Derek
This hit all my buttons for a mystery. I despise mysteries that rely on coincidence for a solution—all the clues should be available in the text, and a careful reader should reach the same conclusion as the protagonist. If the author is really good, even a brilliant reader won't get there too soon. Which is not to say coincidence can't have a part—the odds just aren't that good that anybody, even a big city cop, could stumble into these scenarios. So, [b:A Tap on the Window 16072980 A Tap on the Window Linwood Barclay https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1362763721i/16072980.SY75.jpg 21867216] does begin with a coincidence: Cal Weaver just happens to be in front of Patchett's when a young girl is hitchhiking in the rain, and she knew his son. But that's where the coincidence ends; the rest is tightly plotted detective work. Throughout the story there are anonymous interludes letting us know about the crime that's being covered up, but we're carefully kept in the dark about who the perpetrators are, and there are multiple candidates. I worked it out, but not so soon that it would ruin the story for me. If it's too easy, it just gets boring. There's just one thing that jarred: “He looks like a child who's been promised a trip to Santa's Village.” Really, Barclay? Do you think the kids of Griffon, NY, dream of a trip to Santa's Village? I'm not sure anybody does any more, but it's a Southern Ontario thing, probably best remembered by those of Barclay's and my age.
Rereading this for the first time in decades, and in sequence right after rereading the original Corwin series, it feels like Zelazny just phoned this in. Quite disappointing. It rambles, it seems inconsistent, and Merlin doesn't even seem to question any of the insane things that keep happening to him. He deserves whatever he gets.
I'd like to be able to give this book a better review — I enjoyed the story, but it's tagged as "hard SF" and it's not only not "hard" but it's scientifically very weak. We're told "Scientists had estimated that the asteroid belt itself held hundreds of undiscovered new elements with attributes that could improve the quality of life for everyone on Earth." Why? There's a really good reason why scientists don't expect to ever find any new elements in our solar system: it's simply too old for trans-Uranic elements to have not decayed. The prediction of new elements would require a complete change in our understanding of physics. On Pluto, the scientists are measuring temperatures in °C (e.g., "Minus 210.8°C" when they'd be using K [Kelvin]: -210.8°C= 62.35K). Then, it just goes right downhill to fantasy land with "cosmic lightning"; a boy exposed to the mysterious Element X, who somehow controls the effects of the element; and outrageous coincidence (how is it that the first people to discover "Element X" do so precisely at the same time that the first expedition to Pluto discovers evidence of alien life?). Ironically, the actual structure of Element X—admitted to be "impossible" but given a plausible hypothesis—is more believable than the science that's supposedly possible. I don't require my SF to be scientifically valid, but don't pretend it is, and don't have scientists act out of character, and don't invent unnecessary complications (really, drop the paragraph mentioning the predicted hundreds of new elements & the cosmic lightning and nothing would be lost.
What happens when an author gets bad reviews on Goodreads? Probably not this, but if the author also happens to work at a slaughterhouse ... who knows?
Frequently funny, with a touching — and definitely unique — sex scene, this story does ask some good questions about just how far it's fair to go in trashing a bad novel.
It's not easy to see how much is satire and how much heartfelt hatred of hypercritical reviewers. I lean towards believing it's the former, but:
“And in this brand new digital age these malcontents, often young and with a sense of entitlement, have grown up quite ignorant of the laws of libel. In fact, they're already used to writing whatever they damn well please, happy to trot out the old defence of free speech.”
Hmmm. Yes, that's dialogue and not necessarily the author's own opinion, but frankly I've been known to be hypercritical myself, and I do understand the difference between libel and opinion. After all, if a review is libelous, an author can actually do something about it. Short of murder.
I'm tempted to shelve it as “pigs-write-better-than-this”, but I'm not sure Mr. Franklin would see the humor (or whether he works in an abattoir).
I'm a sucker for anything Arthurian, so I had to check this out. It's a neat premise: Arthur and Morgan le Fay have a child — as they do in many versions of the story — but it's not Modred, it's Mildred!
Unfortunately, the story can't decide whether it's going to be satirical, á la [book:The Dragon and the George] or serious. At some times it's downright fluffy, at others it's deadly serious.
And the continuity problems! "I've never seen any evidence of him using magic, except perhaps to enter our sanctuary" says the faery, Laerin, of the evil knight. Well, of course not! He's already told us he's never seen him before. Merlin starts acting oddly, and while people notice, they don't even discuss it, let alone do anything about it. Then the same happens with Morgan. And after making Nimue a major character, she just disappears after just one in a series of defeats.
So, three stars because it is a good tale, and Arthur has been done a million times but Wong's actually found a fresh approach, but it could be a much better story with better editing.
Maybe 2½ stars. Fully ¾ of this book is taken up with mere introduction. We all know what's coming, but it just drags out for 300+ pages until suddenly everything happens.
Then we get left at the end with very little resolution, and still no real understanding of what's going on. Well, Ms. Elliott, I hope you're not holding your breath waiting for me to read volume 2.
A pretty enjoyable ride.
Decker Roberts can tell the truth — that is, he can tell when somebody else is being truthful. Of course, that makes him rather important to a lot of people, including the American NSA.
Roberts also has a talent for teaching actors — even though he isn't an actor himself. Apparently these abilities are somewhat related, but it's never really explained.
The story centers around an online community of “synaesthetes” — people whose senses are somehow intertwined, so that they hear color or feel sound — and it's suggested that Decker's talent is a form of synaesthesia. I struggled to believe this. And it turns out that I didn't need to, as it isn't true. At no point do we ever learn why both Decker and the NSA think it's a convenient cover.
I find it infuriating that this is not a standalone novel. It is largely complete, but it's implied that Decker somehow betrayed his deceased (from ALS) wife (though that may be just his guilt speaking), and it stated explicitly that he's betrayed his son, but neither is explained. And why does a retired cop believe the teenaged Decker destroyed his career?
For failing to write a self-sufficient novel, deduct half a star.
For writing “Decker knew that once Alan Turing's usefulness had ended for the British they literally fed him to the dogs”, another half-star.
I despise writers who say literally to mean figuratively! I am fairly certain the British government has not literally fed anyone to the dogs since at least the Commonwealth period, but absolutely not Turing.
First things first: when I got this book it was tagged as a “romance”. Thankfully, it is not. When you have a book with both a male and a female protagonist, and they do not even appear together in more than 95% of the story, it is not a romance — even if they should end up as lovers. [That's mostly for the reader of [b:The Lions of al-Rassan 104101 The Lions of al-Rassan Guy Gavriel Kay http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348007861s/104101.jpg 955081], which was also not a romance...] Now that that's off my chest.... I said the other day that I loved Kay's blending of history, historical fiction and fantasy, but even then I was thinking that it's more “fantasyish” than “fantasy” and [b:River of Stars 15808474 River of Stars Guy Gavriel Kay http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1356089847s/15808474.jpg 21451403] brings this out starkly. Though ghosts, demons and spirits are considered just a fact of life in Kitan — as they would be for many of our ancestors, and even many people today — only three ghosts, one demon and one fox-spirit are ever seen. The demon is explained as trickery, and since none of the ghosts are seen by more than one person at a time, perhaps they're just hallucinations. But the fox-spirit is hard to dismiss: just Kay's way of pointing out that as historical as the novel may appear, it is just a novel! I'm generally more interested in plot than character in a novel, but Kay's characters — even the lesser, and less likeable ones — are so well written that I can't help but love them. The story starts slowly, but then it's the story of two people's lives, and lives start the same way. My only real complaint is with Kay's continual foreshadowing: “There are forks in every road, choices we make.” he says. And says again and again, in slightly different words. In fact, if he'd said it in exactly the same words, as a refrain, I think it would have been less jarring.
I started rereading this because of a pretty negative review at tor.com. And then I realized that rereading the whole series would get me mega-karma in a reading challenge at Goodreads.com, so I'm off... I've always loved the Amber novels, and I've read this more than a few times. Tim Callahan at Tor had some good points — it does finish rather abruptly, but he complains “That's a complete novel according to the standards of 1970?”, and the problem is that that's exactly what a complete SF/Fantasy novel was like in 1970. Publishers considered word count, and if your book was twice the word count they wanted, you got it published as two books if you got it published at all. In this case, it was published as five.... Yes, it has no real female characters. Like pretty much any other SFF writing of the time (including some considered “feminist” — I'm thinking LeGuin). But for all its faults, [b:Nine Princes in Amber 92121 Nine Princes in Amber (The Chronicles of Amber #1) Roger Zelazny https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1416090973s/92121.jpg 1383240] is thoroughly engaging. Corwin is a bastard (well, not in the legal sense, which is probably important), but he's a better man than any of his brothers, and we get the sense that he's improving. Sure, he can sacrifice a million people to unseat his brother from the throne of Amber — but if you look at it from his point of view, it's hard to see that anything's lost, as he can go right back into Shadow and find those same people again, and in any case, there's a feeling that it really is worth the cost. The thing that makes Corwin a better person than his brothers is that he even considers the cost.
It's hard to keep interested in a series that has reached 23 volumes now, but somehow Sandford keeps doing it. This time, he ties in all three of his major series characters. Almost since the debut of his Virgil Flowers series,”that fuckin' Flowers” has made cameo appearances in the Prey novels, but in this one we also get a major contribution from Kidd — Sandford wasn't even Sandford the last time he wrote a Kidd novel! And Kidd (and Lauren/Lu-Ellen) is seriously cool!
Another brilliant, if bleak, effort from Miéville. If I had to choose one word to tie in all of these short stories (and one novella, [b:The Tain 493072 The Tain China Miéville https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1202747448l/493072.SX50.jpg 66385]), I'd have to say “paranoia”. Almost every story involves a character fearful of something — often without obvious cause. Miéville's wordplay is, as always, amazing. The title of [b:The Tain 493072 The Tain China Miéville https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1202747448l/493072.SX50.jpg 66385] is hugely obscure, and yet right out of a dictionary: the tain is the reflective silver backing of a mirror. The creatures that come from the tain call themselves “patchogues”. Does that derive from the town on Long Island, NY, of which the Urban Dictionary says “A place where all of your dreams can come true, or you could get shot dead at a stoplight”? Or is it simply “patch o' gue”? I'm sure I'll never know.
I enjoy historical fiction, and I enjoy alternate-history even more, and this one was done very well. The premise is simple: suppose Lincoln did not die in Booth's assassination attempt? Would those who impeached Andrew Johnson, his successor, have impeached Lincoln instead?
It all made sense, and the whodunnit was well framed, but one thing kept nagging at me throughout. As I understand it from this book, on the impeachment of a President, his successor would be first the Vice-President, and second the President Pro Tem of the Senate — who generally is the the most senior senator in the majority party, but in this scenario, VP Johnson was assassinated, and Lincoln has never replaced him, so the President Pro Tem of the Senate is the man who is trying to destroy Lincoln. So surely, Lincoln's first line of business would be to appoint a Vice-President who would support him — if for no other reason than to ensure his enemy would not succeed him. Carter never explains why the VP hasn't been replaced. On the other hand, since this is exactly what happened in Johnson's own impeachment (not having appointed — or perhaps at the time not even having the right to appoint — a vice-president, Johnson's successor would have been the same man who stood to replace Lincoln in this novel), so perhaps Carter felt it unnecessary to explain himself.
I loved the idea of humanity in an ages-long struggle with demons that rise out of the earth, able to survive only in islands of protection (similar in some ways to [a:Barbara Hambly's|10333|Barbara Hambly|http://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1251133270p2/10333.jpg] [b:Darwath Trilogy|438119|Darwath Trilogy 3 Vol. (Boxed)|Barbara Hambly|http://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|426980]), but are we ever going to learn how it's possible that humanity could even arise in this situation, or how it's possible that any creatures outside human "wards" survive, now?
Despite the popularity of [book:Game of Thrones 13496], there's a distinct lack of good Sword-and-Sorcery novels these days, so I was thrilled to find this tale, with no vampires, no zombies or werewolves, and no paranormal romance. But much as I like the general world-building, individual motivations are highly suspect. Why on earth would Alar stay with Kane? She is a magekiller — someone who is so traumatized by magic that she has become immune to it — so how can it even be possible for her to associate with the Archmage, however much she intellectually thinks he's a good person? How are women mages suppressed for centuries, and nobody like Kane has tried to liberate them before? How is Kane so superior to every other mage in the Kingdom? It's not as if there aren't plenty of others like him outside the kingdom. This is Book I of who-knows-how-many volumes, and I generally stay away from those, at least until I know how many volumes there'll be. However, while there are clearly many issues still to be dealt with: Alar seeks revenge on the woman who destroyed her own magic, Kane seeks his inheritance, and somebody has to restore stability in the kingdom; but the issues of this episode are complete in themselves. One thing really ticked me: “This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.” I'm sorry, I know that in the US, the law gives you the right to impose such conditions — but not in my country, and in any case it's wrong! If I buy a paper book, I have the right to lend it, sell it or even give it away: as long as I don't keep a copy. I actually support the idea of giving the artist (in any form of art) a royalty on all resales (see Droit de suite), but nobody ever suggested that, if the Louvre decided to lend the Mona Lisa, they should buy another copy.
I was pretty amazed at Effinger's clairvoyance. He was merely a little pessimistic about how long the technological and cultural changes he envisioned would take to occur.
Marid, the protagonist, was born in 2172 — shortly after the collapse of both the Soviet Union and the United States. It's interesting to remember that in the year of publication (1987), there really wasn't a hint that the Soviet Bloc would start to collapse in just two more years.
Technologically, much of what we see in this book has either already come about, or seems like a likely continuation of trends. Culturally, the setting in a Middle-Eastern, Arabic, city, where the zealots hope to take advantage of the collapse of the superpowers to spread Islam, sounds terribly familiar. The Balkanization of Europe, had already begun when Effinger wrote the story, so expecting the change to continue isn't surprising. It all seems possible within my own lifetime.
Unfortunately, the story itself isn't as strong. Enjoyable, but not enough so that I'll seek out the second and third volumes.
For a journalist, Michael Rank's written English is pretty poor, though that unfortunately is pretty much the state of journalism today. The most egregious error being that Muhammed "taught his followers the major tenants of the religion." "Tenets", dammit! He's also inconsistent in the use of the prophet's name. The cover says "From Muhammed to Burj Khalifa..." while the title page gives: "From Muhammad..."
I'm uncomfortable about the way he addresses Islam in places. Why does Rank use deliberately provocative language like "After claiming to receive a prophecy from God", when talking about Muhammed? "After receiving a prophecy..." would be palatable to Muslims and non-believers alike. Or, "he also stated that pagans and unbelievers cannot approach the Sacred Mosque, a statement which the Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti used in March 2012 as a pretext to call for all churches in the Arabian peninsula to be bulldozed." Given that he doesn't explain this statement at all, it merely appears intended to show the irrationality of Islam.
Still, this book does almost exactly what it promises: "By the end you will know as much about the Middle East as you would after a year-long college course [and] sound highly knowledgeable about world affairs to your friends and associates." The first claim is arguable — I learned more about the Middle East in High School history — but the second is certainly true!
This turned out to be far more interesting, even thrilling, than expected.
One of my huge turn-offs in mysteries, thrillers (and horror movies), is protagonists who do stupid things just to further the plot. Why do they put themselves in danger, rather than just calling the police? But here, it all makes sense. Our hero is a high-school student, isolated even more than your average teenager by the need to care for her mother, who has Multiple Sclerosis. Every time I thought, “why would you do something so boneheaded?”, I'd think back to my own (much easier) adolescence, and remember that (a) I did some pretty stupid things; and (b) I would never have dreamed of asking an adult for help to get out of the inevitable consequences!
Ultimately, this story is all about how children become adults, learn that they need to form relationships (of many kinds — Janus forms deeper bonds with her mother, her mother's boyfriend, boys, and even Authority), and learn to take responsibility.
An interesting plot, with a few issues.
There's too much exposition — when I first received a copy for review, I was warned there might be formatting issues, as the epub version hadn't yet been vetted, and there were. So, the table of contents was wrong, and it led me straight into the second chapter. Once I'd fixed up the TOC and started again at the beginning, I realized that most of the first chapter was needless detail that I could figure out from context later: like what is a “dome”, or even what is the “Mind drive”.
Naturally, this background stopped being much of an issue as the book went on, having already been explained, but it would have been easier to get into the story if most of this was omitted, or at least left until the reader needed to know about it.
I had a major issue with the street kid turned programmer, who also turns out to be a katana wielding helicopter pilot. Sorry, just not believable. And on the subject - Adam strapped that katana to his back and hid it under his jacket, then didn't want to sit down in case the lines of the sword showed. Unless you're tall enough for the NBA you wouldn't even get a katana under your jacket, and you certainly couldn't think of sitting down in a subway car while wearing one.
Four stars for the story, -1 for execution.
