Inverted World

Christopher Priest's Inverted World is one of the few works of hard science fiction that I would consider recommending to those who are not avid readers of the genre, because I feel it works for several reasons, and the science fiction-related payoff isn't the main one.

There are several inversions here. The first, and most obvious one, is that our narrator lives in a city called "Earth" that moves on rails through the landscape of the unnamed planet the novel is set on.

The second, and more subtle one, is how this could be, in the hands of another author, a bildungsroman. It isn't. Our narrator doesn't change and grow, despite the fantastic experiences he has. In a different novel, he's the one delivering the stirring and revelatory speech towards the end. In this, he isn't.

One of the unusual devices in Inverted World is that the point of view shifts several times, from first to third person, and back again. While several points later in the novel wouldn't work if Priest had stuck with first, it feels a little ungainly.

There were times that I wished this wasn't a hard science fiction novel, but the entire thrust of the story doesn't necessarily work without the reveal on what's happening, how, and why. I just wish there was a better way to deliver it other than an exposition dump.

Inverted World definitely works well, but I can't help but feel that there's an even better novel in here that another author (or Priest, at another point in his career) could have gotten out. Still, would recommend.

The Glory of Their Times

This was a pleasure to read. This is essentially transcriptions of conversations with old ballplayers, written as if the old ballplayer is just spinning a yarn. As such, it's a very easy, and yes, enjoyable read.

Several things struck me: first, that most of the players interviewed were willing to give credit to the "modern" players (this book was compiled in the 60s) as being as good or better than their contemporaries. Secondly, how most of these players came very close to a lifetime working in the same trades as their fathers had, as farmers, miners, or tradesmen. (Although a few dropped out of college)

Most of these players are not household names -- the biggest is probably Paul Waner, but there are stories in this book about Cobb, Ruth, Walter Johnson, and the other greats of the era from their contemporaries. Since I am a bit of a baseball fan, I was familiar with most of the players who get a chapter here, but as numbers on baseball reference, not as people, so it was really interesting to get some insight into the men they were, and how the game was both so prevalent (every little town had a team, and that's where all of these guys seemingly got their start) and so small-time (ballplayers weren't paid well, and were seen as working class drunks and layabouts).

Would recommend.

The Third Reich

I was remarkably disappointed that the board game at the center of The Third Reich appears to be a real one, and that Bolaño has rendered the rules essentially faithfully. While the story does work with the real game, it doesn't need the game to be real. (With a different author, the game gets more elaborate, more complex, more involved, until Udo actually is commanding the armies of the Third Reich. But that's a novel that would be a lot different than this one, and more than likely, appreciably worse.)

In this novel, Bolaño explores the boundaries between constructs and reality, responsibility for history, and the hold memory (both cultural and personal) has on us.

Udo, our protagonist, is a bright guy, but he's not quite that bright. He doesn't seem to grasp the history here (at least he's on holiday in Spain, rather than another country), or that he's not always two moves ahead of everyone else. Sure, being the German champion of this particular wargame does mean you're a bright guy, but Udo seems to think it means he's always the smartest man in the room.

This meanders in a bit of a dreamscape for awhile, but it doesn't really come to a climax -- it just kind of peters out. The framing device of the novel (that this is a diary the protagonist is keeping so his writing will be better in the future) is transparently funny, given that this is something written earlier in the author's career.