Novel

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Olympos

7 September 2009 in Novel | No comments

By Dan Simmons.
Begun 04 July 2009; finished 12 July.
Review written 14 July 2009.

Ilium, Dan Simmons’ science fiction adaptation of Homer’s Iliad, ended with the scholic Hockenberry’s successful turning of the Greeks and Trojans against the gods on Mount Olympus, and Earth’s posthumans’ epiphany of their collective history and existence. Nevertheless, Ilium had only started to uncover the greater truths, and there were still many puzzles that have not been resolved yet. Olympos is the novel that promises to bring all the storylines together and reveal all the mysteries — and it does, albeit in a byzantine and flawed manner.

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Stardust

5 September 2009 in Novel | No comments

By Neil Gaiman.
Begun 15 June 2009; finished 22 June.
Review written 14 July 2009.

Neil Gaiman is good at writing timeless stories where there is no sense of time and and historical place, but the story could take place at any time you can imagine. That’s the quality of the Sandman graphic novels, and also Stardust. Gaiman’s fairy tale of a young man from a village who goes on a quest into Faery to bring back a fallen star for his beau — but discovers that desires and sentiments change, and he is destined for more than just a simple village life.

A fine fairy tale, mixing elements of various mythologies, and with a characteristically Gaiman ending — ambivalent, realist, and neither tragic or happily ever after. A good story, but like all of Gaiman’s other works, impersonal and a bit detached. I’ve never been able to warm to Gaiman’s stories or characters, and he’s never invited me to. So far I remain appreciative but indifferent to his writing.

I also had a chance to look at the graphic novel of Stardust, illustrated by Charles Vess. (It’s actually the novel with copious illustrations.) Vess’ artistic style doesn’t capture me, but it is colourful, intricate and fairy-like, and appropriate for the story. I also saw snatches of the movie adaptation, and whilst I can understand the movie’s very different ending, I prefer the novel’s ending much more.

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Two Tales of Henghis Hapthorn

5 September 2009 in Novel | 3 comments

Being, Majestrum and The Spiral Labyrinth.
By Matthew Hughes.
Begun 29 May 2009; finished 13 June.
For ‘10 Books From My Library’ reading challenge.
Review written 14 July 2009.

If you like the wit and humour of Charles Dickens or Terry Pratchett, an anachronistic “gaslight romance”-esque setting where technology and magic clash and meld together, and light-hearted, optimistic detective stories, Matthew Hughes’ tales of Henghis Hapthorn will surely appeal to you. These stories are set in a very distant future that could well be fantastical, in an age where Reason, or “linear rationalism”, and its attendant technologies prevail. But the forces of Magic, or “sympathetic association”, are on the rise in this universe, and they intrude prematurely into the life of Henghis Hapthorn, Old Earth’s foremost freelance detective. Hapthorn’s sensible, orderly and logical life is thrown out of kilter when his integrator (an A.I. or computer) transforms into a small fruit-eating mammal, and the intuitive part of his psyche takes on a persona of its own, essentially becoming a separate person but sharing the same body. The two novels of Majestrum and The Spiral Labyrinth follow Hapthorn as he struggles to cope with this (to him) infuriating situation, all the while tackling two mysterious cases which ultimately bring him to the chaotic interface of Reason and Intuition/Magic.

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Eyes of the Calculor

1 August 2009 in Novel | 2 comments

By Sean McMullen.
Begun 22 May 2009; finished 29 May.

I had the misfortune of reading Sean McMullen’s Greatwinter trilogy out of order — The Miocene Arrow before Souls in the Great Machine — and have finally read Eyes of the Calculor almost 3 years late, when I’d forgotten much of the previous two books. But memories began to come back, and I was able to recall the backstories to some degree and understand the entire series as a whole. As these novels run together with little pause, I recommend that you don’t do as I did, and instead read the series in quick succession before you forget the details (of which there are many).

The Greatwinter trilogy is about a future-Earth where the human race, after a series of apocalyptic catastrophes followed by a long “dark age”, has rebuilt into a agrarian, semi-technological civilization. It is a saga spanning continents, cultures and numerous characters, and could be best described as a future-Earth geopolitical epic.

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Zoe’s Tale

31 July 2009 in Novel | 1 comment

By John Scalzi.
Begun 16 May 2009; finished 21 May.

Zoe’s Tale complements The Last Colony (complete Scalzi review), as a retelling of the same events of the earlier novel from the point of view of Zoë Boutin-Perry, the adopted daughter of John and Jane Perry. Whilst it is essentially the same story of the human colony colonizing the new planet of Roanoke amidst astro-political upheaval and warring between the human Colonial Union and the alien Conclave, it is narrated in Zoë’s distinct voice, provides a new perspective on the same events, and fills in some gaps that weren’t dealt with in The Last Colony.

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Winging Home

23 May 2009 in Non-Fiction, Novel | 1 comment

By Harold Rhenisch.
Begun 13 May 2009; finished 16 May.
For ‘10 Books From My Library’ reading challenge.

“The robins have an advantage over the cats: they see the whole scene … all at once. For them, there is only the flock. The individual robin itself — the bird that sees — is the only point of absence in the world: it is the other robins that are present. This kind of Stalinist social organization drives the predatory cats wild, for they are obsessed with presence, with strong borders mapped between the self and everything else. They are the great, Romantic individualists.” (p. 19)

“Geese are the border guards between Hungary and Austria in 1973. Their heads are full of maps about who lives where, what stamp they need on their visas, the countries you’d rather they didn’t live in, the countries you’d rather you didn’t live in. … The geese come in like Flying Fortresses on a bombing run over Hamburg. One particularly persistent pair has chosen the north shore of our lake. These two are the kind of geese who wear matching leather jackets from his amateur bowling league: she sits close to him, in the centre seat of the pickup, and his driving is not exactly straight. They have been coming in for years now — a big gander and his more dimunitive goose. He takes a 44 chest. He played football in high school. She’s a size 6 petite. In all this time … they have never raised a gosling on the lake. That’s a pretty impressive record.” (p. 61-62)

“The whole reason for the kafuffle was that the otters had shown up. Otters are the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police]. They are not birds. They don’t have a sense of humour.” (p. 76)

“The cranes return in the fall, when the air vibrates like a glass of red wine, a rounded mouthful of music in tones of copper and wool died with onionskins, chrysanthemums, and black currants. After the first frosts, the yellow leaves are streaming off the poplars so rapidly it sems they will never stop — as if in their shifting, musical rustle the tree is generating leaves as quickly as it casts them off. A thin skin of ice lays up in the bay, along and among the reeds. … When I hear the cries of the sandhill cranes today I am no longer standing in space, with evanescent gusts of time blowing over me, but am standing in time. It is a solid country. It is space that is a thin veil of cobwebs blowing in a cold October wind now, a thousand little tents of frost in the morning grass, vanishing as the day rises.” (p. 187-188)

“Suddenly [the owl] was there, in a tall dead aspen above the bulrushes. The moon floated behind her shoulder, huge and cold, rimmed by tiny prisms of broken light. The owl watched me without blinking and all time vanished. She stared at me for a million years.” (p. 209)

…And I can keep quoting luminous, entrancing prose from this luminous, entrancing book by Harold Rhenisch. Read the rest of this entry »

King Rat

23 May 2009 in Novel | 1 comment

By China Miéville.
Begun 06 May 2009; finished 09 May.
For ‘10 Books From My Library’ reading challenge.

King Rat is a story about Saul Garamond, who, after being arrested for allegedly murdering his father, is visited by a mysterious figure who reveals to him his dark, otherworldly origins. Saul, having no choice or worldly attachments, leaves behind his known world of human beings and descends into the literal underground of London city to discover his heritage. At the sametime, several of Saul’s friends, including a drum ‘n bass DJ, are approached by a strange musician, who wants to collaborate with the DJ in her music-making. This collaboration takes a sinister turn, and it seems this stranger is seeking to destroy Saul and all that he represents…

King Rat is China Miéville’s first novel, and it shows. Many elements that are full-fledged and recognizably Miéville in Perdido Street Station and The Scar, are still being explored, developed and polished here. Read the rest of this entry »

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Firebird trilogy

23 May 2009 in Novel | No comments

Being Firebird, Fusion Fire, and Crown of Fire.
By Kathy Tyers.
Begun 26 Apr 2009; finished 06 May.
For ‘10 Books From My Library’ reading challenge.

I received the Firebird trilogy as a gift at the end of high school… and only now have I read it in its entirety, in one sitting. It definitely wins awards as being some of the oldest books in my library, but unread for the longest time. And the fault is wholly mine: ever since I read Firebird, the excellent first book, I was probably subconsciously afraid to read the others, for fear that they wouldn’t live up to the wonderful beginning. (I guess that’s why I take so long to get through the authors whom I love upon first reading, because I’m afraid the love may prove to be short-lived or a ‘passing madness’.)

Despite all these real and imagined expectations, I have finally read Fusion Fire and Crown of Fire — the entire trilogy all through. And what a relief! Kathy Tyers acquitted herself well, and the love I felt toward Firebird did not fade with the subsequent books. Indeed, I found myself returning to all of them, to flip through and read my favourite scenes. This is a good series. Well done, well done. *wipes brow with relief*

So what is the Firebird trilogy about, and why do I love it so much? Read the rest of this entry »

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