Destination: Void

Although we have a limited setting and a small cast of characters, this isn’t to be mistaken for a diorama. Our characters aren’t very fleshed out, and we never really get inside their heads – this is a screen on which to project artificial intelligence. To borrow a metaphor from the book, this is tossing ink on a spider’s web.

From a hard science fiction point of view, the plot here is a little silly – a project based on the Moon is sending out ships full of clones that will be destroyed if they get too close to unleashing something terrible upon humanity? That’s either a colossal waste of resources, or, if the resources are as cheap as the book seems to imply, a colossal waste of time, since if the resources are practically infinite, why bother? One could argue that the development of AI is so important that the researchers involved are willing to throw these resources at it even though they themselves, nor anyone on Earth, will ever benefit, but even that generous reading strains credulity, given what we see in the prologue.

What Herbert does best (as he does in Dune) is the contrast between internal and external dialogue – unfortunately, even with the deception and lies of omission there, there really isn’t a large amount of tension (and that’s with one of the crew being a potential traitor). Secondly, the problems the makeshift crew have with piloting and navigating the ship never seem to rise to the level of critical – Herbert attempts to convey the stress caused by sitting at the bridge, and how some problems simply can’t be diagnosed with the equipment they have on hand, but it never seems quite right, and while the stakes are represented as high, the behavior is not.

The behavior of the crew isn’t necessarily what would be expected, either, given the circumstances. The action begins in media res, with three of the six original crew members dead. They choose to wake only one replacement from the hibernation tanks, in a decision that isn’t really too deeply touched on. There’s also a weird thread of sexual undertone running through the novel, which almost makes it seem as though Herbert cut a more fully formed romantic subplot when he updated the novel (for developments in the field of psychiatry, but what author can’t be tempted to edit what didn’t work?)

I probably would recommend this – even with the problems above, and an ending that feels tacked on (like Dune), this is a fun ride. Is it perfect? No. It works better as an adventure story than a parable or a warning, and after Dune, I don't feel compelled to seek out the sequels.

Dilvish, the Damned/The Changing Land

Dilvish the Damned was not written as a novel; it’s a collection of linked stories featuring the same protagonist. The framing device reads as episodic, as we skip what would be major plot points in another novel. 

Each “chapter” of Dilvish, the Damned begins in media res – since these are all linked short stories, we get a “novel” with the device of significant events being elided. One story will be looking towards overcoming a particular obstacle – and then the story afterwards will be set after the obstacle has been overcome. It’s less a novel than a linked series of vignettes. It works, but it’s not quite a unique enough device to not make me wish that the story was more conventionally told.

The Changing Land is set as a sequel to Dilvish, the Damned, and is written as a novel, so it’s a little less frustrating to follow. It’s essentially a dungeon crawl, which is both kind of cool and, given Zelazny’s inclusion on the recommend reading list to the initial Dungeons & Dragons, unsurprising.

Dilvish is your typical Zelazny protagonist – hypercompetent, wisecracking, notorious. If the first novel hadn’t grown out of short stories, I’d question whether he really needs two novels devoted to his arc. Not that the novels aren’t fun – they certainly are, even if they’re markedly different in tone and pacing.

The ending of each book is a little disappointing, and almost makes me wish that Dilvish hadn’t gotten a resolution, and that Zelazny had continued to flesh out the world.

2016 Reads that I did not write up

Roger Zelazny - Dilvish, the Damned, and The Changing Land
Frank Herbert - Destination: Void
Matt Ruff - The Mirage
Rebecca Skloot - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart


 I'll try to get to all of these in the upcoming weeks.

A Little Lumpen Novelita

For a novel that begins with ". . .not long ago I led a life of crime.", this is banal. Of course, that's what Bolaño traffics in.

The treatment of sex in A Little Lumpen Novelita is a sharp contrast between how it's treated in Jim Harrison's The Big Seven. Our narrator here treats sex almost as something that just happens, even if she initiates it. It's not an all consuming drive, or a constant thought. If there are details, they're clinical, as opposed to gratuitous.

Bolaño's work is both realistic and dreamlike for me because there isn't necessarily a clean break or a turning point -- things just kind of peter out. The randomness gives the work a verisimilitude that more classically delineated novels lack.

That said, there's just not a lot here. Maybe that's something I should have expected, given the title. Not that it's bad by any means -- it just feels a little misshapen and abrupt.

The Big Seven

The Big Seven is a little ridiculous. Maybe more than a little ridiculous. Harrison pitched it as a "faux mystery" because the mystery isn't necessarily the point, and I can buy that. Unfortunately, the point appears to be to wander through the head of a sex-obsessed retired cop.

The Big Seven is a meditation on the twilight of one's life, on sex, on violence, and man's inability to change. There isn't exactly depth here -- the man whose psyche we spend the novel rattling around in isn't a deep or a profound thinker, even if he is very well read. I assume there's more than a little of Harrison in that.

I don't know how representative this is of Harrison's work in general -- I'll have to give him another chance, because this didn't totally grab me.

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.

The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made

This was a pretty big disappointment -- mostly because I couldn't care less about many of the properties involved, but also because there's a large amount of gossip that's only hinted at. Most of the pull quotes are pretty far from juicy. It certainly doesn't help that several of the projects that were stuck in Development Hell.

Wouldn't recommend except to those who are very into inside Hollywood, and maybe not even then.

The Spanish Civil War

I was recommended this work by a poster on a baseball forum, which I suppose is as good a place as any to get history recommendations. Recognized (not just by baseball enthusiasts!) as a comprehensive place to begin study of the Spanish Civil War, it's long(ish), detailed, heavily footnoted, with an extensive bibliography, and revised several times (most recently in 2011) to ensure that it reflects the most up-to-date scholarship on the subject.

Am I enough of an expert on the Spanish Civil War that I can say whether or not this is the best introductory work on the subject? No, of course not. Thomas doesn't trip my bullshit detector, for the most part (which is worth something in a conflict that still arouses strong feelings among late era partisans), and he generally does try to puncture some of the myths told about the conflict. Where he does appear to get a lot of criticism is for glossing over the Spanish Revolution (the anarchist movement in Catalonia, among other places), but I feel he covers this in a decent amount of detail. (Although I will reserve further judgment until I've read some more).

I'd recommend this, potentially to another reader on a baseball forum.

Island on Fire

Island on Fire is a fun little book that shows the importance of good primary sourcing. Witze and Kanipe draw very heavily on the diary of Jon Steingrimsson, a parish priest at the time of the eruption of Laki.

This is where I hear "Laki? I don't know of a volcano by that name," which is true for the intended audience of this book. Laki being a volcano that erupted in 1783 in Iceland, having a devastating effect on the community served by Jon (as our authors call him), and serious effects on the climate of both Europe and the Northern hemisphere as a whole.

From the community overview we move to Europe and the rest of the world, finishing with a look at Iceland today and potentially disruptive volcanoes around the world. It's a short, easy read, and a fun pop science look at something most of us are unfamiliar with.

The Iowa Baseball Confederacy

I wish I'd read this book when I was 16 years old -- it's the kind of book that can make a fantastic impression on a kid. Unfortunately, reading it later in life takes out some of the unbridled joy that I think I would have felt reading this as a kid. I wonder if there's a better novel lurking in here -- one where Kinsella shows, rather than tells.

Not that this was unenjoyable, I just think this could have been more than it was.

The Trial

The Trial reads like a nightmare or a joke, and for some time, our protagonist is convinced that fun is being had at his expense. Kafka is often read (to the chagrin of the writer of the introduction) as allegory, but this can be read straight.

There's a feeling of inevitability here, as the machinery grinds on Josef K until we reach our conclusion -- he's never as in control as he seems to think he is.

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me

I was pretty skeptical about this anthology, but it was no more uneven than most others, and there were some standouts here.

Alissa Nutting's "The Brother and the Bird" gives the volume its title, Brian Evenson's "Dapplegrim" is a compelling take on a story with which I was until now unfamiliar, and Aimee Bender's "The Color Master" was a quite evocative.

It was really interesting to see a lot of stories that I was not familiar with, even in the European tradition, and see several disparate takes on the same tale.

Worth paging through, at least.

Angelmaker

Angelmaker isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's a lot of fun. A story of a man rebuking his father's criminal past by living a straight-and-narrow lifestyle, of an aged former spy trying to stop a Doomsday Device, and a mysterious order of monks.

Nick Harkaway names his protagonist "Joe Spork," and then never comments on the name further, other than to lay out Joe's ancestry (father, career criminal, mother, joined a convent within the past ten years, grandfather, a clockmaker and artisan, grandmother, mysteriously absent.) Joe's ancestry sets up a tension that's central to his chapters: his repudiation of his father's criminal ways, and his embracing his grandfather's honest living, makes it tougher for him to deal with the problems that crop up throughout the course of the novel; what to do when you need information, and your best sources of that are from a past where your father was a notorious gangster?

Unfortunately, this dilemma is more or less all the characterization we get on our protagonist, who is overshadowed by supporting characters, such as the elderly former spy, her cartoonish nemesis, and an underworld figure or two. We even get a love interest who's nearly as much of a blank slate as Joe is. Luckily, this isn't a deep, psychological novel where that would be a killing blow; it's pulpy fun, and that's merely a minor negative here.

The Buried Giant

One of the perks of being a respected author is that you don't wind up in the fantasy ghetto, even if you write what looks like a fantasy novel. I would argue that The Buried Giant, while set in a fantasy world, isn't so much a fantasy novel as it is an allegory; for memory, and for a long-term relationship.

The Buried Giant plays with Arthurian legend, but just as scaffolding; the story could be set in any other country, with another set of mythology. The real story here is between the aged married couple, Axl and Beatrice (which, as our author notes "[p]erhaps these were not their exact or full names, but for ease, this is how we will refer to them.") Our story begins with Axl and Beatrice in their village, where they are disrespected and mistreated, so they decide to journey to their son's village, despite having little memory of him, where the village is, or if he'd be happy to see them.

Axl and Beatrice (as well as nearly everyone else we encounter in the story) have problems with memory; events that occur mere hours earlier fade in people's minds, and events of a few weeks ago are all but gone, unless prompted by others. Why and how is slowly revealed over the course of the story, as Axl and Beatrice travel their (limited) world, in search of their son's village (which is described as a few day's walk away).

I read a review which describes The Buried Giant as "Game of Thrones with a conscience," which I can't agree with; this isn't a large, lush, fleshed out fantasy world, and Ishiguro isn't given to exposition dumps. Information is hinted at before being stated outright, and some things never do get stated or explained. This is done to underscore the fragility and transience of memory, even through the (foreshadowed and ambiguous) ending.

I think I'd like to revisit this again at some point -- a second look might make some things clearer.

The Six-Gun Tarot

I was recommended The Six-Gun Tarot by an AV Club review some time ago, and I'm glad I picked it up. It's a fun Western fantasy set in a world much like ours, but not quite. (Actually, it almost feels like it is set in our world, just with Golgotha soaking up all the fantasy elements before they get to the rest of us.)

Golgotha is a very hodgepodge Western fantasy setting; there's a Chinatown, Mormons, Indian legends, other religious trappings, heads in jars, a member of an ancient order of assassins, and some sort of Lovecraftian horror. That sounds kitchen sink-y as all hell, and it's a credit to Belcher that he pulls it off.

Some criticisms: the book feels almost episodic, in an in-media-res sense -- characters will refer to a wacky or supernatural event from the past, and it'll be just brushed aside. With juggling many characters and arcs, some of them can get a little bogged down. I'm not sure how I feel about the treatment of women here; there's one character whose entire life story feels like a tragedy, and another who feels like she never quite got where the author wanted her to go.

All in all, this is a fun fantasy novel that doesn't drag too much and is worth checking out.

Legacy of Ashes

Legacy of Ashes is a pretty damning read (so damning that it merits a review/rebuttal on the CIA's official website, which I did not find particularly convincing). Weiner takes his title from Eisenhower, describing the failures of building a capable intelligence agency.

Legacy of Ashes is a bit frustrating, in that two repeating themes are that the agency can't find good analysts and/or covert operatives, and that the agency is constantly bleeding talent. Which is it? It could be turnover (employees hired, trained, then leave immediately for more lucrative work in the private sector, as Weiner documents happening during the Iraq War), or it's inconsequential, because these people don't know what they're doing, anyway. The CIA's rank-and-file, when they are mentioned, don't come off particularly well -- unable to speak foreign languages, unfamiliar with cultures, continually producing bad analysis, etc.

Legacy of Ashes reads as a litany of obfuscation, willful ignorance, and legerdemain on the part of the CIA's various directors (particularly Allen Dulles), and their attitudes towards the rest of the government, as well as other members of the CIA. There are times in the 50s (as well as the 60s, and 70s) where the right hand (analysis) didn't know what the left hand (covert action) was doing. I don't think any of the Presidents come off well, either; either asking the CIA to act against its charter, or authorizing missions with sketchy scope.

Unfortunately, it feels like Weiner starts skimming towards the end of the book. Some of this just may be due to events beyond his control, in that it's more easy to have something declassified from fifty years ago, as opposed to five-to-ten. But the agency does start to come across a little better post-Vietnam, even with the Latin American meddling and arms-for-hostages.

This is a pretty damning indictment, even if it is less than perfect; it paints a picture of an agency that has difficulty finding its ass with both hands, and given US foreign policy post-World War II, that unfortunately sounds about right. Worth reading to just shake your head.

God's Chinese Son

God's Chinese Son came highly recommended to me, and I can't quite decide if it truly measures up to those praises. On the one hand, going into this, I knew almost nothing about the Taiping Rebellion, or Hong Xiuquan, the man who led it. From that perspective, this is a success, in that I'm conversant in what happened. But I don't feel that Spence did a great job placing the rebellion in context, or revealing its scope, or the long-lasting effects; it almost feels like my copy has lacunae of several chapters. I will praise Spence strongly for his placement of one chapter, though -- just as I was wondering "what do the Westerners in China, especially the missionaries and representatives of foreign governments, think of Hong Xiuquan's pecular brand of Christianity?" Immediately after thinking this, I turned the page to a chapter devoted to answering that question.

Not that this was an easy job for Spence; the tenth chapter, "Earth War" begins as follows:

There is no precise moment at which we can say the Taiping move from tension with the Qing state to open confrontation, but clearly in 1850 their provocations mount steadily until war becomes inevitable.

This is then followed by a litany of potential military moves: Hong Xiuquan wearing imperial yellow, instructions from Jesus to fight, the assembling and arming of troops, the posting of sentries, the lighting of signal fires, et cetera, before initial armed conflict begins, and Hong Xiuquan proclaims the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The chapters that follow trace out the rebellion (some historians prefer to use "civil war") more or less chronologically, with the occasional stopping/retracing of steps to more fully flesh out another figure (such as the "East King", Yang Xiuqing, who was alleged to speak with the voice of God). Notes are extensive, although more often than not, they just point to a source and do not elaborate on the point. Mildly unfortunate.

While I feel that this is occasionally missing something (not context, but maybe a bigger picture), this is something I would strongly recommend.

The Guns of August

I'm not sure if there's anything I can say about Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August that hasn't been said already. It's nothing if not tight, though -- yes, it's not a short work, and the subject matter isn't easily and quickly distilled, but Tuchman retains her focus throughout.

Tuchman starts with the funeral of King Edward VII in 1910:

"the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last."

and moves with deftness through the pre-war conditions, of the Germans, the French, the Russians, and the British, as well as the psychology that drove those plans -- of Kaiser Wilhelm, of the French generals, of the Czar and the general staff, and the British government.

 How many children witness something that impresses them enough in early childhood to write a book featuring the incident? How many of those stories would be noteworthy? As a child, Tuchman (along with her family) witnessed the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben's mad dash across the Mediterranean to Constantinople, fleeing British pursuit, who had realized too late that she wasn't making a break for the Atlantic. In a paper move, she was purchased by the Ottoman government, and spent the rest of the war in their service. Tuchman (as she notes in the introduction) was fascinated by this, and incorporates it into her narrative. Is it wholly necessary? Not entirely, but it helps set the stage of the naval war. I would have preferred the Battle of the Falkland Islands have been incorporated, but that was in December, rather than August (although Tuchman sometimes reaches into early September and October)

I'm not sure that I know enough about the First World War to say that this is a comprehensive account of August 1914, but there's a wealth of information here, about both what actually happened, and the motivations of those actors, drawn from letters and memoirs.

I was honestly hoping this would be more about the July Crisis, but Tuchman's extensive account of the first month is so masterful, I was very disappointed when it ended on the eve of the First Battle of the Marne. Recommended highly.