books
- In googling to check that I had the right A-side (how crap is my memory?) I discovered an excellent project that Billy Bragg is involved in. Check it out ↩
Old Man's War, by John Scalzi (Books 2008, 3)
I've been reading Scalzi's [blog (Whatever...)](http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/) on and off for a few years, and he comes across as one of the good guys: certainly on the side of light, a good laugh, and someone you imagine would be fun to meet. So I've been meaning to read his SF for a while.
My thanks to his publishers, Tor, then, for making his debut available via their free ebooks programme. I read most of it on the Eee PC, with some bits on my phone (when I was standing up on the tube).
In short, I loved it; though I have some doubts, or reservations.
It’s a curious universe (or at least, galaxy) that he describes: it is teeming with life, intelligent life; but nearly all of it is antithetical to nearly all of the rest of it. Certainly, it is a book about war (the clue’s in the title); but it’s not one war between humanity and another alien race. Instead it’s a series of small wars to defend human colonies from alien attackers, and to attack alien colonies and capture the planets for humans. And once our hero joins up, he is constantly at war; there is no respite, at least that we hear of.
And only one, minor, character questions this state of affairs (though others do express their doubts).
I have a feeling, though, that these questions may be addressed in the sequels, which I’m keen to read (more proof, were it needed, that giving things away can be a good thing for authors and publishers alike).
The ‘old-man’s’ bit is that you can only join up when you reach 75 years of age. You relinquish your Earth-nation’s citizenship and are legally considered dead. Members of the Colonial Defense Force can never return to Earth.
But to make up for that, you get a new youthful body, and (if you make it through your tour of duty) the opportunity to have a new life on a colony planet. The Colonial powers being technologically far in advance of Earth (which has become a bit of a backwater), there is not similar life-extension technology available to those on Earth.
So you can see the temptation. Peaceful soul that I am, I can imagine that I might take up the offer. Life is better than the alternative, you know?
The Hidden Family, by Charles Stross (Books 2008, 2)
Volume 2 (or the second half of volume 1, depending on how you look at it) of Charlie's 'Merchant Princes' series.
It continues the story of Miriam Beckstein and her recently-discovered alternative-universe family of ‘world-walkers’. In this one, Miriam discovers that (not surprisingly) there is more than one alternative Earth, and takes advantage of that fact.
Two things bother me about all this, though. One is that at no point, it seems, does she or anyone else do any investigation into the world-walking ability, or the designs of the talismans that make it work. Though I have reason to believe that that point gets addressed in a later book.
The other problem I have is just how capable Miriam is. She’s a can-do hero in the Heinlein – even in the Doc Smith – mold. Which is all very well, and all kudos to Charlie for making such a figure a woman, rather than the ubiquitous men created by those illustrious earlier writers. But those characters were never very believable, and we live in more sophisticated times now, do we not? So it’s hard to believe in someone relatively ordinary who finds themself in another universe, and who just copes. Indeed, not just copes, but prospers.
On the other hand, I’ve said elsewhere that we don’t read SF for the characters, but for the stories (and the ideas, of course). And this is a great story that I sat up late to finish. And you can’t argue with that.
Matter, by Iain M Banks (Books 2008, 1)
So, the latest Banksie. Always a treat, of course, and especially so when it's a novel of The Culture. This one, though, is slightly disappointing.
It’s not actually bad – certainly not badly written (though he does overuse the phrases “appeared to be”, and “looked like”, when describing things; I was told off years ago (by Lisa Tuttle, no less) for using “seemed” when describing something: “it either is, or it isn’t.” I’ve been painfully aware of that word, and phrases that take its place, ever since). It’s just not as good as we’ve come to expect, which is a disappointment.
The main fault is that he describes too much of the scenery, to the point where it all starts to get a bit much. He didn’t always do that, I don’t think. Or maybe he did, but it was better executed, and so not so noticeable.
It’s the tale of some of the inhabitants of a level on a ShellWorld, and how they come into contact with The Culture, and why, and what follows. All good stuff, with plenty of fabulous tech.
But you know what was the most annoying thing about it? The cover. It shows a human figure in silhouette, walking away from (or it could be toward) our PoV. On the horizon a city is burning. Overhead there are stars. It’s not annoying because no scene remotely like it happens in the book (well, there is one scene a bit like it, but she isn’t on foot).
It’s annoying because of the shadows.
The figure’s shadow shoots out to its left, implying that there’s a strong light source to the right; a rising or setting star. But the burning city is giving off lot of light, too. Enough, it seems to me, that she (if it is a she) should have a secondary shadow, also to her left, but coming towards our PoV.
It’s a small thing, I know, and I don’t usually comment on the covers of books, but I noticed it when I was about two-thirds of the way through, and it bugged me every time I looked at it thereafter.
Still, you know what they say about books and covers.
Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis (Books 2007, 7)
I hadn't read any Amis before (either of them), but I've wanted to try Kingsley for a while; mainly for his SF connections, but when I saw this in a second-hand bookshop I thought it might be a good place to start.
This one isn’t SF, of course. Instead, it’s described as a “comic novel”.
I have to say that I found very little in it to laugh at.
Oh, the odd chortle, or wry grin, certainly; in particular there is a description of a hangover that has been quoted often enough that I recognised it in its entirety.
But our national sense of humour must have changed since 1954, or something. Not to mention a great deal more about our society and the way we interact. At times in this novel I found it harder to understand the motivations of the characters than of the most alien of characters in SF (well, ok, not to the extent of ‘The Dance of the Changer and the Three’, say, but anything less than that).
That’s no bad thing, but since it wasn’t the intent of the author, that sense of confusion or dislocation can leave you feeling lost. This is quite different from the effect you can get in good SF, where you’re thrown in at the deep end, not quite knowing what’s going on. There, you just hang on and enjoy the ride, trusting in the knowledge that it’ll become clear in time.
In this case there’s no hope of an explanation, because Amis didn’t realise that the behaviour of his sexually stilted 1950s academics would be quite so opaque and mysterious to a reader in the zero-years of the 21st century (why didn’t they just go to bed, already?)
Still, as a gentle rom-com, it wasn’t too bad.
The Scar, by China Miéville (Books 2007, 6)
.A mindfucking mindfuck of all mindfucks. A great, big, sprawling book, and yet one which can have a curious sense of claustrophobia at times.
That’s because nearly all the action takes place on the floating city of Armada. It’s a big floating city, but it is, nonetheless, essentially a big ship, in the middle of a great ocean, and there’s nowhere for the characters to go.
What they do while stuck there, is where the fun lies.
While I was reading this, my beloved got our son a copy of China’s first book “for younger readers”, Un Lun Dun. He finished it over a long weekend’s trip to Cornwall, and I read the review of it in that Saturday’s Guardian (yes, we buy our kids books in their week of release, why do you ask? Like much of the country, we did the same in July (though to be fair, that wasn’t just for the kids.))
The review ended with a statement of the old canard about SF&F having no characters, “and that’s why some readers like them”, to paraphrase. And while that’s kind of insulting (and not even true for Un Lun Dun), there is some truth in it. But then, that’s not what we’re here for: you don’t come to a book like this to read about the inner turmoil of a North London writer (I can get that by not reading. OK, East rather than North, and would-be, but still.) You read books like this to take you somewhere else; to experience something other; to see something you can’t see down your street.
And you certainly get your money’s worth with this one.
The Prestige, by Christopher Priest (Books 2007, 5)
The most annoying thing about The Prestige is the way it ends; though I can see that there was no real reason to continue it after that point. The story is told, all that can reasonably be revealed is revealed (without going into preposterous and unnecessary details).
The book is finished; the tale (which, as I’m sure you know, is about Victorian magicians, and Nikola Tesla) is told.
And yet I still thought, as I reached the last page, “Aw, I want more!” like a kid that wants another bedtime story.
Which is no bad thing, it’s fair to say. Better, as a writer (or almost anything else) to leave them wanting more than to outstay your welcome.
And with that thought in mind, I’ll just say: highly recommended. I’m out.
The Steep Approach to Garbadale, by Iain Banks (Books 2007, 4)
It's not The Crow Road, but then, what is?
In my opinion, the quality of Banksie’s non-SF work rose in shallow, slightly wiggly, climb from a high start, to a “can do no wrong” plateau that includes The Bridge, Espedair Street and Complicity, as well as the aforementioned. Thereafter it dropped a bit (but who can blame him, after that lot?) But it never got bad. (His SF took a different trajectory, and as far as I can tell, it’s still climbing.)
So what of this book? It’s a family drama, I suppose you’d say, with a mystery at its heart. Not a “whodunit”, so much as “what got done?”
Slipping into Banksie’s world is like pulling on an old, comfy jumper; or maybe a favourite leather jacket would be more appropriate. So we get recognisable characters, dialogue that you could hear in any pub or home in Scotland, and just a touch of mystery.
The main problem, perhaps, is that there’s no great threat over the characters (they might decide to sell the family games business to a big American company, and some of them are against that happening). So we don’t have any real sense of potential doom. Still, though, finding the answer to the mystery is fun enough, and it’s a compelling enough read that I got through it in a couple of days.
In a book like this, the pleasure is in the journey more than the destination.
Ink, by Hal Duncan (Books 2007, 3)
So, The Book of All Hours is finished. And fine, fine stuff it is, too. This volume seems somehow more polished than the first , but perhaps not as exciting, as startling.
The story is brought to a conclusion of sorts, but as you might expect, it’s ambiguous, open to interpretation. This is, of course, not a bad thing: in fact, I thoroughly approve.
I’m not, though, going to try to give any details of it, or to explain what it ls about; just read it: it’s great.
Twenty Years of Foolin' and They Put You in the Pub
At the end of Potter Week we joined the queue in Borders in Islington at about twenty to eleven; we got served at about 1am (and bought a lot more than just two copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I might say, thereby justifying notions of the reduced prices as loss-leaders).
On the Saturday there was a picnic-party for some friends who are leaving Hackney, as well as much packing of the car. Then at stupid o’clock on the Sunday morning we headed off to Dover for a ferry to France, and two weeks camping in Brittany. My son finished the book on the journey; about 37 hours after its release. I took a couple of days more, and then read it again straight away. Which is something that I don’t think I’ve ever done before. This is not necessarily because it was so great, but more because I read it so fast the first time. Rowling is a great plotter, so sometimes the pages turn too fast.
Also, I’ll be honest, I kind of didn’t want it all to be over.
The holiday was great. Mixed weather, of course, but no worse than here, I think
Then after a week back at work I find myself hitting an important anniversary: Today I’ve have been in this job for twenty years. Twenty years! It’s hard to credit. I feel like a poster boy for the phrase, “Where did the time go?”
Not only is it the same job, it’s my first job. The company name has changed several times due to takeovers, but it’s the same place, and quite a lot of the same people. It’s been good, on the whole, or I wouldn’t have stayed. But I’m beginning to wonder whether it might be time for a change.
Tonight, though, I’ll be in the pub. On the roof terrace, if the weather holds.
We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver (Books 2007, 2)
Wow. This is an amazing piece of work. The mother of a high-school killer writes letters to her husband, describing Kevin's life as she experienced it. I can't write a lot about it without getting heavy on the spoilers, but I will just say this.
When I was a few pages in I was getting a strong sense of this absence of a voice: the husband was not to be heard. But then I thought two things. First, all epistolary novels are like that to some extent; though it is possible for the letter-writer to refer to things their correspondent has written in return.
Second, it occurred to me that Shriver, by excluding the man’s voice, might have been making a point about the relative exclusion of women’s voices in literature. In other words, the way I was feeling might be akin to how Jean Rhys must have felt when she read Jane Eyre.
I don’t, now, think that she was particularly trying to do that, though the effect of the early chapters is still there.
I’ll say no more for fear of spoilers, except: highly recommended.
Potter Week
OK, I declare this the start of Potter Week. I'm just on my way to Stratford, where we'll eat at Pizza Express, before going to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Then this time next week we’ll be getting ready to head out to a bookshop for a midnight launch party for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
It is a time steeped in magic.
Redemption Song: the Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer, by Chris Salewicz (Books 2007, 1)
Ah, Joe. I can hardly believe that it's already four years since we lost him. I started reading this on Christmas day, and finished at about two in the morning on the 14th of January: exactly three weeks later. If I read a book every three weeks that would be seventeen in a year, which isn't very many. Anyway, during that time I completely immersed myself in Strummeriana; as well as reading the book I listened to little music other than The Clash or Joe's solo stuff, and I also put my bit in on the various Wikipedia articles.
And none if it can make up for the fact that he’s gone.
In fact, reading the book only makes it worse: it reinforces the sense of what we’ve lost. He was on a great creative upswing when he died, as the the posthumous Streetcore album showed. Its opening track, ‘Coma Girl’ (which, we learn, is about his daughter Lola) was the single best song he wrote since ‘Trash City’, at least.
Alas, we’ll never hear anything new from him again.
Or at least, not truly new: it seems from reading the book that there might be quite a few unreleased recordings out there, and he worked on more film soundtracks than I knew about.
Most interestingly of all, perhaps, is this piece of information. Around the time that Joe and the Mescaleros were writing and recording Global A Go-Go, the second of the comeback albums after the wilderness years, he also sent a set of lyrics to Mick Jones. He seemed to be suggesting that he was considering an alternative to the Mescaleros album. Mick wrote tunes for them and sent them back, but heard no more about it. Some time later, after Global A Go-Go had been released, Mick asked what had happened to the songs. Joe said, “Those weren’t for Global A Go-Go; those were the next Clash album.”
There’s no suggestion that he ever recorded any of them; but you never know: one day Mick might, when he’s not too busy with Carbon/Silicon.
What of the book itself, though? Well, it’s certainly compelling reading (at least if you’re a fan like me). It is flawed in some ways, of course. It can be hard to follow the early sections about Joe’s family, without an actual family tree to clarify things, thought that’s not a big problem.
Despite its size and comprehensive nature, there are parts that come across as too anecdotal and perhaps incomplete. Certainly there are places where I would have liked to have a lot more detail. But a book this size could be written about The Clash alone (several have, of course, but perhaps none quite the size of this one).
Still, it’s totally a must-have for any Clash fan, or solo Joe fan (can you be the latter but not the former?)
I wonder what it would have been like if The Clash had kept going and had become like U2 (who were heavily inspired by them)? In a good sense: I listened to an interview with Salewicz, where he pointed out that, though Joe didn’t like the distance from the audience at stadium gigs, he was very good at handling them. So imagine them doing something like the Zoo TV tour (indeed, when I saw footage of that, all the TVs as backdrop reminded me instantly of the Clash Mk II ‘Out of Control’ tour).
The Last of the 2006 "Book Notes" Posts
Nearly halfway through the year and I haven't finished posting last year's Book Notes? Shocking. Oh well, here are the last few in one bunch.
26: The Terminal Zone, by Andrew J Wilson
My friend Andrew wrote this play back in 1993 or so, and produced it at the Edinburgh Fringe. It has now been published as a chapbook by Writers' Bloc, the spoken-word performance group that grew out of the East Coast SF Writers' group.
In it, Rod Serling, the writer and presenter of The Twilight Zone, appears; or rather, two sides of his personality appear, performed by two actors, and indulge in a dialogue. This is the story, you might say, of Rod Serling talking to himself.
27: Dicks and Deedees, by Jaime Hernandez
A collection of Love and Rockets stories by Jaime. I haven’t read any of these for years, but all our favourites are here: Maggie and Hopey, of course, and Penny Century, and HR Costigan, whose story reaches a conclusion of sorts.
His storytelling technique can make it hard sometimes, to tell where we are chronologically: he’ll tell the history of years in a character’s life in the space of half a dozen or a dozen panels, with nothing other than the pictures and dialogue to indicate that the time has changed. And yet somehow you can work out what is happening, and over what period.
The artwork is gorgeous in its simplicity, of course, and he always has moving stories to tell.
28: Tamara Drewe, by Posy Simmonds
This graphic novel was published in weekly installments in the Saturday issue of The Guardian over a year or so. Actually, most weeks there were two episodes.
I’m told that it’s based on, or at least strongly inspired by, Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy; he is one of my unfortunate missing authors, so I can’t comment on that myself. I can say, however, that it’s a great story, very moving, and a fine way of bringing graphic fiction to the mainstream reader (not that this is the first time The Guardian has done this: they published Posy’s Gemma Bovary a few years ago).
If you missed it, you can probably still read (at least some of) it on the website (though personally I find that unsatisfying because of the image quality). But I expect it’ll be out in paperback by now (in fact, I was surprised they didn’t get it out in time for Christmas).
29: Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson
This is an absolute stormer of a book. A family drama, of sorts, set across thirty years and three billion years simultaneously.
The time is about now, and one night (in North America, at least), the stars go out. And the planets and the moon. But not the sun.
The Earth has been enclosed, by an entity or entities unknown (or is it a natural phenomenon?) in a membrane that closes off the outside universe, while allowing enough sunlight through for the ecosystem to function normally. Inside the membrane, time is slowed down, so that outside it the universe appears to spin on at a vastly accelerated rate.
But it’s really all about relationships. Highly recommended.
Book Notes 25: The Family Trade, by Charles Stross
Of course, the alternative world works on a feudal system, and weapons are mediaeval (apart from ones that have been carried over from “our” world). So it has some of the tropes of fantasy, and more may develop. But it looks like there won’t be any magic other than the world-walking ability.
The main fault with it is that it shows its history as the first part of a much longer book which the publishers decided should be split in two. So just as it’s starting to get really interesting, it ends.
Oh well, I look forward to reading the second part, and its sequels.
Straight to Elgin Avenue
So I ordered the new Banksie from Amazon, and to get free delivery, of course, I had to order one or two other things, to bring the price up to the threshold. I tend to have a number of things queued up to buy when the time is right, so I selected some things from that list.
All three items I chose are things that I meant to get at the time they came out, but didn’t, for one reason or another. The book was Christopher Priest’s The Prestige, which I’ve meant to get since I read the reviews when it came out. I’m not sure why I never bought it (actually I did buy it once, but that was to give to a friend who had a particular interest in stage magic).
Anyway, my interest was recently rekindled because of the film coming out, of course. I may want to watch it one day, and I’m not going to read or not read something on the reported say-so of some film director. I can’t find a reference for that: the director is supposed to have said, “Don’t read the book before you see the film.” Though I suppose that I will, in effect, be doing exactly that – in a contrary way – by insisting on reading the book before seeing the film. Whatever: books come first.
But I didn’t bring you here to talk about books, for a change. No, this time it’s music. Because I also got two CDs from Amazon.
Regular readers might not be surprised to hear that I’m a huge fan of the late, and sadly missed,Joe Strummer. As such, I want to get a hold of anything he released that I don’t yet have. Now, during his so-called “wilderness years”, Joe did a lot of soundtrack work. I’ve got most of that on record, but I never got round to getting the soundtrack for Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell. I recall hearing a borrowed copy in ‘87 or so, and enjoying it, but not being overwhelmed by it. The one track I remembered was ‘Rake at the Gates of Hell’, by The Pogues, more of which later.
In the intervening years, I mostly forgot about the album. Once in a while I might have poked around a second-hand record shop, but it was low on my list of priorities. Recently, though, I discovered that it had been reissued, revised and expanded. Into my “buy later” list it went, until the other day.
As well, I discovered it was possible to jump back to an earlier part of Joe’s career, namely his pre-Clash band, the 101ers. Elgin Avenue Breakdown was originally released back in 19-something-or-other. At the time I was mildly interested, but saw no need to rush out and buy it. I had the ‘Keys to your Heart’ single, and it was OK, but nowhere near as good as the heights of The Clash. And Joe was still around, and we could expect new music from him in the future.
We are in that future now, of course, and we don’t have Joe anymore. So buying the 101ers’ album is a way to hear him again.
And a damn fine album it is. Straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll, jam-packed with bounce, verve and excitement. What it doesn’t have is the political sensibilities of The Clash. Or actually, it does have the first vestiges of them; and indeed, the first vestiges of The Clash’s excellent ‘Jail Guitar Doors’ (the B-side of ‘Clash City Rockers1'), in the form of ‘Lonely Mothers Son’. And I’m sure that title should have an apostrophe in it, but I’m not sure where.
And the Straight to Hell soundtrack? It’s great. It’s mostly film music, of course: largely instrumentals. There are selections by Elvis Costello and Pray for Rain, as well as by The Pogues and Joe. Among the proper songs are one by Joe called ‘Evil Darling’, which is OK, and the original version of ‘If I Should Fall from Grace With God’, which The Pogues wrote during filming, apparently. Then there’s a version of ‘Danny Boy’, by the cast, led by Cait O’Riordan, and the album ends with ‘Rake at the Gates of Hell’.
It’s hard to express how good that song is. From the opening guitar riff, through Shane’s crazed-gunman-death-worshipper lyrics, to the shouldn’t-work-but-does device of the verse and chorus being exactly the same tune, it struts into your ears and rips your head apart. In a good way. I’ve hardly had it off repeat on my MP3 player since I got it.
Go and buy it. Now.
Book Notes 24: Variable Star, by Robert A Heinlein and Spider Robinson
These are still the 2006 Book Notes. I'll finish them soon, honest.
Heinlein used to be my absolute favourite author. Indeed, he is in large part responsible for me developing a lifelong love of science fiction. And I’m also very fond of Spider Robinson. So when I found out that this existed, obviously I had to buy it.
It seems that, sometime after the death of Heinlein’s widow Virginia, his literary executor discovered an outline that Heinlein wrote in 1955, but never expanded into a novel. If remarks by Heinlein, that Spider refers to in his afterword, are true, then it was John W Campbell who talked him out of doing so. Which seems strange, and rather sad. Still, if Heinlein had written that novel, it’s possible that we wouldn’t have had one of his other ones; and of course, we wouldn’t have this one.
Would that be a good or bad thing, though? That is what we are here to decide.
I became intensely irritated by the story early on. The first-person narrator is supposed to be eighteen years old at the start, and he just doesn’t sound like an eighteen-year old. I don’t mean the narrative voice: that would not be a problem, as we can assume that the narrator is supposed to be telling his story in later years. I’m talking about his dialogue, and particularly his thought processes.
Tied to this is the fact that we are left largely in the dark about the society on Earth where the novel starts. The only thing we learn is that sexual mores have gone backwards by several hundred years, in North America, at least. Our narrator and his beloved can’t move in together, or even just spend the night together (despite living independently from any parents or guardians): they have to get married if they want to have sex. That his how Spider gets round the fifties expectations of Heinlein’s outline, of course, but it doesn’t sound like any eighteen-year olds I’ve ever heard of.
Except, perhaps, those who subscribe to one of the world’s many anti-sex religions, which these two don’t. In fact, the handling of religion in this work is quite interesting.
It is slotted into the timeline of Heinlein’s ‘Future History’ stories. In that timeline, the name of Nehemia Scudder appears, but I don’t think there is a story in which he ever appears directly as a character. Scudder is some kind of Christian fundamentalist leader, who becomes, I think, the World President. In this novel we are after the time of the Prophets – Scudder and his successors – and the world is still recovering from the restrictions that were placed on life, on scientific research, by them: “We could have had immortality by now,” one character complains.
It’s a good story, but not as good as it could be. Robinson has obviously worked hard at “channelling” RAH, but it seems to me that there are parts of the story where things just don’t quite fit together, or totally make sense. Though this may in part due to the speed with which I read it.
It is, of course, a good thing when a book makes you read it quickly: it usually means that the plot is compelling and you are keen to find out how it will play out. But if it causes you to skim, and miss – or at least, imperfectly absorb – important information, then that’s not so good. Though I don’t think that can really be considered a criticism of a book.
It’s worth a read, and I suppose I might read it again at some point, to see whether I did just miss some bits; but I’d probably prefer to re-read, say Have Space Suit, Will Travel.
A Deadline Crash, and a Reading
Over the last few weeks I've been trying to write a Doctor Who short story. It was for a competition that Big Finish, publisher of DW books and CDs, were running. Alas, the closing date was the 31st of January, which is now past, and I didn't finish it (does that make it a Small Finish?)
Still, I’m enjoying writing it, and intend to finish it anyway, just on general principles. It doesn’t do to go around having lots of unfinished pieces (and I speak as someone who has a great many unfinished things lying around, of one variety or another).
When I do finish it, I’ll probably put it online. Now my question is, does such a work now count as fanfic I suppose it does, on some level. Curious, because the winner of the competition gets professionally published, and that obviously isn’t fan fiction.
Still on a literary note, my friend Andrew was in town the other night, because he was one of the authors who was doing a reading that was organised by Farthing magazine. Until Andrew told me about the event, I didn’t even know that the publication existed.
It was a good night. I missed the first reading, by Anna Feruglio Dal Dan, but heard various drabbles, Andrew’s story, and two other fine stories.
During the interval I picked up the back issues of the magazine and took out a subscription. Then at the end we helped the Editor, Wendy Bradley, to carry some boxes back to her flat, and drank her whisky.
All in all, it was a fine night.
Book Notes 23: Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson
So I finally start The Baroque Cycle; or you might say, I finally finish the first volume. I started reading this at a campsite in France while on holiday: that was back at the end of August. I finished it on the 9th of November. As I said not so long ago, I don't read that quickly these days (compared, say, to back when I was a student); but this has taken me ages. Which is not surprising, since it's 900 pages long.
While I’ve been reading it I’ve also read 19, 20, 21 and 22, but they are all graphic novels, and quite short. As well as that I generally read parts of the Saturday Guardian; a few magazines (London Cyclist, Matrix and Vector, occasionally The New Statesman, or one of the Linux magazines); and of course, a rake of blogs. But apart from those, it’s just been this one steadily for about two and a half months. And there are two more volumes to go: each, I believe, of a similar length.
None of which tells us anything about the content of the book, of course. It is an interesting exercise, apart from anything else: Stephenson cleverly educates us science geeks about history, by linking the doings of kings and lords with those of Isaac Newton and other luminaries of the Royal Society. Or so I first thought. But then I realised that simultaneously, or alternatively, it does the opposite: it teaches humanities geeks (who presumably can be expected to know about the history) something about the science of the time.
More importantly, though, it’s a damn good story. The first third tells the first part of the story of Daniel Waterhouse, who is the son of a Puritan family that is expecting the apocalypse to come in 1666. Of course, with the Plague and the Great Fire, it seems like it is.
Waterhouse is a Natural Philosopher, though (or scientist, as we would say). He goes to Cambridge, where he becomes the room-mate and friend of a hick from the country, one Isaac Newton.
I was reading it at a roaring pace all through the first part, but for me it lagged suddenly when the second part started, and we are introduced to a new set of characters, principally a vagabond called Jack Shaftoe (he has a brother called Bob, but I don’t know whether he is meant to be anything to do with the song) and a young woman called Eliza who was a harem slave to the Turks, and whom Jack frees.
The pace picks up again as we get to know these characters, and their peregrinations round the courts and battlefields of Europe mean that their paths eventually cross with Daniel and the other Royal Society members from part one. Which takes us to part three.
Far too much happens to give even a summary here. There are the births of princes and the deaths of kings, war, conquest and betrayal. Almost most importantly of all, the early scientists are probing and extending their understanding of the workings of the universe (of ‘creation’ as they would term it).
Most importantly of all, there are the lives of ordinary people going on against this backdrop
It’s a fantastic work, and as the first part of a trilogy, it isn’t marred by Stephenson’s noted difficulty with endings. I look forward eagerly to reading the second and third volumes.
I don’t know why it won SF awards, though: just being written by an SF author really isn’t enough to make a book SF.
Dead Zen Master
The last post on his blog has many comments saying goodbye, and mainly wishing him well on his onward journey. I don’t believe there is any onward journey, but it would be nice to think there was. My favourite of the comments I read was from an anonymous commenter, and reads:
Goodbye, you magnificent bastard. You join the ranks of Bill Hicks, Frank Zappa, and Hunter S. Thompson: for decades frustrated malcontents like me will be saying, "You know who we really need now?" and thinking of you.
Can’t argue with that.
Hail Eris! And 23 skidoo.
1. The title of his post, by the way, is from another of RAW’s blog posts.