Robbie & de Kruiper - Raymond E. Feist

In May last year Magician's End, the final book in Feist's long running Riftwar series, appeared. It was the final chapter in a series that had been going for over thirty years. Earlier that year, Feist published the novella Jimmy and the Crawler to tie up a loose end in the series. As usual with Feist, I read it in Dutch translation. One of the earlier translators of Feist's works, I think translator Mat Schifferstein is the fourth to have a go at Riftwar material, has decided to rename the character Jimmy the Hand, hence the Dutch title Robbie & de Kruiper.

This novella is part of the Riftwar Legacy subseries, which is tied to the PC games Betrayal at Krondor (1993) and Return to Krondor (1998) which are based on Feist's Midkemian setting. Three full novels have appeared in this series, two of which are novelizations of the RPG storylines in the computer games. Originally two more full length novels were planned, with working titles Krondor: The Crawler and Krondor: The Dark Mage. Due to a conflict wit Sierra, the developer of the computer games, these novels were never written. Feist has alluded to events taking places in these novels in several places in his other books, leaving an obvious hole in the series. It seems clear now that the novels will never be written but this novella does attempt to tie up the dangling story lines.

Jimmy and the Crawler is set some time after Krondor: Tear of the Gods. The precious artefact has been recovered but the mysterious Crawler still hasn't been taken out. Arutha, Prince of Krondor, is worried about this threat and puts his thief-come-nobleman Jimmy the Hand on the case with. To make sure he lives though the assignment he is accompanied by William, soldier and son of Pug the Magician and court magician Jazhara with him. The trail leads to Durbin, a port city nominally part of the empire of Great Kesh and notorious for the slave trade and pirating that goes on in the city. Jimmy soon reaches the conclusion that everything they thought they knew about the Crawler is incorrect.

The Riftwar Legacy series features some of the poorest novels in the entire Riftwar cycle. Most of them read like a poorly worked out scenario for a role playing game, with a strong emphasis on action at very little room for such things as characterization and overarching story lines. I guess, given their origins as RPG computer games it is not entirely surprising but they still disappointed me at the time. Jimmy and the Crawler doesn't really escape this. Feist is obviously in a hurry to finish an constantly refers to earlier books to keep from having to elaborate too much. I have a feeling that some continuity errors creep up in this book as well. Since the later books are riddled with them, it shouldn't bother the reader who has stuck with Feist for this long too much though.

Feist usually uses multiple points of view to tell his story, enabling him to depict events at several locations and tell the story from the mundane level al the way up to the gods. This novella focuses entirely on Jimmy's exploits. His point of view is dominant. Feist switches once or twice when he needs to depict events taking place outside Jimmy's line of sight but for the most part we stick with him. The multi-layered approach is entirely sacrificed. It results in a very straightforward tale with a rather high dungeons and dragons level.

It doesn't help that to the reader who has already completed most of the other books in the series, what needs to happen in this story is obvious. There is very little surprise in it. To make matters worse Feist reuses one of the more important plot devices in the first book of the Darkwar Saga, Flight of the Nighthawks (2005). He attempts some twists and turns but nothing the experienced Feist reader hasn't seen before. With all the references to other books it's is not a good place to start the series either.

In the end, Jimmy and the Crawler feels like a novella Feist felt he owed his readers but was not particularly inspired to write. While I could enjoy and appreciate Magician's End at some level, this work reminded me again why I was so disappointed by the earlier Krondor books. It's so straightforward, hasty and uninspired that only the completist will want to read it. Maybe with a bit more fleshed out plot it could have been a worthwhile addition but as it is, it achieves nothing other than plugging a plot hole.

Book Details
Title: Robbie & de Kruiper
Author: Raymond E. Feist
Publisher: Luithingh Fantasy
Pages: 155
Year: 2013
Language: Dutch
Translation: Mat Schifferstein
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-90-245-6288-6
First published: 2013

Astra - Naomi Foyle

A couple of weeks ago I won a copy of this novel over at Worlds Without End. The nice things about book giveaways is that you tend to take a chance more easily on books that you wouldn't have purchased or the release of which you most likely wouldn't have noticed. This is one such book. Although the premise appealed to me I probably would have missed it without the giveaway. Foyle is a relatively new name in genre fiction. As far as I have been able to determine, this is her second published novel after Seoul Survivors (2013). Astra is the first novel in the Gaia Chronicles and it doesn't appear to be related to Seoul Survivors. It set in a post apocalyptic world, with a generous helping of genetic engineering and social experiments mixed in. The premise and style of the novel are very interesting but I must admit that at times, the book tried my patience.

Growing up in Is-Land, seven year old Astra's greatest wish is to do service in IMBOD, the agency that defends Is-Land's borders against intruders an terrorists. To do that she needs her Security Shot, a serum that will  make her more receptive to the training she will have to follow, more resistant to doubt and closer to the children she grows up with. One of her shelter mothers, Dr. Hokma Blesser, disagrees with Is-Land's policies in this regards and fears that it will take away something of Astra's intelligence and curiosity. The excel in science, she needs these qualities in tact. She offers Astra a choice to conspire to refuse the mandatory shot. Reluctantly Astra accepts.

The entire story is told from Astra's perspective and revolves around the unfair choice she has been offered. The novel is divided into three parts. The first is set when Astra is seven years old, the second part shows us a twelve year old Astra and in the final part she is a girl of sixteen. Astra's upbringing is very sheltered in a way, she lives in a small and somewhat isolated community, allowing Foyle to slowly introduce elements of the nation of Is-Land and the wider world. On the surface, the community Astra grows up in appears idyllic but it is obvious from the start that all is not well in Is-Land. The feeling that things are being hidden from the children is present from the very first pages of the book and finding out what, is what keeps the tension up in this novel. There are things that will make the reader feel unease throughout the book.

Their religion, or perhaps I should say philosophy, revolves around respect for the planet. Killing an animal, no matter how insignificant is an almost impossible act in Astra's seven year old mind. It's a crime, something that hurts Gaia. At the same time, radically altering crops, animals and even humans is everyday practice in the community. Many weaknesses in the human genetic code have been fixed and radically altered versions of animals that went extinct before the crises humanity barely survived are being introduced. On top of all that, the Gaians are now raising a new generation of humans with the aid of the serum. An experiment they believe will safeguard their nation for generations to come. There is something fundamentally contradictory in those two approaches. There is a kind of respect for the natural world, life is sacred, but at the same time it is manipulated to an unprecedented extent to suit human needs.

Foyle cleverly used a number of unreliable sources to lay out the history of her world. From what little we get to see about what befell the planet, a large conflict, partially caused by oil and food shortages, ended the world as we know it. Gaian communities were already in existence then, combining a reverence for the planet with advanced knowledge of genetics, they tried to forge a new way of living independent of fossil fuels. According to official Gaian history, their communities suffered terribly during the conflict but in a post apocalyptic world, their genetic resources prove invaluable. So much so, that they've been able to found their own nation, protected by a treaty with the outside world. This sanitized version of history hides a lot of ugliness and power politics. Their knowledge gives the Gaians and edge they exploit to enable to build a community based on their principles. It is not until the twelve year old Astra meets a dissident that she starts to seriously doubt the stories she's been fed all her life.

It's doubt that plagues Astra throughout the novel. Where the serum makes her playmates more susceptible to the stories they are told, more ready to conform and accept, Astra questions. As Hokma feared, the serum changes children in ways that may lead to the creation of good border guards, they loose something in the process as well. Astra is constantly forced to try an suppress her natural curiosity. As she grows up, the gap between her and the other children widens but interesting enough it's her relationship with the adults that suffers. The strain that hiding her secret puts on Astra intensifies as the demands being made on her grow. Gaian education is thorough and all-encompassing, it has little patience with those who question the tenets of Gaian society. The conflict between her curiosity and her desire to fit in  is central to Astra's development and it makes her a fascinating character.

Foyle puts a lot in this novel but it is still not a book for impatient readers. I think the book dragged, especially in the middle section. The section dealing with the twelve year old Astra deals for a large part with the structure of Gaian society on all levels. Their family structure is complex and beyond anything that existed before the conflict that ended our way of life. Sexuality plays a large part in that. Although something that could be considered a marriage exists and some taboos remain, individuals enjoy a much larger sexual freedom from puberty onwards, than would be considered acceptable in just about any culture in our world. With Astra's own sexual maturity approaching, quite a lot of her time and energy is devoted to the subject. There is an elaborate rite of passage being described that appears to be only loosely connected to the central conflict in the novel. Foyle's description of the Gaian look on sexuality, bonding and family is interesting but I couldn't help but feel she overexpanded that bit of worldbuiling.

What I felt Astra has going for it, is the way Foyle handles what to reveal to the reader and how. The limited perception of the young Astra and the numerous unreliable tales spread throughout the novel make the reader feel uneasy about the true nature of Gaian society but also prevented me from jumping to conclusions. I don't think the pacing of the novel is perfect, Foyle does tend to elaborate on some aspects of the community Astra lives in, but the tension present in the mail character is very well built up. The climax of the novel left me curious about which challenges Astra would be facing next. I probably would have missed the release of this book without the giveaway but I'm going to be keeping an eye out for volume two.

Book Details
Title: Astra
Author: Naomi Foyle
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Pages: 379
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-78087-634-4
First published: 2014

The Mount - Carol Emshwiller

I read Carol Emshwiller's The Secret City last year as part of a reading challenge. It's an interesting little novel and one of the better ones I've read in 2013. After reading it I wondered what Emshwiller could do in the short format, as her style seems more suited to that. I was planning on reading a collection by her this year but somehow ended up with a copy of her novel The Mount instead. It was published in 2002 and won the Philip K. Dick Award that year, beating, among others, China Miéville's impressive Bas-Lag novel The Scar. The Mount is quite a different story than the one told in The Secret City but both are fascinating reads.

The Mount is the story of Charley, a boy nearing adolescence who is bred and brought up as a mount for a race of aliens. The Hoots, as they are referred to are intellectually superior to humans but, although endowed with formidably strong hands, are incapable of walking any significant distance. Instead they rely on their mounts to get around, which they control with their hands. Humans are ideal for the task. Smart enough to be trained, just the right size, endowed with strong legs and capable of understanding the threat posed by the hands of their riders around their necks. Charley doesn't need to be threatened though. He wants to be a good mount. Until, that is, wild humans raid his settlement and he comes into contact with his father and a different way of life.

Emshwiller does a number of very interesting things in this novel. She has stated that she was originally inspired by a class she'd taken in the psychology of pray animals versus predators. The Mount turns these rolls around with the prey eventually enslaving the predator. There are lots of little signs of the origins of the Hoot as prey. Most notably their tendency to seek out small enclosed spaces to hide for shelter. I'm not entirely sure how much sense this makes biologically speaking but in the story it makes Hoots and their response to danger quite unique. Their control often seems tenuous at best, although Charley doesn't seem to think so, and is mostly based on the image of benevolence and superiority. When it comes to physical violence they are only dangerous in very specific situations.

We see almost the entire story through Charley's eyes and over the course of the novel his view of the world changes drastically. In the early stages of the novel he just wants to be a good mount and has a close relationship with his master. He wants to please and he wants his master to take good care of him. In fact the devotion he shows to his master gave me the creeps in the opening chapters of the novel. It would have been easy to have him radically change his mind when he is exposed to freedom for the first time but Emshwiller takes her characters down a different path. His conditioning doesn't break easily and his relationship with his master remains strong. Charley is torn between wanting to make his own choices and being protected by his master. Eventually the slave/master relationship shifts into something harder to define.

Many readers will be so used to their freedom that they'll find it hard to imagine how Charley might not be all that interested. The wild humans he is first exposed to are to be pitied in his opinion. Their lives are misery, devoid of even the smallest of comforts. Charley wonders why they would want to live this way when they can have the Hoots take care of them. It's a naive view from a young boy who hasn't seen the full extent of the treatment humans get from the Hoots. It clashes so violently with the freedom western society takes for granted that many readers will have a hard time swallowing it. I thought it was a brilliant bit of writing however. Emshwiller shows us Charley's level of maturity and challenges the reader to think of oppression and the psychology of the oppressed in one move.

Like The Secret City the story is told in fairly straightforward language but it makes the reader work to get the full picture nevertheless. Charley's views are often childish but portrayed in such a way that the reader can get more meaning out of it than Charley does himself. His Hoot master, although in a similar state of development himself, is usually a few steps ahead of him but puts things into an alien framework. Another important character in the novel, Charley's father, has problems expressing himself in clear language. His body language and the way he vents his frustration are an important part of how he communicates with Charley and the reader. All these very limited views combined can be interpreted in a number of ways, making the book deceptively challenging. It's one of those books that rewards the reader for looking beyond the superficial and diving into the characters.

The Mount is clearly a science fiction novel but the focus is very much on psychology. The alien invasion is not the center of the story, there are no epic space battles or explorations of strange alien cultures. Readers looking for that type of science fiction will be disappointed. The novel is something of an allegory for slavery or oppression and can be interpreted or applied to many different situations. Some reviewers have suggested it comments on the way we treat animals ourselves for instance and, although I don't think that was Emshwiller's intent, it fits well enough. It's a very effective text really, I'm impressed with how much Emshwiller has packed into such a short novel. It is challenging the reader's convictions about freedom and oppression and invites them to pick the characters brains to understand their motivations. I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten all out of this novel yet after one reading. I'm going to have to revisit it in a few years.

Book Details
Title: The Mount
Author: Carol Emshwiller
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Pages: 232
Year: 2002
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1-931520-03-8
First published: 2002

The Shelters of Stone - Jean M. Auel

I have done reviews of the first four books and the final book  in Auel Earth's Children series. The Shelters of Stone is the fifth in the series and not having reviewed if feels like a loose end. Since I was ahead of schedule and waiting for another recently ordered batch of books to arrive I decided to do something about it. I've read this book once before, shortly after it was released in 2002. From what I remember I wasn't that impressed with it and I suspect Auel disappointed quite a few readers with this book. It appeared 12 years after The Plains of Passage and does little other than repeating all that has gone before. While I didn't think it was as dreadful as The Land of Painted Caves, it's most certainly not the highlight of my reading year.

After a year long trek across Europe, Alya and Jondalar finally arrive at the home of his people, where the plan to mate and settle. Ayla is apprehensive about meeting his people. She worries they may not accept her and wonders if it was a mistake to leave the Mamutoi who have adopted her. She quickly finds her place among the Zelandonii though. Her unusual background ant talents gain her the attention of Zelandonii, the people's spiritual leader who intends to induct her in the mysteries of the great mother. Ayla doesn't only make friends however. The speed with which she gains the attention of the high status members of the Zelandonii gains her her share of enemies as well.

Jondalar's people occupy what is today a part of France, more specifically the Dordogne. The region is well known for its prehistoric sites and from the way Auel descibes in, it must have been very densely populated by the standards of the time. I've visited the region when I was a child, I think it was the summer of 1984 but I might be a year off. One of the places we visited was Lascaux, famous for its cave paintings. Back then the original paintings were already closed to the public to prevent them from further deteriorating but we did see the replicas in Lascaux II. I also remember seeing some of the overhanging cliffs that serve as a shelter for the Zelandonii. As usual Auel's research has been meticulous, even if she is stuck with some of her earlier choices regarding Neanderthals in particular, that by the time his novel was published were already outdated. I probably would look at the landscape with different eyes if I would visit this region again. Not everybody is enamored with Auel's tendency to describe landscapes in detail but she does have an eye for it.

One of the things that seriously annoyed me in this series as a whole is how much human development and technological advances come together in Ayla and Jondalar. The list of their inventions and discoveries is much too long to be plausible and I suspect that Auel took some liberties with the archaeological record is some cases. Fortunately Auel manages to limit herself to just one in this novel. She has Ayla discover the Lascaux caves. The paintings that have been found there are several thousand years younger than the time Ayla's story is set in, so I didn't really see the need for it. I guess we should be grateful she didn't paint them herself.

Most of the book is not about prehistoric life though, it is about status. Like among the Mamutoi, status is important among the Zelandonii. Jondalar is a high status male, son of a leader, attractive, talented and well connected. For Ayla to be suitable mate, she should match him. High status almost comes naturally to Ayla. She is, after all, practically perfect in every way. The challenges to her position mostly come from people who are jealous of her. Either low status man or women who desire something she has. They never really pose a serious challenge in this novel, as much as I disliked The Mammoth Hunters, at least Auel managed to create tension within the Lion Camp generated by her presence.

With so many people meeting Ayla for the first time, every significant event in her life up to that point is rehashed in this novel. Some events several times. Auel seems to think that because she took twelve years to write this novel, the reader will have forgotten all about Ayla. Take out the repetition and the superfluous introduction rituals and there is enough plot left to fill a novella. With so much emphasis on Ayla's position in Zelandonii society the focus of the novel also shifts away a bit from topics such as ice age ecology and techniques of survival in the paleolithic. While a lot of people feel the detailed descriptions of everyday life are tiresome, they are much more the strength of this series than dialogues or the petty drama Auel puts into her story.

Auel achieves very little in this book. You could say the only thing she does manage in this 750 page doorstopper is convince Ayla she belongs among the spiritual elite of the Zelandonii and that puts her in a position to force the loss of innocence (or in less cryptic terms the realization that sex and reproduction are linked) described in The Land of the Painted Caves on these unfortunate hunter-gatherers. Ayla brings change, she is like a storm waiting the break loose but it doesn't happen in this book. In fact, Auel would need many more pages to get to that point. With a little better plotting it might have been worth reading but as it is The Shelters of Stone is mostly filler. Not many people would be willing to plow though that many pages of ineffective writing. The only thing that saves this book for being the worst in the series is that Auel manages to outdo herself in in the final volume. It's very sad to see that a series that started with such a special novel as The Clan of the Cave Bear sinks to these depths in the final volumes.

Book Details
Title: The Shelters of Stone
Author: Jean M. Auel
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 769
Year: 2002
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0-340-82195-7
First published: 2001

Forty Signs of Rain - Kim Stanley Robinson

Forty Signs of Rain is the first volume in Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital series. I got my first copy of this book, a mass market paperback, in a book store in Gothenburg, Sweden in June 2005. Unfortunately it turned out to be a misprint, the order of the pages was very mixed up so that the first pages in the book dealt with the storm that was supposed to be the climax of the novel. Of course I was back in the Netherlands by the time I found out and you don't exactly hop on a plane to Sweden to get your money back. I read it anyway but trying to figure out what goes where in the story was a bit of a challenge. A few years later I replaced it with a hardcover, which made for a lot easier reading.

The novel centers on the National Science Foundation, a US government agency that funds all sorts of fundamental research. Thee main characters, all with a connection to the NSF, try to tackle the problem of rapid climate change in their own way. Signs of climate change appear everywhere in the novel and the world has gotten to the point where not acting on it is a luxury that it can no longer afford. While Charlie Quibler tries to get legislation sponsored by Senator Phil Chase to pass, his wife Anna and her colleague Frank Vanderwal realize that science will be pivotal in dealing with the crisis and that the NSF cannot afford to maintain its passive attitude.

Robinson sets the tone early in this novel, indicating that it opens shortly after the Arctic polar ice starts breaking up in summer, one of the many warning signs that the world's climate is about to change drastically. There are no firm indicators as to when this novel is set, although the presence of Phil Chase is a firm link to Robinson's 1997 novel Antarctica, in which he is a minor character. That novel is set two years after the expiration of the Antarctic Treaty which was renewed for 50 years in 1991. That would mean Antarctica is set in 2043. Forty Signs of Rain doesn't have that much of a futuristic feel to it, although cars seem to have come a long way. If it is indeed meant to have been set in the 2040s, it looks like Robinson underestimated the speed with which the Arctic ice cover is breaking up. Since the turn of the century new record lows for the Arctic ice cover had been recorded with depressing frequency. Somehow, setting it sometime in this decade seems more fitting.

What Robinson describes in this trilogy are so called trigger events. Occurrences that suddenly and drastically change the climate in a matter of years rather than the long time frames we are used to when dealing with climate. A lot of possibilities are mentioned in the book but there are two that stand out. The first is what Robinson calls a Hyperniño, an extended El Niño event that in the novel sends big storms barrelling into the coast of California. The most important one is the stalling of the oceanic conveyor belt. A system of currents in the worlds ocean driven by differences in water temperature and salinity. Without the Arctic ice cover to provide a sinking of cold and saline water, the system stalls, severely distorting the heat distribution in many places on Earth. This last threat is noticed at the end of the first novel and will be an important element in the following books.

Climate is a notoriously complex scientific issue and changes to it are surrounded by uncertainties. Just about all available evidence points in the direction that the world is warming up however, and the world is currently ignoring the problem at its peril. Without a decent education in the natural sciences it is very easy to fall for misinformation being spread about the issue. One persistent and to scientists intensely annoying error is to mistake weather for climate. I think this XKCD comic illustrates it perfectly.  The point Robinson makes in this book is that policy surrounding this issue should be based on scientific observation and evidence rather than be dictated by the short term interests of capitalism. It is quite a bold statement given the current political climate. One that probably would sent more than one US senator into a rage.

One could say the attitudes of both Frank and Charlie border on being undemocratic at times. There is a sense of frustration in these characters at the political process and what they perceive as the sheer stupidity of people refusing to re-examine their convictions in the light of scientific evidence. Robinson's characters are great believers in the scientific method, something that returns time and again in his entire body of work. Where the scientists in Red Mars have a blank slate (or at least that is how Sax would see it) to work with and politics are months of space travel away, scientists in the capital run into the political realities of Washington on a daily basis. Although the thoughts of the characters can be quite vehement in opinion of the way politics deals with climate change, the novel as a whole advocates a different role for science in a more diplomatic way.

Robinson also includes different fields of science. Frank's sections in particular focus on them. He is very much into game theory and a sociobiology, often seeing real world situations in terms of either discipline. On the one hand it is enlightening at times, but he also tends overlook the limitations of game theory in particular. The novel also includes brief descriptions of scientific knowledge, usually related to climate at the front of each part that help the reader understand the issue at hand. With those he manages to avoid having to include too much information in the issue into the thoughts or discussions of his characters. Interior monologues are still very common in this book but they don't tend to contain as much information as the ones in the Mars trilogy do.

That doesn't mean this book is all ratio. Robinson introduces a group of Tibetan monks, living in exile on the fictional  island of Kembalung into the story. They are both the window on the rest of the world in a city that is very focused on the US and American interests, as well as the spiritual part of the novel. Robinson has included Tibetan Buddhism in his work before. Most notably in his alternative history The Years of Rice and Salt (2002), which is based on the Buddhist concept of reincarnation. The plight of the Tibetans, whose new home is threatened by sea level rise, runs parallel to that of the inhabitants of Washington, getting their first taste of the radical changes climate change in the closing pages of this novel. Their response is one of the many ways in which people adapt in this novel. Despite the grimness of the situation no book of Robinson would be complete with a healthy dose of optimism.

Like the Mars trilogy, the Science in the Capital series is more of a long novel than a trilogy in the classical sense. Robinson is building in this novel and some readers my find the story arc in this novel somewhat unsatisfying. Robinson is outlining the threat, building his characters, setting the stage. Personally I enjoyed reading it but that is partly because for me, this was a reread and I know where he is taking it. I very much enjoyed reading Frank's sections for instance because I can already see some of this paranoid traits starting to appear that wil become important in the next novel. Charlie's part on the other hand became less enjoyable as I think the eventual resolution of his storyline is unrealistically optimistic. An opinion that has been shaped in part by the Obama presidency, which of course Robinson didn't know about in 2004.

After my first read of this trilogy I didn't think this was Robinson's best work. After this reread of Forty Signs of Rain I'm still of that opinion. The novel deals with a challenge humanity is facing and at the moment refusing to address in any meaningful way. In that sense I appreciate this work. On the other hand I can't really share Robinson's optimism that the various parts of government in Washington can be made to disengage from the financial interests of those who wish to downplay the problem. I do not doubt that humanity can tackle the problem through science, I just don't see it happening any time soon. The world is not made up of Robinson's highly intelligent characters, resistance to the radical change in thinking he advocates is fierce. Somehow it is easier to see Robinson's optimism and social ideas put into practice in space than in the world of dirty politics we're familiar with. That doesn't mean we should stop trying though, and it most certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't read this book. The ideas it contains are fascinating. Despite my reservations, I am looking forward to my reread of Fifty Degrees Below.

Book Details
Title: Forty Signs of Rain
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Pages: 358
Year: 2004
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0-553-80311-5
First published: 2004

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

Out on Blue Six - Ian McDonald

Out on Blue Six (1989) is one of a number of books by McDonald that have been reissued by Open Road Media recently. Last year I already reviewed his novel The Broken Land (1992), a strange blend of science fiction and magical realism and now the publisher has been kind enough to supply me with a review copy of this book. Out on Blue Six is one of McDonald's early works. It's his second novel after Desolation Road (1988). Like many of his earlier novels there is a distinct flavour of magical realism present in this novel but also many science fiction elements. In fact, in terms of ideas, this may be one of the densest novels he wrote. I get the feeling that this is a love it or hate it book. It's a novel that certainly isn't going to work for everybody.

Imagine a society where pain is illegal and people's lives are arranged according to genetic predisposition and psychological profiles. Choice is not an option, the Compassionate Society watches over your happiness and arranges your life accordingly. Jobs, partners, entertainment, every little detail is looked after and interference is swiftly and thoroughly dealt with. In this designed utopia everybody is forced to be happy and there is no room for dissidents. That doesn't mean there isn't any opposition however. Many people find this life stiffing and the mediocrity of society too much to bear. A group of dissidents is struggling to get society moving again and try to push the Compassionate Society out of stagnation.

My first reaction after finishing the book was 'what the hell was he on when he wrote this?' The book is weird beyond measure really, filled to the brink with all sorts of strange science fictional notions, odd societal models, monstrous medical science and outlandish technology. Walking through Yu, this one vast city humanity is confined to, one wouldn't know where to look. In fact, you need to put your creativity and imagination into overdrive to imagine the city at all.

One thing is clear from the start. McDonald has been inspired by some of the classic dystopian novels. I'd say Orwell's 1984 in particular. The government he describes is oppressive in ways that makes Big Brother look like an amateur. The Ministry of Pain - what a lovely name for such an organisation - insists its tests are flawless and can only be made to admit a mistake every century or so. Its decisions are final and do not appear to be subject to any sort of restraint. Deviants are subjected to intensive reprogramming, essentially destroying entire personalities. All in the name of the greater good, preventing the population form experiencing pain. Sarcasm is counterproductive, satire banned, the ministry's choice of career and partner mandatory. The level of surveillance and censoring is staggering and even more devious than it appears to be in the opening pages of the novel.

The story follows a number of characters that have run afoul of the Ministry. Their acts of resistance have not gone unnoticed and they are forced to go underground. Often quite literally. McDonald takes them to parts of the city rarely seen by ordinary citizens and reveals the origins of the Compassionate Society to them. During their explorations of the dark underside of Yu they also uncover the ultimate threat to the city and humanity itself.

The journeys of the main characters frequently take on a surreal quality when they encounter yet another strange product of Compassionate Society. There are oracles with numerous additional body parts grafted onto them, machine deities, kings ruling over a sentient, genetically engineered raccoon people, and completely vertical societies (in more ways that one.) McDonald rushes through one strange concept after another, rarely taking the time to explore anything in depth. All of this is of course delivered in McDonald's trademark lyrical language. To keep up with him is a challenge in itself.

The main theme of the novel is clear though. Humanity needs to be in control of its own destiny to have a shot at survival. It needs to be free to make its own mistakes and engineer its own triumphs. It needs to be free to choose. Any kind of control over this process, or brake upon it, will result in the extinction of the species. In fact, some of the characters feel that the species is close to the point of no return in this novel. Looking at it from this angle, one interpretation could be that it's novel with a libertarian streak to it. This is not uncommon in science fiction but very atypical for McDonald when you think about it.

If I had to sum up my feelings about this book I guess I'd say that the barrage of ideas and strange cityscapes that McDonald unleashes on the reader goes at the expense of plot and characters. It doesn't help that he divides his attention over several point of view characters either. Sure, each has their motivations to challenge Compassionate Society but McDonald doesn't do that much with them beyond that. I felt that my attention was constantly being redirected to the next technological marvel or biological adaptation, without any of them really getting the attention they deserved. I tend to like books with strong worldbuilding but even for me, McDonald is being too elaborate here.

Out on Blue Six is a marvelous trip though a dystopian future but in the end I think McDonald doesn't manage to put all that creativity in the service of novel as a whole. That being said, there are people who absolutely adore this book. Author Cory Doctorow, who wrote the introduction to this edition, among them. For some readers this novel works, but I suspect it has a quite modest following. Creatively, McDonald pushed the style of his earlier work as far as it would go in this novel. So far in fact, that it feels erratic at times. I would advise people to try some of McDonald's other early work to see if it suits them before tacking this one.

Book Details
Title: Out on Blue Six
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Open Road Media
Pages: 302
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: E-book
First published: 1989

The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov

Given his enormous output, I'm a very inexperienced Asimov reader but from what I understand his career in science fiction can be split into two major periods. The first covered the 1940s and 1950s, in which he wrote a great deal for the magazines that then dominated science fiction. Novels started appearing in 1950, starting with Pebble in the Sky, a novel of the Galactic Empire. So far I've read four of his books. The original Foundation trilogy and I, Robot. All of these have been published in the 1950-1953 period and lean heavily on work Asimov had produced in the 1940s. During the 1960s Asimov mostly wrote non-fiction. The Gods Themselves (1972) can be seen as something of a triumphant return to the genre. In this book he answers the critics of his earlier work, winning a Hugo, Nebula and Locus award in the process.

The story is that of the discovery of the electron pump, a device that promised a clean and inexhaustible source of energy by using the different laws of nature that can be found in parallel universes. The story of its discovery one of coincidence and pettiness but the man being hailed as the inventor soon achieves rock star status. His influence on the scientific world is such that he leaves a trail of broken careers in his wake and suppresses information that threatens his status and the use of 'his' invention. Not everybody is discouraged by his bullying though. Doubts are being raised about the safety of the device. Soon a theory surfaces that suggests continued use might cause the sun to go nova. Bitterness, stupidity and infighting ensue.

The title is taken from Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans, 1801) by Friedrich Schiller, who said "Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens", most commonly translated as "against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." The novel essentially consists of three novellas, each with a part of that quote in the title. The novellas had been published in Galaxy and Worlds of If earlier in 1972. I guess you could call the novel a fixup.

One of the main problems I had with Asimov's earlier books is that they read like unedited manuscripts. His prose is atrocious. Most of it is awkward dialogue with hardly any descriptive passages. Although the concepts that he discusses in these works are interesting enough, Asimov, at that point, clearly didn't have the skills to make the most of it. For that reason I decided that if I was going to read anything by him again it would be something from his later years. It must be said  he has improved. His prose still isn't exceptional but it is certainly readable. The Gods Themselves is a much smoother read than the early  Foundation novels.

Asimov also tackles some other problems with his early writing with varying degrees of success. The lack of aliens (personally I find science fiction without aliens perfectly acceptable but some people disagree), the lack of sex and the lack of well drawn female characters.  The solution to the first two is to include alien sex in the novel. Don't worry he doesn't get too explicit. The alien section of the novel, of the second novella if you will, is probably where Asimov challenges himself most as a writer. The creatures he describes are very alien. It took me a while to settle into their mode of thinking. As for the well drawn female characters, I don't think the novel passes the Bechdel test but there is one female character with an important role in the story. I guess we shouldn't expect miracles.

The stupidity Asimov refers to in the title is mostly committed by scientists. Where in most science fiction novels, and certainly in more than a few of Asimov's stories, scientists are the heroes, in this novel they are a petty, self-centered lot. Where the 'inventor' of the electron pump - who mostly got the idea handed to him by the aliens - is doing everything to protect his creation, while the scientists who got sidetracked try to discredit him out of spite. It's a sad lot and a very sharp contrast to quite a lot of other science fiction novels. I'm particularly thinking of Kim Stanley Robinson's novels that radiate a belief in the process of science, even if those practicing it can be very nasty as individuals. In this novel just about every character has purely selfish reasons for their actions, loosing perspective on the larger threat in the process. Stupidity is too mild a word in some cases.

Asimov also exposes a problem that I've come across in environmental science quite a lot. Not wanting to give up a comfort or luxury despite the obvious environmental drawbacks. I've always thought cars are a perfect example of this. There is a long list of problems associated with them. There is acidification, greenhouse gas emissions, traffic related deaths, the noise they produce, particulate matter and smog issues and the huge amounts of raw materials put into making them to name a few. Personally I also feel that they are a less than optimal solution for transporting large numbers of people in a highly urbanized environment but people have been known to disagree with me on that. Fact is we do not want to give them up, or even limit their use, so we keep looking for technological fixes. One that is popular at the moment is the development of electrical cars. It must be said they are quieter but the electricity to make them run is produced elsewhere and still for the most part by using fossil fuels. Part of the emissions is simply being shifted elsewhere, providing, at best, only a partial solution to the emission problem. And of course none to some of the other problems I've mentioned. In fact, the use of various metals in the batteries might be adding a whole new problem. Making cars sustainable is not an easy matter, it may defeat human ingenuity yet.

The novel raises the stakes much further. If we are unwilling to give up, or even limit, something with such obvious problems, how hard would it be getting people to give up what is essentially free energy without any side effects based on dubious and untested theoretical physics very few people are actually capable of understanding? Even Asimov doesn't have an answer to that. He resorts to a technical fix himself. A very elegant one it has to be said. He doesn't seem to believe humanity will be able to give up it's bad habits without something better to replace them though. Which puts the title of the novel in yet another perspective.

Some people see the Hugo win The Gods Themselves as a retroactive reward for Asimov's golden age work but I must admit I enjoyed it a lot more than everything else I've read by him. At this point he has grown as a writer, able to keep up with a younger generation of authors making a name for themselves in the 70s. There might have been books that deserved the win more, I haven't really read enough of the period to pass judgement on that, but it is certainly a strong novel. While I can see the appeal of his older work, if someone asked me for a recommendation of Asimov's work I would be much more likely to suggest this novel.

Book Details
Title: The Gods Themselves
Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 269
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-12905-4
First published: 1972

The Waiting Stars - Aliette de Bodard

The Waiting Stars is another short story in Aliette de Bodard's Xuya universe that she has made available online for free. It can be read and downloaded in several e-book formats on the author's website, which also include a number of other free short stories in the same time line. A general description of Xuya history can also be found on the website. Understanding the time line is not necessary to enjoy the story though. The Waiting Stars was first published as part of the anthology The Other Half of the Sky (2013), edited by Athena Adreadis and Kay T. Holt, a collection of science fiction stories with female protagonists. It has also been included in Gardner Dozois' 31st The Year's Best Science Fiction.

Dreadfully spoilerish, I recommend you read the story first.

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