Ryan
The bare bones of the plot (taken from the back cover):
“Dr. Sarah Halifax decoded the first-ever radio transmission received from aliens. Thirty-eight years later, a second message is received — and Sarah, now 87, may hold the key to deciphering this one, too ... if she lives long enough.
A wealthy industrialist offers to pay for Sarah to have a rollback — a hugely expensive experimental rejuvenation procedure. She accepts on condition that Don, her husband of sixty years, gets a rollback, too. The process works for Don, making him physically twenty-five again. But in a tragic twist, the rollback fails for Sarah, leaving her in her eighties as the second message arrives.”
The immediate comparison, for me, for this novel was Contact (the film version, though, rather than the book). In both of those we see strong-willed female characters wanting to communicate with aliens for the betterment of life on Earth. What makes them differ, though, is that Rollback is more fundamentally about the characters, their relationships to one another, and their philosophies. If you're familiar with any of Sawyer's other work, this isn't surprising, but for someone who'd never read him before I think it would create a weird effect.
The central issue of the book is morality: how does it change not only with time, but also as we experience different stages of life? Most moral philosophers don't really take the issue of aging into account when looking at their moral systems, primarily because the ideas they discuss are meant to be ‘timeless', somehow. Sawyer, though, combines this with Erikson's theories of personality development over time - you have different wants and needs as you age, so it therefore follows that you would find different things ‘moral' as well. It's an intriguing version of situational ethics that I don't think I've encountered before.
Another interesting thing about Rollback is the relationship between the two plots; in the ‘A' plot, Sarah deals with the message from Sigma Draconis, and the answers provided on the moral quiz that they sent to humanity, while in the ‘B' plot, Don shows that the reasons behind making the decisions are sometimes as important as the decisions themselves, and the climax of the A plot only comes after Sarah reviews her reasons behind her answers, which is the kind of plot-dovetailing that Sawyer always manages to pull off so well. This was by no means my favourite Sawyer novel, but it did help illustrate why I enjoy his work as much as I do.
I absolutely love the idea of Green Lantern - a super-powerful corps of police officers who patrol the universe to keep it safe from harm. Part of what makes it so interesting as a result, for me, is that there is no one Green Lantern, but rather thousands, each with their own individual personality and abilities. It's a very rich storytelling milieu.
What makes reading Green Lantern difficult for me, though, is that one Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, seems to loom large in the minds of most readers. It's kind of understandable, as he was the “classic”, Silver Age version of the character, but as someone who started reading Green Lantern comics during the tenure of a different lantern (Kyle Raynor), I've never really been able to understand the appeal of Jordan as a character. So, as a result, I decided to pick up this collection of his first adventures in order to see what some of the fuss was about.
I still don't see it. The stories haven't aged well (a lot more poorly than Marvel's output of the same era), Jordan isn't that great of a character, and he doesn't really do much within this volume to justify his position as “the greatest of the Green Lanterns”.
I'm just going to come right out and say it - I enjoyed the movie a lot more. This is, no doubt, partially because the film was such a good adaptation of the story, which is less a heist thriller and more a tale of divine justice gone horribly, horribly wrong. So the only ‘new' thing left to me with the book was the author's writing style, which only served to irritate me with it's faux-hardboiled posturing and overly-liberal interpretations of the rules of punctuation. I suppose cowboys don't need to use apostrophes, but for me it served to take me away from the story.
A recounting of the many parts of history that are, tragically, overlooked, such as the history of the hobo wars and the listing of known American presidents who had hooks for hands, this fine tome of knowledge should be a required staple of all elementary and high school classrooms.
FACT: John Hodgman consulted numerous experts in the creation of this book.
FACT: Much of the information contained within this book will not be found elsewhere.
FACT: This is because this information is made up.
I'll admit that I only bought this because of Scott Pilgrim - I was at a talk that O'Malley gave, and didn't have any of my SP books with me, so I bought this so I could get an autograph from him. I'm so glad I did, though, because it's an amazing piece of art.
The art is absolutely beautiful, the story interesting, and the themes solid - this is the best work on teen angst in a generation, at least, and it's message that “if you're feeling like a freak, or a loser, it's probably because you are, but don't worry, because everyone else is as well at times” is a fun take on that phase of life, and something that can still resonate with adults as well.
What O'Malley does here that's interesting, as well, is that he introduces fantasy elements to the story, but makes them completely optional to your understanding of the story. Does Raliegh feel like she doesn't have a soul because her mom sold it to the devil, or just because she's going through a tumultuous time in her life? Likewise, does she get it back from the cat that it was given to, or does she just achieve a sense of belonging with her new friends? Both are equally possible, given the reality the story is placed in.
The Withdrawal Method is a collection of stories by Pasha Malla, and is something of a mixed bag. The stories featured in it range from the mundane to the fantastical, and from the morose to the joyful, making for an interesting read in general. The book's title, The Withdrawal Method, is very apropos - many of the stories, such as Dizzy When You Look Down In and Big City Girls, seem to end around two or three paragraphs before you would expect them to, in a sort of storius interruptus. At first this is kind of unsettling, and jolts you out of your experience of reading the book, but the more it happens, the more accustomed to it you become, which allows you to realize how effective of a storytelling device it is. Rather than jolt you out of the story, like you would assume a ‘withdrawal' ending would; Malla does it in a way that draws you further into the story, desperate to supply an ending of your own. It inspires, which is something that all good art should try to do.
I found Malla's writing to be at it's most effective when dealing with more fantastical elements, such as in the stories Being Like Bulls and The Love Life of the Automaton Turk. The former, a tale of a dystopian future where climate change has changed Niagara Falls into a landfill, takes on one of those themes so central to classical Canadian literature - how our identity is shaped by our environment. It also rather cynically looks at how willing people are to profane and destroy the majesty around them, and then also destroy even our memories of what majesty is, so that we don't have to live with ourselves knowing what we've given up.
Overall, The Withdrawal Method is a tragically poignant collection of stories, and is a must-read for anyone interested in seeing where Canadian literature is heading in the 21st century.
(in the interests of disclosure: I was given a free copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for writing a review about it)
I really get the feeling I wouldn't have even picked this up if a friend of mine hadn't lent it to me, which is kind of sad, because I used to get really excited about the prospects of a new Walking Dead volume coming out.
This volume seems to start out okay - our cast tries to regain their collective composure after what they've been put through in the past story arc, and also tries to shore up their resources for the inevitable confrontation with the Woodbury residents. There is still a lot of blood, gore, and death throughout the series, but you do get a bit of a sense that there is some hope in the future for the cast.
The whole thing, however, falls apart when we get to the cliffhanger ending, which shows The Governor to be alive and leading an invasion force against the prison. The fact that he would be able to survive his previous injuries, and maintain his hold of power, stretches the credulity of the story, and turns Walking Dead into a very different kind of comic than it has been in the first 6 volumes.
I was once told that “art is the point where order meets chaos”, and that definition is one that kept coming back to me while reading this novel, as it is very concerned with the points at which opposites meet. The plot of the book concerns istelf with a nameless, faceless narrator, his complex relationship with his best friend F. and his wife Edith, and his increasing obsession with a 16th-century Iroquois saint. However, it's important to remember that this is poetry, so plot is relatively unimportant.
One of the most interesting elements of Beautiful Losers is that while the story of Kateri Tekakwitha, the Iroquois saint, is presented with crystal clarity, the story of the narrator and F. is told in a beatnik stream-of-consciousness that I found reminiscent of Burroughs. I think that Cohen is making a statement about nostalgia here - people yearn for the past not necessarily because it was better, but because it is structured, organized, and predictable. That's a strong pull, especially when contrasted with the pandemonium of choice that the present provides for us.
As it moves into its second part, Beautiful Losers transitions from the nameless narrator of the first part to F., who is composing a letter to his friend. In this we are presented with an opposing view - that the past was never as perfect as we made it out to be, and that the present is a source of opportunity as well. F. states this most clearly when he states that, even in the secularized, technological times in which we live, “God is alive. Magic is afoot.” Einstein said that he can live our lives as if nothing is a miracle, or that everything is a miracle. Cohen counters, with this book, that both of those statements are equally true, forming a yin and yang to one another.
So, after several books of them being scattered, we once again see all of the primary cast of the NJO get brought back together. This allows for some good character moments, and also allows the action to stay somewhat more focused around the events at hand.
And “action” is definitely the word to keep at hand with this book. It's fast-paced, with a lot more focus on the ship battles and space warfare than a lot of the other books in this series, which is fine for now, but could easily get boring if they steer the series in general in that direction.
The general theme of the book here was kind of Neitzschean, especially his warning of “he who hunts monsters must ensure that, in the process, he does not become a monster.” The core of the former Rebel Alliance decides to take the battle to the Yuzhaan Vong in this volume, employing a variety of tactics that can only be described as Imperial and Dark Side in their nature. It's all done for the greater good, naturally, but we can definitely see the path to the Sith being paved with those good intentions.
This was a fairly interesting collection - it's all considered “non-canon”, but features a collection of short stories and art pieces by the artists that worked on Episode III of Star Wars.
The stories themselves are a mixed bag - there's an interesting Darth Maul story set after Ep.3, and a nice letter to Mon Mothma from her son before his death during the battle of Hoth.
This probably wouldn't be of interest to anyone but the biggest Star Wars fans, but for those that are fans of the movies, it's definitely worth a read.
If you're a fan of the series, this volume is a must-read, but if you haven't read any of the other Walking Dead books, I wouldn't recommend it, as a lot of the emotional punch of the events would be lost.
The last volume of WD ended with the main characters establishing themselves within a prison, which you would assume is the safest possible place to be when the undead have taken over. The problem with ‘safety', however, is that it's not good for conflict, and therefore for drama. This results in Glen, Rick, and Michonne leaving the prison to attempt to rescue the crew of a downed helicopter. In doing so, though, they encounter a sadistic town and their lives become endangered.
I was very torn on this book - on one hand, I'm always a fan of writers who work on ongoing series, and are willing to put their characters through hell, and make permanent changes to them, and we see a lot of that here, between Rick's loss of body parts and Michonne's extremely brutal, horrific rape. It's definitely clear that these characters will be affected by the evil done to them in this volume for a long time. It's also an exploration of a common theme in horror fiction - that, as bad as the monsters might be, it is humanity that is the real monster - but given how close we have grown to the characters, it is one that's extra effective.
On the other hand, however, there were some things that I definitely didn't like about this book. The character of the Governor, I thought, became kind of over-the-top in his evil - he seems to be someone without any sense of morality or goodness in him. While I don't have anything against psychopathic villians in general, it seems odd that he would become a leader of the community that he has, and that they would all go along with the brutality that he encourages. I also didn't like the cliffhanger nature of the ending, but I suppose that can't be helped.
One of the things I find extremely interesting about this series in general (and this volume of it in specific) is that, while the characters repeatedly state that they're in a new world, which requires them to take on a new morality and new social outlook, they repeatedly cling to their old lives - whether it's Lori's repudiation of polyamory, or Rick's insistence on playing the ‘hero' role. I'm not sure if Kirkman's trying to create a parallel between the humans and zombies by doing so, or if he's trying to create a larger commentary on the inertia of human nature and morality, but it's interesting to see how it will develop further in future volumes.
I don't feel entirely comfortable writing a detailed review of this book, because I didn't fully read through the entire thing - it was due back at the library, so I only had a chance to skim through the last few chapters. Eventually I'll get back to the rest of it, however.
Randall provides an introductory-level approach to string theory, as well as the history of physics leading up to it (Newton, Einstein, and that type of stuff). She does so in a relaxed, easy to follow manner that's definitely intended for people who want to learn more about contemporary physics. In that case, I suppose this could be considered the “Brief History of Time” of string theory.
That said, I'm still not entirely sold on the theory. The basic idea of string theory is that we live in a universe of more than the four dimensions we're used to, and that for one reason or another we haven't been able to understand or detect those dimensions. These dimensions are used to offer an explanation about why certain elements of physics don't seem to work together, such as the relative weakness of gravity compared to other fundamental forces, and the lack of cohesiveness between relativity and quantum physics. Answering these questions has been the goal of a lot of physicists in the past generation, so I can understand the appeal of the theory.
However (and maybe this is just me being uninformed), from what I've read, string theory seems to rely a lot on conjecture and guesswork, at this point at least, with little actual experimental reality to back it up. I remain unsold on the theory for now as a result.
After the excellence of the previous part of this trilogy, this book was definitely a let-down. More of the final preparations for war are made, and Will and Lyra learn that love can conquer all (even God), but that sacrifices must be made along the way. Pullman continues to write beautiful pieces of prose in this work, although he still suffers from this sense that he's trying to write Important Literature, and not just children's fantasy. Overall, I would say that this series was a bit of a let-down, although it definitely was a bold story to tell.
This was an interesting experience for me - I came to the novel after having seen the film version and having read the manga (well, chapter 1 of it, anyways), and yet, at the same time, this was the first time that I can really saw that I got something other than mindless violence from Battle Royale.
The basic premise: a futuristic, totalitarian Japanese society has set up a game where each year, one high school class is randomly chosen to participate. Participants of the ‘game' are placed on an island, each given a randomly assigned weapon, and are told that the last one left surviving will be the one allowed off of the island.
It sounds grisly and violent, and it is - there were parts where I had to put the book down for a bit lest the violence overwhelm me. However, like any truly good violent piece of art, that violence is used as a metaphor - in this case, for how society tends to pit people against each other, and how living a dog-eat-dog type of life might end up with someone on top, but it also ends up with a lot of corpses along the way.
There are a lot of characters in the book, and it's a little hard to tell them apart from each other originally (due to them all being the same age, from roughly the same background, etc), but throughout the book you get to learn more about all of the little details that make up a life. You learn about their personal history, their silly little feuds and crushes, and the dreams they had for the future, before the game got in the way. If anything, that's the most horrific part of the book - not the blood and gore, but seeing people go from these little concerns over which boy (or girl) likes who, and then being thrust into a world where their very lives are at stake.
To sume up: the basic concept is The Running Man meets Lord of the Flies, with bits of slasher movies and The Catcher In The Rye thrown in for good measure. And, if you can get past the violent elements, it's definitely worth reading.
I'm usually quite fond of books like this one - ones that take an element of pop culture and put an intellectual spin on them. Usually, part of why I like these sorts of books is that they present intellectual stuff in a relaxed, easily-approachable way. Neptune Noir, unfortunately, doesn't do that.
Instead, it has a collection of articles analyzing elements of the show itself, but for the most part bereft of any larger context. While they do offer some insight into the show, and make you rethink a few things, it doesn't attempt to accomplish anything larger than that, which I think is a bit of a missed opportunity.
Overall, I would say that I enjoyed this book. When I try to think about what it is that I liked about it, however, it's in spite of a lot of things that usually irritate me about fantasy novels: It's far too long, there are too many characters that are given plotlines without any reason for us to care about them, and the ending of it was rather unsatisfying.
At the same time, however, the world that Resnick's created is deeply interesting - the book is set in the island nation of Sileria, a poor backwater holding that has traded hands between several different kingdoms over the centuries without ever truly being free. Within this framework, a young rebel named Josarian starts a revolution that sweeps over the island. In addition to that, you have warring groups of wizards, a ronin-style warrior searching for redemption, prophecy, sex, and politics.
Neil Gaiman's Sandman series is held up by a lot of people to be the greatest example of comics as literature ever written. I don't know if that's quite accurate, but it does show a lot of what comics are capable of as literature.
That being said, this book specifically is Gaiman revisiting his Endless series 10 years after it finished, providing defining moments in their own personal history, and many of which provide glimpses of who the Endless are and why they occupy the roles that they do. As such, Delirium's story is kind of confusing, Despair's is difficult to read through in one setting because it's just that sad, and so on. Gaiman's poetic prose really makes the art come to life.
Speaking of the art, there's some amazing work going on here. Manara, Quitely, Sienkowitz, McKean - a veritable treasure trove of art, each one selected for the story that would work best for them. Beautiful, rich - I could go on with many other, more superlative adjectives, but the point is clear.
Volume 4 of Kirkman's zombie series watches the characters slider further into despair and moral ambiguity as they attempt to re-build their lives inside the prison that they started to occupy in volume three.[return]The zombies are featured much less in this volume, allowing our human characters a little bit of ‘down time'. In that time, though, we see Kirkman engage in discussions on the sanctity of life, one's place in society, the possibility for redemption, and the role of laws within society. If he keeps up the quality of writing displayed with this book and the last, I think this might end up being the greatest piece of zombie fiction ever created.
I think that every teenager, at some point, entertains the notion that their parents might be evil. But what if they really were? That's the central concept of Runaways, one of the most successful new graphic novel ideas from Marvel in recent years.
The first volume focuses mainly on the Runaways learning about their parents' supervillian status, their running away from them, and their slow realization of their own super abilities. It's well paced, the characters seem fresh and unique, it's fun, all-ages superhero stuff.
This is a new series focusing on the USS Titan, commanded by Will Riker after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. This was a really fun read - Riker and Troi were two of my favourite TNG characters, so it's good to see them moving on to bigger and better things. It tells a much more satisfying story than Nemesis did, as well, while dealing with the fallout of that movie. If you're not the type of person who's a Star Trek fan to begin with, though, there's really no point in you picking this up.
This was an interesting book to read, for several reasons. First was the position that it occupied historically; published in 1993, it represents the state of where science fiction was prior to the WWW. It also obviously predates the popularity of cyberpunk within science fiction; throughout the entire text, there is minimal use of computer networking, and nary a leather jacket or jaded hacked is in sight.[return]As far as the book itself is concerned, it's definitely an interesting read. It's hard SF, which I'm usually rather ambivalent about; I find that a lot of hard SF authors have a tendency to place the science as the most important part of their work, which means that the fiction, the story, ends up suffering as a result. Robinson manages to avoid that, however, by creating characters that are believable and sympathetic. While it's obvious that he's done his research with this book, at the same time you don't get the feeling that he's dumping his research into the book in order to show how much research was done, if that makes any sense. [return]Telling the story of a group of one hundred scientists, chosen to create the first human colony on Mars, the book follows them through space travel, settlement, and the inevitable terraforming of the planet to make it livable for human occupation. A lot of the book is made up of philosophical debates between the characters: do we have a right to change the ecology of this planet , what's the best way for us to organize our society , how much control should we allow corporations to have over our future, and that sort of thing. Basically, conversations that we have here and now on Earth, but given a Martian twist in order to allow for a discussion free of the momentum of tradition. It will be interesting to see how Robinson can maintain the momentum of this story over the next two portions of the Mars trilogy.
Stephenson's previous work, Cryptonomicon, was easily the best book I've read in the past several years, so it was with great excitement that I approached this book. Overall it was a very good year, although I think that it was definitely not in the same league as the Crypto. [return]The book is divided into three parts, each featuring a character related to the characters and events of Cryptonomicon. The first third focuses on Natural Philosopher Daniel Waterhouse, and follows his relationship with other great minds, including Newton and Leibniz, during the latter half of the 17th century. The second part of the book is more action-based, switching the focus to the noble Vagabond, Jack Shaftoe, as he seeks to make his fortune and his way in the world. The last third returns to Waterhouse, and also greatly expands on Eliza of Qwghlm, a former slave-girl who may just be the lynchpin of European society. Intermingled with all of these events as well is the alchemist Enoch Root[return]Overall, the book was fairly good, although to be honest I felt it dragged somewhat in the middle third. It was interesting, though, to see the interplay of the ancestors of characters that are already fairly well-known, as well as their interactions with various historical characters. I'll definitely have to give a read to the next volume in the story.