brief opening chapter set in the book's present, the story jumps into the past and covers events from the narrator's childhood up until the beginning of the book. While this narrative tactic results in almost exclusively entertaining events, it really only makes sense after the massive mind-screw plot twist toward the end of the book. About halfway through this section of the book, I started getting bored, because I was wondering when the first chapter would become relevant again. Then the plot twist made it all worth it.

It's the sort of plot twist that would ordinarily be a horrible device; Harkaway manages to pull it off because it actually makes the book make more sense. What was, up until that point, seemingly an exercise in random autobiographical anarchy becomes relevant to both the plot and The Gone-Away World's chilling themes about dehumanization in the face of bureaucracy. And here Harkaway shows why he's on the level of Douglas Adams. Adams was an extremely funny writer who managed to produce scathing satires of British bureaucracy (think Vogons). Harkaway does the same with his massive Jorgamund Corporation, and he also manages to throw in ninjas and mimes for good measure! Like Adams, his humour subtly reinforces the book's themes.

What themes? As mentioned above, much of The Gone-Away World attacks bureaucracy. The major antagonist is what the protagonist terms a "type A pencil-neck": "a person so entirely consumed by the mechanism in which he or she is employed that they had ceased to exist as a separate entity". The book goes on to explore how some people use cognitive dissonance to keep their humanity intact in dehumanizing lines of work, whether they are appallingly destructive or just mindlessly tedious. The Gone-Away World isn't merely about retaining one's humanity in the face of external threats like Stuff; it's a cautionary tale about unintentionally sacrificing one's humanity in the name of doing good.

I like it when I read a book that's obviously well planned, where each piece of the narrative supports the others. I love it when I don't realize how well-planned a book is until a sudden reveal near the end. As long as the journey along the way is enjoyable, it's a much more rewarding experience. The Gone-Away World is unquestionably a long, rambling story. But it all comes together in the end. There are Crowning Moments of Awesome and genuine moments of peril for the protagonist, moments when you wonder how he could possibly win against the odds.

Mike Resnick's Kirinyaga is an example of how science fiction isn't necessarily a genre; it's just a setting. Kirinyaga is technically science fiction, because it involves colonizing another world (the eponymous planetoid Kirinyaga, named for the mountain upon which the god of the Kikuyu, Ngai, lives). However, Kirinyaga isn't about spaceships or combat with high-tech weaponry or vast, evil empires. It's a collection of fables, and an extremely well-written one at that.

The narrator of Kirinyaga is Koriba, the mundumugu of the Kikuyu people who choose to settle on Kirinyaga and attempt to create a utopian society. Koriba is the ultimate type of reactionary: he desires a return to a past that not even he, an old man, can recall. He wants to return to the ways of the Kikuyu's ancestors, ways that went virtually extinct by his lifetime (in the 22nd century).

Koriba's belief that any European influence is corrupting plays a major role in the conflicts throughout the ten stories in this book. As he explains it to the Kikuyu: "if you accept one European thing, soon they will insist you accept them all." This slippery slope argument is unsound, of course, but it's understandable why Koriba thinks this. He grew up in a Kenya dominated by European values, which have eroded his people's proud past. Yet in his attempt to create a utopia, Koriba so vehemently opposes change that he runs the risk of stagnation. In the end, Koriba comes to the realization that most would-be utopians have: achieving a utopia is impossible, because the conditions necessary for a utopia are insufficient to sustain the human spirit.

Kirinyaga is also the answer to the often-expressed desire to live in more pastoral times. Some people labour under the impression that there was, at some point in human history, a great Golden Age, where there was little suffering, there were plentiful crops, and there were prosperous people. The hardships and tribulations of the Kikuyu on Kirinyaga demonstrate that "simpler times" were not necessarily "better times" and bely Koriba's belief that European technology is the root of evil.

But if that's the case, does that mean that we must necessarily surrender our past traditions in order to survive? No. Part of Kirinyaga's failure owes to the fact that no matter how much you try, you can't turn back the clock. Having been exposed to European values once, there's no way to remove cultural contamination. Fleeing to another planet doesn't work as long as one maintains a connection to the outside world.

Utopia is an impossible dream, and striving for it is madness. As "The Lotus and the Spear" demonstrates, people require conflict and adversity in order to have meaningful lives. A life with conflict is not a utopia, yet a life without conflict has no meaning. Koriba has some very admirable qualities, including his obstinacy; unfortunately, his refusal to accept even a modicum of change means that he can't survive in an ever-changing world.

The brilliance of Resnick's stories isn't the moral, of course; that's old hat. Instead, it's the package. Each chapter is a fable, and there are even fables-within-the-fable that Koriba tells to his people. Just as Koriba's fables pass on his wisdom to the Kikuyu, Resnick's fables pass on his themes on utopia. You can't make everybody happy. And sometimes, gods die. Finally, humans always have to change and adapt, even if this creates conflict. But even that isn't a blank cheque for survival. There are no guarantees.

So, there's this guy, right? Ex-football player with an injured knee, now paying the bills with a tech support desk job in small-town Michigan. Then he gets infected by triangle-shaped alien parasites that hijack his body, drive him crazy, and want him to meet up with other hosts so they can build a giant gateway and welcome Earth's new alien overlords. Suddenly, Perry Dawsey isn't having a good day anymore.

At first glance, Scott Sigler's Infected is little more than a standard alien parasite infection/invasion story. The CIA's conducting illegal operations on American soil. The gore is more than gratuitous and complete with penis mutilation. The characters are stereotypes present more for plot development and snappy dialogue than pathos.

At second glance, Infected is still your standard alien invasion SF/horror story. The nefarious, networked Triangle parasites always seem one step ahead of the protagonists, often with squishy, blood-drenched side-effects. Any sort of extraneous character dies off-screen or is marked for death and then killed in a slow, painful manner. And everyone, everyone with a little authority is a jerk.

At third glance . . . well, I hope you see where I'm going with this. I'm not going to praise Infected for being original or even for being amazing, because I can't. However, it does deliver precisely what it promises in the teaser. It's exactly what I was expecting going into the book. While I love it when a book exceeds my expectations, I can't fault a book for just meeting them. Infected is solid, predictable, and entertaining.

The pacing is hit-and-miss. Much of the book consists of watching Perry Dawsey discover and battle against the infection of his body. Meanwhile, the CIA and its CID-drafted allies struggle to find the source of the infection and capture a live host for study. While I enjoyed the former plot, the latter is slow and often uninteresting, despite additional special effects like gas explosions and gunfire. There's a long middle stretch during the manhunt for Perry that lasts far longer than it should, delaying the conclusion and climactic missile-bombing of the alien gateway for an interminable period of time while we watch Perry continually evade capture.

Sigler devotes a great amount of space to describing how the Triangles interact with their hosts' bodies. He takes us from the germination of the seed organisms all the way to the achievement of sentience, at which point the Triangles in a body can communicate with each other and with Triangles in the bodies of other hosts. There's a nice mix of neurological jargon with simple, graphic descriptions of what was going on, both inside and outside Perry's body. The result is a visceral experience as we follow Perry in discovering more about the Triangles and their purpose on Earth.

Perry's struggle to retain his volition and identity in the face of the "mindscreams" of the Triangles is harrowing. I couldn't enjoy Perry much as a person. Despite the fact that Sigler holds him up as a reformed man with a temper who had an abusive father, Perry's still a jerk. Nevertheless, that didn't stop me from being alternatively disgusted and dismayed by the transformation Perry undergoes and the physical and psychological toll it exacts. In Perry, we see the full course of the infection from beginning up until when the Triangles will "hatch." Unlike many infected, who give into the Triangle-induced paranoia quickly and begin killing whomever they see, Perry fights against his Triangles. He begins cutting them out of his body—not easy, and definitely not pretty. Even when he loses ground against the Triangles, gives into their demands for food and death, he takes revenge even if it means hurting himself. I may not agree with everything Perry does, but his ordeal provides the only real character development in the book.

The other characters, and their relationships, are shallow in comparison. Murray and Dew, a CIA deputy director and his field agent, respectively, are fellow Vietnam veterans, the last surviving members of their group. They have slightly different methodologies, as evidenced by their choice of career paths. Yet they are their roles: hardboiled, hardline veterans fighting the good fight for America. Murray will do anything to protect the country even as the situation hits FUBAR levels and above; Dew is out for blood after one of the Triangle hosts mortally wounds his partner.

Then we've got the two scientists, Margaret Montoya and her partner Amos. The latter fits the role of comic-relief sidekick to a tee, right down to being the one who calls for a moratorium on levity the moment the protagonists realize what they're really up against (it's always the funny one who realizes it's not a joke). The trouble with these two, aside from Amos' constant wisecracks, is that they are superfluous to the story. Nothing they tell us really makes a difference, since most of it is repeated in what Perry learns about the Triangles from their own wacky dialogue with him. And since Montoya and Amos only react in this book, arriving on the scene after the action is over to perform an examination and provide an explanation, they don't contribute toward the resolution in any way.

Perhaps the only character who doesn't conform to a stereotype is Agent Otto, Margaret's CIA liaison. Otto provides some tongue-in-check observations that contrast Amos' more sarcastic witticisms, and he's also the Watson for Margaret and Amos' jargon-laden exposition. But there are times when he completely belies his stoic CIA exterior and begins acting like a kid, spinning around in a big plush chair and advising Margaret to take charge and stand up to Murray (his boss). While I have to admit I was pleased by Otto's speech, his behaviour did feel incongruous. In other words, he does defy stereotypes, but he does it in such an obnoxious, loud manner that I'm still not satisfied.

Infected is a story precariously balanced between realism and escapism. At times, it feels like it desperately wants to be regarded as a serious SF thriller. Mostly, as the chapter titles and narrative voice reflect, it's lighter horror, comfortable in its own hokeyness and content to play its tropes straight. There's nothing wrong with that. So if you're considering reading Infected, the best recommendation I can make is to trust your instincts. If it sounds like something you'd like, you probably will.

Aliens are invading Earth, spreading seeds that germinate on the human body and develop into blue Triangles. These Triangles then hatch into tentacle-borne pyramids that will build an interstellar gate to let the aliens cross the vast distance between Earth and wherever it is they live. They were stopped once before. Now their agents on Earth are trying again, and again, modifying tactics each time. And it's clear that the Triangles alone won't be enough—they need protection in the form of contagious hosts, vectors for a new version of this infection. Contagious is a book in which your most outrageous nightmares have already come true and are about to get even worse.

Much of what I said about Infected applies to Contagious. These books are so similar and work so well together that, once the final book in the trilogy is out, this series is ripe for an omnibus edition. I have no idea when the third book will be released. Fortunately, Contagious does not suffer the effects of "middle book syndrome." Those who haven't read Infected will miss out on the enjoyable experience of reading the book, but Contagious quickly brings the reader up to speed on everything pertaining to the story. Also, it delivers a satisfying ending that ties off every major plot point save one, thus leaving an opening for the third book.

Contagious has all of Infected's attitude but has improved on some of its flaws. That's not to say it's perfect. In fact, while I tolerated the narrator's tone in Infected, I found myself rolling my eyes quite a bit this time around. Sigler uses a limited omniscient narrator, which is great for giving each character a distinct voice. The only problem is that he gives every character the same voice. . . . Everyone sounds like a disrespectful, anti-authoritarian "sonofabitch" (to borrow the Triangles' name for Perry Dawsey) who's free with the expletives. The only exception to the rule is Chelsea, who starts off as a normal seven-year-old and eventually becomes the uber-leader of the aliens. Sigler's attempts at portraying Chelsea as precocious and simplifying her view of the world grated on me, and the new improved alien-overlord version of Chelsea isn't any better.

Most of the characters continue to function as straw men than people. More supporting characters appear, including a newly-inaugurated president and his Chief of Staff, the idealistic Vanessa Colbourn. Her only role appears to be to provide resistance to the Cold War, hardline tactics of Murray Longworth. Together, the two of them function as the "angel and devil" on the shoulders of President Gutierrez, who wasn't really expecting to have to deal with a domestic crisis so early in his presidential career. Vanessa usually speaks up to disagree with Murray. Other characters, like Marcus, Gitsh, and "Dr. Dan," serve similar roles in other areas of the plot. I get the sense that Sigler is trying to explore the ramifications of the moral choices that he has his characters make—which is admirable, except that the ramifications never really surface. After the explosive climax, there's a terse epilogue. Maybe we'll see some more consequences in the next book, but I won't hold my breath.

Thankfully, if the characters have not much improved in Contagious, their relationships have. I won't comment on Margaret and Clarence . . . because there are some better examples, most notably the bond between Dew and Perry. At Margaret and Murray's urgings, Dew tries to bond with Perry in order to convince the former Triangle host to stop killing other infected people. This relationship is also crucial to the most compelling aspect of both Infected and Contagious: Perry Dawsey's battle to reclaim his humanity.

In Infected, Perry's primary struggle is for control over his body and mind with the parasites growing inside him. These are gone by the second book, but Perry can still communicate with them thanks to the mesh of fibres left in his brain. They still try to drive him to kill, but thanks to Dew, he demonstrates that he is more in control now. No, now Perry must deal with the guilt over what he did while under the influence of the Triangles, including the murder of his friend Bill. I say that this is the most compelling part of the series because it's the most real and the most significant theme. There's nothing simple about Perry's situation. There are no easy answers. Although few, if any of us, know what it's like to be infected by alien parasites, we can still empathize with Perry's struggle against what seems like insurmountable forces bent on preventing him from choosing his own path in life.

I loved what more we learned about the alien aggressors. Firstly, we meet the Orbital, the interstellar craft sent by a species bent on colonizing Earth and converting humans into slave labour. The Orbital is just a machine following a complex program designed to maximize the probability of taking over a planet. It's wonderful. And Sigler builds the mythology of his universe well, explaining why the aliens are building wormhole gates instead of travelling to Earth in spaceships. There's little exposition, which fits nicely with the fast-paced atmosphere of the book.

If this were a movie, its special effects budget would be on steroids. I mean, the protagonists drop a nuclear bomb on Detroit! It doesn't get much more audacious than that. Hopefully we'll see the fallout (pun intended) of that action in more detail in the third book, as I've already mentioned that Contagious provides a spare conclusion. Beyond this complaint, I can't find fault with much else when it comes to pacing and action scenes. There's less gore (which I appreciate) but still a good deal of squick (burnt bodies, skin sloughing off faces and hands, etc.). In a true moment of horror and tragedy, Amos dies, something I actually regret. But what is up with all the deaths at the end of the book? Were they just to make Clarence and Margaret the only survivors? It certainly wasn't a measure required to increase the body count. . . .

Scott Sigler has both talent and room for improvement. I enjoyed his books, but they're definitely for a distinct audience. If you liked Infected, you'll like Contagious. If the former didn't interest you, I don't see why the latter will. Aliens, Triangles, and tactical nukes . . . oh my!