Oct 27 2015

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has observed that while plot is a literary convention, story is a force of nature. In Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett explores some of the things that can happen when these forces of nature latch on to people in his most unnatural of settings.

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.
Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power.
Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling … stories, twisting and blowing through the darkness.
And their very existence overlays a faint but insistent pattern on the chaos that is history. Stories etch grooves deep enough for people to follow in the same way that water follows certain paths down a mountainside. And every time fresh actors tread the path of the story, the groove runs deeper. …
This is why history keeps on repeating all the time.
So a thousand heroes have stolen fire from the gods. A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother, a thousand princesses have been kissed. A million unknowing actors have moved, unknowing, through the pathways of story.

Once upon a time, a witch knew that her time was coming to an end. The witches of Discworld, like the wizards, know precisely how long they will live. Desiderata Hollow had lived a long and full life, but she had never been much of a planner, and now she had to pass along one of her most important responsibilities — fairy godmothering — to a successor with no time for explanations, only a wand and an envelope sent to a young witch.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/27/witches-abroad-by-terry-pratchett/

Oct 24 2015

Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich

Wait, so this is the second book he wrote about MIT students who figured out how to scam casinos?

Anyway, the story itself is compelling enough, but the writing is violently purple. The best description I’ve encountered of his writing style is “non-fiction pulp”: tolerable enough for a book, I guess, and much improved by the time The Accidental Billionaires, the only other book I’ve read of his, is published 4 years later. And while I enjoyed Semyon’s story (and found the techniques they discussed absolutely fascinating) I thought the epilogue rather disingenuous, and am willing to put the blame for that more on Ben Mezrich than Semyon: if there had been a progression displayed in the book of Semyon’s movement from sheer self-interest to enlightened enmity towards the casinos, then I’d have found it much more believable.

As it is, very useful for those interested in blackjack and casinos, tho the writing style is a bit of a slog.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/24/busting-vegas-by-ben-mezrich/

Oct 21 2015

New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear

There isn’t a zeppelin on the cover to let readers know this is an alternate history, but by way of making up for it, Elizabeth Bear sets the book’s first story on board hydrogen-filled German airship. The Hans Glücker is on its way from Calais to the jewel of British North America, the eponymous New Amsterdam. Bear introduces “Don Sebastien de Ulloa, known to the Continent as the great detective,” the first clue that the story will feature a murder on the airborne occident express. There are fourteen passengers, plus a crew of less than a dozen, and introducing the rest of the cast allows Bear to sketch out the world while penciling in the characters’ backgrounds.

Britain and France are engaged in a long-term struggle for supremacy. Both retain colonial empires in North America into the 20th century. France is a post-Napoleonic republic, while Britain was ruled for many years by an Iron Queen (more Gloriana than Victoria). Germany is not a major power in Europe (may not even be unified), but Imperial Russia is. And by the way, Don Sebastien is a vampire, and magic works. Both are disreputable, and in the world of New Amsterdam the craft work of magic is giving way to the predictability and power of science and industry. (One of the later stories suggests, however, that the two might work together, with magic supporting Monsieur Tesla’s broadcast electrical power in Paris.)

The second story introduces Detective Crown Investigator Abigail Irene Garrett, sorceress to the British Crown, thorn in the side of the independence-minded Mayor of New Amsterdam, close confidante of Duke Richard, the King’s man in North America. She is a hard-boiled detective, a hard-drinking forensic investigator whose service to truth is not always welcome in the corridors of power. She is called to the scene of a grisly murder that bears signs of having had a supernatural aspect. Not least that the rest of the family of the deceased has vanished, seemingly into thin air, but in a world where demons may come when summoned, thin air is not the worst place a family could vanish to.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/21/new-amsterdam-by-elizabeth-bear/

Oct 19 2015

The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski

By the time Ryszard Kapuściński returned to Ethiopia, the revolution had already swept Emperor Haile Selassie from power. He engaged in something like journalistic archaeology, digging up the people of the Palace from where they had gone to ground to avoid execution in the violence that followed the revolution. The Emperor reads as if it had been told to him in whispers, as perhaps it had, at night, in an undisclosed location.

Once they had been the people of the Palace or had enjoyed the right of admission there. Not many of them remained. Some had perished, shot by the firing squad. Some had escaped the country; others had been locked in the dungeons beneath the Palace, cast down from the chambers to the cellars. Some were in hiding in the mountains or living disguised as monks in cloisters. Everyone was trying to survive in his own way. …
They caution me again, needlessly: no addresses, no names, don’t say that he’s tall, that he’s short, that he’s skinny, that his forehead this or his hands that. Or that his eyes, or that his legs, or that his knees … There’s nobody left to get down on your knees for. (pp. 4–5)

The book proceeds with a series of testimonies, identified by the speaker’s initials, describing life in the court of His Highness, His Supreme Majesty, the Emperor Haile Selassie. How that court functioned, and how it finally succumbed to what are commonly called the forces of modernity. Periodically, Kapuściński puts in his own observations or recollections, separated from the other accounts by italics and serving as a bridge between the world of the Palace and that of an outside observer.

Kapuściński first came to Ethiopia in 1963 for a meeting of African heads of state. He was then a reporter for PAP, the official news agency of Poland under a Communist but de-Stalinizing government.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/19/the-emperor-by-ryszard-kapuscinski/

Oct 18 2015

Aunty Lee’s Delights (Singaporean Mystery #1) by Ovidia Yu

I’ve babbled on about my issues with Malaysian writers before (nutshelled: I want them to be super good, but when they are, I immediately hate myself for not writing, too,) and with this book, I realized that those issues extend to Singaporean writers, as well. I think it might be due to the two countries sharing a Straits-culture, and engaging in a sibling-like rivalry, distinct from our relations with other close neighbours like Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines. Anyway, I was extra sensitive to this book and my reactions towards it, but am fairly pleased with the outcome. Nothing like a book critic patting herself on the back for objectivity, no? 😛

Anyway, apart from the authenticity, I really enjoyed the complexity of the characters (with one notable exception: more on that later.) The book took a controversial subject and presented various realistic reactions to it, while grounding the narrative very firmly in a Singaporean society I recognized. Ovidia Yu writes with kindness and love in much the same way as her protagonist cooks one of her delectable meals.

However, I felt that the mystery itself was sloppily handled. Deductive leaps were made that non-omniscient characters could not have come up with: a standard problem with first-time mystery writing. And the denouement, while satisfactory from a Singaporean society viewpoint, was both obvious in whodunnit and extremely muddled in why. Of course the killer is the stereotypical Ugly Foreigner with the superiority complex. But his motivations didn’t make sense! Was he actually with the ex-gay movement? And why bother staging his uncle’s death via automobile at all?

I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series, as it’s spiritual comfort to read of people “back home” every so often, but I do hope the mystery in it is an improvement on this one.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/18/aunty-lees-delights-singaporean-mystery-1-by-ovidia-yu/

Oct 17 2015

Sky Key (Endgame #2) by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton

In the interval between Endgame: The Calling and Sky Key, I got heavily involved in the Endgame: Ancient Societies augmented reality game, a primarily on-line game that involved solving puzzles and being creative after declaring yourself for one of the 12 lines. I chose to be a Nabatean, and set up our online community, and then did pretty well on the all-line leaderboard. Fast forward: I’m now a character in Sky Key, along with one of the greatest friends I made through AncSoc. So I’m a little biased when it comes to Sky Key, because eeeeeeeeee, I’m in it, eeeeeee!

Ahem. Which, to be honest, does have its drawbacks, as there are certain things about the inclusion of Stella and the Vyctory storyline that probably raise more questions for me than for the average reader. Also, the reader who fell for the series with the first book will likely be taken aback by the lessened focus on Sarah, but I think it makes sense, and I found her grief entirely convincing (even if I found Jago’s refusal to deal with Sky Key at the end somewhat out of character.) I also really liked the continued nuanced differentiation of the Players, as with Hilal’s message. Some got it right away (An,) some had to work to decode it (Sarah and Jago,) and some just didn’t give a shit (Maccabee and Baitsakhan.)

Aside from finding the ending incredibly satisfying due to being the competitive sort, I also found Shari’s struggle, as well as Maccabee’s decisions, intensely moving. Using a child as an emotional focus can feel like a maudlin trope, and I’m used to lesser authors exploiting that for all it’s worth, but Greg Jordan, I mean, James Frey (heh) and Nils Johnson-Shelton handled it really well.

The main thing this book has as a drawback is, ironically, also its greatest distinguishing feature: the puzzles. The constraints of writing to accommodate for those mean that the format gets a little choppy, tho again I’ve read much worse in “regular” novels. As with The Calling, the story is terrific for a puzzle book, and even for a fantasy novel. Here’s looking to Book Three (which I might also be in, teeheehee!)

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/17/sky-key-endgame-2-by-james-frey-and-nils-johnson-shelton/

Oct 16 2015

The End of All Things by John Scalzi

In the two most recent books set in his Old Man’s War universe, The Human Division and now The End of All Things, John Scalzi has been busy shaking up the structures that he set up in the earlier books. Briefly, the galaxy is full of starfaring civilizations, most of them relentlessly hostile to each other. To survive in the interstellar environment, humanity has not only developed the fearsome weapons of space warfare, it has a political setup to enable humans to both colonize new systems and fight aliens on a nearly continuous basis. The Colonial Union controls humanity’s defenses and serves as an inter-system government, also representing humanity on the rare occasions when contact between intelligent species is conducted by diplomacy rather than warfare. Earth serves as a reservoir of people, providing the bulk of soldiers for the Colonial Defense Forces. The colonies have far smaller populations than the Earth, shelter and develop under the umbrella provided by the CDF, but without generally contributing to the common defense. This arrangement has existed for centuries, as humanity gained and kept a toehold among the stars.

The earlier books in the series have shown this environment from the perspective of a common soldier, a member of the CDF’s elite special forces, a colonial administrator, and the administrator’s daughter. Beginning with The Human Divison, Scalzi has been writing about how this arrangement is coming apart.

Within the setting, one of the important changes is that non-human species are working together, or at the very least, no longer fighting each other as ruthlessly as before. The Conclave brings together roughly 400 species and their various colonized systems under a banner of enforced non-aggression. They enforce limits on colonization and maintain a status quo among the many species.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/16/the-end-of-all-things-by-john-scalzi/

Oct 14 2015

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

I get the distinct feeling that Harper Lee only allowed this book to be published because a) she just didn’t care any more, and b) maybe it would stop people from pestering her about publishing (and honestly, shame on those people squeezing a profit out of this!) Go Set A Watchman is not a complete novel. It’s barely even a second draft, and would barely be of interest if not for the canonical status of To Kill A Mockingbird. Even so, there are critical differences between the two books in both fact and tone: don’t go into reading this expecting it to be a sequel, as it isn’t really the same characters and is definitely NOT a continuation of events from TKaM. It’s an attempt by Ms Lee at tackling important issues of racism and family but it’s not good, and you can see why she abandoned it in favor of writing, presumably later, the exemplary TKaM. Anyway, I hope this buys her a permanent respite from the vultures around her (who should seriously be ashamed of themselves for the naked money-grubbing that obviously motivated the publication of this novel.)

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/14/go-set-a-watchman-by-harper-lee/

Oct 11 2015

Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty’s debut novel is a remarkably accomplished, near-perfect exploration of family dynamics in contemporary Australia. Witty and wise, with excellent pacing and an inventive structure, it exemplifies the genre of contemporary women’s fiction. And after reading Three Wishes, I was impressed with how well she’s living up to her initial promise: her fifth and sixth novels, The Husband’s Secret and Big Little Lies, are both terrific novels as well, not something you can say about most novelists’ oeuvres especially given the rate at which she’s writing these. Looking forward to devouring the three other novels she’s written to date, as well as those still to come.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/11/three-wishes-by-liane-moriarty/

Oct 09 2015

Hild by Nicola Griffith

For real, if I’d known this novel would be the first in a series, I wouldn’t have bothered reading it till the rest came out. As it is, the book ends well before the… oh jeez, how to explain without spoilers? I know this is all based on what might as well be ancient history, but I made the mistake of looking up Saint Hilda (whom I have a passing familiarity with due to past research on Whitby) on Wikipedia, and was disappointed in myself for finding out what happens next. Would hate to do the same to you, dear reader.

Anyway, the book itself is incredibly dense with historical details that are woven in as neatly as one of Hild’s patterns so that they don’t get too far in the way of the narrative. I admit to being a little annoyed with the narrative tho, as there’s just a little too much that Nicola Griffith assumes we’ll figure out on our own: fine for historical details (hello, Wiki!) but annoying for plot. The book also suffers from the casual introduction of characters who only become relevant pages later, causing me to have to skip back to find out who this or that person is (oh, a random person mentioned in passing in a minor noble’s hall, of course I’d remember him :/.) It’s almost as if the author forgot that we’re not all experts on Medieval England, so wrapped up does she get in the details.

That aside, I really did enjoy the tale of a young girl’s coming of age in the most harrowing of circumstances. Her ambitious mother pushes her into a dangerous position at the hand of a paranoid king — literally dangerous considering that, by the age of 11, she has PTSD from being in battle. Then there are the frank discussions of love and sex and politics and religion. I teared up whenever Hild had to confront the aching loneliness of her position. All terrific material, handled really well (the issues I mentioned previously excepting, of course) if possibly blasphemously. The cover still kinda weirds me out with the way it suggests that this is a book for Young Adults instead of Adults, tho. This is a book about a young girl growing up, but is definitely a book for the mature.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/09/hild-by-nicola-griffith/