The cover features a lone soldier standing before cliffs which are decorated with carvings ofStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
The cover features a lone soldier standing before cliffs which are decorated with carvings of classical warriors wielding spear, sword, and shield. Look closely, though, and that lone soldier wears futuristic armor and weaponry. Similarly, the publisher’s description lists Zeus among the characters, but the book is shelved with science fiction. One knows, then, that they are delving into mash-up, but the breadth of that which is mashed up is so much more than those initial clues suggest. Mashup can go a couple of different ways. It could be an unrestrained smorgasbord throwing pieces together in a chaotic fashion, delighting in the chaos. Alternatively, it could be a thoughtful piecing together aiming for something great. Simmons is trying for the latter.
In this mash-up, it is not the modernizing of Greek mythology which is the goal but an exploration of the Iliad. The book draws on other classic literature for exploration as well, with Simmons having his characters conversant with debates and discoveries in literary criticism as a way of understanding the world in which he has created. Simmons obviously believes that great literature has layers and levels of stories and messages, and he wants Ilium to emulate that. It does not take the book long to promise all these things – a jumbling of genres, a retelling of an epic, and an homage to literary greats. Those features alone make it a full, aspiring work.
Surprising, for a science fiction author, is Simmons’s success in integrating classic literature into the story; it is eminently readable. Also surprising for a science fiction author, is Simmons’s handling of the hard science fiction technobabble; it encumbered the narrative at times. The dalliances with literary themes and works was smartly inserted into the story in multiple different ways. Each way was a success. Through litanies of characters from the Peloponnesian War, with numerous character analyses of Shakespeare, and a long string of quotations from Proust—to name just the most obvious—Simmons gives us backstories and meaning, possibilities and foreshadowing, depth of world and breadth of vision. The scholastic is rarely burdensome or uninteresting, and for the most part, Simmons gives the reader the necessary information to comprehend and appreciate the references. The science fiction, on the other hand, had none of the grace shown with the literary references. This would definitely sit on an advanced science fiction reading list, Simmons seldom making an effort to explain the terms and ideas used. Very few, if any, ideas are new, rather Simmons is drawing widely upon established science fiction vocabulary. These ideas are not, however, gently introduced or carefully managed. Simmons assumes the reader is largely familiar with the terms and proceeds to make them important elements in the story. The storyline itself does not suffer from this choice, but it is a choice that might make the more literary-minded and less science fiction-familiar readers enjoy the telling less than if he had been as adroit as he was with classical themes.
The best feature of the book—even compared to all the compliments already given—is Simmons’s handling of the mysterious. There was more art and thought put into this than any of the aforementioned elements. There is more satisfaction to be gained from this than from any of the mashed-up themes, literary inspirations, or science fiction speculation. Readers quickly find themselves cycling between three different perspectives. Everything about each perspective and its story is mysterious. Who our narrators our, how they got there, what they are supposed to be doing, and how they fit with the other perspectives, these are enigmas. And for the bulk of the story, Simmons does a superb job in keeping the unknown from being frustrating. Readers are given just the right information to appreciate the characters in their contexts and to be able to understand their dilemmas and adventures. Simmons drops clues and makes intersections at calculated moments to answer lingering questions and fit together some of the big picture puzzles. The shifting perspectives, for the most part, are not only individually interesting and well-paced, but they are very strikingly arranged to compliment one another. New answers and puzzles are produced from the combination of perspectives; clues in one become answers in another. The slow revelation is the best part of the story. It continues long into the book – long after one usually has the answers and is waiting for things to resolve. This very delicately plotted and artfully thought-through worldbuilding was the heart and delight of the story. It was, unfortunately, marred by two things.
The most serious faults in the book lie in two areas. First, Simmons just seems to be one of those science fiction writers enamored with titillation. He’s going to find someone to voice his lust after teenage girls, he’s going to concoct some elaborate science fiction scenario that requires all the women in the room to get naked, he’s going to have his every-day, unattractive, middle-aged Joe find himself the object of a sex-crazed femme’s interest. And because it is titillation, it is going to be graphic. Second, Simmons did not plan to end this book here. It does not matter what he says in interviews or what publishers say (if they do indeed say anything to the contrary). There is simply no way that all the careful details and elaborate planning done was supposed to end the way it does here. Those planning on reading this be forewarned: this is not a complete story. There is a sequel. And Simmons does not stop in a convenient place. Oh, he made some effort, to be fair, to wrap some conflicts up and give a few answers, but the signs that the book were wrapping up all came in the closing pages of the story. This had to have been originally intended to go on further. There was momentum, there were still key questions left unanswered, there were anticipated developments left embarrassingly unfinished. This was not a good ending because it was not an ending. It was not a good stopping point because it seemed a hurried closure, artificially cutting off all the delicate interconnections and revelations. The second in the series, Olympos, is 891 pages. What is Simmons going to do for 891 pages? This needed another hundred pages to come to completion. It was exceedingly poor planning or poor marketing to leave this book as unresolved as it is. Why could 100 of those 891 from book two not been taken and tacked on here to bring this story and its questions to an adequate resolution? If Simmons wants to build off this story or reveal some even larger plotline – fine. We’d read that sequel. But this book deserved an ending, and the biggest demerit Ilium deserves is for not being complete.
To conclude, Ilium is a wildly successful mashup of literary themes and science fiction that conveys a wonderful sense of mystery. It is also an unfinished book. No matter how good book two is, the choice to end Ilium here does real damage to the elaborately structured tale....more
This is an author who has proved he can take seemingly random observations and turn them intoStoryline: 1/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 3/5
This is an author who has proved he can take seemingly random observations and turn them into chilling insights, who can take the trivial and elevate it to the philosophical, who sees the world in tones and colors outside of normal human perception, a writer who pushes together the irreconcilable into bleakly recognizable worlds. One gets to see, in this book, what happens when those parts fail to interlock. The disparate remains a jumble, the significance elusive. The mundane is an unwanted weight, the philosophical merely aspirational. To those who have never read PKD before, perhaps the tones are revelatory, but for anyone who has read his earlier significant works, those hues have been pointed out before. The pile of emotional motivations and social nuances that were supposed to turn into something bigger instead stay a disorganized heap.
I found very little to admire or enjoy in this. The pacing was off from the very beginning, and it only got worse. There was no feeling our way along with the character of Jason because Jason never focuses on a topic long enough to feel fear, despair, uncertainty, or excitement. We go through events that are obviously supposed to be affecting, but PKD is off somewhere else, pointing out clues to puzzles he forgets to include in the story. There’s a hinted at world that could possibly explain the motivations of our cast, telling us about their values and justifying their behavior. Dick, however, simply puts the characters on the same page with the intermittent details, leaving us to sort out the connections on our own.
I could be persuaded that this was a remarkable book in 1974 and perhaps even to people who had come to adolescence by then. It was before my time, so I couldn’t recognize the sources of the dystopian. I didn’t know where this world came from, how we got there, or how I was supposed to feel about it. I’m willing to give Dick credit for seeing patterns and possibilities in the 1970s world that others failed to see. If so, they had a potentiality that was never realized. The world took a different path, but Dick was unable to make comprehensible to me what it was he had seen. There are multiple taboos he’s pushing against, and I couldn’t discern the reasons for it or what I was supposed to think or feel. Perhaps had I lived through that time, it all would have made much more sense. I cannot believe, however, that the explanations he gave for the main character’s predicament ever made sense. The mechanics of it just do not work, not now and not in 1974. But I think PKD fans are forgiving of things like mechanics. What one wants is the weird, the bewildering, and the radiant gloom. One gets those here, but I disappointed that they did not meld together into something great. ...more
Consistency. A trait far too often absent from science fiction texts but which is a necessaryStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 4/5 Writing Style: 5/5 World: 2/5
Consistency. A trait far too often absent from science fiction texts but which is a necessary requisite for any excellent story. Palmer has consistency. An abundance of it. He tries something risky with the writing, giving us a clipped syntax that was rough on even my poorly-trained grammatical senses, but he stays with it. Long after the reader thinks, "this is not really going to keep going this way, is it?" Palmer is consistent. Then there's a point that you thank him for doing so. Somewhere along the way you got over the hump, you managed to settle in and accept the new grammar, reading it as if a linguistic savant. It is not only the writing that is consistent though, it is the character. The character is as unfamiliar as the syntax, but Palmer makes her real. The author wants to do some extraordinary things with her, so Palmer spends a lot of effort working through plot holes. He's got the right backstories, the needed scientific explanations, the appropriate excuses for paths not taken. Again, consistency. One could easily lose their sense of humor in arranging so many details, but Palmer manages to include some wit and comedy. He also tosses in some other character moments, changing up the pace and tone of the whole thing, making sure you appreciate the foundations of what he's built. Always thinking ahead, that David R. Palmer, taking away most of the criticisms one could launch at the book. I, however, am not an easily deterred critic.
There were just a few elements that kept this from going on my "greatest science fiction in the history of the world" shelf. First, I was so dazzled by the care in which the journal entries and our main character were put together, that I expected that same care in every other element of the novel. And it just wasn't there. A brilliantly conceived writing style and astounding main character deserved an equally exotic storyline. That storyline was nothing more than acceptable, however. Palmer wasn't especially good at generating tension or expectations. That might have been mitigated with more attention to the world, but the worldbuilding did little more than what was necessary for the character-building. Palmer was so narrowly focused on the writing and the character, so devoted to working out any plotholes that he tended to ignore anything not central to those elements. Thus the world, which was easily susceptible to the creativity Palmer had already exhibited, was barely touched on or experienced. The second portion that kept this from being one of my favorites was Palmer's insistence on exploring the sexual outlook of an 11-year old girl. It was a little disturbing that here, too, he was thorough with the context and justifications, showing the reader why this was not only relevant but also fully predictable and understandable. Having made the point early on, Palmer could have left it there, but he returned to it again and again. This was that consistency at work again. Rather than dealing with the issue through hints and allusions, taking on additional depth and breadth, Palmer sticks with the core attributes, of which this was one. This would have been awkward even had it been a female author; recalling that it was someone named David R. Palmer made it just a little creepy.
This was without a doubt an exceptional book. I would have chosen it over Neuromancer for the 1985 Hugo Award for novels. It wouldn't have required much more to become one of my favorites, and it is with some disappointment that I see that he did not go from this first novel to any notable subsequent ones....more
No science fiction writer disappoints me as consistently as does Robert Silverberg. If his boStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 2/5
No science fiction writer disappoints me as consistently as does Robert Silverberg. If his books were worse I'd stop reading them or come to them with less hope. He's both too good and too poor of a writer. He shows again in The Stochastic Man that he's capable. Silverberg knows when to stick in some emotional indecision, an abrupt encounter, that troubling bit of news, or a major twist. The story follows the right structure of dips, rises, and plateaus. But it all comes down to nothing. There's no major point, no psychological insight, no technological implication, and no haunting dilemma. His template is that of a true writer, gifted with the novel format, but I never like what they develop into. The Stochastic Man, like others of his, starts with promise. It is there in the title: stochastic. I'm no math guru, but I immediately understood the potential, and Silverberg helped me along in those initial chapters. He had some probability textbooks at hand when he was writing those, and he was smart enough to understand what he was reading, to pick out from them what would make a good story, and frame it all with semantic acerbity. But it was just a leading device, something useful for a title and with a little intellectual pizazz. The same was true for the political procedural. Silverberg has just enough insight and has done just enough research to draw me in and get me looking forward to more before he lowers the curtain on the scene. The rest of the story is just going through the motions. Silverberg wrote, I read, the terms of the contract completed, and there's nothing more to the exchange. I leave with nothing more than I came with, and Silverberg goes off to his next hastily written science fiction work, carrying with him the same promises and frustrations he left this job with. ...more
Behold a work that falls into a category I rarely encounter: an artistic gem and engagingStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 5/5 Writing Style: 4/5 Resonance: 3/5
Behold a work that falls into a category I rarely encounter: an artistic gem and engaging narrative which remained steadfastly off-putting. Silverberg's portraits of youth are exceptional. A chapter at a time, first-person perspectives rotate through the four college students' vacation and their road trip adventure. Our author gives an intimate look at their inner confidence and buoyant hopes yet manages to simultaneously provide the critical distance that allows the reader to see them for what they are: whimsical, starry-eyed adolescents. That ever-so-valuable ability to show two things at once was evident in the plot and pacing as well. The reader is invited along to experience the day-by-day happenings of their life-changing exploits, while at the same time we are constantly reminded of the smallness and brevity of a trip conveniently scheduled during a university's spring closing. Elsewhere Silverberg did not make the effort. He frequently presented the inner monologues and public dialogues of our four fully in their racist, homophobic, and sexist biases. There was little effort to abstract out from these. Whatever tolerance our characters did exhibit was subverted by Silverberg with his insistence on showing that those accommodations were themselves prompted by spite, personal uncertainty, and concern for reputation. A perverse delight pervaded the telling, where everyone despised his origins and identity, and we readers were supposed to savor their inner turmoil. Likewise Silverberg relished tales of sexual conquest and degradation. Debasing dalliances between consenting adults, incest, pederasty, orgies, rape, and partner swapping. These were zoomed views, showing us the experiencing and their effects on each of the four but never offering the compensating wider focus. The point seemed to make the deviant normal, the delinquent acceptable; and the presentation of it all was to the reader as entertainment. I could never make this final step demanded by Silverberg. The acerbic prose and biting scenarios I could respect, the complexly disaffected identities I could relate to, and of the mildly mocking narration of their quest, I could appreciate. I couldn't make that final step, however, to carelessly enjoy the degeneracy that undergirded what seemed like every flashback, every pit stop, every day in the tale. So there it sits, a brilliantly written work of haunting experiences made to seem casual.
Stylistically, this is one of the best Hugo-nominated books I've encountered. Substantively, it is one of the most obscene things I've ever read. Of the now seven Silverberg books I've finished, this is undoubtedly his masterpiece. I do not understand how it was nominated for either the Hugo or the Nebula, as it was not science fiction. There is some hint of the fantastic in there but only insofar as dealing with legends and the possibility that some truth might underlie them....more
Supposedly this is a bellwether book that sifts the highbrow science fiction reader from Storyline: 1/5 Characters: 4/5 Writing Style: 5/5 Resonance: 1/5
Supposedly this is a bellwether book that sifts the highbrow science fiction reader from its lowbrow cousins. I hate to cast my lot in with the pulp action and adventure crowd but found Dying Inside to misfire at nearly every turn of the cylinder.
What it did right: Writing style, Independence. Silverberg is acerbic and poetic, abrupt when not musing, compassionate and then callous. The shifts in narrative techniques and timelines were excellently placed and built something impressive, a final product that would have been far weaker and shabbier had it been mononarrative and linear. He also defied the genre satisfyingly. No spaceships. No real adventures. Entirely lacking in heros. It was somber and reflective and straightforward. Silverberg knew the science fiction cannon and the contemporary publishing fads, and he rejected it all to write what he wanted to write. One has to admire and appreciate this work for the mere fact that it is stamped through with independence.
What it did wrong: Plot, Science Fiction, and Character-Building. Books without a plot can be managed if you compensate in other areas. Silverberg tried but never adequately counterbalanced. The single-greatest disappointment for me in this book was the failure to adequately build up the ESP angle. Silverberg knows we genre readers like worldbuilding and science. He didn't have to turn this into a space colonization story, nor did he have to turn it into a hard science fiction novel, but he did have to get the most out of the ESP tale. And he didn't. The book was too obvious and too dependent on allegory. Selig's problem could easily have been about aging, impotence, or creative decline. The tone, the character, what little drama there was; they all would have been largely the same had the story instead been about a writer losing his creative faculties. That's a problem; the allegory should be hinted, implied, or muted. We should have been captivated by the inner workings and repercussions of Selig's gift. These elements, however, were perfunctory. This truly was a very poor science fiction novel, and its major compensating conceit, the attribute which should have pushed it into a more serious literature category was inadequately paced and developed. That defining attribute was the dislikeable protagonist, the anti-hero. Selig, taking on the leading role as a pathetic and miserable human being, should have been the highlight of the book. Silverberg stumbles though with his vision (view spoiler)[ because everyone turns out to be pathetic human beings. Some internally hate themselves, others are predatory, a few have despicably self-righteous outer personas, while others denigrate themselves publicly for want of inner peace. Selig, in contrast then, turns out to not be so despicable. He's really no more of an anti-hero than any of the other characters would have been had they been thrust into the lead. (hide spoiler)]The two different tracks are interesting and have objects worthy of contemplation - the sorry excuse for a human and the sorry state of humanity. Both, however, could not be pursued in the same novel. If Selig is going to be truly wretched, then we need the juxtaposition of normal, adapted people to show the contrast. If, instead, we are supposed to wallow with the depraved human race, then Selig is not going to be remarkable. Silverberg doesn't have an answer for this. And the human activity in which he seemed to be willing to contribute, muse, and describe the most - sex - distracts from what little point the book seemed to have. Genre readers know the devices that their writers utilize to cut through the story - thrillers bring in adrenaline, horror generates fear, romance confronts us with intimacy. What Silverberg brings to this is titillation. That, of course, is the hallmark of pornography. And that should not be entirely surprising since Silverberg was a soft porn novelist when science fiction sales waned. What Silverberg did then was to revert to what he knew, incorporate what he was already good at and stick it into Dying Inside to give the tale a little flavor. This again undermined our main character's pitiable state. He's a sexual conqueror, a serial philanderer whom we are to cavort with in between his bouts of wallowing self-pity. I wanted to vicariously experience Selig as a wretch, but Silverberg kept straying from the path to pursue autobiographical and erotic interests.
I liked the serious tone. I liked the odd angle. The writing was stellar. The plot was entirely lacking in motivation. The main character was better conceived than executed. I don't want to read accounts of big brother's curiosity with baby sister's genitalia, or gratuitous wish-fulfillment eroticism....more
Niven was one of those talented authors that focused more on quantitative output than qualitaStoryline: 3/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 3/5
Niven was one of those talented authors that focused more on quantitative output than qualitative depth, and it was evident here.
A World Out of Time had a lot of great ideas. It dabbled in hard science fiction, politics, near-future prediction, far-future speculation, as well as sociological questions. Each element, however, read as a placeholder. It was if Niven had intended to go back and fill in the details and develop the sections but published rather than follow through with the edits.
I particularly liked the ideas and the setting of the first chapter, but it deserved to be a complete novel - the first of what could have been a trilogy. The full novel would have been a dystopian, near future, psychological thriller. It had the potential to frighten in that way that good dystopias do - to make one realize that these terrible events truly could come about. It had creative science fiction elements that were more than trappings and pointed out some thoughtful ethical problems around scientific advance. Those threads were all present, but they were the threads of an imaginative mind too undisciplined to untangle, sort, and develop the processes and implications for the reader.
The second chapter, too, was deserving of its own volume. This would have been much more of a psychological thriller and fun AI and space story (view spoiler)[very much like Poul Anderson's Tau Zero (hide spoiler)]. Here too the author raced through the story.
The rest and bulk of the story was more of a single, coherent novel. In fact, I think the book could have started with chapter three and would have been better for it. Though the best sections were the first two chapters, Niven devotes so much more attention, detail, and space on the less interesting later events that the marked imbalance taints the last two-thirds of the novel. Still, Niven hasn't run out of interesting ideas, and there's fun to be had, particularly if you don't mind that he basically copied over these same ideas into other books of his (view spoiler)[the Ringworld sequels (hide spoiler)].
This story would have made for a great graphic novel, I think. It is definitely bad science fiction writing, but I think well of creative ideas, however poorly presented....more
Up the Line is an insistent confrontation with the paradoxes of time travel deliveredStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 3/5
Raunchy.
Up the Line is an insistent confrontation with the paradoxes of time travel delivered with maximum irreverence. There were moments comical in their absurdity, but to get there the author directed many characters to take a lot of dumb, preposterous steps. That all proved a stark contrast with what turned out to be a persuasive (to my uneducated mind, anyway) historical fiction tale set in Byzantium-Constantinople-Istanbul.
Silverberg's iconoclasm read more as perverse delight than any sort of thoughtful inquiry. The book is heavy on the theme of "transtemporal incest" (I'll let you figure out what that means) and repeatedly features pedophilic flings with 12, 13, and 14 year olds. Our main characters delight in forcefully groping or sexually assaulting women - passersby, charges, and the mostly unconscious. All this is cast with jaunty camaraderie leaving the reader little doubt but that the author was permitting us a look into what he thought would be great fun. I didn't share in the fun....more
I imagine Herbert having this bulletin board with words pinned in prominence: angst!, resignaStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 3/5
I imagine Herbert having this bulletin board with words pinned in prominence: angst!, resignation!, self-sacrifice!, loyalty! Herbert wanted to write a book that explored these themes, but he never really showed us these or an interesting story with them in place. Instead he whirled round and round the concepts telling us that these were really important. Unsure if we grasped what was meant, he took us on another circuitous and repetitious tour without getting us any closer. We finally all found ourselves at the end of a fairly unremarkable story of never-conveyed thoughts.
What I did like: I liked that this skipped forward 12 years and that we don't clearly know or understand what happened in the interim. Herbert continues to manipulate enigma, showing all other writers how less can really be more. The Butlerian Jihad? Awesome name. Sounds like something I want to know more about. All we get are tidbits that tell us that it has something to do with destroying computers. We don't know fact from legend or why, but throughout the book we get telling reminders in the form of prejudices and assumptions that convey that this is an important part of history. Less truly was more.
What I didn't like: As much as I like and appreciate insinuation and allusion as tools, you've got to add something substantive. Dune was full of rich cultural experiences and numerous and wide-ranging plots and subplots. Dune Messiah was localized and limited; we don't get a deep view of how the culture has changed over time and the plot was extremely limited. If not worldbuilding, pacing, or action, then Herbert at least owes us some character development. But Paul Atreides looks and sounds just like the Paul Atreides of 12 years ago. If Herbert isn't going to develop the characters, then at least push some of the various political, religious, and economic messages that were intimated in the first. The whole messiah thing was done in the first one; build on it or give it significance. Mentats, too, could have been used to show us some lesson such as reliance on technology blinds us to our innate abilities. We don't get to see how a mentat works, though. We get reminded again and again that they're smart and capable and difficult to understand, but never get to understand how they are smart or capable. The nature of the jihad was one of the driving motivations of Paul and the opposition in the book, but Herbert doesn't even give you enough information to understand it anew. Why and how the jihad came about and mattered and in what way were important for the book, and it is only because I read the first recently that I was able to recall those details.
What I was uncomfortable with: The religious allusions to Christ were often overplayed and underexplained. Why make the Dune Messiah so similar? A Christian author using the example as allegory would make sense, but I couldn't decipher Herbert's purpose here. The naked 15 year-old (though, we are told, womanly in body) and the love story were borderline pedophilic (and sometimes incestuous). Why go there? The role of genetics continues to be weird. Do something and go fully kooky, or show us that you are exploring something meaningful. The book just needed to go somewhere with all the ideas leftover from book one.
Even if its predecessor had not been monumental, this would have been a fairly unremarkable sequel. As Dune was monumental, the unremarkable follow-up was a real disappointment. This served largely as a refresher and placeholder. Rather than reread the original in preparation for more of the story, you get to read this middle volume that offers little new but that reminds you of just how great the first was....more
My conclusion upon reading River of Gods was that Ian McDonald was a remarkably talented worlStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 4/5
My conclusion upon reading River of Gods was that Ian McDonald was a remarkably talented world-builder and author who picked an unfortunate (for my tastes) writing style and science fiction subgenre. I read Brasyl wondering if he was versatile.
He's not. At least, he doesn't showcase versatility here. Like River of Gods this is a cyberpunk, near future, Third World, multiple-character, intertwining plotline, pushing-the-envelope romp through physics. In fact, the 2032 Brazil presented here can be reconciled (but does not have to be) with and antedate the 2047 India of River of Gods. McDonald does with Brazil most everything he did with India. Still, I was never as immersed in our South American country as I was in the Asian subcontinent. This can partially be explained by the difference in page count: favelas, Jesuits, and reality TV get 350 pages where slums, Hindu gods, and soap operas received 600. McDonald compensated, limiting the Portuguese-speaking characters and plotlines to three, down from the nine that populated the Hindi-related ones. He does, however, cover a lot more time in Brasil than in India, thus the reader gets more of a glimpse of the country over time than the saturated dose of India at mid-21st century. Though there was a lot that I didn't like about River of Gods, I did come away with a feeling for the world and the characters that populated McDonald's Eastern vision. The Latin American sights, sounds, tastes, and understandings never coalesced for me, unfortunately.
On its own, without comparing it to River of Gods? The writing was that abrasive, rattling, deluge of sensation and idea that I associate with cyberpunk. The vocabulary is suffused with cultural and religious lingo. I wanted more from each of the three storylines; admittedly, I probably wouldn't have been satisfied unless he gave each its own book. That resolution and intersection of disparate plots was stretched, summative when I was looking for multiplicative. The world(s), too, were unsatifactorily explored and related; the picture of Brazil that emerged from the three different time periods merged as tepidly as did the plots. The science fiction future, in contrast, was confident, imaginative, and dazzling. For a time, I also really enjoyed the bigger science fiction ideas. There was definitely a problem with trying to do too much with too little, and in the end it was those bigger sci fi ideas that suffered the most.
McDonald writes of one of the character's hobbies, that it:
had been another wave on the zeitgeist upon which [she] surfed, driven by the perpetual, vampiric hunger for fresh cool.
That is exactly how I felt about Brasyl. Those who loved River of Gods or books such as Babel-17, Neuromancer, or Snow Crash will probably like this. I didn't particularly favor any of those nor this. Still, I'm not giving up on McDonald. He's too talented and ambitious to simply forego....more
This seemed to be Heinlein's homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs. To compose it, HeiStoryline: 1/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 1/5
I hated this.
This seemed to be Heinlein's homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs. To compose it, Heinlein regressed away from 50 years of science fiction advances and improvements to the field. He wrote a pulp fiction novel in that awful style of the 1910s - you know the one, where the everyday-Joe hero can pick up any talent and overcome any obstacle and win the favor of the overwrought princess on the way to becoming king/master/overlord/ruler of the castle/land/planet/galaxy. Heinlein's additions to the mind-dumbing, intelligence-insulting, neuron-degenerating sci-fi pulp of the early 20th century are to 1) make it longer and 2) propagandize his free-love Libertarianism. This is one of those rare cases where I would much preferred a 150 page book to a 300 page one, and I find Heinlein's hedonistic philosophy (and writings on it) among the most indulgent social commentary I've ever encountered in science fiction. The man wants to strip away all conventions of modesty and inhibition while retaining fidelity and prerogative. He wants his harem of women to innocently and freely give their bodies - but only to him. I suppose its not that different than many other lascivious sci fi writers, but it annoys me that he actually thought it was a philosophy.
To its credit, it is genre defying with a thoughtful (though still meandering) ending. Also, the prelude to the adventure does feature some edgy, hip, writing from a disaffected but patriotic war veteran that predates Apocalypse Now by 15 years. That character-building was the best part of the book, and I can see why voters of the 1963 Hugos might have focused on that. Still, it was but a tenth of the book and didn't fit well with the remaining pages and story. It might have made for a neat short story, except that edgy, hip, conflicted, war characters would become commonplace in short time.
Pulp science fiction/fantasy + free love didacticism. It is difficult to imagine a worse combination....more
I chafed at the condoned maliciousness of the series first, Chthon. Behind that though, thereStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 2/5
I chafed at the condoned maliciousness of the series first, Chthon. Behind that though, there was a neat story and an engrossing exploration of a new world. Chthon left dangling clues and unresolved allusions that had an enigmatic allure. So I went back for the second and final in the series hoping that Anthony would drop the brutishness and build on the mystery and ambience. I was sorely disappointed.
Anthony continues to indulge his fascination with violent sexual scenes. He does, at least, spend more time providing a justification for it in Phthor, thus it is less shocking than in Chthon. The worldbuilding and plot preparations that held so much promise in the first book were filled in rather than expanded here. Essentially, we looked at the same picture but with more detail.
There were a few glimpses of that allure I had spotted in the first. The hinted at larger plot of Chthon found grounding with an imaginative but undeveloped backstory based on chemistry and sentience. The origins of the chill wave, likewise, held promise that was never fulfilled. Ultimately, I don't think Anthony knew how to pace a conclusion. In the first he didn't have to resolve all those clues and allusions. Attempting to do so here, he shoved in new information the reader hadn't been prepared for, connected wildly disparate ideas, made abrupt changes to characters and timelines, and finally settled grand designs that we had only been vaguely aware of. Most of this was done in the last 20 pages. It is too bad. Some books are simply bad all the way around. Some are adept with mediocrity. Both Cththon and Pththor had the inklings of something great but were tainted by perversity and shorn through brevity. ...more
This new mythology adds little to the canon of ancient Greek lore. It preserved the hasty pacStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 1/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 2/5
This new mythology adds little to the canon of ancient Greek lore. It preserved the hasty pacing and skeletal development of the classic tales while contemporizing the language and style, forsaking the better parts of the original tenor. At times the writing style did approach something lyrical, but this was eclipsed by the complete lack of an overall vision. It was a great relief to me that this was so short.
This might be more appreciated by fans of novellas, mythology more generally, or light reading without any pretense or ambition. ...more
This was better than Rama II but still not as good as Rama I. I've seen warnings that fans ofStoryline: 3/5 Characters: 1/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 2/5
This was better than Rama II but still not as good as Rama I. I've seen warnings that fans of the first should ignore the rest of the series, and while I agree that you are better off skipping the second book, I think that the original Rama fans could still enjoy this. This recommendation deserves some disclaimers through.
The plot: One of the big disappointments of Rama II was that it really didn't give us anything new or different from the original Rama. The Garden of Rama finally makes that shift, but it's not the shift Clarke fans would have wanted or what science fiction enthusiasts expected. There are probably a solid 50 pages, mostly bunched toward the end of the first half of the novel, devoted to advancing our understanding of who the Ramans are and what they want. That means that there are 468 pages devoted to something other than what we Rama I fans really wanted. What Gentry does best, surprisingly, is politics. In Rama II, I actually enjoyed that brief section that described the political origins and consequences of the Great Chaos. Most of the merit I found in this Rama book was political thriller. It is not what I expected to read and find, but I enjoyed this element of it. Many readers can probably determine that from that alone, however, that this is not a book for them.
The writing: The writing and pacing was much more like Rama II than the original. That means that there is expansive, unnecessary, and distracting backstory for the characters and entire sections that were poorly selected for filling the chapters. I easily could have identified a hundred pages of material (and probably closer to two hundred) that could have been cut, and it would have improved the novel. Oh, and despite this being twice as long as the founding novel in the series, the novel doesn't actually finish. You will have to read the fourth to find resolution to the dramas started in this one.
The characters: One of the absolutely ridiculous elements of Rama II was that the scientists didn't behave as scientists should. And I'm not suggesting that they all have to wear glasses, enjoy reading scientific journals in their free time, and are socially inept. No, I simply expect my scientists to be methodical and curious. In the Garden of Rama, des Jardins, Wakefield, and O'Toole behave less like scientists than they did in Rama II. This is all the more bizarre since Gentry worked on NASA Misions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. If Gentry wanted a more character-driven book - fine - but our characters are scientists! and this would have been so much better had they approached their experience with Rama with methodological rigor and informed inquiry.
View of humanity: One of the big shifts between the first and second books of the series was in the view of human nature and civilization. In Rama I we were thoughtful, humble adventurers. In Rama II we were rapacious nymphomaniacs. In the Garden of Rama, Gentry develops this with a little more craft and purpose. In this book, at least, there is some - albeit reaching - plausibility in the embarrassing behavior of his humans. This book felt like it had a point. I don't think it was deftly handled, it was done through caricature, and the result was a comedy of errors, but there was some good insight and commentary on human civilization. This was one of my favorite parts of the book.
I went into this book wanting to like it. I overlooked a lot of flaws and gaps and suspended both disbelief and my generally critical nature to enjoy it. One approaching it more objectively would probably not receive it as favorably. Another reading it critically and expecting to find disaster will certainly find that and loathe the experience. At no point is this a good book, but I was able to enjoy it as piece of the Rama puzzle. I plan to read on to the series' conclusion....more
Granted, 2016 is not even half-way over yet, but this is the best book I've read this year. IStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
Granted, 2016 is not even half-way over yet, but this is the best book I've read this year. If I had to give the review in one word: fascinating.
The only information I had about this book when I began was a) the author (whom I did not recognize) b) the publication year and c) its nomination (and lack of award) for the Hugo. I recommend reading this without knowing much more, and I'll give the kind of review that won't spoil it for others.
More intriguing than any murder or detective mystery I've ever read is the puzzle of determining this book's genre. As I progressed through the chapters, I couldn't decide, but I was mesmerized by the challenge. Is it a fantasy world? Are the characters human? Is it an alternate history? Far future science fiction? Dystopia? It was a remarkably engaging reading experience. I was further impressed by the depth and detail of the social and political life portrayed. Whether it be set in the past, future, or some other universe, this was society organized around a very different set of values; the conflicts, shame, outrage, and adventure were then governed by the rules of this created world. I felt as immersed in this world as I have been with epic series such as The Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time - all the more astounding because Kingsbury put me there with a single book of 409 pages.
More laurels are certainly deserved, but equally noteworthy are the facets that kept this from being one of my favorite books of all time. First, it was a somewhat difficult read. Because Kingsbury is building a very alien world, and because its true identity is only gradually revealed, the book starts out in very unfamiliar territory and you rapidly have to familiarize yourself with scores of peculiar proper nouns while accepting that much of what is going on is supposed to be opaque. This was a necessary and worthwhile trade off in my estimation, but not every reader is going to happily trudge through to rapprochement. It also made for a slow read. Second, Kingsbury relied on a lot of shock devices. The author presents and develops as normal social conventions many practices that are grotesque and perverse. I don't think the repulsive ideas were there simply as cheap entertainment (okay, maybe the pervasive sex was); I'll give him credit for pushing the reader to consider why our society considers some behaviors civilized and others barbaric. Still, it was hardly a book you can go discussing with your mother. Third, for all the worldbuilding, Kingsbury seems to have petered out when it came to the courtship rite for which the book is named. This was (or should have been) the organizing device for the tale, but it got lost somewhere, and the care and design so obvious in the rest of the book was strikingly absent here.
I'm not as well-read with fantasy as I am with science fiction, thus perhaps this isn't as original as it appeared to me. I can only tell you that I really enjoyed it and will think about this for some time to come. ...more
talented writing, great description | a clumsy intStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 4/5 World: 3/5
This was an experience of polar opposites:
talented writing, great description | a clumsy integration of scenes and chapters;
multiple, fascinating worlds and worldbuilding | a complete disconnect between the worlds and no vision of the bigger picture;
a complicated tale with nested plots | no resolution of how the plots were connected or how it fits together;
careful, meticulous characterization | ham-handed handling of relationships and interactions.
A final note and warning - There was a rotten depravity to this book. There are some very cold scenes of both rape and incest, and Anthony's treatment was to portray the scenes from the character's mindset of detached maliciousness. This was troubling, but perhaps could still have contained merit were there some later reflection from the character on the harm done or some social opprobrium from other characters in the book. Our rapist, however, is largely treated as someone who has been unfairly forced into these situations and one which we should pity. I kept thinking that there must be some deeper analogy or lesson at work. The book did have that New Wave vibe, and I scoured the text looking for a way to put out a positive spin. In my most generous depiction, I can say that the story is a tale of redemption. That said, the tale of redemption does not absolve Anthony of the brutality contained in the story. There may very well have been some layered narrative or meaning that I haven't put together yet, but it is too easy to read this as trivializing violence against women. I don't know how voters rationalized putting this up for a Hugo nomination in 1967. There are some lines you simply don't cross. I could have liked this a lot more and rated it a lot higher had I not found the content so objectionable....more
Some books are so bad that they are painful; some are so bad that they are comical. This fallStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 2/5
Some books are so bad that they are painful; some are so bad that they are comical. This falls into the latter grouping. The crew of cosmonauts selected for this Rama mission come off more as a group of reality television show contestants than scientists and astronauts. Most of the drama and adventure in this book occurs because the characters behave like MTV Real World personages, complete with the hyperfocus on relational drama. Additionally, Clarke strays from his hard science fiction credentials and tackles religion and spirituality in this one - much to the detriment of the novel. The only reason this is a bad novel rather than an awful one is because Rama itself was not besmirched. The goodwill I do have toward the book is carried over from its predecessor. If one is considering reading this to find out more about Rama (as I was), I suggest that you skip this novel entirely. Very little new information is revealed, and I found nothing else to justify the time or effort. I'm still interested enough to read the third of the four and hope that the second was an aberration....more
There was a brief moment when I thought this had potential..., but then I finished the fiStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 Resonance: 1/5
There was a brief moment when I thought this had potential..., but then I finished the first chapter....
This is the best of Morrow's Godhead trilogy. Morrow is more to the point and his allegories are more clear and consistent; overall the storyline is tighter. Though there are character and plot overlaps with the other books, one could read this as a stand alone novel. If one felt they simply had to read a Morrow book on God's death, I'd suggest this one and this one alone.
I can now slot the Godhead trilogy as the second on my list of "Series that I regret ever having begun". I'm glad its over; I don't foresee myself reading another James K. Morrow book....more
In this satisfying ending to a very good series, Simmons entertainingly brings the story to aStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
In this satisfying ending to a very good series, Simmons entertainingly brings the story to a close. His world-building is at its best - both T'ien Shan and Startree now rank among my favorite fantastical science fiction worlds - and the storyline itself obviously received detailed inspection so as to plug, remedy, or otherwise respond to those nagging loose ends and plotholes. To straighten out the story, however, Simmons has to employ significant and repeated retroactive continuity changes (view spoiler)[ It turns out that Father Dure's musings from book one are wrong, and they are not necessary for anything in the following three books. Meina Gladstone was also wrong in what she thought about the TechnoCore and where it was located. So scratch that off the list of helpful information provided in book two. That ever-so-important scene with Ummon in book two (where we finally made sense of the identity of the TechnoCore and the different alliances, allegiances, and motivations) was also incorrect. That loss was particularly upsetting to me as it was a major source of organization and clarity for the first, second, and third books. Finally, and most importantly, we are told that Martin Silenus's Cantos (essentially book 1) are mistaken in untold and unknown ways. Essentially this means that whatever you thought you knew from the first three books is suspect and anything written in the fourth has priority. (hide spoiler)] The characters also continue to be a weak point in the series and Raul never does adequately morph into the everyday-man-turned-hero that Simmons wants him to be. Still, these minor distractions are insignificant compared to the great story, fantastic worlds, and thought-provoking science fiction contained herein. With this book in place, the series is now both remarkable and memorable.
Because it is so long and complex, it really is a book that is best read in a discussion group or with friends. Lacking that discussion group, I post some further thoughts, ideas, questions, and criticisms here. Everything hereafter should be considered as spoiler.
(view spoiler)[ Taming versus evolving: I absolutely loved the idea, finally developed, of the contest between those who wanted to master and control environments for human habitation (terraforming) versus those who chose to evolve humanity to inhabit those environments (gene nanotechnology). The book convincingly conveyed the bigotry and fear of losing one's humanity (the Pax) and the utter liberation and possibilities once one relinquished that fear (the Ousters). I wish Simmons had pursued this a little more, because in this contest between visions of humanity's future, it was not possible for the two sides to reconcile. Simmons's characterization of the Pax, unfortunately, was of a faction that was utterly and thoroughly corrupt, and Simmons doesn't permit an honest voice of the conservative vision. He does provide the moderate, compromising characters for religion (the Dali Lama, and de Soya) and political system (Isozaki - whom, I will add, I was disappointed to see so little of), but in all of these cases they agree to join the progressive, evolutionary side of the contest. I found on several themes that Simmons's ideas were bigger and deeper than he even realized (or conveyed).
Human versus AI: The whole point of AI is that machines develop capacities beyond that which was conceivable. That is why it is interesting. But Aenea tells us over and over again that the TechnoCore will always be parasites - that is their nature and they can do nothing about it. I wasn't convinced with her (i.e. Simmons's) explanation, and I thought it unnecessarily limiting (particularly since part of the TechnoCore had created the Keats cybrids - doesn't that tell us that they can evolve?). In book two one of the main plotlines is the human versus AI battle. Simmons resolves it I suppose, but I lost interest once he had to rewrite so much of the story. Were I depending on that being developed fully and finally, I would have found this ending less satisfactory.
Time travel: Time travel was a big part of the first book, and I found it difficult to visualize and appreciate the significance of someone or something moving backward through time (I have problems with time travel stories generally, so maybe its just me). After book one the whole time travel element becomes a small descriptive element and isn't a part of the main storyline anymore. Of course, we get Kassad and Rachel, but I didn't understand what role they were playing in the book at that time, how they got there, or where they were going to go after that. Specifically, I didn't see how what happened with Kassad and Rachel in book 4 mattered to the events that happened in book 1. Simmons did the same thing with Het Masteen's treeship. It was renamed the Tree of Thorns... That suggests that it somehow is going to be the Tree of Thorns that appears at the end of Book 2, but in book 4 it also suggests that the treeship goes back in time to the events of Book 1 and is destroyed there (as it was described in Book 1). Finally, I found it bizarre that whenever someone traveled through time (Het Masteen and Aenea in particular) that the time they spent in the future was the same time that was lost in the past. If Aenea spent twenty-three months, one week, and six hours in the future, why can't she be returned to the past at the same moment she left it? Why does she have to disappear in the present for the same amount of time? This is where a discussion group would have been particularly helpful - I suspect that in the preceding 2,272 pages I missed something or was working from a false assumption or misunderstanding. I'm fairly certain, though, that this is not the way in which time travel is generally portrayed.
Martin Silenus: His character was awful. I know he was crude and arrogant in book one, but you don't need to remind me with every single sentence. He also had some sensitivity about him which was entirely lacking in this book. Also, I see why Simmons thought it would be nifty if Silenus had actually been touching the Void Which Binds for the last couple hundred years, but it creates two other problems: 1) a large part of the Cantos had been written long before that, so his belated access to the voices of the dead wouldn't have helped him for those portions. 2) If he had the sort of future- and past-knowledge that Aenea did through the Void, why did he make so many mistakes in the Cantos?
"This is not metaphysics, my dear friends.": That is exactly what it was. You are presented with a charismatic figure that claims to hold knowledge that cannot be learned or verified in any way unless you trust them, accept nanobots into your bloodstream, and then follow the teachings of the charismatic leader as to understand what happens to you. Are you crazy?! You just filled your body full of machinery which you have no idea how works or what it does. The only reason you have to do so is because you trust a person who says they can hear voices and commune with the dead. This is a by-the-books example of a religious cult. And it was just downright bizarre how Aenea didn't like for her followers to be called disciples, how she didn't like for the wine-drinking ceremony to be called communion, and how she had to sacrifice herself naked, under torture, and vertically affixed to a cross-like post. Everything here had the trimmings of religiosity - and none of it had to. No one studied the nanobots in Aenea's blood. If she were teaching science, then why didn't she? Why would you make the conversion ceremony a ceremony at all? Why put it in wine and drink it when they could have just delivered Aenea's blood with injections (you know, like real medicine, technology, and science would have done). And really, she has to go through a Christ-like crucifixion in order to have the Shared Moment? This leads to another point that nagged me throughout - love. Why is the Void Which Binds dependent upon love and empathy? Why not hate? If you want it to be a strong emotion and something which gives people a unique relationship - make it hate. I thought the attempts to make love some sort of Newtonian law were as ridiculous as to make Aenea's cult a science. Oh, and one final thought on this: I know "Choose again" was supposed to be witty and pithy, but it sounded like a philosophy an immature adolescent might adopt upon first starting to think for him or herself.
Raul's big fight: Really...? Raul is going to fight Nemes.... And he's going to hold his own in the fight... And he's going to make the fight last more than three seconds... I've always found Simmons's action scenes adequate - neither remarkable or distracting, just good fun and adventure. This was undoubtedly the dumbest, most indulgent, and worst action scene of the book.
Pedophiles: I'm not sure what it is about writing that seems to give middle-aged and older males the license to write out their sexual perversions and fantasies - and certainly Simmons is not the first to do this (I think this has been going on since men were writing) - but really? Do you have to push the boundaries on the age of consent? Simmons did this before in Hyperion, and I thought it was sleazy then too.
I'm probably wrong on some of the stuff in here. Sometime, I'll read through others reviews and look through discussion boards to see if these points have been raised elsewhere. Despite most of the above comments being negative, this was a great book. (hide spoiler)]
This edition had a dedication at the beginning that really helped set the scene for maximum eStoryline: 3/5 Characters: 1/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 3/5
This edition had a dedication at the beginning that really helped set the scene for maximum enjoyment. In it, Niven briefly mentions the attention and assistance he has received from volunteer correspondents in calculating and theorizing the physics involved with the Ringworld. Knowing this, I could more easily see where and why that information was included in the text of the novel. I had fond thoughts of the international community of science fiction enthusiasts who had, however small, been part of a sort of Ringworld think tank. The readability of the work did not suffer for the hard science either. Niven did a great job of spreading out the the technical details so as not to bore or belabor uninterested readers, but I had some satisfaction in imagining the physics enthusiasts relishing and debating every specification. One need not understand or even care about the engineering and physics bits to enjoy the book, but it one of the bonus features that makes this popular.
This sequel, unfortunately, doesn't have a lot else to offer. The idea of the Ringworld, which was the highlight of the first, is simply not as novel a second time around. The characters were less remarkable and developed this time, and perhaps most disappointing, was that the novel's pacing (like its predecessor's) was too fast. The novel does have going for it mystery and curiosity as we yearn for and learn more of the Ringworld engineers. Still, it's mysterious never suspenseful, and one is simply curious, never awed. It would have taken a much bigger book, but I wish Niven had slowed down and let us better appreciate the size and scale of the Ringworld with better attention to particular scenes. Literary description simply isn't Niven's strength.
I commented on the lasciviousness when I remarked on the first of the series, and I was curious to see if the sequel could find better ways to entertain the reader. Sex is still rampant throughout the novel although perhaps less explicit than in the first. Niven seemed to have had fun with the concept of cross-species sex and while the descriptions of anatomical compatibility are oblique, they are frequent. ...more
Loading...
