A Sundial In A Grave
Oct. 27th, 2005 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alfvaenIt's been a while since my last book update, so here goes:
Norton Juster: The Phantom Tollbooth. Picked this one up from a $1 used-book bin at the grocery store. It had an interesting cover, and an interesting cover, so I thought, why not. I've got a "Kids' books" slot right now, which I use for various YA/juvenile books that I want to read, sometimes so I can get a handle on whether or not Simon would like them, and sometimes because there are good books that are aimed at kids. Anyway, this one hasn't necessarily aged well. Our everyboy protagonist goes voyaging through a realm populated by verbal metaphors(e.g. the "watchdog" who has a big watch in his back), and eventually manages to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason and restore harmony to the realm. It's got some interesting bits, but some of it seems to be pitched over the heads of kids, because a lot of the references won't make sense if you haven't heard the phrases they're referring to...
China Miéville: Iron Council. The most disappointing of the three books I've read so far, I think. It's got lots of interesting things in it--the battle between the various types of elementals and golems(few of them to found in your Monster Manual)was spellbinding--but it takes too long to gel, to even figure out what the hell is going on, to even find out what the viewpoint characters know about what's going on. Admittedly, the other books were slow to build, too, but I didn't think Iron Council had anywhere near as satisfying a resolution. Very strongly left-wing, too, to the extent that there are no sympathetic, and barely any "faceful", characters from the New Crobuzon government or kind of business, and that's a little off-putting for someone who's a little bit more moderate.
Michael G. Coney: Friends Come In Boxes. A nice short book, almost a novel but not quite. It's really five interlinked short stories set in an outlandish future. The premise, as explained in the prologue, is basically this: Immortality is guaranteed through the use of brain transplants. To keep the population down, all transplants are into newborn babies. (Assume they've overcome any physical problems with this.) In fact, it's illegal to have a baby and not turn it over to the government to have someone's brain transplanted into it. When you reach 40, your body is forfeit; if there's a body available for you(like if you're an important person and have Priority), you're transplanted right away--otherwise you go into a box, and onto a waiting list. You can talk and hear inside your box, and are called a "Friend", hence the title. Criminal behaviour--any kind of crime whatsoever, including failing to turn over your baby, or to report for body destruction when you turn 40--disqualifies you from immortality. Oh, and there's also "androids", which seem to really be like clones with a few harmless physical defects, but while android babies are more plentiful than human ones, humans are prejudiced against them and don't want them.
Sound overelaborate for a 180-page book? Perhaps. But Coney manages to pull five decent stories out of the mix, which would probably stand on their own but also work well in concert, as you see various characters from other points of view. Does it sound at all likely? No, not in the slightest, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
Matthew Hughes: Black Brillion. Set in the same far-future, more than somewhat Vancian world as his Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice, but with a different set of characters. It starts out as a sort of buddy-cop story, with the upright, rule-following newly-promoted cadet unwillingly paired with the newly-deputized conman he just arrested. But it quickly goes much deeper than that, into the Jungian collective unconscious and through several layers of deception. It's a fairly short book(by today's standards), and little is wasted--but even realizing that every offhand fact mentioned by or to the main characters is relevant to the final plot wasn't able to let me unravel the final plot. It's not quite as enjoyable as the first two books, I'd say, but intriguing nonetheless.
John DeChancie: Castle For Rent. Let me say, right off, that no renting whatsoever is involved in this Castle Perilous sequel. The main plot really involves Incarnadine, the master of the castle, who ends up trapped on Earth just before the Castle starts getting invaded through a formerly-blocked dimensional portal. We meet Incarnadine's family, which is heavily reminiscent of Amber, though he has fewer siblings than Corwin. The rest of the main characters from the first book spend most of their time getting chased around the castle and through other dimensional portals, but they manage to actually do something useful in the end. I seem to recall there's another three or four books in the series, but this book doesn't really inspire me to pick them up.
C.J. Cherryh: Finity's End. I've been reading so many of her atevi books recently, I was a little lost at first back in the Alliance/Union universe. The book is mostly a sequel to Downbelow Station, though featuring few, if any, of the same characters. Plotwise, on the other hand, it reminds me of Rimrunners, except on the other side of the border. While some of the politics in the background gets a little complicated, the main plot works quite well--the unwanted outsider trying to find a place, and yet resentful of being grabbed and forced into one he hasn't chosen for himself. Overall, one of her best books.
Terry Pratchett: The Colour of Magic. A reread, of course--it's been a long time since I read this one, actually. While it's true that Pratchett hasn't quite hit his stride yet, it's interesting to see some things for the first time. (Must...resist...urge...to start...Discworld...wiki...) Of the four stories that make up the book, I was interested to note that there was one of them that I completely did not remember. Which is why, I guess, I had forgotten that dragons on the Discworld are strictly creations of imagination, and don't really exist...a major plot point in the Discworld computer game, and possibly in one of the later books, IIRC.
Robet Jordan: Knife of Dreams. Oh, yes. I was still in the middle of Finity's End when we bought this one(new, in hardcover--one of three authors we'll do that for, and all three of them have new books this year...), so Nicole started it first, and still wasn't finished it when I finished the Cherryh book, so I went on to Colour of Magic. If I'd done it in the other order, I'm sure I could've finished the Pratchett over the long weekend(Canadian Thanksgiving/Columbus Day)and read the Jordan first, but, oh, well. How was the book? It was good! After the last couple of books managed to advance a lot of plotlines a little bit, this one managed to tie off quite a few major plot threads. I'll probably write a spoilerized post about it later, but let's just say that I enjoyed it a lot, I'm looking forward to the next(last?)one(though there were still supposed to be a couple of prequel novels coming, weren't there?), and hopefully I'll recover from Big Fantasy Novel Syndrome in time for the last of the year's hardcovers(A Feast For Crows).
Lemony Snicket: The Austere Academy. This one's also in my Kids' slot, I suppose. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I think it was funnier than some of the earlier ones. (This one is the fifth in the Series of Unfortunate Events, of what looks to be thirteen.) There were hints of an odd subplot involving the author, and it's beginning to seem like he has had some runins with the evil Count Olaf as well...guess I should try to read his Unauthorized Autobiography sometime. And...if you've seen the movie, and how there were hints that there was some secret society behind the scenes, this is the book where we actually first begin to get hints of that(they were retconned into the movie). They meet a pair of triplets whose parents also died in a mysterious fire, you see...and encounter a mysterious set of initials. I think my reading pace for the series will be picking up.
Dan Simmons: Olympos. This is my current read, but it's slow going. I'm still trying to remember what happened in the first book, Ilium--we haven't gotten back to one entire set of characters, as I recall--and yet I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. (It doesn't help that I keep getting Ilium mixed up in my head with the movie "Troy"...) I also don't have a handle on the motives for a lot of the characters yet. So, so far it's not quite measuring up to The Fall of Hyperion, but it may improve.
I'm also working my way through the latest Onion collection, Embedded In America. I actually bought it the same day as I started Knife of Dreams, but held off it until I'd finished the Jordan book. I keep forgetting how frustrating it is to read Onion collections, though, because they insist on putting all the articles in the newspaper format, where you have to keep flipping three pages ahead for the rest of the article... Maybe I should start reading more of it online again.
Norton Juster: The Phantom Tollbooth. Picked this one up from a $1 used-book bin at the grocery store. It had an interesting cover, and an interesting cover, so I thought, why not. I've got a "Kids' books" slot right now, which I use for various YA/juvenile books that I want to read, sometimes so I can get a handle on whether or not Simon would like them, and sometimes because there are good books that are aimed at kids. Anyway, this one hasn't necessarily aged well. Our everyboy protagonist goes voyaging through a realm populated by verbal metaphors(e.g. the "watchdog" who has a big watch in his back), and eventually manages to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason and restore harmony to the realm. It's got some interesting bits, but some of it seems to be pitched over the heads of kids, because a lot of the references won't make sense if you haven't heard the phrases they're referring to...
China Miéville: Iron Council. The most disappointing of the three books I've read so far, I think. It's got lots of interesting things in it--the battle between the various types of elementals and golems(few of them to found in your Monster Manual)was spellbinding--but it takes too long to gel, to even figure out what the hell is going on, to even find out what the viewpoint characters know about what's going on. Admittedly, the other books were slow to build, too, but I didn't think Iron Council had anywhere near as satisfying a resolution. Very strongly left-wing, too, to the extent that there are no sympathetic, and barely any "faceful", characters from the New Crobuzon government or kind of business, and that's a little off-putting for someone who's a little bit more moderate.
Michael G. Coney: Friends Come In Boxes. A nice short book, almost a novel but not quite. It's really five interlinked short stories set in an outlandish future. The premise, as explained in the prologue, is basically this: Immortality is guaranteed through the use of brain transplants. To keep the population down, all transplants are into newborn babies. (Assume they've overcome any physical problems with this.) In fact, it's illegal to have a baby and not turn it over to the government to have someone's brain transplanted into it. When you reach 40, your body is forfeit; if there's a body available for you(like if you're an important person and have Priority), you're transplanted right away--otherwise you go into a box, and onto a waiting list. You can talk and hear inside your box, and are called a "Friend", hence the title. Criminal behaviour--any kind of crime whatsoever, including failing to turn over your baby, or to report for body destruction when you turn 40--disqualifies you from immortality. Oh, and there's also "androids", which seem to really be like clones with a few harmless physical defects, but while android babies are more plentiful than human ones, humans are prejudiced against them and don't want them.
Sound overelaborate for a 180-page book? Perhaps. But Coney manages to pull five decent stories out of the mix, which would probably stand on their own but also work well in concert, as you see various characters from other points of view. Does it sound at all likely? No, not in the slightest, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
Matthew Hughes: Black Brillion. Set in the same far-future, more than somewhat Vancian world as his Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice, but with a different set of characters. It starts out as a sort of buddy-cop story, with the upright, rule-following newly-promoted cadet unwillingly paired with the newly-deputized conman he just arrested. But it quickly goes much deeper than that, into the Jungian collective unconscious and through several layers of deception. It's a fairly short book(by today's standards), and little is wasted--but even realizing that every offhand fact mentioned by or to the main characters is relevant to the final plot wasn't able to let me unravel the final plot. It's not quite as enjoyable as the first two books, I'd say, but intriguing nonetheless.
John DeChancie: Castle For Rent. Let me say, right off, that no renting whatsoever is involved in this Castle Perilous sequel. The main plot really involves Incarnadine, the master of the castle, who ends up trapped on Earth just before the Castle starts getting invaded through a formerly-blocked dimensional portal. We meet Incarnadine's family, which is heavily reminiscent of Amber, though he has fewer siblings than Corwin. The rest of the main characters from the first book spend most of their time getting chased around the castle and through other dimensional portals, but they manage to actually do something useful in the end. I seem to recall there's another three or four books in the series, but this book doesn't really inspire me to pick them up.
C.J. Cherryh: Finity's End. I've been reading so many of her atevi books recently, I was a little lost at first back in the Alliance/Union universe. The book is mostly a sequel to Downbelow Station, though featuring few, if any, of the same characters. Plotwise, on the other hand, it reminds me of Rimrunners, except on the other side of the border. While some of the politics in the background gets a little complicated, the main plot works quite well--the unwanted outsider trying to find a place, and yet resentful of being grabbed and forced into one he hasn't chosen for himself. Overall, one of her best books.
Terry Pratchett: The Colour of Magic. A reread, of course--it's been a long time since I read this one, actually. While it's true that Pratchett hasn't quite hit his stride yet, it's interesting to see some things for the first time. (Must...resist...urge...to start...Discworld...wiki...) Of the four stories that make up the book, I was interested to note that there was one of them that I completely did not remember. Which is why, I guess, I had forgotten that dragons on the Discworld are strictly creations of imagination, and don't really exist...a major plot point in the Discworld computer game, and possibly in one of the later books, IIRC.
Robet Jordan: Knife of Dreams. Oh, yes. I was still in the middle of Finity's End when we bought this one(new, in hardcover--one of three authors we'll do that for, and all three of them have new books this year...), so Nicole started it first, and still wasn't finished it when I finished the Cherryh book, so I went on to Colour of Magic. If I'd done it in the other order, I'm sure I could've finished the Pratchett over the long weekend(Canadian Thanksgiving/Columbus Day)and read the Jordan first, but, oh, well. How was the book? It was good! After the last couple of books managed to advance a lot of plotlines a little bit, this one managed to tie off quite a few major plot threads. I'll probably write a spoilerized post about it later, but let's just say that I enjoyed it a lot, I'm looking forward to the next(last?)one(though there were still supposed to be a couple of prequel novels coming, weren't there?), and hopefully I'll recover from Big Fantasy Novel Syndrome in time for the last of the year's hardcovers(A Feast For Crows).
Lemony Snicket: The Austere Academy. This one's also in my Kids' slot, I suppose. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I think it was funnier than some of the earlier ones. (This one is the fifth in the Series of Unfortunate Events, of what looks to be thirteen.) There were hints of an odd subplot involving the author, and it's beginning to seem like he has had some runins with the evil Count Olaf as well...guess I should try to read his Unauthorized Autobiography sometime. And...if you've seen the movie, and how there were hints that there was some secret society behind the scenes, this is the book where we actually first begin to get hints of that(they were retconned into the movie). They meet a pair of triplets whose parents also died in a mysterious fire, you see...and encounter a mysterious set of initials. I think my reading pace for the series will be picking up.
Dan Simmons: Olympos. This is my current read, but it's slow going. I'm still trying to remember what happened in the first book, Ilium--we haven't gotten back to one entire set of characters, as I recall--and yet I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. (It doesn't help that I keep getting Ilium mixed up in my head with the movie "Troy"...) I also don't have a handle on the motives for a lot of the characters yet. So, so far it's not quite measuring up to The Fall of Hyperion, but it may improve.
I'm also working my way through the latest Onion collection, Embedded In America. I actually bought it the same day as I started Knife of Dreams, but held off it until I'd finished the Jordan book. I keep forgetting how frustrating it is to read Onion collections, though, because they insist on putting all the articles in the newspaper format, where you have to keep flipping three pages ahead for the rest of the article... Maybe I should start reading more of it online again.
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Date: 2005-10-28 05:28 pm (UTC)Knife of Dreams
Date: 2005-10-29 09:52 pm (UTC)Re: Knife of Dreams
Date: 2005-11-01 05:37 pm (UTC)