Lana Reviews: The Stand - Stephen King

Writing must be a great profession, - you can kill off entire worlds and get away with it. Having been a Stephen King fan for about 20 years now, I suppose it is quite an achievement to never have picked up The Stand in all those years. Until a few weeks ago anyway. The novel, which was originally written in 1978 and set in 1980, was re-released in 1990, and this newer version is the one I have read. Here, the story is set to 1990, and the book is over 500 pages longer than the original 1980 novel. It is, one might say, a brick of a book. Did it need those extra 500 pages? Since I haven't read the original version, I have no idea which parts were 'new,' but I didn't feel that any parts were particularly superfluous or dull.

The year is 1990, and in an army lab doing research on biological warfare, something goes horribly wrong. A virus breaches the lab's safety measures, and everyone in the facility dies, save for one man who manages to slip out, gather up his family, and get them out of the area before anyone can stop him. They make it to a small village in Texas before they die, bringing along a gift package containing a virus with 99,4% communicability, - a constantly shifting antigen virus that, once contracted, a human body would be unable to produce the necessary antibodies to get well again. The plague spreads through the country like wildfire killing nearly 100% of the population.

Those few who are left, who never got sick in the first place, struggle to take in the enormity of what has happened as they are forced to face this new world. Their loved ones are gone, everything that made up the order of the old world is no longer valid, all the rules have changed. And as the handful of characters we get to follow are drifting from their homes in search of something more, in search of others in a now too empty world, that's when the dreams come. And they are all urged through the dreams to choose sides, urged to travel in one of two directions. One is supposedly toward evil, the other toward good. It seems as if someone, or something, is setting them up for some great conflict or battle that only one side can win.

The funny thing about labeling one part of what is left of mankind good, and the other part evil, is that nothing is ever that cut and dry, nothing is ever that simple. And King points this out too, several times through the story; most people who ended up on the evil side of the conflict were not that much different from most of those that aligned themselves with the good side. And both sides had people drifting away when they felt they had gotten something different than what they had bargained for. Both sides also had people who aligned more with their chosen path (or side) than the rest, people who were more morally good or bad than the average person. But even some of the main characters, who even played key roles at the resolving of the conflict, never fell clearly into any of the two categories even though one might think they should have when they are chosen to champion one side. I liked that. That is exactly how humans are: we are all a mix and there's good and bad in all of us to some degree, that is just human nature. What truly matters in the end, is the choices we make.

As for the two characters who spearhead each side, they are both rather interesting. Both have some larger power behind them, backing them up and using them as tools, and I think they are both very aware of it. The story is pretty much telling us that the larger power behind mother Abigail is God, while the one behind Flagg is the devil. Flagg himself is always described as a jolly fellow, a could-be cousin of Santa himself - most of the visual descriptions of him stand in stark contrast with the fear that both his own side and his enemies have of him. Even when things go wrong for him though, he has very few doubts about what he is doing and is fully committed to the cause. Mother Abigail on the other hand, keeps questioning her role and begging to be released. As much as she trusts in her God, he is not very kind to her. And God and the devil, or whoever is behind it all, seem only to be interested in the great game they are playing, and not in the untold lives that are lost because of it.

I love disaster movies, even most of the bad ones (though I do draw a line at the Sharknado franchise. That was a bit too much, even for me). I am also a big fan of The Walking Dead. I guess it only makes sense that I would enjoy a book where today's world crashes down so severely and completely. I remember that at one point in the book I was wondering what would happen if the lone survivor of a town or village was a child. At that point, King had stuck to his main characters, mostly, and all of them were 16 or older. There were also a few characters I hadn't come across yet. Either way, and fortunately for my curiosity, it turned out King had thought to cover that too. All of a sudden, there was a chapter telling stories of a handful of those people who had survived the plague, but didn't make it in the first month (or first weeks maybe) after, due to other circumstances and incidents. One of those stories is about a little boy, and it is short and heartbreaking, but it sure answered my question. I don't doubt there were other children who ended up similarly to that poor boy, but fortunately, some were also luckier.

To me, The Stand was a lot about the journey. It starts off with a frantic journey to get away from death and ends with a soul-searching journey toward death, and in the middle there is a lot of traveling too. I got a feeling of how lonely and empty and big the world had become, but it felt kind of nice too at the same time. Often, people would see animals about that you hardly ever see anymore because they're too afraid to come out of hiding, or there just aren't that many of them left. It was like a reset of mother nature, and while humans might have gotten the short end of the stick (our own fault though), other species seemed to be thriving in our absence. I had no trouble believing that that's probably how it would be if something like that ever came to pass, and I think perhaps I liked the idea better than I should have.

I have read a lot of Stephen King books through the years, but I have to say that this is, without a doubt, my new favorite of his. It is a huge and slightly intimidating-looking book, and I was honestly wondering as I picked it up whether I could actually get through all those pages (I have had a bit of trouble lately, finishing the books I try to read). As it turned out though, I was never bored. Never did I feel as if parts were dull and shouldn't have been there, and never did I want to give up and put it away. The biggest trouble I had was the actual weight of the book, and being slowed down by the breaks I had to take when I got too tired to hold it. As such, I would heartily recommend this to anyone who likes Stephen King, or a good disaster story, or awesome settings and interesting characters. Now, if I could just get my hands on that TV mini-series they made in the 90s...

Book Details
Title: The Stand
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Gramercy
Pages: 1152
Year: 2001
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0-517-21901-8
First published: 1978, 1990

Lana Reviews: Julia - Peter Straub

First time I came across Peter Straub - that I knew of - was during a Stephen King spree I had some years back, which eventually led me to read The Talisman and Black House, two The Dark Tower-related novels that he and King wrote together. Only in November last year, did I realize that a horror movie I had watched at the tender age of 11-ish was in fact based on another of his books, Julia. What exactly made me look the movie up that random evening in November, I do not remember anymore, but I know I had exactly two clues to go on; Mia Farrow was in it, and it was about a creepy evil ghost girl. When I subsequently discovered that the movie was based on one of Straub's earlier novels, I knew I'd rather want to read that, than look at the movie again. So I hinted at this before Christmas, and soon after, it was to be one of the presents resting under the Christmas tree.

After the death of her young daughter during a tracheotomy gone wrong, Julia Lofting - trying hard to break out of her old life and the memories it holds - leaves her husband and old home behind, and starts looking for a new place to live. The first house she is shown, seems to beckon to her, and what's more, she glimpses a young girl about her daughter's age, and with the same color hair, roaming about in the neighborhood. After that first visit at Twenty-five Ilchester Place she never goes to look at any of the other places for rent or for sale, - she knows that this large, old-fashioned house in Kensington, London was meant for her, and impulsively makes the purchase.

What seemingly starts out as a positive change and a new clean start for Julia, however, soon turns bitter, as she realizes that the past will not stay in the past. Not only will her husband not leave her be, but something in the house wants her there, needs her to be there, but also hates her, half egging her on to figure out its secrets, half discouraging her from finding out anything by threatening her with death. But Julia won't stop her search into the past. And as she struggles to figure out exactly what happened at Twenty-five Ilchester Place and its near surroundings 24 years earlier, Julia herself falls apart, slowly descending into the darkness of her damaged psyche.

Julia is a haunted house story. Or is it, really? Straub has put it together in such a clever way that one frequently wonders what exactly is going on. From the first page of the story, it is obvious that something isn't quite right with Julia. And throughout the novel, the reader can never be sure if what Julia experiences is real, or whether it's just whatever is wrong with her making her perceive things in a way a person without her mental baggage wouldn't, making her one of the most unreliable narrators I've ever come across. Several times, it is hinted at that some of the things she thinks the ghost did, were in fact done by the people in her life: her husband, his sister, and their adoptive brother. Then again, a few bits of the story is told from these other peoples' points of view, and some of the things they see and experience do indeed match the things Julia herself has seen and felt, making it even harder to figure out what exactly is happening in this novel.

Threatening ghost or not, Julia works hard at solving the riddle of Twenty-five Ilchester Place, and whether or not it was just chance leading her to this old house in Kensington, it turns out that there is a connection of sorts between her and the house. Her hunt for clues, and her slow unearthing of events in the past, lends the novel an air of mystery - and it's a pretty good one at that. But Julia soon looses herself in a really bad way during her search, and doesn't seem to realize or care that what she is doing is slowly destroying her. While she claims several times that she doesn't want to die, all her actions point toward a wish for self-destruction, whether the character herself is aware of it or not. Had she really wanted to break with her old life, for example, she could have moved back to her country of birth and started anew over there, - she certainly had the means to do so. Instead she chose to live in a place where her 'family' could continue to use, abuse and manipulate her.

In a way, Julia is very much a product of the life she chose for herself and the people she chose to have in her life, all poor choices in my opinion. Her husband, Magnus, does not come off as a very sympathetic man. He needs to be in control of every aspect of his life, it seems, including the people in it. As such, he does not take it well when Julia decides to leave and live alone. Apparently, his personality and habits match those of Julia's father, down to how they both had plenty of mistresses and thought this to be only fair. (If Julia had taken a lover, however, there might have been murder.) Magnus' sister Lily comes off as more sympathetic than her brother, but she is manipulative in her own way, and has her own agenda when it comes to Julia. I'm not entirely sure what was going on with Mark, their adopted brother, but he seemed to be having mental issues of his own, making his bits of the story as unreliable as Julia's. Continuing to allow these people to be a part of her life (or be close enough to force their way into it, in her husband's case) is as self-destructive as the hunt Julia cannot abandon.

Julia is not a very complicated book to read, not at first sight, but as it turns out once you sit down and think about it, it has layers and layers of things happening where nothing is what it seems, and where everything can be questioned or looked at from at least two sides. Which in turn makes me wonder whether I've ignored some big things I should have talked about here, in favor of driveling on about the things I thought were interesting, or strange, or worthy of notice and so on. Basically though, it is a chilling story, and if you want laughs and giggles, this is not the right book for you. I have read better ghost stories, and I have read worse, but if you like novels where you have to figure out for yourself what is happening, and don't mind still not being quite sure as you turn the last page, I really do recommend this book as it's pretty clever like that.

Book Details
Title: Julia
Author: Peter Straub
Publisher: Anchor Books
Pages: 291
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7283-7
First published: 1975

Lana Reviews: The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

First published in 1898, H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is a work of science fiction that I, as a reader in 2014, feel must have been way ahead of its time back when it was first released. Although some of the scientific ideas brought up in this novel are a bit out of date today, they were actually the theories that were thought to make sense back then, and Wells himself did a pretty good job explaining such scientific and technological ideas in his works so that the average person could understand them better.

One day, something unexpected happens over south-eastern England. A falling star is observed, few noticing the greenish streak it is leaving behind as it rushes across the sky. Incidentally, it turns out that the 'meteorite' lands somewhere in Surrey, not far from Woking where the narrator of the story lives. Only the next morning, however, when someone ventures out to find it, is it discovered that it is not a meteorite at all, but a cylinder, its top unscrewing slowly indicating that someone or something must be inside, trying to get out.

What comes out of the cylinder is clearly not a creature of our world, and before long, it becomes clear that it has no intention of making friends. After witnessing the violence and chaos unleashed upon the curious but innocent masses gathered around the cylinder, the narrator hurries home. He decides to get his wife and servant out of Woking to somewhere safe, a journey they manage without much trouble. But as he returns home with the horse and cart he loaned for the trip, it turns out that what happened earlier near the cylinder was only the beginning of the destruction that Woking and the rest of the area would see. The rest of his story tells of how he tries to make it back to his wife, while at the same time trying to stay safe as the Martians have started moving around.

The book is told in first person view by a nameless narrator mostly telling us the story of what happened to him when the Martians invaded. Through a few chapters however, he also shares his brother's experiences with us, something I think Wells chose to do to give his readers a second point of view from a different, and perhaps more well-known, location. Not every reader would recognize Woking and the surrounding country-side, but most would have heard of London. Since the whole story is supposed to be a factual account of the invasion from Mars, we get to know very little of the characters - few of the principal ones are even named.

The story itself starts out with a chapter that, among others, does two things. First, it links something that actually happened in real life a few years before, to the events of the story. In 1894, a French astronomer observed a strange light on Mars. This became the starting point of Wells' story. He makes this into one of the times the Martians launched one of their many cylinders: destination Earth.

Second, it explains how come the inhabitants of Mars are so far ahead of humans intellectually and technologically, and since it was the prevailing theory of planetary formation at the time, this is explained as a result of Mars being an older world than ours because it is further away from the sun than Earth, the theory being that the outer planets formed first, and also cooled and aged faster than the ones closer to the sun. Since they didn't know what we do today about Mars being cold and barren, one cannot blame them for thinking that if life was possible on earth, it would only make sense that life would be possible on Mars too. Believing Mars to be an older world, it would then not be far-fetched to think that the Martians would have come along further in their development than the people of earth, having had more time to evolve.

Talking about evolving, Wells' background as a science teacher in training and a believer in Darwinism shines through as he, somewhere along the way, describes the evolution of the Martians. He had already aired a lot of the ideas he brought up in The War of the Worlds in an essay he had published in 1896, named Intelligence on Mars. Here, he speculated about the evolution of Martian species compared to those on earth, thinking they would have to be different since the conditions would undoubtedly be different. He also played with the idea that perhaps, if Mars had changed enough that the Martians could not live there anymore, they would be looking for a new place to settle. His genius was that, where contemporary authors stuck to the usual plot of the then popular invasion novels, letting humans fight humans, Wells raised the stakes so much higher by introducing a formidable and near unbeatable enemy from another world.

The only book I had read by Wells before picking up this one, was The Time Machine, which I read in my late teens and really enjoyed. Still, I was a bit skeptical about The War of the Worlds as I really disliked the 2005 Steven Spielberg movie of almost the same name, which is the only filmed version I have seen. Fortunately, the book is so much better. I especially like that it is set in a time when horses and carts are still in use (where the movie was set it in our day and age), and yet you have these Martians moving around in metal vehicles with three long legs, brandishing laser-like weapons! How Wells came up with these things I will never know, the man sort of invented the future. As for this book, it served to remind me of an author I had enjoyed in the past, and now I cannot wait to pick up more of his works.

Book Details
Title: The War of the Worlds
Editor: H.G. Wells
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 199
Year: 2005
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-14-144103-0
First published: 1898

Val & Lana Review: Artemis Awakening - Jane Lindskold

For the four hundredth reviewed work on Random Comments I thought we ought to try something different. I got Lana to agree to do a joint review for the occasion. In the poll I ran a while ago you selected Jane Lindskold's latest novel Artemis Awakening, the first of a new trilogy, and so we set to work. As was the expectation, we don't quite agree on this novel. Maybe it is something worth repeating for a few other titles we have opposing opinions on.

Created from bare rock by a human empire so technologically advanced  that moving planets was a simple task, Artemis was to serve as a  pleasure planet to the few who'd be allowed access to it. But when the empire fell, the knowledge of the whereabouts of the planet was also  lost, and Artemis survived only as a fable told to children, to remind them of the great achievements that their ancestors had once been  capable of.

To Griffin Dane however, Artemis is more than a fable. To him, it is  his path to recognition and fame among his peers. Believing that he might have found the till now lost coordinates of Artemis, he sets out alone on a journey through the stars, afraid that if he accepts the help or company of any others, including his family, he will have to share the glory to come, or even have it taken away from him completely. And  so it is that when he arrives on Artemis, crash-landing his ship in the process, he is alone with no conceivable way to get back home.

Lucky for him, he soon meets Adara and her psych-linked companion, Sand Shadow the puma. They are both ascendants of the bio-engineered humans and animals who were once created to populate Artemis in order to  make the stay more pleasant for its visitors. Convinced that Griffin must be an ascendant of the creators of Artemis, she and her companion  decides to help him find his way on their planet in his search for a way home. Before long, they are joined by Adara's friend Terrell, whose abilities as a factotum will prove invalulable to their cause, as their journey leads them to strange places and unexpected happenings.

Lana's view:

Artemis Awakening is my first book by Jane Lindskold. I have heard of some of her other works, but looking at her bibliography, I cannot say that I have read any of them. As such, I had no idea what to expect when I started on this novel, and it was all quite exciting!

Artemis Awakening is set in a post-apocalyptic world, about 500 years after the events that broke it apart. Humans have managed to regain some of the technology that was lost to them (after a fashion anyway; they did not only lose technology, but special abilities were lost as well), but compared to the legends of their ancestors, it looks as if they may still have som way to go in order to catch up. This seems to be one of the things driving Griffin Dane onwards; perhaps if he finds Artemis, he'll rediscover some lost technology of the past - something that will help humanity take another step towards the greatness they once had. Most of the time, Griffin comes off as the kind of character that is fair, highly intellectual and sympathetic towards others; he is even brave when the situation calls for it. Once he becomes focused on something, however, it is as if all his attention and energy go towards that one thing, and nothing else seems to be of importance anymore. For a long time, one does not get to see that latter part of his personality, so through a lot of the book, I found it hard to imagine this character as someone setting off alone to make a discovery because he did not want to share it with anyone else; he just didn't seem the type.

Another character that kind of tricks you in the beginning, is Terrell. When he first entered the story, I thought he would simply take on the role as someone annoying and arrogant, a pain in the backside and just there to make life difficult for Griffin - and perhaps for Adara as well. Before long, I had to admit that perhaps he was the most likable of the bunch, which is saying a lot as, with two notable exceptions, the people of Artemis generally comes off as pretty likable at all times. I was left with a feeling that he was introduced to the core group (Griffin, Adara and Sand shadow) to make things a bit more interesting - suddenly we have two males interested in one female, and drama can ensue. Except that nothing really ever happens, other than some comments and a few confused thoughts. Perhaps Lindskold is planning on adding more tension and awkwardness to this situation in the sequel since she did not do much with it in the first book.

While the whole idea of bioengineering humans and animals just to bring pleasure to those few who would have access to it sits horribly with me, the link between Adara and her puma was one of my favorite elements of the story, and wouldn't have been possible in this setting, I think, without what was done to their ancestors. Through Adara we get to find out what Sand Shadow thinks about the things that are happening, and their communication is often a bit funny, since the big cat tends to find the actions of her human companions on the amusing side.

Artemis Awakening is not a very complicated story, at least not so far. I felt that it was very fast-paced, and the type of book one can easily read in one go. Since I haven't read anything else by Lindskold, I have no idea whether this is typical for her or not, although, I think my co-author of this review, who has read other books by her, said something one day about it not being her most complicated work ever, so it might be an exception to her usual style. Whatever the case, I did enjoy it, and I would definitely pick up the next book in the series, just to find out what happens next.

Val's view:

I've read seven of Lindskold's novels before starting this one. All six Firekeeper books and one of her early novels Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls. Compared to these books Artemis Awakening is a very light read. The Firekeeper books is a fairly complex story in the sense that the reader has to keep up with a large cast and the relationship between lots of noble houses, as well as a detailed history of the part of the world the books are set in. Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls is much more a character study, where we see the entire story though the eyes of an unreliable narrator, essentially forcing the reader to evaluate each bit of information carefully to figure out what is going on. Artemis Awakening is neither of these things. The premise of this novel is simple, the execution straightforward. In fact, if it hadn't been for the references to rape and sexual abuse, none of which is explicitly depicted in the novel, it could have been a book for young readers. As Lana has already noted, It is not a very challenging book.

I didn't think it was a hugely original book either. Lindskold sets her story in a universe where a huge galactic empire reached levels of technology that Arthur C. Clarke would equate with magic before tearing itself apart. Now, humanity is slowly beginning to rediscover their past. A concept like this made Asimov famous in the 1940s. It is quite obvious that Artemis Awakening leans quite heavily on tried and trusted science fiction tropes.

On top of that, Lindskold sets the novel up like a romance early on in the book. Handsome hero is rescued by capable and beautiful heroine and together they trek trough the unspoilt wilderness of Artemis. Mutual attraction is obvious in those first pages of the book. I wonder how many readers of science fiction will be put off by this. It's not a crowd that is very tolerant to this sort of thing. I must admit I had my doubts as well when Lindskold introduces a rival, setting things up for a classic love triangle. For some reason the author doesn't follow though on this however. Not yet anyway. Further along in the novel a measure of respect develops between the three characters.

I can't say I thought the story itself was that interesting but the concept of the planet Artemis is. It is essentially a world that is tailored to fit the ideal of a wild, unspoilt world. It is designed to keep an ecological balance between the population and their environment that keeps the place empty, wild and unspoilt. A planetary wildlife preserve almost. To achieve this, all sorts of comforts - surely the decadent rulers of a galactic empire can't be expected to rough it - have been hidden away, just waiting for rediscovery by someone who knows what to look for. Someone who is used to a higher standard of technology than the local population. Someone from outside.

Ecosystems are dynamic. There is no such thing as a system that is entirely in balance. It might hover around a kind of dynamic equilibrium for some time but in the long run they tend to evolve. Artemis is of course a designed system, but since it does not appear to be actively managed anymore and several hundred years have passed since it has, one would expect it to drift away from the ideal state the designers had in mind. It would certainly have made things interesting but so far no evidence of that happening has shown up in the story. Lindskold mostly keeps it limited to the adaptations of a small part of the population of Artemis.

One theme that does come back in a lot of Lindskold's work is the connection between people and animals. In the Firekeeper books it was the one between wolves and the main character. Here, the Huntress Adara is accompanied by a puma of unnatural intelligence. To make matters worse, the puma as opposable thumbs. Think about how scary a cat with opposable thumbs would be. They are quite enough trouble without them. And the ones we keep around are not the size of a puma either. It's a fun bit of wish-fulfillment I suppose. One that Lindskold uses to get past all sorts of obstacles the puma would not be able to negotiate otherwise. As always, she has managed to convincingly capture the spirit of the animal. It is anthropomorphizing to a high degree of course, but cat owners will recognize a lot in the Sand Shadow's behaviour.

All things considered, Artemis Awakening is not an unpleasant read. Just a very straightforward one. The plot is well put together but somewhat predictable. The observant reader will see the hook for book two coming quite some time before the climax of the book. It is the kind of cozy science fiction that will not really challenge the more experienced read and as such, I thought it was only mildly entertaining. I might be convinced to read the second volume but I doubt it will leap to the top of the to read stack when it appears.

So there you have it, two opinions of Artemis Awakening. We'll leave it up to you to figure out who is right ;)

Lana Reviews: Remnant Population - Elizabeth Moon

Having read the Paksenarrion trilogy and the four first books in Paladin's Legacy, I was already somewhat acquainted with Elizabeth Moon's writing, and as far as her works of Fantasy go, I really enjoy her books. So when I picked up Remnant Population for my reading challenge, I was quite excited to finally try something of hers in a different genre. Released in 1996, this book was nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel the year after, which eventually went to Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Ofelia Falfurrias was one of the original colonists of Colony 3245.12, arriving with her family to settle on the planet that would be their home for the next 40 years. During those years, her husband and all but one child died as did many of the other colonists, their death rate forever matching or exceeding their birth rate. When we enter the story, the authorities have revoked the Sims Bancorp's franchise to run the colony as it is considered a failure, and they have no choice but to disband it. As for the colonists themselves, they are to be forcibly shipped off in cryo-sleep to wherever the company feels like sending them. When Ofelia finds out that her family will be deducted for the cost of moving her from one place to another as she is considered too old to be of any further use for the Company, she decides to stay behind. There is a good chance her age will cause her to die while in cryo-sleep anyway, so why not spend what is left of her life where she buried her children and her husband?

On the day of departure, she hides away in the forest until she considers it to be safe to return to the village knowing that with their deadlines, the Company will not waste much time looking for one elderly colonist. At this point, she starts a fairly different existence to the one she has been forced into for so many years. Finally, she is free to play and to do what she herself wants to without fear of censure from the rest of the community, a freedom she hasn't had since she was a little girl. In spite of the work she has to do to stay alive, she is quite happy with her situation, when one day, a second group of colonists arrives, intending to settle somewhere to the north. As she listens to them, she unexpectedly becomes a witness to them being slaughtered by what cannot be anything other than sentient beings. For the first time since she herself arrived on this planet 40 years earlier, she realizes that the colonists were never alone.

It never ceases to amaze me how, no matter what kind of technology we as humans acquire or what kind of amazing things we can do, in most science fiction novels I have read describing all these wonderful things, the genders keep behaving as if they were still stuck in the Victorian era of our world, or worse. One would think that after having figured out how to move people across the universe, and how to colonize on worlds with ecologies not suited to support human beings and so on, there would be some improvement in the social spheres of life too, but no such luck. Among the colonists of Colony 3245.12, while men and women are taught to do the same jobs, it is considered the right way of things that the men should control the women, and the adults should control the children. Using violence to achieve either of these two, seems to be commonly accepted. When they are offered another way to look at things, they also respond with violence. Of course, it should be noted that the Company chose for their colonists to be uneducated people, set in certain ways and traditions, yet easy to form into what they needed and without too many ideas of their own. That, along with the placement of the colony itself, was most likely a factor that helped doom it to fail from the start.

I do like, however, how Moon hits right on the head how we as a society tend to treat our old people, in this novel illustrated in part by how an old woman is thought of no further value once she is past her child-bearing years. Where we should perhaps have cherished and honored them for their knowledge and their years of experience, we tend to write old people off as useless, someone who only takes up time and space; a bother. As the story unfolds, Moon shows us how things could have been had we considered their value differently, and appreciated them for what they were, and made use of their experience. And then she reminds us again, quite firmly, that this is just not the way of most human beings.

What I liked best about Remnant Population is how most of the story is told from the point of view of an old woman. She is often thinking about her aches, she is often grumpy, and she is completely aware of the fact that she does not know everything - although sometimes her general life experience makes her more knowledgeable than she gives herself credit for. She is an unlikely heroine, I think; I know I was surprised when I found out that the story would revolve around her, and not someone younger, or of a different gender - or both! Considering that that is what I have been served in most of the science fiction I've read till now, this was actually a nice surprise.

As a linguist, I guess I should also mention that once first contact is made between Ofelia and the unknown beings inhabiting the planet, it is fascinating to see how they go about trying to communicate with each other. Especially with their starting points being so completely different from each other and, at first glance, with no apparent common ground from which to get started.

All in all I really enjoyed this book, despite my general annoyance with sexism in science fiction. I guess it is not a overly exciting story as such, as a lot of the descriptions are of the daily toils of the main character; mundane tasks such as weeding the kitchen garden, fixing the houses, knitting, painting and cooking, and so on. Still, I kept wanting to go on to see what would happen next, especially once the unknown beings were introduced to the storyline, and I was never bored. It does not seem to matter that much to me whether Moon writes fantasy or science fiction, I seem to enjoy the results regardless.

Book Details
Title: Remnant Population
Author: Elizabeth Moon
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 325
Year: 2003
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-345-46219-0
First published: 1996

Lana Reviews: Dune - Frank Herbert

Dune by Frank Herbert was the sixth book I read for my reading challenge, and will be the third book that I review. I chose to read it because, although I did not know anything about Dune or its universe beforehand, I did know that it has been an important book for both science fiction and the fantasy genre. (Plus I hoped it would help me understand the Dune-related spice jokes that sometimes pop up on my Facebook feed.) When first picking it up, however, I got a bit worried as the first thing it tells me on its front cover is that the only thing Arthur C. Clarke knows that is comparable to it, is The Lord of the Rings. Don't get me wrong, - I quite enjoyed The Lord of the Rings, at least on my reread, but I always felt it was a relatively difficult read so thanks to this Clarke fellow I kind of expected Dune to be the same. It wasn't.

Young Paul Atreides is a member of a noble family who has just been offered the stewardship of the planet Arrakis - also known as Dune. As part of an interstellar feudal society where all noble houses owe their allegiance to the Padishah Emperor, his father, the Duke, has little choice but to accept the offer, fully aware that it is little more than a trap he and his family is walking into. Arriving at Arrakis, they find a desert planet where every drop of water is worth a fortune. But what makes the planet so valuable to the rest of the Galactic Empire, is that it is the only source of melange, the 'spice of spices.'

When the story begins, Paul is 15 years old and described as small for his age. Those who meet him first think of him as a child, only to discover as they interact with him, that he thinks, speaks and acts like a grown man. From his mother, Lady Jessica, he has received Bene Gesserit training giving him, among other things, heightened senses and knowledge of martial arts. He has also received training in how to use weapons from some of his father's trusted men, and in being a mentat - a human computer. When his family is betrayed on Dune, he and Jessica escape into the desert where they find shelter with the Freemen, the extremely hardy inhabitants of the planet. Being thought dead, the House of Atreides believed to be nothing more than a memory, gives Paul the opportunity to gather his forces and resources, and take back what is rightfully his.

For anyone familiar with the monomyth, (or the hero's journey,) it is quite obvious from the very first few pages of the book that the young boy Paul Atreides has a great destiny ahead of him. Even those unfamiliar with the above pattern are unlikely to miss Paul's own feelings of having a terrible purpose, feelings he has even before he receives the visions revealing what exactly that purpose will be. Like with most heroes written in this way, he doesn't have much of a choice in the matter, but rather has unfortunate circumstances forced upon him, changing his life from the normal to the unknown. Some heroes will survive the unknown thanks to powers they suddenly acquire at this point; Paul survives because of the years of training he has received when things could still be considered normal. For those that are familiar with the pattern of the hero's journey, Paul's story will most likely be extremely predictable, - I guess that would be true even for those who have simply read similar stories based on the same pattern, without knowing that there is such a pattern. It is okay though, it was how the author meant for it to be.

The future interstellar feudal society of Dune does not seem to have come very far when it comes to gender roles. The galaxy is, based on what we are told in this book, dominated by the male gender, and even the exclusively female Bene Gesserit, a religious group, want nothing more than to bring about a male Bene Gesserit among them; it has been their goal for thousands of years. The women that do not have any special powers, are hardly ever seen or mentioned, and seem to stick to the traditional female duties and roles in society. Those that have special powers, like the Bene Gesserit, are feared and hated, and often referred to as witches. In addition, it seems their powers are only meant to be used to serve the men around them. This is not really criticism though, more of an observation.

As I was reading Dune, I sometimes wondered what kind of reception it would have gotten had it been written and published now, and not back in 1965. How would the world today have reacted to a book where the hero adapts into a society of fighters that have Arab-sounding names, Arabic and Islamic terms in their language, and won't hesitate to spend their own lives if it means taking out their enemies along the way? And what about the immoral and corrupt enemy who will do anything to get their hands on the one valuable thing on the desert-planet that these fighters inhabit; the substance that makes space-travel/transportation possible? In a way, I wish I had read Dune when I was in my early or middle teens, so that my reading experience would not have been colored by what has happened in the real world in the last 15 years. I do not think it made me enjoy the story any less, but it did add thoughts and feelings to it that I do not think Herbert had ever intended.

I really liked Dune. For a science fiction story, it resembles my favorite genre (fantasy) a lot more than I thought it would. Keeping most of the focus on the story and the characters made it more enjoyable and available for me than science fiction that focuses more on science or technology. I also felt that it is an easier read than many other books because of the language itself. Sure, Herbert uses a lot of words that is not actually English, but there is a glossary in the back for that, and the rest of the story flows nicely enough. I would definitely recommend this, both for science fiction and fantasy fans.

Book Details
Title: Dune
Author: Frank Herbert
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 609
Year: 2007
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-575-08150-5
First published: 1965

Lana Reviews: Ash: A Secret History - Mary Gentle

I had not read anything by Mary Gentle before, so when I picked up Ash: A Secret History for my reading challenge, I did not quite know what to expect. I knew that the story I was about to read was set in mediaeval Europe, albeit not quite the historical Europe we know today, and I knew that the main character was a woman mercenary leader named Ash. I could also see that this was a very long story I had taken on and that it would take me some time to get through it. With this starting point, I had some trouble getting through what I think was the first one or two chapters. It was not that it was not well written; I just have a natural inborn aversion for anything having to do with history - I blame my history teacher back in school for this; he made that ghost professor teaching History of Magic in the Harry Potter books seem like the teacher of the century. How can they make something that should be interesting so... exceptionally dull? In spite of this though, I had read historical fantasy before and quite enjoyed it, so once I got to where the more obviously fantastical elements were introduced, I was hooked.

As stated before, the main character in this book is a young woman named Ash. She grew up as an orphan camp follower with a group of mercenaries, already knowing as a child that to survive in her world one has to know how to fight, and even more importantly; how to kill. Instead of falling into the more traditional and accepted roles for women at the time, she has the drive needed to become the leader of her own mercenary company. She also hears a voice in her mind that gives her tactical advice on the field of battle, so that - while she might not always downright win - she never loses. Believing this to be the voice of the Lord and His Saints - not entirely unreasonable considering the time-period the story is set in - she does not have much reason to question whether the voice could be something else altogether.

Europe is apparently not a very peaceful place in the 15th century; smaller and bigger battles are being fought out all the time by cities and countries, and the mercenaries hired to fight them. Yet, the armies of Europe are not ready when the Visigoths of Northern Africa suddenly start their invasion in the south, headed by a mysterious general that also hears voices. They come from Carthage, a place that once was struck by a magical curse rendering it forever in twilight, and as their forces conquer Europe, their twilight also spreads. It is in this state of chaos and war that Ash must find out who she really is, as well as the true source of her own voice.

Although I kept complaining throughout my reading about how it ruined my immersion, I can see now that Gentle did something very clever when she wrote Ash: A Secret History. She implemented a framing device that claimed her story as something real; as the work of a scholar translating Latin historical texts. As such, there are footnotes throughout the story explaining things, just as one would find in scholarly publications. This was perhaps one of the things that made it a bit more difficult for me to get into it at the start; I really felt as if I was reading an academic book and not fiction.

That having been said, all the historical details she works into the story did not particularly bother me once I decided to just take everything she said with a grain of salt. Having such poor knowledge about history as I do, it would be impossible for me to differentiate between what is common knowledge and what she has made up (not counting the made up things that were obvious even to me), so for me it was simply just easier to think of everything as fiction instead of wondering what was real and what was not. I did sometimes think, however, that someone with more knowledge than I would be able to enjoy the story even better than I did, perhaps on a different level, even.

As for the story versus character development, I often felt that the former might have been more important to Gentle while writing this book. Because, the story is so well written; the details and the plot are really well worked out. But the characters... there are two characters that are more complex than the rest of the bunch; Ash the female warrior, and her best friend, the company physician. The rest seem to just fall into groups of different roles, were you can't tell one from the other except by name. The women for example; you have noble women and what I would assume would be housewives; regular women taking care of the house and children. But you hardly ever hear of these two groups since they are not the groups Ash tends to be around (with one special exception, but I can't go into that too much without spoiling the story, and she is not the typical noblewoman anyway). The two groups you do hear of are the other female warriors of the company and the company whores.

For the men, I found I could also part them into four groups; the ones that detest Ash, not because she is a warrior, but because she is a woman; the ones that respect her enough as a warrior that they are fine working for her, as long as they are fine with doing what she tells them to do; the ones that both respect her as a woman and a warrior, and in addition feel loyal to her; and the ones that do everything the last group did, but in addition to that, also loves her. And while it works out just fine since the story itself is so good, I never felt very sad when something happened to these characters, because there were so many of the same sort to take over if one was lost.

In the end though, it does not matter if I felt that the characters were not as well developed as the story itself, nor does it matter that I at first found the frame device distracting; the first does not make the story any less amazing, and the second... well, I got over it quickly, and one could even say that the ending would not have been quite the same without it. The size of the book can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but it is not a difficult read as such; Gentle's language, apart from historical names for various pieces of a soldier's armor, for example, is fluid and relatively simple to follow. If you have issues with profanity though, you might want to steer clear. Personally, I have no such issues and heartily recommend this book!

Book Details
Title: Ash: A Secret History
Author: Mary Gentle
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 1113
Year: 2001
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1-85798-744-6
First published: 2000

Lana Reviews: American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Having worked my way through a few of Neil Gaiman's books already and found that I enjoy his style of writing immensely, I was delighted when I, during a random search of our bookshelves, found Anansi Boys amongst the many books I have yet to read. It was only after I had added it to my Goodreads 'to be read' list that I realized I should read American Gods first. unfortunately, we did not own a copy of that one, but my boyfriend was kind enough to gift me a copy for Christmas. It took me a few weeks to actually pick it up and get started, but as it were, the story was worth the wait.

I could say that this is a book about a man who, fresh out of jail and having lost everything he held dear, chooses to start working for another man; a decision that will change his life, or at least the way he looks at the world. I could say that it is about old and new gods, and the ongoing war between them. I could say it is about the dead haunting the living, or gods preying on humans, or journeys to various parts of the United States. I suppose I could even say that it is a crime story featuring a serial killer, and it wouldn't exactly be wrong. There are a lot of smaller stories in this book that together make up a bigger story. Still, we mostly follow Shadow, the man that we meet in jail at the start of the book.

I found it quite hard to decide what to think of Shadow. He is a criminal - or at least he has made some bad decisions prior to when we first meet him - or he wouldn't be in jail. Yet, he seems to have a certain sense of what is right and wrong, and seems to strive to try and do the former by himself and those he meets. He appears to care about the well-being of the people around him, and he is certainly loyal to a fault once he has given his word. I suppose that his character could have been made more interesting and less... flat, perhaps, but for me Gaiman's way of writing him worked just fine.

The story is a dark one, with elements that clearly suggest it is meant for adults. Sometimes the language is crude, but when it is, it is because it needs to be; it is part of the setting that Gaiman is building. None of the characters come off as perfect; they all have dark sides or dark histories or other flaws. In this story, even the gods have flaws, just like they used to in the old mythologies.

What I remember really enjoying while reading American Gods, were all the little references to various old mythologies of the world, like for example Norse and Egyptian mythology; I imagine that Gaimain must have been doing quite some research to be able to put together all the various characters that are supposed to symbolize old gods or old rituals in this book. While few of them were very well-known to me - he had chosen to leave out the Greek and Roman pantheon which are the ones I know best - I could still recognize several and make good guesses about who they were supposed to be. I also liked his take on who the new gods are, and how he chose to portray them.

As mentioned before, American Gods is in a way one story made up of several stories. But I didn't feel that it was hard to follow at any point, or that anything was left unresolved; I am pretty sure I got answers to most of the riddles I encountered throughout my reading. And that feels nice; when everything falls in place and you feel you have just read a well-composed story. That's how all the Gaiman books I've read so far have made me feel, and why I am always glad to read more of them.

So basically, I would heartily recommend American Gods. I think it is a good story, and a story that has been put together really well. I have always found Gaiman's style of writing entertaining and easy to follow, so too in this book even though it is darker than the other books by him that I have read. In American Gods you get to go on a journey on several levels; not only do you get to travel to various places in the United States, but also to other places in this world and other worlds, and through time itself. And of course, if potential readers are interested in various old mythologies, that is probably just a bonus.

Book Details
Title: American Gods
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 465
Year: 2001
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-380-97365-1
First published: 2001

Lana Reviews: The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg

Deciding to do Worlds Without End’s 2014 Masterworks Challenge, and not having my own book blog for posting reviews (I do not really do reviews so I have never really needed one,) Val here kindly offered that I could post my reviews on his blog. Hopefully there will be at least six of them during 2014, since else, I will lose the challenge! 

Online I call myself Lana; I was born in 1981, and while I live in the Netherlands now, I am quite Norwegian. I love to read, although all the forced reading I did at the university for many years kind of took the pleasure out of it for a while. I prefer fantasy I guess, authors like Anne Bishop and Robert Jordan have been read and reread over the years, but I have read a few classics too (my bachelor is in English Literature,) and lately, I have added a lot more science fiction to my ‘have read’ list. I especially enjoy Nancy Kress and in particular her short story fiction. 

 As I hinted at above, I do not typically do reviews. I might very well focus on the wrong things and completely miss the big picture, but I’ll do my best to write honest and informative pieces without spoiling too much of whichever book I’m reviewing at the time. My aim is simply to complete the challenge I’ve signed up for. It shall be fun, I’m sure!

Robert Silverberg’s The Book of Skulls (1972) is a story about the journey taken by four young men after one of them finds an old manuscript that promises its reader eternal life. Not only does their search for immortality take us across the United States of America, but also through their minds, their past, and the past of the world itself. When Silverberg wrote this book, he had already produced countless novels and short stories; science fiction as well as other genres. Still, for someone who has read as little science fiction as I have, this is not what I would typically think of when I think of that genre. There are no aliens, no spaceships, and no futuristic tools or machinery; there is only the promise of immortality. This promise, and the criteria for achieving it, however, was what caught my interest and why I chose to pick up this book.

When we meet the four main characters, all in their early twenties, they have already left the college they attend together in New England and started their journey south-west in search of a secretive sect living in Arizona; the sect they believe once wrote the manuscript they have recently found. They also already know that in order for two of them to attain eternal life, the manuscript says that two of them must die. As they make their way from city to city and from state to state, we get many glimpses into their thoughts and feelings, Silverberg using this time to build up their personalities and backgrounds by writing first person chapters from the different characters’ points of view. And when they reach their goal, a different journey begins, revealing that what we have learnt so far might only be a part of the whole, and that nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Silverberg has created four different characters with four relatively different backgrounds for his story, however, none of them comes across as very likable and I never felt sad about the prospect that two of them might have to die before the end. This made the story a bit poor to me, as, to truly enjoy a book I need to care a bit more about the characters I read about.

Another thing I noticed as I worked my way through these young men’s heads was all the knowledge they seemed to be in possession of at any given time, and all the big words they knew and always were in complete control of how to use. Granted, they are supposed to be students and students are supposed to be knowledgeable, plus things might have been different back then compared to when I attended university and all knowledge was a Google-search away, but I have never met one person that age carrying that much and diverse knowledge around in his or her head. In fact, the further I read, the more I felt as if the author himself, through his characters, was showing off his own wealth of knowledge, and in that way only managed to make his characters more unrealistic, less real.

I also had an issue with how female characters were written and described in this book. Again, it might have something to do with differences between the time during which this story takes place, and the time I grew up in. Or perhaps it is a difference between the author’s country of birth and my own. Might even be that being a woman, I do not truly know how males that age really think about women – maybe it simply is as crude and contemptuous as Silverberg implies.

While The Book of Skulls might not be my new favorite book, or the best book I have ever read, one can tell that the author has put a lot of thought into his story, and he certainly tells a tale that one wants to know how ends. In spite of big words and longwinded monologues of self-reflection and existentialism, it is not a particularly difficult read either. There were a lot of little things that I didn’t like that much about it, but the main idea; the search for immortality, and four friends choosing to go ahead with that search although knowing from the start that two of them might perish before the search is over, was one that I found quite appealing. So while I might have a lot of issues with how Silverberg chose to tell his story, I still think it is worth the read and would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a thoughtful story surrounding the search for eternal life.  

Book Details
Title: The Book of Skulls
Author: Robert Silverberg
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 222  
Year: 2004
Language: English
Format: Mass market paperback
ISBN: 978-1-85798-914-4  
First published: 1972