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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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Arthur C. Clarke – A Fall of Moondust

2010-05-21

Title: A Fall of Moondust
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
 Year: 1961

Even though this is only the fourth book I review by Arthur C. Clarke, I’ve read far more than that, so much that it feels weird that there are fairly famous books by him I still haven’t read. A Fall of Moondust is one of them. It turned out to be a solid and well-written book, but also with a dullness that sometimes is as much a characteristic of Clarke’s writing as is his keen eye for interesting details and wonderful concepts.

Now and then accidents befall mankind’s  various expeditions into difficult or hostile environments, and heroic rescue operations are launched. It might be a submarine on the bottom of a cold ocean or a collapsed mine with people trapped inside. Or it might be a ship that vanished without a trace on the Sea of Thirst, a dust-filled basin on the Moon looking very much like water, but far, far more dangerous. Cruising on the dust in the Sea of Thirst, Selene, the only ship of its kind, suddenly disappears without a trace.

A Fall of Moondust is a story about three things: the people on the vanished ship, the people who are supposed to find and resque them, and the search and rescue operation itself. Clarke’s execution of the first two parts is adequate, but doesn’t really add true value to the novel. It adds flavour, but not enough to hide the fact that this book is really about an extraordinary engineering feat thought-out and carried out on the moon. Clarke makes the hostile environment and chain of events feel more real than I think any other author could (although others, such as Kim Stanley Robinson and his Mars Trilogy come to mind).

Still, this is a novel focusing on a fairly technical subject, even though Clarke makes a valiant effort to soften it up with characters, social interaction and so on. If he were a mediocre author, this book would have been horribly boring. Fortunately, he is not and thus this book is worthwhile reading. I’m not prepared to give it more than three and a half snail, but I’m still impressed by how such a dry subject can be turned into such a neat little novel.

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George R. Stewart – Earth Abides

2010-04-19

Title: Earth Abides
Author: George R. Stewart
 Year: 1949

I think that if I had read a summary of Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, I would probably never have got around to reading the actual book. In essence, it’s a classic post-apocalyptic novel with few or no original ideas (this might be partly due to its age, but that merely explains why rather than solve the problem). It’s separated into three major parts, all focused on the same character, Ish, and how he survives and in some regards also thrives after the epidemic-induced catastrophe that has befallen mankind. This allows the author to cover a wider perspective than most similar books, which is both a blessing and a curse.

The problem with Earth Abides is that it too much a description of what happens after the end of civilisation as we know it, and not much of a novel. There are interesting smaller stories and some characters, but as a complete novel it doesn’t really work at all. Stewart’s language is adequate to describe what’s going on, but is far from good enough to be enjoyable on its own.

Still, I don’t think Earth Abides is as bad as it might have sounded up to this point in the review. The final part adds some interesting themes as Ish grows old and starts thinking about and re-evaluating his role in the new society. Here I found something genuinely interesting that added perhaps one snail to the overall rating. However, the book itself is too simple, too unoriginal to deserve more than two and a half snails.

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Battlestar Galactica – Season 2 and 3

2010-04-11



Title: Battlestar Galactica – Season 2 and 3
Directed by: Various
Written by: Various
Year: 2005-2007

As you might have noticed, I seldom watch movies, not because I dislike it per se, but rather because it takes up too much high-quality time I usually have better uses for. Needless to say, TV series are even rarer than films, which is the reason why I waited around three years before continuing watching Battlestar Galactica, even though I really liked the first season.

I have watched season two and three over a long period of time, so reviewing them together makes a lot more sense than breaking them up. I also think the contents are quite similar in nature which means that most of what I want to say about one of the seasons also applies to the other.

In my first review, I said that there are three main reasons for liking Battlestar Galactica: plot, presentation and characters. Today, I have a somewhat different opinion. The overall plot is adequate, but it’s not a factor that makes the series stand out. The presentation (as in directing, props, effects, etc.) is very good, but doesn’t feel like anything special after watching a couple of seasons (this is probably a bit unfair since I think most other similar series are inferior in this regard).

So, if these points are no longer relevant, how come that I still like the series? Mostly because of the third reason I brought up in the original review: the characters. I don’t simply mean that they are well-made and expertly enacted, but they are well-integrated into the plot and each other, which creates something which feels very real and interesting. I’m especially fond of the second in command, Colonel Tigh, who turns out to be a lot more complex than he seemed at first glance in season 1. Starbuck remains a favourite, but others are catching up.

(Spoiler warning issued for this paragraph!) Regarding the plot, things start getting really interesting at once as Tigh assumes command of the Galactica and as he crumbles underneath the pressure of responsibility. Later, when the Pegasus arrives, the situation is further complicated, but I think this part could have been made a lot more scary than it turned out to be. There are too many obvious answers what’s right and wrong; more grey scales and moral dilemmas would have been easy to create.

(Spoiler warning issued for this paragraph!) With the settlement of New Caprica, a well-deserved break from life in the fleet gives the series a new impetus. I was growing quite bored withe monster-of-the-week episode and this changed things to the better. Still, I would like to have had more coherence between the episodes, because some of them just feel completely useless, advancing neither character, story or any of the major themes.

To sum things up, some of the things I initially liked with the series are still there, but they are no longer as prominent as they once were, perhaps because I’ve grown used to them. Other things remain as strong as before and keeps on developing. I’m not sure how the plot will turn out in the end, but it has still a potential to be great. I give the second and third season four snails, which is promising for the fourth and last episode, but is still a downgrade from the first.

Update: Why are the posters to all the seasons so extremely bad? I don’t know if gender roles were an intentional focus of the creators of the series, but I think Battlestar Galactica features more strong and interesting female characters than a couple of other science fiction series put together. So, why make these horrific posters?

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A.E. van Vogt – The World of Null-A

2010-03-23

Title: The World of Null-A
Author: A.E. van Vogt
 Year: 1948

Reader, in your hands, you hold one of the most controversial and successful novels in the whole of science-fiction literature.

Thus A.E. van Vogt opens his preface to this revised edition of his allegedly monumental masterpiece, the World of Null A. He introduces us to the successes and some of the feeble and useless attempts to destroy his greatness. He explains some of the core concepts of general semantics (such as that the map is not the territory and other abstractions). Then he says:

I think I presented the facts of general semantics so well and so skillfully in Null A and its sequel that the readers thought that was all I should be doing. But truth is that I, the author, saw a deeper paradox.

This must be the worst imaginable way of introducing a novel. I think I’m quite well-read in the area of science fiction and though it’s true that A.E. van Vogt is quite well-known, I think it’s an outright lie to say that this book is generally seen as “one of the most controversial and successful novels in the whole of science fiction literature”, even taken into account that the book was written sixty years ago. Since it’s the author himself who says this, I find this statement boastful, despicable and made me dislike the book and the author even before I started reading the story itself.

In addition to this, after I’ve read this story about a man who strives to understand who he is (he participates in a game to choose the next leader of the world, but he soon finds out that he isn’t who he think he is), and all along hoping that general semantics would be made clear and/or relevant, I still have no clue either to why the book is deemed to be successful or why any reader thought that he was good at explaining anything. If I don’t understand what’s going on after reading 200 pages, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad (it might just be my being obtuse), but it’s definitely not the pinnacle of explanatory and illuminating writing.

Still, I’ll try to disregard my contempt for the foreword and remove at least one layer of subjectivity. The author isn’t incompetent and it’s clear that he has an original idea and tries to write a novel about it (which is more than can be said Greg Bear’s The Forge of God, which has nothing in common with the World of Null A except that I read one after the other). The style is quite fast-paced, but without anything that will make me remember either the characters or the story.

Perhaps I’m missing something, perhaps sixty years have showed that this novel isn’t as good as some people once thought it was, but I really don’t understand either the book or why it should be considered great (or even worthwhile the effort). Damon Knight, who subsequently went on to a successful writer’s career, wrote that “Van Vogt is not a giant as often maintained. He’s only a pygmy using a giant typewriter.” I don’t think it will take me any closer to stardom, but I’m prepared to side with Knight on this. The World of Null A gets one and a half snail for competent writing and something which might have been a good idea. As a lesson for other authors, don’t ever write a foreword praising yourself and your accomplishments to the hills, regardless of how highly you think of yourself.

in In English, Literature, Reviews | 6 comments

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Paulo Bacigalupi – The Windup Girl

2010-03-19

Title: The Windup Girl
Author: Paulo Bacigalupi
 Year: 2005

Take Bangkok, brimming with a multitude of different cultures and the capital of Thailand, a monarchy with complicated political structure, and put it through a genetically engineered apocalypse which has left most of the world in chaos and starvation, but where Thailand is still an island of relative calm in South-East Asia, much thanks to an odd mixture of advanced bio-engineering and old-style, steam punk reminiscent technology. The result is the Windup Girl and the man responsible for the thought-experiment is Paulo Bacigalupi.

Even though I consider the setting described in the previous paragraph to be interesting enough to read almost regardless of anything else, a novel requires a more personal approach and very seldom can it rely entirely on setting. The Windup Girl takes its name from one of the main characters, a genetically engineered human being produced by the secluded state of Japan, created to please and to be subservient. Regarded as an animal, if not a thing, she still harbours feelings intimately human, and thus struggles to free herself from her genetic heritage as well as her training, thus adding a touching tale about the intertwined factors of heritage, training and environment.

This is Paulo Bacigalupi’s debut novel and as such it is extremely good. There are no obvious flaws or major glitches that a more experienced author would have been able to avoid. However, I think it’s clear that Bacigalupi has some polishing to do, because there are minor flaws and imperfections that interrupts the otherwise fascinating tale. For instance, he’s prone to repeat similes and metaphors or just dwell on the same kind of details again. Let me give you an example; the windup’s skin is impeccably beautiful, which unfortunately means that it can’t transport heat very effective, leaving the girl vulnerable to overheating. This is a really neat detail, but it gets tedious to hear about it every time she moves. A more experienced author would realise that the idea is fabulous without employing it to excessively.

The story is neat and well thought-out, although it isn’t magical in an sense of the word. It’s good enough to suffice as a pretext for showing a really cool setting and occasionally even surpasses the ingenuity of the surroundings. A tendency to focus on two many characters make the book a little bit longer than it should have been, but this is not a serious flaw.

In all, this book is awesome, not only in itself, but also because of what I hope it means for the future. I don’t mean to say that I think an apocalypse derived from genetic engineering gone wrong is a good idea, but I do hope that the future will bring more books from Paulo Bacigalupi’s hand and that they will be as rich in ideas as this one, but perhaps presented in a slightly more refined way. This is still a very good book and I give four snails to the Windup Girl.

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Nebula Aword Stories 10

2009-11-23

Title: Nebula Award Stories 10
Author: Various
Year: 1975

More or less constantly, I have the feeling that I should read more science fiction short stories. Science fiction is a genre heavily based on unique and fantastic concepts, which means that it’s usually well-suited for shorter forms of fiction. When a good author comes up with a brilliant idea, he or she knows many pages it is good for and writes that many. Having an idea good for ten pages and writing a series of novels spanning thousands of pages is simply bad manners, but science fiction authors are, at least in my experience, quite good at not losing focus.

However, there is no guarantee that the ideas or the stories they write are any good. This volume collects seven short stories, novelettes and novellas, all awarded the Nebula Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America . Thinking that I have probably more in common with authors than readers, I guessed that I would like these short stories more than the Hugo Award winners I’ve read so far (1, 2); I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There are some stories in this collection that I would recommend, such as The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin, and If the Stars are Gods by Gordon Eklund and Gregory Benford, but the majority of them are simply not very memorable at all. Some, such as Twilla by Tom Reamy actually manages to pass the obscure cloud of mediocrity and emerge into the abyss of the truly dreadful. One story in the collection, The Rest is Silence by C.L. Grant, made me feel seriously uneducated, leaning heavily on Shakespeare references that mean little to me. The short story felt like it had potential, but I haven’t read enough to appreciate it.

On average, this book is not worthwhile, so I’ll give it two snails. There are some nice pieces of writing in here (all of them mentioned above). If you for some extraordinary reason manage to get hold of this volume (it’s pretty hard to find), by all means, read those stories, but don’t bother with the rest.

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Karin Boye – Kallocain

2009-11-07

Title: Kallocain
Author: Karin Boye
Year: 1940

Having no ambition to read books in chronological order, most people invariably run across the problem of reading old books and placing them in a modern perspective, instead of the time in which they were originally published. Thus, reading Karin Boye’s Kallocain in 2009, I naturally think “Oh, yet another dystopian novel about a future oppressive state and an individual’s rebellion against the regime”, although it’s of course true that few of the classics in this field had been published at the time (with the notable exception of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which was published in 1932).

This is alright, I read and review books today, not when they were published. This might be unfair to some authors, but mostly to the poor ones. True greatness does not die. and it isn’t overshadowed by later works in the same genre. So, what is Kallocain, then? Is it great or is it overshadowed by other, more notable works by other authors such as Ray Bradbury, George Orwell or Ursula K. Le Guin?

To be honest, I can’t really make up my mind. This story about Leo Kall and how he invents a perfect truth serum called kallocain is different from the others, but it’s still quite familiar. The dystopia has nothing particular to offer that I haven’t read before, so I’m not going to spend much time focusing on that. The heavy focus on Leo’s life and work makes it a bit special, because actual resistance against the regime isn’t really a part of the plot.

The vision isn’t unique and it alone doesn’t make the book worthwhile, but what about the language, then? In general, I find Boye’s Swedish enjoyable, with some really neat words that can only be found in really old science fiction. This doesn’t destroy the vision she creates, but rather enhances it. Perhaps it makes the target seem a little bit farther away, but then again, that’s true; the totalitarian states we see today are quite different from the ones of the 1940s. I don’t mean to say that this book is irrelevant in anyway, but it is decidedly less important today than, say, 1984 or Brave New World.

By way of concluding this review, I’d like to say that I can understand those who praise Boye’s fiction. She is a skilled author and this is a solid piece of writing. Still, it’s no coincidence there are other novels with similar themes that dominate the history of science fiction (disregarding language here; writing in English would have helped). All accounted for, Kallocain is well worth reading, even almost seventy years after it was first published. Not bad.

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Samuel R. Delany – The Einstein Intersection

2009-10-31

Title: The Einstein Intersection
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Year: 1967

It’s pretty difficult to be interested in science fiction without having heard about Samuel R. Delany, but apart from a few short stories, this is the first time I read his fiction. The Einstein Intersection was mentioned in Eric S. Rabkin’s lecture series about science fiction and was on my wish list for a long while until somebody gave it to me (my grandparents, I think). My impressions of the book are somewhat scattered, but I’ll do my best to make some sense out of them.

The Einstein Intersection is a story on at least two levels. On the surface, it’s a story about Lobey, one of the creatures who have come to inhabit Earth after mankind has gone, living in the ruins both in a literal and a figurative sense. Lobey’s sweet heart Friza, a mute and very special girl, is killed by the mysterious Kid Death, and he sets out retrieve and revenge her. On a deeper level, it’s a story about myths (especially the myth of Oedipus), but I’m not very well versed in this area and thus have some problems understanding all the references.

The foreword, written by Neil Gaiman, praises Delany to the hills, which of course also increased my own expectations. Gaiman says he has read the book three times: as a young boy, as a teenager and as an adult. I’m afraid I’m still in the teenager stage, because even though I can understand most of the obvious references, I fail to see much of the greatness Gaiman talks about in his foreword. in my opinion, this is a decent piece of fiction set in a moderately interesting setting, no more, no less. However, I do have the nagging feeling that this is due to ignorance and note because of a fault of the author’s. Perhaps I shall have to read the Einstein Intersection again later in my life, but for now, three snails will have to do.

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Cormac McCarthy – The Road

2009-10-14

Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Year: 2006

I usually say that competent authors writing outside their main genre are the ones most likely to write truly fascinating books. I’ve seen this happen a number of times with science fiction, i.e. mainstream or at least non-SF writers making a short foray into the future and hitting solid gold. As far as I know, The Road is the only science fiction novel Cormac McCarthy has written, although I only know him from one previous book, No Country for Old Men. Even though the post-apocalyptic setting of this novel is depressing, degenerate and dark, the workmanship is splendid and shining.

The Road tell the story of a little boy and his father (none of them named in the book), and how they struggle on their journey south, to the coast, away from the onset of winter. Most of humanity is gone, along with the majority of other life forms which formerly thrived in the world. Food is scarce and dangers abundant, not seldom from other humans, who desperately try to sustain themselves in this hell-bent future America.

McCarthy doesn’t spend much time on the greater picture, choosing instead to focus on the boy and his father, which means that the world is mostly glimpsed from what they experience as they walk along the road. This interaction is portrayed through concise dialogues (reminiscent of No Country for Old Men) and a narrative that never feels exaggerated or wasteful. They man is in a very difficult situation, how shall he encourage his son to fight on, even though he himself doubts that there really is any future for any of them? How shall he protect him from the horrors that follow in the wake of the catastrophe?  And, on top of all this, how shall he be able to go on himself, having the knowledge to despair that his son lacks?

The Road is touching in many ways, perhaps because it’s so down-to-earth and realistic, and at the same time, so horrifying. I really enjoy the author’s way of writing, especially since it’s concise and to the point, without feeling even remotely blunt. I wish more experienced writers could move into the realm of science fiction, using their expertise in language and portrayal of characters that some science fiction writers, although otherwise talented, lack, and thus create something as brilliant as Cormac McCarthy has done here. I can see no reason not to give five snails to this novel and recommend it to everybody, especially those who don’t think science fiction is for them.

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