Using some rough measure of quality, one could make a convincing argument for Moving Mars beiStoryline: 3/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 4/5
Using some rough measure of quality, one could make a convincing argument for Moving Mars being categorized alongside Queen of Angels and Heads, the first two volumes in this loosely connected series. None of them rank among the greats of science fiction but all are clearly above the average-quality works that so populate the genre’s shelves. Lumping in Moving Mars in such a category, however, obscures just how much inferior of a book it is, particularly when compared to the first in the series. Still, it deserves recognition of its own merits. There were several good pieces within this book. There’s what stands out as its own short story at the beginning. The writing and characterization never got better than it did in here. It was from an author looking back with the wisdom brought about by years but still remembering the impressionableness of youth. Bear weaved the two together in a short tale that carried through it a wonderful aura of foreboding. There is a stark shift when this lead segment reaches its climax and the story turns to developing the bigger world. For readers having read the first two in the series, this was somewhat scenic and plodding, many of the background political developments explained in Heads. What is here is new, but it is a refresher, the reader waiting for the big new developments. And while we wait Bear drops in neat technological tidbits that fill the world. I loved the mostly unexplained embellishments such as “sheets of artificial sun” and edifying viruses. I enjoyed the tour across Mars. His descriptions of Earth, from the viewpoint of humans born on Mars, were some of the most beautiful and affecting passages of the book. Bear has exciting things he wants to reveal, and he will get to them, but they never find the right entry point. Bear also wanted to make this a political thriller, but it too never quite found the right placement and development. So many of these pieces were good: the perspective, the tone, the picture, the tension, the idea, but the reader can tell that they are never pulled together into an overarching vision.
Widely read science readers also cannot get through this without comparing Moving Mars to what has become a classic, if not epochal science fiction staple, released only the year before (view spoiler)[
Red Mars(hide spoiler)]. When compared, Bear’s treatment of the political comes off as embarrassingly amateurish, him seeming to have some introductory comparative politics textbook at hand for reference but without any real understanding of the variety and significance of differences and choices. Bear gets some points for making his work less didactic and generally more readable and enjoyable, but for the most part one is not convinced that they are under the direction of an expert or even an enthusiast. That changes for the portions that lean more into hard science fiction. This is where Bear is most comfortable, and this is where he can put his ideas into action. This is also where this becomes a remarkable, fun book. None of the other positive elements of the story find their way into the hard science fiction; Bear just seems incapable of working on more than one good thing at a time. The highlights are high, however, and there are rewards throughout the 448 pages.
There was no book I was looking forward to this year more than Moving Mars, and I am ultimately disappointed with it. I had reason to think that this one might be great, and my evaluation is that it just was not so. It was, however, a highly enjoyable read, even if it does not turn out to be memorable. I still think very positively of the series and expect good things of the fourth, Slant....more
My evaluation of Vernor Vinge’s first Zones of Thought volume would have been much more favorStoryline: 3/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
My evaluation of Vernor Vinge’s first Zones of Thought volume would have been much more favorable had I given it at the first quarter mark. At that point, readers have gotten to experience an excellent far future, hard science fiction novel that brought in some especially provocative ideas. Vinge’s toying with physics and the time scale opened up both puzzles and intriguing possibilities that were ripe for development. The ideas were challenging but just on the cusp of comprehension, the eye-opening revelations just ahead. And that was just the one plotline. The second was just as ambitious, although in a more fantastical direction. Vinge took on the challenge to create a convincing other and committed everything to it, exposing us to unfamiliarity while slowly introducing us to the depth of world he had constructed and slowly familiarizing us with rules and repercussions. The juxtaposition between the two was a little jarring. It is difficult to so fully immerse in a world only to be pulled out of it and then thrust so deeply into another. At about that twenty-five percent mark, though, there was so much left to be put together that the discomfort could be overlooked.
Thereafter A Fire Upon the Deep’s limitations drifted more to the forefront. Vinge is not an especially gifted storyteller. There’s no wordsmithing and all the creativity is invested in the worldbuilding. Vinge had left himself with the task of fully pulling us into his worlds and getting us to accept the new opportunities and constraints. To do that he needed to teach us, and he was more successful with one of the plotlines than he was the other. The years since this was published have also been a little unkind to the story. Vinge based some of his ideas and writing style on the early directions of the internet. The author included some measurements and scales which appear silly now, though one determined to do so can overlook those problems. Vinge actually does quite a good job extrapolating from those early years to identify types of concerns and kinds of conflicts that might arise. What Vinge got wrong in forecasting are really small details in the bigger picture, but it does take effort to overlook that now. If that were the only effort needed to retain belief in and interest in the story, then the book would still be a spectacular success. The plot developments become more tedious and perfunctory, some of the justifications and explanations become interminably delayed, and the back and forth between the two strikingly different worlds comes only marginally more agreeably.
Readers eventually get to an ending that resolves most of what was supposed to be done. That ending comes without the attachment to characters that one really hopes for in a good story. The concluding words are given without the challenging ideas being quite made fully comprehensible. One knows that the climactic events are supposed to be astounding, but they are experienced more intellectually than emotionally. Someone, such as myself, who values worldbuilding and new ideas can still look on this as a memorable experience and a book very much worth having read. Still, it is too bad that Vinge could not have been as adept with the mechanics of storytelling as he was at worldbuilding. Of course, Vinge is not alone in this; many science fiction writers have been much better with ideas than they were with words. That this should be included in a list of science fiction greats is not at all unreasonable....more
If I could have requested a book to be custom written for me, it might have turned out as thiStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 2/5
If I could have requested a book to be custom written for me, it might have turned out as this. How unfortunate it is, then, that I was not captivated by it. The themes and ideas Flynn included were ones that I crave and delight in (view spoiler)[ first contact, linguistics, the philosophy of science, theology, culture (hide spoiler)]. The author takes a staple science fiction plot and it turns it on its head, resulting in all kinds of interesting repercussions. Language and otherness play central roles in the story, as does natural science. The details are meticulous, the research evidently required is impressive. The goals and direction were such to make me a supporter of Flynn; I wanted to see him succeed. Despite all the many merits of the book, it really just was not great. It would only reach “acceptable” or “okay” with someone willing to reward effort more than execution.
Flynn comes off as an especially smart person through the reading. A smart individual more than a smart writer, however. His use of history leads a casual reader to defer to and trust his competency. His ability to find places in the novel to include the exotic and forgotten impresses. His familiarity with other languages and the history of words earns him my respect. Much of the telling read like a chronicling, however, rather than a telling. There is a fair amount of untranslated Latin in the book. There seemed to be puns and other word play with German. Much of the book adopts the vocabulary of Middle English. For readers other than multilingual scholars of the history of romance languages to enjoy this, Flynn needed to teach us to understand the nuances of and treasures in foreign and historical languages. Flynn, instead, puts it on the page, meticulously piecing together puzzles and treasures, witticisms and beautiful juxtapositions that few – myself included – can understand. Even the very objects which inhabit this world – the nouns embellished with exotic descriptors in his sentences – are often obscure. It has been a long time since I read a book with so many words that I did not know. It was all the more frustrating to find that most of these words were not in my dictionary or were not used in a way in which it is now defined. It is of some accomplishment to convince readers that the author is intelligent. More important in a novel, however, is helping readers to also feel intelligent, to show them how to appreciate the variety and richness in the story. Flynn does not even make an attempt at this latter. This is how something painstakingly researched and written becomes unenjoyably read.
That Flynn is more of a scholar that a writer is true elsewhere as well. For the most part, the novel employs a two-timelines perspective, shifting between a Middle Ages historical fiction setting and a contemporary academic one. The two did not well complement one another. I did not know anything about Michael Flynn before reading this. I assumed, through the reading, that this was either his first book or that it was some sort of fix-up compilation of other works. I see now that it was more of the latter. One of the two storylines was originally published as a 1986 novella, by the same name, Eifelheim. I can see how the second half of the story would follow, but it really should have been published as a sequel or spinoff. There was no need for the reader to have knowledge of the original novella. The two were smashed together with little care or artfulness. The greatest mistake in the book was in thinking that in combining these two the reader was somehow getting a better book. The care and attention given to the historical detail makes the incongruity between the two perspectives all the more glaring and offensive. Had Flynn found some way to bring the two together, to show us that combined we find some final treasure or revelation, then perhaps readers would have found it worthwhile. It would be difficult, however, to envision a more anticlimactic ending to the story.
For all my complaints of the novel, I really do have some positive sentiments toward it. It was one of those books that over-promised. They were awfully good promises, though. It took the number of steps required to get into Great Book territory but took them in slightly the wrong direction. The many merits of the book and Flynn’s expansive knowledge and interests have me intrigued with the author. Someone with such abilities deserves to be given a second chance, and I will be looking for another Michael Flynn book....more
The sequel is, I am convinced, difficult to do well. In Olympos, Simmons does it well. I was Storyline: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 4/5
The sequel is, I am convinced, difficult to do well. In Olympos, Simmons does it well. I was skeptical at the end of book one. I could not see what Simmons would do for the 891 pages of book two. Ilium seemed so close to completion; I wanted my ending then and there. Simmons makes that ending last for the entirety of book two. He picks up on earlier, minor clues and threads, pushing them to the front of the story, while weaving in the major plot from book one, keeping momentum and giving us more. It was that more that was so good. So much more story. So much more worldbuilding. Simmons showed me that more which I simply could not envision, and it was satisfying to receive it.
While Simmons was adept with the more, he ultimately had to turn to what all authors eventually must deal with: resolution and conclusion. Simmons was better with the more than with the end. We get the answers; the puzzle pieces are all laid out in approximately their correct positions. That artfulness and care with which the mystery was put together in book one does not have a complement in the conclusion, however. When it comes to finally making the reveals and the connections, they are unsatisfyingly blunt and truncated. The pieces, while all there, were never fully put together for an integrated picture. Intellectually I understand the answers. But I lack a clear understanding of some of the reasons and significance, of the why’s and so’s. Simmons had 1,643 pages to prepare for the conclusion, so there is really no excuse for failing to take those answers and revelations and integrate them solidly in the denouement. I say that we readers still fare well from the imbalance. We get a good 1,500 pages of more and just a hundred or two of less.
I’ve got an unwritten list for the top 100 science fiction series. I would put both this series, Ilium, on there as well as Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos. Both are epic science fiction stories – that adjective too often only fitting for fantasy novels – with excellent worldbuilding. There are some similar themes(view spoiler)[: a love of literature, a curious interest in Judaism, portal technology, among others (hide spoiler)], but none of it overlaps to the extent that I feel that ideas are being recycled or that I grow weary of them. Hyperion Cantos verges more on the side of horror, having a lot of ghastliness and ugliness. Ilium is much more pornographic, Simmons taking full advantage of the possibilities provided by Greek mythology to write out his sexual fantasies. There are parts of Olympos that I was just downright embarrassed by. I was embarrassed for Simmons, thinking about him sharing this book with friends and family, and having them all know his perverse, prurient fantasies. So both series had some themes that were off-putting. I think the first book of the Ilium duology is the best of the five books, but I find it difficult to say which series was ultimately better....more
Accelerando gets one’s attention. It does not do so pleasantly, but it would be foolhardy to Storyline: 2/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 4/5 World: 5/5
Accelerando gets one’s attention. It does not do so pleasantly, but it would be foolhardy to deny that Stross accomplished something here. There is a place for books like this; that place is in the canon. Books like this meet the demands of significance even if not the demands of enjoyment. Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is one such book. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars is another. Accelerando, like those, establishes a new standard against which other books dealing with similar themes must be measured against. If one aspires to pen a new science fiction work on utopian political ideologies, they need to have read and to respond to Le Guin. If you are going to be the new name for space colonization, you will have to explain your divergences from Robinson. Now, if one is going to write about the singularity and post-humanism, Accelerando is the new reference point. Not that Stross has penned the first post-human sci fi novel, any more than Le Guin or Robinson had founded leftist politics or the idea of humans on Mars. What these canonical books provide is a leap beyond their peers in thoroughness. They take their topic seriously, making the changes, decisions, and details the bulk of the story. As a result, Accelerando is sometimes overbearing; it is saturated to a burdensome degree. Stross takes us to a future – a radically envisioned and described future – showing us what its citizens would think, how they would behave, and how it must be described. It is alien. The writing is packed with descriptions that must be puzzled through. Odd proper nouns throughout, random pop culture intermittent, science fiction ideas galore, scientific terminology appending, and bizarre juxtapositions a regular. The world, in Stross’s vision, has changed. It makes for an impressive but wearisome read. But it works. Stross builds a believably real future, one that follows from the rapid technological changes. Not every descriptor is comprehensible nor every sentence clear, but the picture, for those who are patient, emerges. Ultimately, the confusion is the point - the very concept of the singularity is that technological progress proceeds so rapidly as to become incomprehensible to us. It is probably not the future readers want nor the writing style that most enjoy, but it is the kind of future and kind of style that is required to take seriously these science fiction themes.
There is plenty to complain about in the book as well. Not simply the downside of a choice or the undesirable elements of a trade-off, but simply badly written elements that have to be excused. Because the book was more about the picture of the future than an adventure in it, the dramatic and plotting elements can only charitably be called “passable.” Those already worn down by the writing style might not be so charitable. Stross also uses the flexibility inherent in the future to make leaps and connections that are not obvious, pushing for something more like linear distance than density. A lot of interesting questions are raised here; a lot of possible technological plotholes are simply willed away. This was much more of a conversation starter than the final say. That is not necessarily a bad thing though. I have read a considerable amount of the leftist far future science fiction of which this is a member, and Accelerando has changed the way I will think about these issues in the future. I will think back on it with more affection and admiration than I experienced while reading it....more
I should have loved this rather than just liking it. It has much of what I want from science Storyline: 3/5 Characters: 4/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 4/5
I should have loved this rather than just liking it. It has much of what I want from science fiction: provocative science puzzles, technological invention, and otherness, to name just the most obvious. I did feel, for most of the book, that the ideas were under-supported by the execution. So, although it is a science fiction puzzle that is central to and pushes the story, there’s not a lot of anticipation or excitement in its exploration. The technological invention, although of a spectacular nature, somehow is still underwhelming. The otherness which is required for a good far future or alien species tale, came off more as effortful rather than beautiful or satisfying. For most of this, it just felt that Asimov was out of his league, writing on topics and with genre tricks and tropes that were just outside of his ability.
My favorite part of the book was the least sensational. Asimov has a lot to say on science as a profession and some excellent commentary and drama on professional dishonesty, jealousy, and ethics. These elements get worked into the bigger story in a way that bolstered everything else Asimov was doing. I do not think that all the parts came together in a way that made for an excellent book, but Asimov was clearly still able of putting together a good book late into his career....more
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 was one of the best science fiction books I’ve ever read. Its greatness lies in being fuStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
This was one of the best science fiction books I’ve ever read. Its greatness lies in being fundamentally a science fiction book. One can use Death’s End to make a convincing case of the unique merits of science fiction as a genre of literature. Death’s End (and other science fiction works like it,) is not a novel that simply situates itself within the trappings of scientific advancement. There are a lot of works in the genre that use changes in science as a springboard to get to interesting environments and conflicts in which to situate their story (view spoiler)[ John Scalzi being perhaps the most popular contemporary author of this sort (hide spoiler)]. There’s also a treatment of science at the other end of the spectrum, hard science fiction, where establishing the plausibility of a technology is more important than the story (view spoiler)[One has to think of Niven and Ringworld for this, though there are more current authors doing this now. (hide spoiler)]. Death’s End was an excellent work of pure science fiction. The first two books in the series took serious mathematical or science puzzles and built a story out of them (view spoiler)[ The first book tackles the three-body problem and the second, the Fermi paradox (hide spoiler)]. Liu is among the best writers in clearly explaining the scientific puzzle, and he then proceeds not only to provide a plausible answer but also to show how the answer could have immense ramifications for civilization.
The reason Death’s End is so much better than its predecessors is because the science is so much more central to the story. The passage of time in the book gives Liu the excuse to introduce more and more developments, leading us further and further into a future with an explosion of possibilities. There was a point, however, where I wished that the author had been a little more measured in bringing out more technologies and discoveries. Book three brought entirely new plotlines that I really thought unnecessary and provided answers to questions that neither I nor the author had been asking for through most of the series. I’ll include this into my very small collection of great science fiction books, then, with the admission that it does have some serious weaknesses. The book could have lopped off about a hundred pages, leaving out Part VI of VI, and have been better for it. By that point the book had stretched thin the relationships to the previous two, and there was little chance that the author could bring to a close many of the provocative dilemmas, ethical quandaries, and commentaries on civilization.
The writing in the series was more consistent with books one and two. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing, however. I’ve felt for the entire series that much of what was written did not translate to English well. Not necessarily the fault of the translator, but the standards for lyricism, deep thoughts, and dialogue either must be very different in China or those are things that Liu doesn’t do well with in his own culture. The shifts between times, perspectives, and mediums, however, more than make up for the weaknesses in the individual sentences.
I think this book was probably a disappointment to those who signed on as fans to the first for its perceived criticism of authoritarian rule. There were very big clues early on, however, that the values of progressivism (whether it be Liu’s personal values or broader ideological values in China) were not going to map neatly onto American progressive issues. The first book starts with the Cultural Revolution, after all, which is one of the paradigmatic cases of left-wing authoritarianism. One can decry the abuse of life and liberty in that period without embracing Western, liberal values and goals. I thought the socio-political criticisms and values in this book gave it an additional richness precisely because they presented a different mix of issues and weighting of values than is commonly seen in the West. The problem was not the values presented, but the justification and exploration of those values. Liu was much better at explaining the mechanics of the technology and the implications of the science than he was at showing the sides of a socio-political debate and discussing the plausible justifications. The main character, for example, makes a couple of decisions that appear both unsatisfying and infuriating. I regretted the way they were presented, because Liu did have thoughtful reasons for those decisions. Some of those answers come late in the book, long after one has faulted Liu, and those justifications were never well developed or clearly articulated. Still, the overall message (view spoiler)[on the fickleness of society and the willingness of one generation to abandon the ideals of the former one (hide spoiler)] was profound, however.
Overall, what was good in here was just so very good that it overshadowed the many weaknesses....more
It is nice to look back on a book recently finished and ask, "did all of that really transpirStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 5/5
It is nice to look back on a book recently finished and ask, "did all of that really transpire between those pages?" Like a long-awaited vacation or weekend away that turns out to be full of memorable experiences, a book like this makes less ambitious works look like your day-to-day routine: mildly enjoyable but hardly surprising or invigorating. This was good science fiction. Perhaps it was even great science fiction. Technological development and the social implications plays a big part in the story, and readers get to work through the provocative setup we were left with at the end of book one.
One of the things that makes this series significant is that it is political. You don't start a science fiction book (like the series first, The Three-Body Problem) with an alternate history take on an event like China's Cultural Revolution without planning on saying something. One also knows that a work like this is being written in an environment where speaking truth to power comes in between the lines. There's a lot between the lines in this story, and I found myself frequently pausing in scenarios or after scenes and trying to think of the implications for governments and even civilization and humanity today. A book that can do that while entertaining me gets my approval. I did think that there were perhaps a few too many social and political ideas scattered throughout the text. It was difficult to see their relative worth to the author and to know which were residuals--coming about through the process of the novel coming to life--and which where serious and meaningful.
I don't think that this book translated well into English. And I don't mean to fault Joel Martinsen (a different translator than in The Three Body Problem); as far as I know Martinsen did an admirable job. No, the problem with the translation is more of a cultural one. I'm at a place where I'm both a little too informed and a little too ignorant. I'm a critical enough reader to notice when tension is poorly built, dialogue is artificial, and drama is made possible through some unsuccessful hand-waiving. There were a lot of problems in the development of the plot and characters. The conversations were awful: characters regularly engaging in artless back-and-forths conveying the bare facts of the situation, interactions totally removed from how people normally interact. There were a lot of blunt parlor reveal scenes that were totally lacking in artistry. And worst of all were the "dilemmas" that we were being led to. Hard choices are a great dramatic and provocative tool, but they only work if you set the scene so that the available options are only those you offer the characters. Liu Cixin did not do the preparatory work for this; thus readers are often led to what are supposed to be excruciating choices or haunting consequences which lack the needed credibility. There are still a few major events in the novel for which I don't understand the reasoning of the different characters, why they chose they paths they did, or why other options weren't viable. And this might be where my ignorance comes into play. There's some real effort at poetry in the book, particularly at the beginning and the end, which came off as corny and some exchanges between characters that were overly melodramatic. Some of these techniques are probably culturally appropriate and meaningful in the original language and culture. I'll assume that Liu Cixin is a good enough writer to know not to do many of these things, and instead I'll say that I don't know enough about Chinese art and culture to appreciate what he was doing on these awkward portions.
Overall, this was a remarkable book, much better than the first in the series. I particularly value creativity and provocative "what if" scenarios. The concept of the Wallfacers might just stick with me the rest of my life....more
This would have been a different experience had I read the author postscript before reading tStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 3/5
This would have been a different experience had I read the author postscript before reading the book, and I would encourage anyone planning on reading this to consider flipping to those last pages first. There are no spoilers there though there is some foreshadowing of events that develop later in the story. What the postscript does is to set expectations; ironic that is, coming at the end. The text itself does not do a good job of setting the expectations, and the obvious ones early in the book turn out to be the wrong ones. This was not artful misdirection or a twist, however, but a weakness of the author in relying on ill-fitting formulas to build up the story to what are his main interests. But if you read that postscript first, you'll learn what he thinks about literature as a critical enterprise, the role of lived experience in writing, and exactly what science fiction should really be doing. Those few pages have in them some profundity, and they made me want to like the book more. With those themes in mind, I think I would have noted and considered different possibilities - ones that would have made this a more enjoyable read. The postscript couldn't solve all the problems for Liu, however. The story too often came to moments that suggested either a puzzle or an error on the part of the author. The story up to those moments was not sufficiently engaging, provocative, or purposeful; Liu had failed to earn my trust. So I tended to ignore details in hopes of retaining my disbelief, to assume error whenever something came across as bizarre. Liu deserved more trust than I gave him, though, and much of what had bothered me throughout the story is justified and explained later in the book. This is hardly unique to Liu, and I regularly find that I fault works that explain the seeming plotholes and absurdities with revelations at the end. Development choices like that were pervasive throughout the book, and I found that it did not build up in a way to instill anticipation, surprise, or satisfaction.
There's a second (and also short) postscript to the book: the translator's. I did not need Ken Liu to explain the challenges of the translator; I have no doubt but that it is a terribly difficult job, underappreciated, and full of excruciating dilemmas. I did like reading about his philosophy though, which I'll quote here:
The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture's patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language's rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people's gestures and movements.
There were areas where that was successful. Some of the descriptive language and analogies were of a sort alien to Western writers. There was an exoticism to this, what might have been described as the beauty of the Orient in an earlier era. There were other times, however, when the culture did not come through and instead it read like a poorly written book. This was particularly true of dialogue. The structure of conversations and the substance was often awkward, not bringing to mind an alternative pattern of thinking or of another language's rhythms and cadences but of a writer without command of the English language. Whether this is the fault of the author of the translator (or the reader), I can't possibly say. As a text, though, the alienness did come through, sometimes enriching the telling but just as often devaluing it.
Liu Cixin's aims, the presentation, and some of the ideas here make this worthy of being read, discussed, and remembered. It is more significant than enjoyable, and I could not help but read this with disappointment. It did so many big things right only to let so many small things undermine them....more
I could just about write the same review for every Robert J. Sawyer book I've read: bold, intStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 2/5
I could just about write the same review for every Robert J. Sawyer book I've read: bold, intriguing idea that is genuinely captivating; unnecessary side narrative that waters down the science fiction and main plot; an interjection of superfluous science and infodumps in lieu of following through with the originally presented concepts; and a straddling of conservative and liberal socio-political positions. Calculating God is yet another in the line.
I really like the big ideas. They're great; they're grand; I want to see them pursued to their limits. Sawyer's investigations, however, never bring with them the gravitas and revelatory experience they deserve. That, in part, comes from his tendency to turn every book into a 1990s television script and the odes to pop culture (this time Casablanca and Star Trek). The upside to this is that Sawyer stories are really easy to read - a real trick for someone who sticks so much scientific exposition in the story. Another aspect I like about Sawyer is that he's usually got some conservative tilt to the science fiction. So much of mainstream science fiction assumes that advances in science and technology are going to validate current, progressive trends. I like that Sawyer disrupts this march, this time posing another great "what if?" scenario. What if humanity's ethnocentrism turns out not to be erroneous? It doesn't matter much to me if Sawyer believes in the hypothetical; they're valid and provocative thought experiments. The problem I had with it was that he felt such a need to defend himself from the anticipated attacks. Sawyer wasn't confident enough that the thought experiment itself was worthy of discussion, so he spends far too much time justifying the very terms of the thought experiment. And as part of this process, he wants to show that he isn't really one of those deplorable conservatives - see, he's going to have the bad guys be conservative religious fundamentalists, and he's going to mock plenty of other associated conservative movements, so...he obviously shouldn’t be discounted as one of the fringe. These were not unreasonable plotting choices in some abstract sense, but they were too obviously defensive choices selected in anticipation of criticism. Some of his more provocative moments – attacks on ideas on both the left and the right – were a little simple for what he was attempting. I agreed with and enjoyed the critical elements of his socio-political thought but found that he took some cheap shots and easy ways out for some of the challenges from opposing ideas (such as the Life game or abortion). That gets back to the point that I wish Sawyer would slow the pace down, limit the number of ideas, focus, and do more with less. The initial ideas in the story were worthy of further contemplation, and I wish he had been better able at making the reader feel the impact of the scientific discoveries. So, it was a fine book, promised more than it delivered, but wrapped up more satisfyingly than I thought it would be able to. This is not a book that would turn me into a Sawyer fan, but neither was it one that would cause me to avoid him either. Oh, and I still don't get the title.......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
This had potential. It should have been a book I liked. I'm a fan of the subgenre (view spoilStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 1/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 2/5
This had potential. It should have been a book I liked. I'm a fan of the subgenre (view spoiler)[the big-dumb object variety (hide spoiler)]. I like hard science fiction. I enjoy seeing the sociological ramifications of whatever science fiction innovations the author has to show. Leiber did all these things, and I still found it a miserable reading experience. There characters were just awful. This was the worst use of the shifting perspectives technique I've ever seen. It so abysmally bad because most of the characters did not matter. Leiber had no idea what he wanted to do with the characters or what should happen to them. He didn't know when to shift to or away from them. Their subplots, if they had any, were desperately and awkwardly contrived. The characters that inhabited most of them were embarrassing to read. The writing was only a little better. Leiber understood, intellectually, what a writer is supposed to do. Adjectives in the right place, descriptions along with the proper scenes, some flourishes and embellishments. None of it worked, however. I cringed when I wasn't confused. Either it was so obviously a failed attempt at literary beauty or it was ambiguous as to when he was in his literal or figurative modes. To the extent that a book can be painful to read, this one was a punishing.
Still, there were things I liked. Usually books that I find this disagreeable had nothing going for them. I really did like the central idea of the "Wanderer," though. I thought the hard science fiction and problem solving was more than just okay; it was fairly good. It was one of the few things that Leiber did right with both the characters and the writing, letting the problem-solving be character-developing and slipping it into the story smoothly. There's even a really good short story stuck in someplace at the 2/3 mark. Those positive elements were just so totally overwhelmed by the rest, that I hated coming back to read this one....more
There are some good science fiction ideas here. The kind of ideas that lead the reader to thiStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 4/5
There are some good science fiction ideas here. The kind of ideas that lead the reader to thinking about awesome possibilities and implications. The scenarios prompt one to ponder what they would do in that situation, wishing that they would get to play such a role in a great moment of human history. Sawyer has a gift for taking hard science fiction ideas, presenting them in such a way that the laity can follow along, and then branching off and doing something interesting with it all. The reader has to work harder, in fact, at experiencing wonder and understanding motivations and decisions than they do in understanding the science behind quantum computing or the tricks of factor analysis. Sawyer can explain the science to us, but the narrative is markedly shallow in other areas fundamental to a good story - things like build-up and character depth.
Much like his other early-career Hugo nominated or award winning books, Sawyer clutters up the text with pointless description. I found myself embarrassed reading about our near-future society. Not that Sawyer intended it to be embarrassing, but it was just so banal as to be offensive to my meager pride in humanity. If that is who we are as a people and a society; if that is all Sawyer can find to remark on, well then television shows such as Seinfeld and Friends (which Sawyer thinks enrich this tale) probably are a good representation of human civilization. This tale again evinces Sawyer's lack of confidence in himself as a science fiction writer. Unconformable with a tale solely of science and its implications, Sawyer spends half the book on extraneous relational drama. We get backstories, flashbacks, and internal monologues of the characters in this drama, but they never build the character. Instead what they do is fill the pages. A lot of character decisions become mundane or ridiculous as a result. Too often the science fiction story got left in the background, and even when there were good moments to bring it back in, Sawyer was more inclined to introduce us to a new hard science fiction element or puzzle as a wrinkle or twist. There were far more ideas and dramas here than were necessary; the story set up by the prologue didn't need (and would have been better without) the additional flair. The science fiction community should be grateful that Sawyer put these ideas out there for us, but one can't help wishing that the actual writing had been given over to a better storyteller. ...more
Rarely have I come across a sequel that so surpassed its predecessor. And I liked the predeceStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
Rarely have I come across a sequel that so surpassed its predecessor. And I liked the predecessor.
Book one was nicely self-contained; I didn't feel that I had to read on in the series, but seeing as I had enjoyed the first, I was happy to do so. Book two is also nicely contained. The very brief, straightforward prologue - numbering 300 words or so - sums up what one needs to know in order to read Anvil of Stars. Thereafter Bear moves forward, and he does so in strides confidently and differently paced than in the first. He drops the political thriller element and makes this much more a military science fiction work. The hard science fiction elements stay, but are better integrated into the plot. We also keep the shifting perspectives, but we have fewer of them, and Bear effectively situates them in the story. What results is a provocative beginning, setup by the last book, that develops into a thoughtful, surprising, and creative story of war planning and execution in space. Military sci-fi is not a genre I have read extensively in, but if other works in the genre similarly extrapolate the implications of technological advancement for social cohesion and military strategy in the far future, then sign me up for a reading list. I want to read more.
I wasn't enamored with every element of the story, however. Bear, again, takes on the task of berating religion through caricature, suggesting to the reader that he has a decided grudge against it while at the same time misunderstanding it. It is also a smutty telling, the author seeming to take a lot of gratification in detailing the many and varied sexual liaisons of our older teenagers and young adults. In places, both of these elements contributed to character building, but their excesses went beyond development and distracted from the otherwise measured story. And that story was, ultimately, decisive and heavy. That last page gets turned with all the necessary questions answered but without Bear offering any help in processing what happened. That happens on your own time and away from Anvil of Stars....more
How did so many good ideas turn out so abysmally? I admit, at the beginning I was a little diStoryline: 2/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 World: 4/5
How did so many good ideas turn out so abysmally? I admit, at the beginning I was a little dispirited. "Oh, another mysterious character on the run from shadowy organizations..." I had no need to revisit one of those novels again. But then it turned out to be a poorly constructed hook, a badly envisioned starting point designed to get the reader elsewhere - to the macroscope. And the macroscope was very much a place worth going. There's a place in the middle where we get the novel's best: it is hard science fiction from someone in awe of the universe, it is speculative fiction proposing wondrous possibilities, it is technological gadgetry made plausible and revolutionary. Sure, far into the work there's this hokey aura leftover from that beginning conspiracy story. And, yes, Anthony's placed about a dozen soap boxes in an unrecognizable pattern (if it was that at all) from which he jumps seemingly randomly. And, you're right, that whole psychoanalysis portion was, at best, completely unnecessary and at worst a burning wound. But - but! - one could get caught up in the possibilities of the macroscope. One can see how later writers were influenced by this and had their visions of space and time formed by this very novel. There was something here very much worth encountering in that been-there-done-that-science-fiction-merit-badge sort of way. And then it all fell apart. Moments where I was completely at a loss as to what was going on. Even learning what was going on I couldn't find a plausible reason for sending us that direction. Disorientation and confusion with revelations tardily made and with little reward. More of all the worst of the elements - too much of what was an awful character quirk, too much astrology posing as hard science fiction, too many hops on the soap boxes, too many uses of the deus ex machina, too much awful dialogue. Those last chapters were some of the most excruciating science fiction storytelling I've ever encountered, and it was sprinkled with the awesome resolutions that - despite having more than 300 pages to prepare for - Anthony never got around to setting up. I don't know that I've ever read a science fiction work so packed with good ideas and so utterly ruined by failings of execution. One could pick up on Anthony's ambitions to greatness: to artistry, to significance, to deepness and richness. It was plain for all to see, unfortunately, that the book didn't remotely come close to achieving any of these. Leaving you embarrassed for the macroscope, for the book, for Anthony, for science fiction.... just embarrassed....more
I appreciate the lack of pretense in this one. Niven and Pournelle weren't trying for literatStoryline: 3/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
I appreciate the lack of pretense in this one. Niven and Pournelle weren't trying for literature. No flourishes or thoughtful phrasings. No serious inquiry into the human condition. Not a character study. Niven and Pournelle wrote a fun, fine science fiction. It was stamped, particularly in the early sections, with hard science fiction, but it was really an especially good take on a sci fi subgenre (view spoiler)[Aliens and their otherness (hide spoiler)]. I really enjoyed the bulk of this: the right amount of worldbuilding, sufficient action sequences, mostly believable characters, but it is the predicament our cast finds them in that generates the merit. It was the moments of thinking, "What would I do?" There was a section, however, where the authors nearly lost me. I went from pleased to annoyed and then down further to aghast (before concluding at grudgingly forgiving). As the voices in a running debate through the book turned gratingly dumb, I was at a place where my frustration could have caused me to spurn the whole endeavor. The authors nearly ruined (and I could understand why other readers might not ever get to grudgingly forgiving) the tale because they used straw men arguments and cliched roles to navigate the plot to the desired twists and climaxes. Even now, I get a little embittered thinking how much those sections tainted an otherwise enjoyable book, and to maintain my favorable attitude, I've just got to forget those moments.
Trilogies and other series so abound in the genre that this original standalone should have been refreshing. Niven and Pournelle weren't good enough, however, with foreshadowing, development, or in generating suspense or wonder. So while this was a mostly pleasant read for the bulk of it, I often found myself wishing that the authors would just go ahead and get to the end of it. What it really needed - as much as it pains me to say - was to be split up into a trilogy and each of the parts given more attention to all the elements of good storytelling. The overall framework and vision was excellent, but so many of the mechanics of a good book were missing, and there just wasn't enough skill involved in this product to make it a great 560 pages. Still, this is my tenth Niven novel, and it is my favorite one of the bunch....more
Stephenson begins the "Note To The Reader" with an instruction, "If you are accustomed to reaStoryline: 3/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 5/5
Stephenson begins the "Note To The Reader" with an instruction, "If you are accustomed to reading works of speculative fiction and enjoy puzzling things out on your own, skip this Note." I immediately skipped forward. One of the elements of a book I most appreciate is how revelations are made: how terminology comes to be comprehended, geography and topography come to be visualized, and delineation between family names, titles, organizations, etc. are understood. In the end, however, I'm not sure the forewarning made that much of a difference. Looking back at it after I finished, I could see where it would have prematurely revealed a few answers, but nothing satisfactorily prepares the reader for the worldbuilding to come. It is worth distinguishing between "worldbuilding" on one hand and the world "built" on the other. The worldbuilding was excruciating. The nomenclature is expansive, neologism proliferate, many of the new words are just similar enough to existing terminology to make it additionally confusing. The level of detail is astounding and unrelenting. I would read pages of architectural layouts and topographical minutiae, creating a mental model, only to have something later added that was incompatible with my mental picture and requiring that I shift everything around or return to earlier pages to see what I had missed. The reference entries between chapters were a good tool - giving readers confirmation of certain terms, actors, or places where we had previously been proceeding with a tentative understanding or guesses. The order in which these references sections were included, however, matched no plan that I could identify. Sometimes the meaning of a word was revealed before it had featured significantly in the story, at other times the context clues had long since made the definition evident, and at yet elsewhere an explanation for minor terminology would present when other, more pressing concepts awaited interpretation. There was nothing graceful in the worldbuilding. There was nothing natural, beautiful, or facilitative in the process itself. This is a book that many will start and abandon because of the drudgery involved in making sense of the initial hundred or more pages of description and taxonomy, but it is a book with a huge payoff in the envisioned world. This was one of the most elaborate and awesome social systems I've ever seen in print. The setting, once the mental picture resolved, was magnificent. The implications of the organizational and cultural practices were a pleasure to consider - just shut the book and let your mind explore the possibilities that follow. For the first quarter of the book (which, by itself, is as long as many books), I thought this was going to one the best books I'd ever read. I was ready to put it into my top ten list of fantasy and science fiction books, already trying to decide where in the order it would go.
Somewhere around that quarter mark the book turned from a medieval fantasy with sci-fi or alternate history characteristics into a hard science fiction novel within a medieval setting. At this shift I felt a real sense of loss. I really loved that first portion, and the direction Stephenson wanted to go with the novel was not a direction that naturally followed. So much of what was written turned out to be ornamental instead of determinative. I've felt this way about every Stephenson book I've read. (view spoiler)[In Snowcrash, I thought the ideas on language were nifty but ill-fitting. In The Diamond Age I loved the coming of age story and ideas on pedagogy but dreaded the cyberpunk virus plot. In Cryptonomicon I was pretty much wowed by the characters that filled his historical fiction but the fictionalized geographic and political elements were forced and awkward. (hide spoiler)]He reads like an author with blocks of ideas, who then shoves them together for imaginative, sensational stories. The problem is that one doesn't get the full impact of either of the individual blocks, and the intersection between them requires a leap or an abrupt reorientation. When that happened here, I was disappointed as I had really liked what came before and was sad to see the story move forward without much care for what had already come.
As a hard science fiction book, this mirrored a lot of the qualities of the fantastical element: wildly creative and original but with a heavy burden on deciphering and puzzling through. Stephenson takes on some of the more radical and abstract ideas from philosophy and puts them into this science fiction fantasy monster of a tome. Again, as with the fantasy worldbuilding, this hard science fiction is slog. The ideas he's presenting were penned in fewer pages by the original philosophers, and nothing Stephenson does here makes them any less difficult. He does, however, make them plenty more entertaining. And while I had mourned the direction the book took after the initial worldbuilding, the plot Stephenson has for makes for a dazzling read full of surprises and speculation of the best science fiction variety. Not only was this beautiful as a fantasy world, it was rich in its confrontation of the natural philosophy that resides right on the border of physics and metaphysics. That he did this all together in the same book makes it mightily impressive.
I can see why Anathem was nominated for nearly every major science fiction award but failed to win many. Something so monumental has to be recognized, even if not enjoyed. In the end, it will not be among my ten-most favorites, but it is among the science fiction books that I am most glad to have read. It has to be one of the most significant achievements in science fiction - ever....more
I must confess that I have a (perhaps indefensible) fascination with stories like this. I lovStoryline: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Writing Style: 3/5 World: 3/5
I must confess that I have a (perhaps indefensible) fascination with stories like this. I loved the initial setup, the wonder and anticipation instilled early on. So too did I cling to the anxiety in waiting for those initial seeds to come to fruition. The ending was everything I dared hope for - more, actually, than I had come to hope for. The late 1980s produced a lot of this type of book, and some of my delight in this story probably derived from my childhood adoration of the Michael Crichton take on it.
These books seem to rely heavily on thriller, and often on political thriller. This was a more science heavy approach - something I appreciated - than others. The middle was still built as a political thriller, however, though lacking any real insights into the political and offering few thrills. There's a part where a significant political decision is looming, and it appears that it will not be made in time (suspense! suspense!). What is keeping the decision at bay? Is bureaucracy defeating reason, inertia carrying the country where it doesn't want to go? Is it a political impasse with partisans declaiming compromise? Are there protests keeping the leaders from attending the meetings and making the needed decisions? We don't know. Bear never gets to that level of detail and intrigue. So what could have been an informed and interesting political thriller largely falls flat. Similarly, the "Forge of God" idea was promising. This was a good place to discuss religion, its role and the consequences for it, but Bear, again, left it at a superficial level. It mostly comes off as a mockery of mysticism and an ode to reason, but our author doesn't pursue the theme with any vigor. Many characters also operated this way. We get to follow the experiences of at least nine different characters, generally focusing on one for a chapter and then popping in here and there to check on them. Most of the characters are not only forgettable but largely unnecessary. To the extent that some of them are essential, we didn't need their background information or the narration of their days and experiences; we could have just has profitably viewed them from the perspective of the lead character. Entire scenes and even chapters and characters could easily have been cut from this without much loss.
What the middle two-thirds of the novel did was keep the ending more distant. Between our initial understanding of the central problem/mystery and the climax, we needed time to steep and worry. If the ending had followed shortly after the beginning, we readers would not have appreciated the gravity, would not have savored the significance of it all. That lengthy middle was there mostly to set up the ending. Bear does have something more to reveal about politics. He does have something more to say about religion. He does have something to say about those nine or so characters and how they approach the end. Everything is built for the ending, but the author didn't have an idea as to how to make the middle plot and character development engaging. So he gave us science; here is where the hard science fiction elements do the most work and have the most to offer. Here is where the science fiction enthusiast will enjoy this more than the thriller fan. And that allows Bear to steer us toward the exciting destination he has planned for us. He seems to have seen it as a choice between the unremarkable shortcut (i.e. a novella) and the long, winding route that offered little more by the way of scenery. He chose the long route thinking it made the final destination all the more notable. And he was right; it did. Still, it would have been a much more enjoyable experience had that long, winding route offered more by the way of scenery and attractions....more
The momentum this book generated came from watching horrible authorial decisions as they Storyline: 1/5 Characters: 2/5 Writing Style: 2/5 Resonance: 1/5
The momentum this book generated came from watching horrible authorial decisions as they were contemplated, foreshadowed, and brought to realization. It was thinking, He's not really going to rely on that trope for a villain is he? or There's no way the author is going to let the main character do that to move the novel forward. And then there were so many moments of, "No, no, no, you can't possibly plan to let the scene turn on a twist like that. One spends the majority of the book thinking that this can't be happening, that it has to be a joke and that there has to be some later meta narrative to brings things around and show us how to laugh at the mind-numbing devices writers employ to instill the targeted emotion. The biggest suspense of the book was suspending every facet of discretion and sense while awaiting the punch line to the joke. There was no punch line. There was no meta narrative. Everything here was intended just as seriously as it appeared to be.
There is a way to better appreciate the book. One has to come to it expecting a 1990s made-for-tv-movie experience. One has to come to this wanting to suspend all suspicions, wanting the villain to be absolutely fiendish (with the literary equivalent of accompanying creepy villain music), for the main character to involve himself in and accomplish feats that it would take specially-trained teams to do (Sawyer was prophetic in anticipating the television CSI dramatization of forensic science/super sleuth detectives); one has to come demanding that every bad guy and evil incident be tied up in a neat conspiracy that also conveniently impugns infamous pop culture social ills. And I don't mean to demean those looking their escapism through pop thrillers, I'm a science fiction fan afterall; I've got my own preference for escapism.
It is the science fiction enthusiast in me that was perhaps most insulted and aggrieved. It is absolutely right for this to be categorized as hard science fiction. It is also absolutely right to say that it doesn't matter at all. The two major science fiction elements here are astounding; they are full of potential and worthy of exploration. There was no exploration here though, no speculation. You could have taken them out and given Sawyer a few hours to edit the novel to correct for the incongruities. These sci fi elements would have made for provocative social experiments or sources for character building, but their part in the story is to push it in the science fiction genre, little more. So many of the themes herein present similarly - we have a disadvantaged minority because it is admirable to be inclusive; we have an undeserved plight because those are trendy and compelling. Even the writing bore this trait; consider this sentence: "'This is it,' said Tischler, checking the number on the house against an address he had written down on a Post-it note in his hand, folded in half so that the adhesive strip was covered over." Description for description sake. Narration for the sake of narration. Does the use of the Post-it note tell us anything about the character? He's old-fashioned? Does the folding mean anything? Is Tischler obsessive compulsive? Does it come up again in the story? It tells us nothing, does nothing, means nothing. I'd guess that about a third of the book is filler of this kind. The descriptions have no weight, no purpose; they're not there to enrich the environment, build the character, or connect back to the plot. They're just they're because...well...if they weren't it would be a script for a TV movie. And I would have stopped flipping the channels and watched that movie on a lazy evening in 1997. I found it a vexing book in 2017....more
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