Category: sf
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Easter Weekend plans
Off to the exciting, glamorous Heathrow area tomorrow, for Orbital, the 2008 Eastercon. It'll be the first convention I've been to for about ten years, so it should be quite fun.
When I was last at the hotel in question, it had a swimming pool. That has since been filled in, sadly. Then again, when I was last there, I don’t think that I actually used the pool, so perhaps it’s not a big deal.
It’ll be good to see some old friends and hopefully make some new ones. And they’ve got a great lineup of guests: Neil Gaiman, Charlie Stross, and China Miéville are the official ones, but as always, there will be various other authors there.
I’ll report back here on how it was (unless, you know, I don’t). Actually, come to think of it, there’s said to be free wifi in the hotel, so I’ll probably report back from it.
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.
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 only 'Transformer' I really like is an album by Lou Reed
Took the kids to see the Transformers movie tonight. It's not a franchise that I grew up with, of course, but my two older nephews were into them when they were kids, and so I was aware of them even before my son started watching the more recent cartoons a few years ago.
But I gather that there is a whole generation of twenty-somethings – maybe even thirty-somethings – who went to see the movie with a sense of worry, even trepidation, that it would stamp a great big metal foot all over their memories. And I gather that, largely, for them, it did not. I had heard quite good things about it (or I thought I had); and the trailer looked great.
So I was mostly disappointed. I didn’t hate it all the way through; nothing as extreme as that. I was just disappointed at how weak and overlong it was; and mainly by the American-military porn. A great deal of it was showing the fantasticness and coolness of American military technology. I’m not sure that’s really what I want to see in a film I take my kids to (though as it also revealed that all human technology came from reverse-engineering the frozen Megatron, they may have been sending mixed signals).
Also, since it starts with a US military base in the Middle East being attacked (by a giant alien fighting robot, and in Qatar, admittedly, but still), you might reasonably expect there to be some political point. But there wasn’t.
Unless, perhaps, it was this. The grunts (actually Special Forces, so I’m not sure we should call them grunts) were shown as cool, professional, skillful and competent. The secret government agency in charge of crashed alien artifacts, and the FBI, were shown as feeble, useless and pathetic; easily outwitted by a couple of teenagers and, err, a group of giant alien fighting robots. So, soldiers good, government bad, or something.
Also, one bit that really surprised me was when Megatron and Optimus Prime were fighting: Megatron turned into a plane, Optimus Prime grabbed him, and together they crashed into the side of a tower block and slo-mo’d all the way through it and out the other side. 9/11 can’t be as raw a wound in the American psyche as I had thought.
We could have done without the whole teen romance thing, but it’s an American summer blockbuster, so what can you expect? And we could have done without at least half an hour of the start.
It’s also incredibly visually noisy, and the Transformers themselves, especially the Decepticons (the baddies) are so similar when they’re in robot mode that it was really hard to tell what was going on at times.
But then, what was going on didn’t really matter that much.
The kids enjoyed it though, and it was a nice treat to end the summer holidays with; but since we started them with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and middled them with The Simpsons, I don’t think it really stands up.
Still, it’s definitely been ‘The Summer of Film’, as they were calling it in the trailers a while back.
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.
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.
Alias Doc and Martha
The new __Doctor Who__ episode was butt-kicking excellence! And Martha is a worthy successor to Rose.
Just replacing the sonic screwdriver like that was a bit of a copout, mind: given that it got destroyed, I thought that they might try to make something of him _not_ having it.
Still, that’s a very minor nitpick; it was much better than the start of the previous series (also set in a hospital, curiously).
A really strong start.
Updated to say: I’m guessing that the “Vote Saxon” poster is the first reference to whatever this season’s “Bad Wolf” may be.
Unless it’s just a reference to a dodgy heavy metal band.
[tags]Doctor Who, tv, sf[/tags]
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.