Jul 25 2016

The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross

Charles Stross’ Laundry series began as pastiches of spy novels, with Lovecraftian beings of endless horror substituting for cat-stroking megalomaniacs as the bad guys. Running a close second in the bad guy scheme of things are the higher reaches of the spy organization, partly because the third well of inspiration for the series is The Office, but partly also because some of the higher-ups are not actually human.

The series posits that magic is essentially a very specific form of advanced mathematics, with certain theorems acting as gateways to otherwise inaccessible but very real dimensions. A corollary of that approach is that devices that can perform vast amounts of calculations are effectively magical as well. A further premise of the series is that the performance of magic to bridge dimensions weakens the borders between them. With computing power increasing dramatically over the course of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the barriers between good old earth and gibbering horrors from beyond the walls of space are becoming very permeable indeed.

Nightmare Stacks

One of the key themes of the early books in the series is keeping secrets secret. This is part of the espionage genre, made more important by the cosmic scale of the threats faced by the protagonists. If Downing Street doesn’t want people to know what the KGB gets up to on British territory, Number 10 really doesn’t want to explain that there is a whole section of the intelligence apparatus devoted to keeping brain-eating horrors away from the populace. Mad cow disease was bad enough. And for the first several books that works well: main protagonist Bob Howard learns more about the inhuman threats in the multiverse, fights off baddies of various stripes (and tentacles), develops his abilities as a mathematical sorcerer, and rises a bit through the ranks, which makes him subject to the dark arts of HR and occasionally draws the terrifying scrutiny of an auditor. The cloak and dagger and theorem escapades stay under the cloak of secrecy.

By the end of the previous volume in the series, The Annihilation Score, the threads of that cloak are starting to unravel. There is a major incident in the Albert Hall, and despite practice at deception, magical enhancement, and a good story about superheroes, HM Government is hard pressed to keep the truth under wraps. The Nightmare Stacks tears that cloak to shreds. The series has also been slowly building toward several possibly apocalyptic scenarios; a key question the Laundry personnel face in The Nightmare Stacks is which one seems to be playing out already, and whether it is only one apocalypse at a time, or perhaps several. There’s a reference early on to the Ghostbusters Twinkie, and it’s entirely fitting. The book is action-packed almost from the very beginning, and the Things that have gone bump in the night have come out to play by the light of day.

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Jul 24 2016

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

Death not only had a daughter, it turns out he had a granddaughter as well. In between, he had an apprentice and, as these things often happen, the daughter married the apprentice and in due course the daughter arrived. One unfortunate night, a carriage went too fast around Dead Man’s Curve, which earned its name on that night as on so many others, and then Death only had a granddaughter. She grew up a bit, and was sixteen at the opening of Soul Music, the sixteenth Discworld book. That Terry Pratchett’s own daughter was sixteen around the time he wrote Soul Music is, surely, a coincidence.

Soul Music

Because the ordinary run of Death’s work is not only grim but of limited interest to those not immediately involved, it’s not surprising that the Discworld novels in which Death plays a prominent role concern breaks in the continuity: Mort, when Death first takes on an apprentice; Reaper Man, when he takes off for a bit; and now Soul Music, when he takes a more philosophical break, and granddaughter Susan gets called into the family business.

The other half of the story starts with a musician who has gone from simple rural lands to seek his fortune in the great city of Ankh-Morpork. He is a bard, winner of renowned prizes among his people, possessed of a harp of age and unparalleled beauty. He lasts about half a day. The Guild of Musicians discovers an unlicensed practitioner and instructs him on the consequences. Worse, the troll he had just met at the Guild sat on his harp, with predictable results. The bard, the troll and a dwarf try to rescue the situation by purchasing a new instrument, so the three of them can play music and earn enough to pay their Guild dues. In an olde music shoppe, they discover an instrument:

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Jul 23 2016

All Clear by Connie Willis

All Clear, which picks up right where Blackout left off and comprises the second part of an 1100-page story, would have been a brilliant book at about half or two-thirds of its 640-page length. The ending has emotional power; it resolves the main question running through the books and ties up the characters’ individual tales satisfyingly, but it’s a long way to get there. I like big books and I cannot lie, but even though I have just finished All Clear this afternoon I would be hard pressed to say what the characters were getting up to in the first 300 or so pages.

All Clear

The three historians from the future who were separated through most of Blackout have found each other by the time All Clear begins. They are still cut off from 2060s Oxford, and they cannot understand why. Worse, a historian cannot visit the same day in the past twice, and so at least one of them who had a previous research assignment later in the war is facing a deadline in a very literal sense. Time is no longer on their side. They also convince themselves that the reason the drops are not opening and allowing them to return to the future is that they have somehow altered the course of history, and the Oxford that they knew in the future has ceased to exist. In the first parts of the novel, the historians react to their reunion and their joint predicament largely by retreating into their circle of three and cutting off most contact with the contemporaries with whom they had forged bonds in the previous book. That struck me as both bad behavior on their part and inconsistent with the way they had been portrayed up to that point. It also seemed an odd authorial choice, as interesting characters were mostly set aside for a series of wild goose chases. Another odd choice was to have the historians at least partly come to the conclusion that the continuum of history itself is trying to kill them and many of the people around them, in an attempt to prevent the historians from altering events. But when characters in a novel started talking about history taking specific actions, it was impossible for me not to see the hand of the author, and my suspension of disbelief started to fall apart.

It’s possible that Willis wanted readers to experience the length of wartime Britain in some way as the people of the period did, and that’s why the first half of the book felt like an uncertain slog, full of bombs and raids and destruction. It’s possible that her material just got away from her, as happens to the best of authors from time to time.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/23/all-clear-by-connie-willis/

Jul 18 2016

Blackout by Connie Willis

Reading Connie Willis is always, sentence by sentence, a delight. Her characters are sympathetic and interesting to spend time with; conflicts usually arise from misunderstandings, or from the nature of a situation. Some few people are jerks, some are hurt and acting out, but that’s just like life, isn’t it? Willis also appears to have a deep and abiding love for Hollywood screwball comedies, and even her most serious stories have their madcap moments.

Blackout

In Blackout, she returns to her loose series of tales (Doomsday Book, “Fire Watch,” To Say Nothing of the Dog) of time-traveling historians. In the middle of the twenty-first century, the practical aspects of time travel were mastered, even if not all of the theory was properly worked out, and history changed from an archival discipline to a practical one. Oxford University, as an ancient seat of learning, offers the backdrop for the segments of Blackout that take place in the future. As Blackout opens, the history department is particularly busy, with historians and technicians running hither and thither, juggling schedules, props, costumes and implants that give detailed local knowledge. The comedy of missed connections in these parts of the book is enjoyable, especially if you don’t stop to ask why characters in the Oxford of 2060 can’t simply call each other on a mobile phone.

The main action of the book follows three historians – two women and one man – who have gone back to research parts of the Second World War. Generally speaking, their work is about the heroism of everyday people. That’s a perfectly valid research agenda, and it allows Willis to do what she clearly wants to do with the novel, which is to show regular people getting on with their lives under circumstances that are increasingly trying. The historians stand in for readers, although with even more precise knowledge of upcoming events. One encounters a betting pool about the date of the end of the war; all of the “contemps” (contemporaries) expect the fighting in Europe to end within just a few months of the opening of the second front in Normandy. Another encounters a pair of very young honeymooners in the Tower of London in 1940, during the Blitz.

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Jul 13 2016

Yotsuba&! Vol 03 by Kiyohiko Azuma

Found this on my kitchen table this morning, likely unearthed by someone else in my family. Quick, delightful read centering on a six year-old in Japan and her daily life with her father, neighbors and friends. I thought the kids’ extortion of Jumbo at the Bon festival especially hilarious. Was also impressed by the clean lines of the narrative: a lot of manga have the habit of cramming things together so quickly that panel-to-panel transitions get unnecessarily confusing, but Yotsuba&! Vol 3 does not inflict that upon the reader: excellent pacing on the part of Kiyohiko Azuma. I’ll definitely be looking out for more volumes, tho might not necessarily make it a point to seek out more (as I still haven’t even completed my beloved Gakuen Alice collection.)

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Jul 10 2016

The Hunt For Red October by Tom Clancy

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that took forever to read. Which isn’t the reason I’ve been away from here for so long, for which I tender my apologies: work has been extra busy recently, and I only read this to keep up with Ingress Book Club. But to the book!

I expected much better, tbh. I remember reading Patriot Games back when I was a teenager and quite enjoying it (tho my recollection might be colored by time, as I apparently gave it a reviewless 3 stars on Goodreads some years ago.) Granted, PG was written two books after this debut, and wow, is The Hunt For Red October very obviously and painfully a debut. Stiff as a board and crammed with painstaking detail, it’s got a lot of twists but the writing suffocates under the weight of all the accuracy. It’s almost as if Tom Clancy wanted to establish his credentials as a researcher first, storyteller far distant second. I appreciate that rigorous attention to the truth, but the lack of storytelling flair makes it all incredibly dull. A worthy read, tho I did have certain moments where I grimaced at the “aw, shucks, God and America!” attitude throughout (or, annoyingly “Gawd” and America. Having sailors talk like Valley Girls was incredibly jarring.) Recommended for submarine/Cold War buffs, but everyone else should probably just watch the movie, which I haven’t yet seen but am planning to now.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/10/the-hunt-for-red-october-by-tom-clancy/

Jun 20 2016

Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter

Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter is three hundred pages of wonderful, unadulterated squee. It’s a companion to the musical that I’ve been listening to nearly non-stop since last September, a documentation of the development of a show that’s clearly going into the canon of American theater and has already burst the boundaries of Broadway success. Because nothing says “massive Broadway hit and cultural phenomenon” like “based on an 800-page biography of a Treasury Secretary who’s been dead for more than 200 years,” right?

Hamilton Revolution

And yet, that is precisely what it has become. Over the last nine months, since its Broadway debut, Hamilton has exploded into popular culture. Its original cast recording had the highest debut on Billboard’s album chart since 1963. For good measure, it also debuted at number three on the rap album chart. The musical was nominated for a record 16 Tony awards, and won 11, one win shy of an all-time record. After the Tony awards, the album became one of only three cast albums to reach the Top Ten in the last 50 years. An entire subculture is growing up around Hamilton, with tumblrs, pastiches, and related items just a small part of what fans are producing. A Chicago run opens later this year; national touring companies will begin on the West Coast; the show is set to run in London next year, and I am already on the mailing list for information about that one. Some months ago, a friend who saw it a couple of times while it was in development at the Public Theater asked whether a singalong at a Brooklyn bar was an indicator of peak Hamilton. Not a chance, I replied; just you wait.

To give a far too truncated summary, the show tells the tumultuous story of Alexander Hamilton, a leader of the American Revolution who died in a duel in 1804 and was largely overshadowed by other founders who outlived him. The musical draws directly on the 2004 biography by Ron Chernow, who became an advisor to the show. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the music and lyrics, and he played the title role.

Hamilton: The Revolution is both serious and playful, a documentation of the process of creating the show and bringing it to Broadway, a printing of the libretto, and an object the creators had fun making and sharing with their still-growing fan base. The thick pages, mock leather spine, and ragged page trim are all meant to suggest a book from Hamilton’s period. The suggestion continues on the title page, which reads, “Hamilton The Revolution, Being the Complete Libretto of the Broadway Musical, with a True Account of its Creation, and Concise Remarks on Hip-Hop, The Power of Stories, and The New America, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter.” The table of contents follows the same form, with chapter titles that include “Of Oskar Eustis, His Politics, His Eventful Career, His Thoughts on Verse Drama, and His Stewardship of The Public Theater, with a Word About The Pharcyde,” or “On Killing Your Darlings, with Reference to ‘The Adams Administration,’ the Seductions of Ben Franklin, and Songs on the Cutting-Room Floor.”

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Jun 06 2016

Mirabile by Janet Kagan

The trouble with writing about a book some considerable time after reading it is that the details and fresh impressions have inevitably started to fade, and so this essay is more about what has stayed with me about Mirabile by Janet Kagan, rather than what struck me while reading it, or what my impressions were immediately after finishing.

mirabile-janet-kagan

Mirabile is one of the first books I finished in 2016, but I am only just now, five months later, sitting down to write about it. (Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is also waiting to be written about, but that will probably also entail writing about the musical, which has moved me and stayed with me as few other artistic works have, so I will likely have a lot to say but have not yet ordered my thoughts. Ancillary Mercy and Radiant State are great books that I read last year, which have so far defied my efforts to set down what I think makes them so great. I may re-read and try again, or I may just cry “Uncle.”)

Janet Kagan only published three books in her lifetime: Uhura’s Song, a Star Trek novel that is something of a landmark in that field; Hellspark, a novel of first contact within an interstellar civilization; and Mirabile, a collection of related stories set during the early years of colonizing the eponymous planet.

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Jun 04 2016

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

Men at Arms
The Night’s Watch that Terry Pratchett set up in Guards! Guards! comes into its own in Men at Arms, the fifteenth Discworld novel. The characters are already established, so Pratchett can start in media res although, as always, he includes enough background so that readers new to Discworld can start reading deep into the series as readily as beginning with the first books published.

The Watch features Corporal Carrot, who looks like a human but was raised as a dwarf until he got too big for the mines and was sent to the great city of Ankh-Morpork to earn his fortune. Culturally, he is still very much a dwarf, which earns him points in some quarters and puzzlement in others. There is Sergeant Colon, who is described as “one of Nature’s sergeants.” There is also Corporal Nobbs. A consideration of promoting him to higher rank runs as follows:

“How about Corporal Nobbs?” said the Patrician.
“Nobby?” [said Captain Vimes].
They shared a mental picture of Corporal Nobbs.
“No.”
“No.”

Pratchett does not even have to mention the order in which the two spoke.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/06/04/men-at-arms-by-terry-pratchett/

Jun 03 2016

The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton

Jo Walton, writing at the height of her powers, has solved the second-book problem, or at least this one instance of the problem. The Philosopher Kings is in fact the middle book of a trilogy, but it is so much its own thing that although it has the advantages of a sequel—less time setting up the action, less need to clue readers in on how the world works—it strives relentlessly for its own excellence, and feels not at all like a bridge between first and third books. (Spoilers for the first book necessarily follow, as do some for the second.)

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