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Catherynne M. Valente – Palimpsest

2010-08-30

Title: Palimpsest
Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Year: 2009

Palimpsest is the last of six novels I read of those nominated for this year’s Hugo Award. I started reading without any preconceptions whatsoever (I even had to check a dictionary to know what “Palimpsest” meant), but this book turned out to be excitingly creative in more ways than one. If you ask me, it shouldn’t win the Hugo (more about the award in a another post), but I think it was more than worthwhile to read it.

The story opens up with a long streak of more or less weird scenes featuring sexual intercourse with one of the participants having a map-like tattoo somewhere on his or her body. The intricate lines describe the topology of Palimpsest, a city that can only be reached in sleep by combining one’s own map with that of another person’s. The novel opens up with a number of these scenes, which means a little bit too much sex in too few pages, but this stops as soon as the four main characters, initially separated in their own very special lives, begin to gravitate towards Palimpsest.

This novel has three merits. The first is that it is a cornucopia of small but brilliant ideas; it’s a pity they aren’t connected to form a better whole, but there are enough small wonders to make the reading interesting all the way through. The third is that the characters are unique and well-portrayed, and yet feel credible.

The third merit is that the language is poetic in a way I have seldom seen. It’s not only beautiful, but it also sets my imagination spinning. Here is an example where one of the main characters is served a small bird at a dinner party in Palimpsest:

November veils herself and takes the finch by its roasted beak, pushing it into her mouth with two fingers, her remaining blessings. It is sweet, at first, the burnished skin and meat, glazed in something like brandy and something like plum wine. But as she chews—methodically, for it fills her mouth to bursting—the organs rupture, bitter and bilious, a taste like despair, like the loss of love. And deeper, the bones shiver and crack and cut her—the taste of her blood flows in, salty as tears shed over a ruined body, mingling with the marrow, and it is sweet again, sweet as herself, herself remaining at the end of all trials. And November can see why the veil is needed. No god should bear witness to a woman devouring a meal of herself.

Here is another one, shorter, but which doesn’t need much introduction:

Sunday, as is its nature, was slow in coming, but it found her eventually, nosed her out with its beatific muzzle, and found her sitting in the seedy grass of Caracalla, waiting, her heart racing itself in circles around nothing.

The fascinating fact is that I could have quoted half the book, it’s all written like this. It’s written in a way that I would like to be able to write, and it makes the book worthwhile regardless of its shortcomings.

Alas, there are major problems with this book. The beginning contains way too much of the same thing (i.e. sex with weird people in weird situations). The pieces of the parallel stories never really fit together, giving me the feeling that this is a fantastic image of a city, but a shattered one where I have to piece the shards together to form something meaningful. This can be beautiful or effective in itself, but I simply don’t think the author has succeed in this regard.

By way of conclusion, I’m thrilled by the language in Palimpsest and by Valente’s audacity. However, I’m also a bit disappointed that these characteristics didn’t result in a novel that was absolutely stunning, which it has the potential to be. I give this book four snails, but I wish I could have given it more.

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Robert Charles Wilson – Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

2010-08-21

Title: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America
Author: Robert Charles Wilson
Year: 2009

A problem with reading science fiction is that, at least on the surface, many excellent books look like they contain nothing of interest, like they are ruminated versions of tales told a hundred times. Some of these books turn out to be truly excellent (I Am Legend, Oryx and Crake and The Road come to mind), but sadly, others turn out to be just that, a well-known concept or setting used again with no added spice and no added flavour. The only thing that it stirs within me is the question whether or not  I should continue reading so much in the genre.

This is what Robert Charles Wilson’s Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America is to me. It’s set in a low-tech, post-apocalyptic America where political intrigues has forced Julian Comstock, the nephew of the incumbent president, to hide out in the countryside. He there encounters Adam, the narrator, and they become good friends and experience lots of adventures together; being forcefully drafted into the army is only the beginning of their travails. The events of the story are interesting, but very few compared to the number of pages (over 400). It’s a solid setting, but I require more than that.

The novel is separated into a number of parts, and after reading the first one, I felt moderately excited. The writing style was solid and the action was good. However, everything faded away after the first part, and the remaining pages (perhaps two thirds) felt like a very, very long epilogue. That’s not good. I will go as far as to say that I think this book is outright bad. There are interesting bits, but they are few and far between.

Which is a pity, because I know that Wilson can write better books (see Spin, for instance). He has a style which might be good if he only used it to write more compelling stories (he usually gets the characters right). This novel is too long by far, and it’s also the worst I’ve read so far of the Hugo-Award nominees this year. Now only Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente remains before I can tell you which book should win the award. Reading Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America has at least made sure that I have one book less to take into consideration later.

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Robert J. Sawyer – Wake

2010-06-25

Title: Wake
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Year: 2010

Being a young American girl just starting a new life in a Canadian city might be a complicated undertaking all in itself, but since Caitlin is blind, it becomes even more so. As we slowly get introduced to Caitlin’s life, which is full of interesting details about blindness that are obvious when mentioned but that sighted people seldom think of, two things start to happen. First, Caitlin is contacted by a scientist who claims he can wake Caitlin from her life-long blindness. Second, the reader becomes aware that there is another somewhere, which is also stirring in its sleep.

In my mind, Wake by Robert J. Sawyer (the second book I read by him, after Hominids)  is about three things: Caitlin, blindness and information/computer science. The first bit feels much like cover for the rest of the story and is little more than a framework, but as such, it works pretty well. Caitlin’s life is interesting, but only insofar as it carries the story forwards in other areas. Her blindness makes this very interesting, not least because being almost blind in one eye, I think I’ve thought about complete blindness more than most people.

The technology involved in giving her the sense of sight also have some interesting side effects. Since she needs the internet to download updates to her implant, lots of data is being shuffled around and she becomes aware that she can actually see the internet. Through a long process, aided by a Japanese scientist, the reader and Caitlin set out on a long voyage that covers areas such as cellular automata, artificial intelligence, information theory, linguistics, computational statistics and much more.

This journey is Sawyer’s forte. He is extremely good at describing these various topics and make them come together and form a meaningful plot. Even though I haven’t studied natural sciences since high school, I’m quite serious when I say that this book made me interested enough to spend hours reading articles on information theory and related topics. Having a smart but young main character is a good choice, because it allows the author to introduce these fairly complicated topics to a beginner without making the reader feel too stupid (although this is of course dependent on the education background of the reader).

In short, Wake combines a couple of really interesting themes. He weaves them together into what is the first part of a trilogy, and even though I truly hate series of books, it is likely I will read the remaining two books when they are published (the second is already out). However, I won’t go on reading because of the brilliant plot, because of Sawyer’s ability to make science come alive and become interesting. Just like this kind of science fiction is meant to do.

Why not read on for the plot, then? As I said, it works as a framework, but that’s really not enough for a really good novel. For instance, there is a complete lack of antagonists in the story, which means that apart form experiencing new things and talking about cool science, not much happens. There are various complications with Caitlin’s implant and some minor social events, but they all fade into the background, perhaps rightly so.

To sum things up, this book is partly science fiction at its best, but it also lacks vital parts to become a masterpiece. This book inspires and makes me want to know more, but rather about the topics rather than the story and the characters. Four snails seem to be a good compromise. Wake has been nominated to this year’s Hugo Award, so it remains to see what other people think about it even though my own mind is already settled.

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Lois McMaster Bujold – Memory

2009-01-17

Title: Memory
Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Year: 1996

I hate being disappointed by good authors. After reading books such as The Vor Game and Mirror Dance I’ve come to expect that everything McMaster Bujold touches turns to, if not gold, at least silver; all books read so far have been good or very good. With enthusiasm, I throw myself into Memory, but instead of being pulled in by a marvellous story, I find myself in some sort of marshland and have to drag myself through the first half of the book. After that, I find some dry land underneath my feet, and story becomes more solid and the journey towards the end is even enjoyable. This does not remove all the mud from inside my boots, though.

Miles Vorkosigan has suffered defeats before, but none so humiliating as when he wakes up and realises that he’s had a seizure, and not only that, but also that he has accidentally maimed a man he was supposed to rescue. In fact, this foul up is so bad that he tries to hide it behind something even worse: A lie to his superior officer, the almost omniscient Illyan of Barrayar’s Imperial Security. After being dismissed, he only has a short breathing space before Illyan becomes seriously ill; sabotage cannot be ruled out. Miles is unexpectedly called into the fray to sort things out and find who is really behind this devious plot and for what purpose.

Summarising the story as I just did, the novel seems fairly interesting, but that is mostly because it’s a summary. About half the book is spent on something vaguely interesting setting the stage for the real plot. This is by far too long an introduction. Some authors can get away with this (see Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks), but in Memory, McMaster Bujold can’t. I feel that this books could have been reasonably good if it was edited properly, cutting down drastically on certain sections, expanding others. However, in its current state, there are too much unrelated or uninteresting passages to make this a good read.

So, why do I still give it three snails? Why not less? That would be strictly impossible, for although the rule of the author’s ability to turn things into precious metals has been broken, even the darkest parts of the marsh are sprinkled with specks of silver and gold. She knows what she’s doing and she does it well. Also, she knows her characters, and Miles himself never ceases to be interesting. This isn’t enough this time, but I’m sure Memory is an exception to a rule rather than something more ominous.

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Michael Chabon – The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

2008-12-21

Title: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Author: Michael Chabon
Year: 2007

These are strange times to be a Jew, even more so in a world where the state of Israel failed miserably and where many of the world’s Jews ended up in Alaska after the implementation of the Slattery Report, and especially when the lease of that frostbitten piece of land is coming to an end, and Jews soon will need to look elsewhere for some place to live. In the final weeks of the Jewish settlement in Sitka, a young man who was once deemed to be a future messiah, is found shot dead in his hotel room with a mysteriously set-up chess board on his bedside table. Alcoholic and decadent policeman Meyer Landsman starts investigating, sometimes with the support of his half-Jew half-Indian companion Berko Shemets. However, the investigation soon spins out of control and Landsman is relieved of his badge and gun, but he doggedly continues to follow the trail with reckless abandon, discovering ever more unsettling truths as he goes a long.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is the first book I read by Michael Chabon, but I can promise you that it will not be the last one. Even though I am normally not a fan of detective stories, this one has two things that I like very much, one of them truly unique. To begin with, I fancy the alternate-history genre. Admittedly, apart from the Jews inhabiting Alaska instead of Israel, the alternate history elements of this novel are not that prominent, but the are enough to earn my liking. This is an awesome genre that allows the author to mix reality with fiction in a way which appears both realistic and fantastic at the same time.

Even more important than that, however, is Chabon’s fantastic language. His style is truly unique and reminds me of no other author whatsoever. He uses words in the most unconventional, but yet effective way. His metaphors are sometimes beyond description, but most of the time they are entertaining, well-written and sometimes they also succeed in giving the reader a good idea about what the author wants to describe. Here is an example from page 135 which might be said to be typical for the author’s style:

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined dessert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe’s frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe’s massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God. If he stands up, or if he sits down, it doesn’t make any difference in what you see.

This kind of imaginative and highly creative language permeates the books. Chabon’s language is always interesting, albeit not always meaningful. Details, such as the recurring allusions to Chess, adds to the overall rating. Chabon also employs a mixture of Yiddish, Sitka slang and English, which works very well (however, this can not be said to be a major part of the novel in the same way as it is for, say, A Clockwork Orange).

In addition to this, the characters who inhabit the world of this novel are truly masterpieces. They are multi-faceted and highly credible portrayals of human beings, but are still very interesting and entertaining. I especially like Landsman himself, mostly because of his refusal to do what sane people would do in his place, and because of his sense of humour. This, and much more, makes me smile and laugh a lot when I read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, a valuable addition to a novel which would have felt heavy otherwise (literally speaking, the novel spans 400 pages).

That being said, the book is not perfect. The plot itself is interesting and Chabon does his best to deepen it with layers of chess, Judaism and Alaskan landscape, but it still is not even close to the brilliance of his language. Therefore, I felt a little bit disappointed in the end, and considered giving the novel only four snails. However, looking back at the novel as a whole, the good parts are so outstandingly good that I have no choice but to give four and a half snails to The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

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Roger Zelazny – This Immortal

2008-09-22

Title: This Immortal
Author: Roger Zelazny
Year: 1966

Browsing my old reviews, I find that This Immortal (or …And Call me Conrad, as it was originally named) is the ninth novel I read by Roger Zelazny. None of these books have been bad; some have been truly astonishing (Lord of Light comes to mind). In his novels, Zelazny frequently makes use of fairly impressive (one might say godlike), and this his first published novel is not an exception. Earth has suffered a terrible nuclear holocaust, and its few survivors strive to live in the ruins, threatened by mutants and aliens. This might seem like it has been done a thousand times, but the characters make it worthwhile anyway.

Zelazny is the master of flawed heroes. It is not that they are evil or any kind of antihero, it is just that they are physically or mentally imperfect in some ways. Conrad, the protagonist of This Immortal is, apart from being ugly and deformed, practically immortal. He refuses to speak about his past and about his age; perhaps he is one of the ancient Olympian gods or demigods? As he himself puts it, his life is a row of farewells and goodbyes. In this particular story, he leaves his young wife to guide a Vegan tourist around the ancient ruins of Earth. When it becomes obvious that there is a conspiracy to kill the Vegan, Conrad is convinced that he must keep him alive. He does not know why, yet, but he knows that the future of his beloved Earth might reside with the fate of the Vegan.

Zelazny’s language is difficult to assess, because at times it is truly fantastic. I feel marvelled by his quick-paced and yet effective style. At other times, however, it is nothing special. As  I have already said, the characters make this novel worthwhile (not only Conrad, but all the other members of the group is fairly interesting also, especially the belligerent Red Wig and the Arab master assassin Hasan). Here and there are sparks of brilliance, but not enough to raise the overall level of the novel to more than four snails. This is on par with what I have previously given to six of Zelazny’s novels, including the Amber series, so perhaps it comes as no great surprise.

Having finishedThis Immortal I now have only two Hugo-Award-winning novels left: The Forever Machine (or They’d Rather be Right) by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley, and this years winner: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. Unfortunately, the first one seems to be almost impossible to come by, but I hope I will be able to get my hands on at least an e-version of the text.

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James Blish – A Case of Conscience

2008-09-19

Title: A Case of Conscience
Author: James Blish
Year: 1958

I generally enjoy religion as a theme in science fiction, counting A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr, as one of my favourite novels in this category. I often find it interesting to explore the religiosity of the main character in such novels, which made me happy when I began reading A Case of Conscience by James Blish. The story is about a Jesuit priest who is part of a scientific delegation of four people to the beautiful world of Lithia. Their mission is to investigate and provide enough information to be able to judge what status to ascribe Lithia and its population.

The other members of the group have fairly practical views of the aliens and their world, but father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez has something completely different in mind. He has spent much time together with the Lithians and is convinced that this world is the work of Satan. The world and its society is perfect, yet there is no concept of God, sin and other religious themes. In short, it is Eden before the Fall of Man. Some things on Lithia do indeed seem strange and Ruiz-Sanchez asks questions which are hard to answer. Things are further complicated when Ruiz-Sanchez is offered a gift by the Lithians he hardly can refuse: a beautiful vessel containing a fertilised Lithian egg.

I feel that the basic concept of this story is adequate to write a novel, but perhaps the original novella is better. The novel consists of two parts, which feel a little bit disconnected, even though Ruiz-Sanchez’ moral and religious questions tie everything together. On the positive side, James Blish never lets go of the reader. He constantly bombards one with action, interesting philosophical points or interesting setting (such as the Shelter Economy of Earth, the sequel to the nuclear arms race of the Cold War). The language is adequate, but not excellent. In short, it is a novel which is, in many ways, entertaining to read, but lacks something genuinely outstanding. Three and a half snails to James Blish and his A Case of Conscience.

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Vonda N. McIntyre – Dreamsnake

2008-09-10

Title: Dreamsnake
Author: Vonda N. McIntyre
Year: 1978

Winners of both the Hugo and the Nebula Award are usually very good (see for instance Dune, The Gods Themselves and Ender’s Game). It might not be in a way I feel is important, but it is always easy to spot why other people think any particular novel in this genre is excellent. Sadly, this is not the case with Vonda N. McIntyre’s Dreamsnake.

In this 1978 novel, the reader follows a young healer called Snake through her first exploratory year away from her teachers at home. She and her colleagues make use of snakes to produces antidotes, vaccines and a whole array of medicines to cure and aid the sick who inhabit a post nuclear war desert. When one of Snake’s serpents, the dreamsnake, is accidentally slain, she has to find a substitute or face grave consequences when she returns to the healers’ station.

I admit that the setting is nice. I like deserts and I like fantasy in deserts as well. Sadly, that is not enough to make a good novel. The story is extremely weak and sports no unique features or nothing at all out of the ordinary. Indeed, the whole basis for her adventure feels weak in the first, because I never grasped what was so important with the dreamsnake. Supposedly, it helps people to die without pain, but why should there be so much fuss about such a snake? Why is it impossible to be a healer without this capability? I have no idea, which undermines the whole story because this is what it is all about.

There is not much else that interests me either. The language is adequate, but very far from being brilliant. The same goes for characters, dialogue, and almost any aspect of the novel except for the setting, which I have already said I liked. This is not enough to make this book worthwhile and I have decided to give it two and a half snails. If anyone fancies Dreamsnake, please tell me why, because as it is now, I have really no idea at all how it could manage to win both the Hugo and the Nebula Award.

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Clifford D. Simak – Way Station

2008-07-26

Title: Way Station
Author: Clifford D. Simak
Year: 1963

Everything around Civil War veteran Enoch Wallace ages, withers and dies, yet he and the house built buy his father remains untouched. Of course, such a phenomenon can only go unnoticed for so long, and finally the eyes of government agencies are drawn to the American countryside dwelling. The truth is that Enoch is the warden of a way station along a route used for interstellar travel, something he has done without trouble for over a century, but when he is accused of kidnapping the neighbour’s deaf-mute daughter, this is only the beginning of many crises.

Clifford D. Simak’s Way Station is about many things: the cold war, violence and peace. It is also about loneliness. Way Station is the musings of an old man, withdrawn from social company, yet in touch with a broader existence beyond the skies. As such, it is well written and these themes are well presented. Wallace himself is an interesting character and the reader approach him through the eyes of outside watchers, which tightens the mystery before the actual story begins.

Regardless of these words of praise, I perceive two main problems with this novel. Firstly, there are too many subplots. I normally rant about novels being too long, not the other way around. Still, Way Station would have been better if it would have had fewer subplots (or if it would have been longer, but I refuse to admit there is such a notion as novels needing to be longer). These various plots are interesting in themselves, but feel dislodged and not smoothly pieced together. Sure, most of them come together at the end, but it still feels abrupt and somewhat brutish. Secondly, the events themselves are not that interesting or unique. I recognise that the focus of the novel is not the alien innovations in Enoch’s cupboards or the galactic conspiracy, yet these do not add very much to the experience.

To summarise, Way Station is well written and contains interesting characters, but it lacks ingenuity in certain areas. I understand that the latter might be a coincidence (I do not happen to like this particular setting), but that the former is not. Simak is definitely an author worth giving a second chance, but I can only go as far as granting him three and a half snails for Way Station.

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Vernor Vinge – Rainbows End

2008-07-08

Title: Rainbows End
Author: Vernor Vinge
Year: 2006

Rainbows End is probably among those books which, at the time of publication, feel credible and reasonable in their prediction of future technological development, but at which tomorrow’s audience will probably laugh. This is the third novel I have read by Vernor Vinge’s (reviewed earlier: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky), but unlike his other two Hugo Award novels, the setting of Rainbows End is not a strange and distant universe, but our own society twenty years into the future. It might sound boring and it might seem like it has been done a million times before, but let me tell you, it has not. This is something new.

The merit of this novel is the authors extrapolation of present-day technology. It feels real, but not so real as to become dull. It sports many brilliant ideas only hinted at elsewhere in literature or reality. It feels embedded in society and with its human population. The author also manages to use key feautures of this technology to weave an intriguing story, focused on Robert Gu, a once famous poet lost to Alzheimer’s, but now recovering from the brink of death by modern technology. However, his longing for his lost mastery of words puts him in a weak position with regard to forces who want to use and manipulate him.

Unfortunately, there are downsides to most books and Rainbows End is not an exception. In earlier reviews of Vinge’s books (see links above), I have previously lamented that the language is adequate, but not masterful. This is also true for characters, who feel realistic, but not very interesting (the big exception is the mysterious rabbit, of course, because having a carrot-munching bunny as an avatar for a powerful, unknown force is inherently cool).

To summarise, I like Rainbows End a lot, but feel somewhat frustradet because of its shortcommings. It could have been a marvellous book, rising above the level of Vinge’s other Hugo Winners (both were awarded four snails as well), but instead he fails to induce that feeling of awe I so much yearn for in my reading. However, the book is still very good, make no mistake about that; it is just that I feel a bit disappointed that it was not even better.

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