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Whittling down that “to read” pile one book at a time (or two books at a time, really, but it’s getting smaller, is the point …):
The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The fifth novel in the Laundry Files series (in which a secret British intelligence agency is all that stands between humanity and death by Cthulhu) sees protagonist agent Bob Howard accidentally discovering a nest of vampires in the high-frequency trading division of a merchant bank – despite the apparent official Laundry position that vampires do not exist. Stross has a lot of fun with this one – not just in determining how vampirism would work within the context of the Laundry’s applied computational demonology, but also in terms of how the Laundry (which is at heart a civil-service bureaucracy) would deal with them. Of course, there is more to this sudden outbreak of vampirism than meets the eye, and Bob’s investigation results in a shocking climax I can’t really comment on more without giving away the ballgame. The one downside is that the prose seems a little repetitive – which seems to be more for the benefit of new readers just starting the series, rather than long-time fans who understand how the Laundry universe works. But that’s a minor complaint – this is another satisfying entry in a series that has yet to get stale. And the next instalment is already in my to-read pile.
The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ve seen the films (the first two, that is) but never read the novel until now. Of course you probably know the basics – Dr Miles Bennell in Santa Mira, CA starts hearing from patients that their relatives are not who they appear to be, and discovers that alien pods are duplicating people with the aim of taking over the planet. As a concept, The Body Snatchers is a classic staple of paranoid alien-invasion SF. As a novel, it’s seriously flawed in places – namely the tendency of Dr Bennell to have revelations from out of nowhere or react to a situation in ways that make no real sense (to include being preoccupied with his budding romance with Becky Driscoll, which serves no real purpose apart from giving him a damsel to rescue). Also, the climax (which is different from the films) isn’t very convincing. Yet the set-up is quite good and some of the scenes focusing on the paranoia of the situation are really gripping and believable. Overall it's a rather uneven novel: sometimes effective, sometimes ridiculous. Great idea, though.
Rumor, Fear and the Madness of Crowds by J.P. Chaplin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
William Gibson namechecked this book on Twitter awhile back, so I decided to check it out. Published in 1959, it’s meant to be an academic study of examples of mass hysteria in the US, including the Red Scare of 1919, McCarthyism, the War Of The Worlds broadcast, apocalypse preachers, UFO sightings and distraught Rudolph Valentino fans, among others. But there’s not much in-depth analysis of each event, and some of them really qualify more as examples of mass gullibility and pranks than hysteria. Also, J.P. Chaplin’s writing style isn’t exactly accessible. That said, it’s an interesting collection of anecdotes that manages by the end to make a larger point: (1) most of these events took place in the context of general fear and uncertainty over local, national and global events (i.e. both World Wars, the Cold War, anarchist bombings, sensationalist media, etc), (2) that fear and uncertainty is what makes us vulnerable to exploitation by demagogues and charlatans, and (3) the key is to understand those fears, what drives them and how to address them – because if we don’t, our enemies will. Given current events, I’d say he had a point.
The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first thing to mention is that I haven’t seen the film. The second thing to mention is that it’s a challenging book to read in 2016 because of the inherent racism in the narrative. The anti-Japanese sentiment is to be expected from an early 50s WW2 novel written by an author who was a POW in Asia (albeit under the Vichy French, not the Japanese), but the premise of the British POWs – led by Col. Nicholson – that Anglo-Saxon civilization is superior to Oriental civilization comes across as self-satisfyingly smug. On the other hand, Nicholson was meant to be satirical of British snobbery, so perhaps Boulle was also satirizing that mentality (the opening chapter suggests as much). Anyway, when you get past the racist stuff, what you have is a very tight, suspense-filled page-turner that spends as much time on the inner thoughts of the characters as it does on the action (as well as the technical details on how to blow up a bridge). It also highlights the horrible conditions POWs were forced to work under to build the railway (which did happen, though the story and characters are fictional), without dwelling on it or resorting to melodrama. The narrative gets somewhat unfocused by the end, but not to the point of derailing itself (so to speak).
View all my reviews
Take it to the bridge,
This is dF
The Rhesus Chart by Charles StrossMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The fifth novel in the Laundry Files series (in which a secret British intelligence agency is all that stands between humanity and death by Cthulhu) sees protagonist agent Bob Howard accidentally discovering a nest of vampires in the high-frequency trading division of a merchant bank – despite the apparent official Laundry position that vampires do not exist. Stross has a lot of fun with this one – not just in determining how vampirism would work within the context of the Laundry’s applied computational demonology, but also in terms of how the Laundry (which is at heart a civil-service bureaucracy) would deal with them. Of course, there is more to this sudden outbreak of vampirism than meets the eye, and Bob’s investigation results in a shocking climax I can’t really comment on more without giving away the ballgame. The one downside is that the prose seems a little repetitive – which seems to be more for the benefit of new readers just starting the series, rather than long-time fans who understand how the Laundry universe works. But that’s a minor complaint – this is another satisfying entry in a series that has yet to get stale. And the next instalment is already in my to-read pile.
The Body Snatchers by Jack FinneyMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ve seen the films (the first two, that is) but never read the novel until now. Of course you probably know the basics – Dr Miles Bennell in Santa Mira, CA starts hearing from patients that their relatives are not who they appear to be, and discovers that alien pods are duplicating people with the aim of taking over the planet. As a concept, The Body Snatchers is a classic staple of paranoid alien-invasion SF. As a novel, it’s seriously flawed in places – namely the tendency of Dr Bennell to have revelations from out of nowhere or react to a situation in ways that make no real sense (to include being preoccupied with his budding romance with Becky Driscoll, which serves no real purpose apart from giving him a damsel to rescue). Also, the climax (which is different from the films) isn’t very convincing. Yet the set-up is quite good and some of the scenes focusing on the paranoia of the situation are really gripping and believable. Overall it's a rather uneven novel: sometimes effective, sometimes ridiculous. Great idea, though.
Rumor, Fear and the Madness of Crowds by J.P. ChaplinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
William Gibson namechecked this book on Twitter awhile back, so I decided to check it out. Published in 1959, it’s meant to be an academic study of examples of mass hysteria in the US, including the Red Scare of 1919, McCarthyism, the War Of The Worlds broadcast, apocalypse preachers, UFO sightings and distraught Rudolph Valentino fans, among others. But there’s not much in-depth analysis of each event, and some of them really qualify more as examples of mass gullibility and pranks than hysteria. Also, J.P. Chaplin’s writing style isn’t exactly accessible. That said, it’s an interesting collection of anecdotes that manages by the end to make a larger point: (1) most of these events took place in the context of general fear and uncertainty over local, national and global events (i.e. both World Wars, the Cold War, anarchist bombings, sensationalist media, etc), (2) that fear and uncertainty is what makes us vulnerable to exploitation by demagogues and charlatans, and (3) the key is to understand those fears, what drives them and how to address them – because if we don’t, our enemies will. Given current events, I’d say he had a point.
The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre BoulleMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first thing to mention is that I haven’t seen the film. The second thing to mention is that it’s a challenging book to read in 2016 because of the inherent racism in the narrative. The anti-Japanese sentiment is to be expected from an early 50s WW2 novel written by an author who was a POW in Asia (albeit under the Vichy French, not the Japanese), but the premise of the British POWs – led by Col. Nicholson – that Anglo-Saxon civilization is superior to Oriental civilization comes across as self-satisfyingly smug. On the other hand, Nicholson was meant to be satirical of British snobbery, so perhaps Boulle was also satirizing that mentality (the opening chapter suggests as much). Anyway, when you get past the racist stuff, what you have is a very tight, suspense-filled page-turner that spends as much time on the inner thoughts of the characters as it does on the action (as well as the technical details on how to blow up a bridge). It also highlights the horrible conditions POWs were forced to work under to build the railway (which did happen, though the story and characters are fictional), without dwelling on it or resorting to melodrama. The narrative gets somewhat unfocused by the end, but not to the point of derailing itself (so to speak).
View all my reviews
Take it to the bridge,
This is dF
