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I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN: DECEMBER 2008 EDITION
Because you can’t have too many book reports on the Web 2.0.JUST FINISHED
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
A classic in military sci-fi, and although I’m not generally fan of that particular flavor of SF, there are always exceptions (Starship Troopers and John Steakley’s Armor come to mind) that stand out. Haldeman has actual combat cred as well as the requisite science degrees, and is a pretty accessible writer. His idea of interstellar wars being affected by relativity to the point where soldiers who fight for a year come back to Earth to find that a century has gone by is a great idea, and works well as the Vietnam-era anti-war novel he intended it to be. One quibble: some of his ideas of life on Future Earth – especially the bits about homosexuality – are very far-fetched, but he wrote it in the early 1970s, so I try to keep that in mind. Also, the ultimate rationale for the war, revealed at the end, sounds shocklingly familiar. All up, it’s a good SF novel with a point to make that doesn’t get in the way of the story.
JUST STARTED
Spook Country by William Gibson
I’ve been a fan of Gibson’s since Neuromancer, but his previous couple of novels didn’t really do much for me. This one, which focuses on post-9/11 espionage, sounds promising, so we’ll see.
RECENT TITLES
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
Probably one of the most talked-about books this year, especially in SF circles, even though the only thing SF about it is that it’s an alternate history book that supposes a proposed US plan in 1940 to relocate European Jewish refugees to Alaska actually happened. Well, that and the whole Messiah thing. It’s pretty engrossing, and Chabon writes like a dream.
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
I read this on the strength of Klein’s No Logo, which is a very good book. This one, not so much, as it tries to imply that true free-market economics are deployed in countries that either rely on brutal Gestapo tactics or natural disasters to force economic reforms on people whether they want them or not. I’m not knowledgable enough in economics to judge her accuracy – and you can find as many economists who agree as disagree with her on predictable lines. The main problem I have with it is that the book doubles as a critique of Bush’s foreign policy and use of torture – fair comment, but it seems shoehorned in, and takes her ‘disaster capitalism’ theme dangerously close to hack-conspiracy territory.
Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
As in the entire 12 volumes of the manga series about a student who achieves the power to kill by writing down names in a notebook, and decides to use it to rid the world of crime. On the downside, the back-and-forth logical arguments as the protagonist and antagonist try to outsmart each other gets tedious, and the “rules” of how the notebook works get needlessly complicated to fit the story, but it’s a good story that gets into the meat of the role of capital punishment as a deterrent to crime and who gets to hold that kind of power.
We Can Build You by Philip K Dick
One of Dick’s odder works where two business partners get into the android-building business, and the two androids (Abraham Lincoln and his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton) turn out to be more caring and compassionate than the human characters, who are mentally ill. It’s okay, but Dick’s later work regarding humanity vs androids is more fully realized.
Heart-shaped Box by Joe Hill
Debut novel from Stephen King’s boy, and I admit that if I’d known who Hill’s dad was, I might not have picked this up. It’s a ghost story about an aging rock star haunted by the dead father of an ex-girlfriend. To be honest, I found it better than most of King’s works that I’ve read, despite a typically cheesy ending.
Hit Parade by Lawrence Block
Another collection of short stories featuring Keller the stamp-collecting hit man threaded together into a novel. Block’s almost always good for a light read, and is one of the few writers who could make killing people sound fun, but the Keller series hasn’t really hooked me the same way Block’s other characters have. It’s good and reliable, but also mostly disposable.
The Brentford Chain Store Massacre by Robert Rankin
The fifth installment in the Brentford trilogy, and more of the usual silliness – this time involving a plot to clone Jesus. Good fun, though I can’t say much more about it than I have about Rankin’s other books.
Middling Meat by Stephen Lackey
Stephen is one-half of
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captainpixel , and this is his NaNoWriMo entry from a couple of years ago. It’s his take on the slasher genre – sort of Deliverance vs The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by way of The Hills Have Eyes – and while I’m not really a fan of the genre, I have to say he’s a good writer and had me sucked in, and also gave me an ending I wasn’t expecting. If he ever decides to do this kind of thing professionally, there’s no reason he shouldn’t succeed. Based on this evidence, he’s likely to pull it off long before I ever do.Easy meat,
This is dF
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I've read a bunch of those same books this year. FOREVER WAR is terrific, I think, the only problem is that so many authors have recycled the material so many times since he wrote it that it doesn't have any surprises left. The sequel, FOREVER FREE, is a really bizarre tangent following some of the surviving characters. I haven't read the third book, which I believe reuses the setting but has no common characters.
SPOOK COUNTRY was really awesome, but it left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Which I think was its point, but still. I can't work out if it's connected to PATTERN RECOGNITION or not and I think that is deliberate, too. I always forget what an elegant turn of phrase Gibson has.
I've read 3 volumes of DEATH NOTE It's really good but it does get a bit tedious--it gets very caught up in its own internal logic.
I agree 100% one HEART SHAPED BOX.
I love Larry Block's Keller books, but the third one felt a bit redundant. I enjoyed spending time with Keller and Dot again, but I felt like he's already made his point with these stories. That said, he put out a fourth volume this year (HIT AND RUN) and, I'll definitely pick it up when the paperback comes out.
-- JF
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As for Keller, that was the feeling I had with the this one. And can I just say yr the first person on Earth I've ever met who actually knows who Block is, let alone read him? Congratulations are in order, I think.
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I liked PR, and there is definitely a thematic connection to SPOOK COUNTRY--but I want to know if the Old Man is Cayce Pollard's missing father or not. It's a tenuous proposition, I admit, but PR seemed to leave you with the unvoiced question "what really happened to him?", and SPOOK COUNTRY does seem to answer that question--but it never makes any correct links.
I liked having a Kim Deal character as a POV character, but I reckon Frank Black's alter-ego isn't nearly as big an arsehole as the real one.
Actually, I think it was
-- JF