nicanical
This is a fun book about confidence men, the apex predators of the grift—crimes which use brains and wit. It is very detailed, but reads easily because Maurer weaves in short little stories to demonstrate. The book drips with slang (referred to as argot) that pulls you back to the 1920s and 1930s described. Unfortunately, some expressions (e.g., half-shelled Babbitt, donicker) will be impossible to define without detailed research: there is a glossary, but it's not comprehensive (glossaries aren't meant to be); the context is frequently insufficient to glean the meaning; and mere Internet searches yield no results.
One minor gripe: Maurer uses both pseudonyms and redaction to protect identities. The pseudonyms are fine, but the manner of redaction is distracting, e.g., Sofa L——, Spot B——, Ella B——. The dashes through the names beckon a guess every time.
I wanted to read Starship Troopers because it was the only science fiction book on United States military academy reading lists (e.g., West Point's). Watching Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film was not what made me want to read the book. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to first state: the book is very different from the movie.
Starship Troopers is a coming-of-age story, a bildungsroman. It follows Johnny Rico's federal service with the Mobile Infantry during the Federation's war with the Arachnids. Despite this, there are few scenes of combat: there's a little combat at the beginning against skinnies (another alien race); then later in the book during 'Operation Royalty' on Planet P. The book comprises exposition on military doctrine interspersed between scenes of military school life—first boot camp, then Officer Candidate School. (In this way, Starship Troopers is similar to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game).
Although exposition-heavy, the exposition is well-written, and the arguments compelling in context. The level of detail frequently resists comprehension: from the positioning of units on the battlefield, and timing of capsule launches from the ships, to the various philosophical arguments for war. But, it's still all enjoyable to read because Heinlein's knowledge and passion come through so vividly.
The Fall of Hyperion concludes the events of Hyperion with the Hegemony's response to the Ousters, and the outcome of the final Shrike pilgrimage. The story is experienced through CEO Meina Gladstone's confidant, Joseph Severn, whose origins are mysterious. Severn's curiously omniscient dreams replace Hyperion's frame structure, allowing Simmons to continue detailing far-flung parts of the universe simultaneously.
The attraction for many readers will be learning the fates of the pilgrims. Unfortunately, the pilgrims' chapters are frustratingly repetitive because confronting the Shrike follows one pattern: the Shrike isolates one pilgrim, while those remaining go and pound sand around the Time Tombs. This repetitiveness is aggravated by some backtracking over Hyperion's events—ostensibly a courtesy for readers who need it, but still repetitive.
Severn's narrative doesn't mitigate these issues. He lacks agency, and therefore any true story of his own. His uncanny timing and fantastic abilities are explained away by his origin, but not satisfyingly; they are thinly-veiled excuses for shifting Severn's location so that he can report on other characters.
Simmons could have replaced Severn with a third-person omniscient perspective and avoided the hand wringing about connecting dataspheres. But, then, Simmons would be missing justification for inflating the book with verses lifted from Keats.
And that's my big issue with this book—it feels gratuitously inflated, as if merely to meet a word count.
I still think Fall is a good read: the worldbuilding is gripping; the pacing of story is good; and, there's even a neat twist.
This collection is better than The Simple Art of Murder. The dialogue is punchier, the prose is tighter. The similes are still few, but they stand out more. The stories all feel better-paced too, thanks to the tighter writing.
I read somewhere that these stories originally had different protagonists; Chandler renamed them to Philip Marlowe after his novels gained popularity. I wonder what other changes Chandler made, if any, because the stories flow unexpectedly well together—as if Marlowe were narrating them in one session. (Finger Man references Bernie Ohls's help in the titular Trouble is my Business for example). This flow through all the stories makes the book read like a full novel rather than a collection. It's like a lost, eighth Marlowe novel (unless you count Poodle Springs).
The Little Prince is narrated by a pilot stranded in the Sahara. The pilot meets a small, young boy (the little prince of the title) who has left his home on an asteroid to travel. The prince shares his experiences with the pilot, experiences which touch on loneliness, regret, and loss.
This is one of those children's books that can delight readers of all ages. Some parts are banal, like those criticizing grown-ups. Other parts, like the love of the rose, and the taming of the fox, have depth enough for even adult readers.
If reading this in English, you should know that there's fervor over which translation is best; it's mainly between Katherine Wood's—the first, flowery, with mistakes—and Richard Howard's—modern, stiff, but accurate.
I read Michael Morpurgo's English translation and it's good. It's a modern translation straight from the original French, so it passes the sheep test (an error in Woods's translation, propagated to other translations). And the tenor of Morpurgo's translation is gentle and guiding, not stiff as Howard's allegedly is. Morpurgo is known for his own children's books, so I imagine he took care to make the tone approachable here.
Matter progresses similarly to Look to Windward, the preceding novel: the main characters spend most of the story traveling before facing the big bad, a subplot attempts to misdirect, then a drastic asymmetry between opposing sides leads to a swift conclusion.
My criticisms are also similar:
- While traveling, the main characters learn about their situation and gather allies—it's setup, for the final confrontation. All this time setting up slows down the pace of the story.
- Banks wastes some interesting locations and ideas here. First, by zooming past them during the main characters' travels; and second, by burning them in an ultimately insignificant subplot.
- The swift conclusion makes the ending feel rushed. The epilogue doesn't mitigate this. Also, knowing about mind-state backups wrecks any heroism in the ending for me.
Cat's Cradle is organized into 127 short chapters, many being maybe 500 words or less. Chapters in the first half are mostly self-contained vignettes about Felix Hoenniker, an important figure in the story. These read like an endless string of tangents so that I was glad when they were behind me. After, the story moves to San Lorenzo and concerns itself with the narrator's experiences there—and becomes more enjoyable as a result, because the narrator is a more sympathetic character than Felix.
Given its themes and setting, Cat's Cradle is ostensibly an allegory for the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. The full impact of this was lost on me because I read this book fifty years on from those events. I am also pessimistic about our species' capacity to learn from its mistakes, so any cautionary lessons get a shrug from me.
I still look forward to rereading this book for the pleasantly digestible chapters, the satire, and the subtle humor.
Excession follows several Minds responding to a strange sphere (the Excession of the title) in Culture space, while tenuous allies—the Affront—also encroach. This is the Culture novel for fans of the AI: Minds are the focus, with humans in the supporting role. There are plenty of ship names sans gravitas, exhibits of obscenely powerful Culture technology, and repartee between Minds (the names sometimes make it difficult to follow along though).
But, because the Minds carry the main story (and the Minds have their omnipotent reputation), from the beginning it feels like whatever happens with respect to the Excession, the Minds and the Culture can't fail. This defuses any tension in the main story and makes the unfolding of the plot feel just okay. This is why, despite being a fan of the AI, I was more invested in the human subplot between Genar-Hofoen and Dajeil: because their reconciliation is not guaranteed—it might fail—and this possibility of failure makes me invested in it.
I wish Banks had cut Ulver Seich out of the story though; she doesn't add anything, and her character is insufferable. Many Culture stories feature immature characters but Ulver is the worst of the worst, being something like a combination trust fund baby-social media influencer.
The stories aren't bad, but they don't linger in the brain after reading either. Except Pearls are a Nuisance—Walter is amusing, and there's a nice twist. And maybe Spanish Blood, with its memorable ending.
Unlike the similar collection, Trouble is my Business, none of the stories here feature Philip Marlowe. All the protags still get up to sleuthing, but there's variety in their backgrounds. For example, the previously-mentioned Walter is a dandy playing an amateur detective, while Delaguerra in Spanish Blood is a police lieutenant. Unfortunately, the other main characters are forgettable, never developing beyond the basic brooding, hardboiled archetype.
The stories also vary in perspective and tone and other matters of prose. Some are written in the third-person for instance, and Pearls is playful in tone. Also, compared to Chandler's novels, the lyrical similes are few, descriptions and scene-setting are short, and aggressive brevity gives these stories a quick but tiring pace.
Pacing is slow because most of the book is Major Quilan traveling and Mahrai Ziller playing tourist. Action and intrigue are mostly kept to flashbacks, which lack urgency. Only the end has any true tension ... well, the subplot involving the Culture researcher has some too. But, that subplot turns out to be a feigned plot twist, and a waste of an interesting character and locale.
The ending wraps up everything so neatly that it feels contrived. That said, the reveal of the real twist is satisfying and adds some subtle shades to Masaq Orbital and Admiral Huyler's actions—depends upon how much risk you think they really took with the orbital's population (in exchange for maybe unmasking the conspirators).
I read Virtual Light recently which was such a slog, that I questioned my fond memories of Neuromancer and had to crack it open again. I'm relieved that my original sentiments remain largely intact, although some elements of the story are showing their age.
The action begins quickly, and the stylized, scene-setting descriptions are all well-balanced. The pacing is smooth, propulsive. At its core, Neuromancer is a heist story, so it keeps moving out of necessity.
The world is futuristic but grounded, and still feels realistic ... mostly. Some stuff is really dated now, like graphical hacking. Films keep getting away with it because of the visual medium, but reading about it nowadays is underwhelming.
The same goes for the lack of technical details for Case's skillset. E.g., he uses microsofts but doesn't code them; the Kuang Eleven virus, also not coded by Case, is instead delivered on a 'one-shot cassette' like it was bought off Amazon. Case even has the Flatline execute some commands and navigate because it's faster.
Actually ... I suppose that makes Case kind of like a 'vibe hacker'. Depending upon how all this real-world AI garbage plays out, Neuromancer's portrayal of hacking might just become prescient yet.
Too many tangential details and internal thoughts during characterization—I zoned out and had to reread parts many times. Gibson does better with worldbuilding and scene-setting, but he overuses country adjectives: Russian this, Chinese that, etc. I remember this technique from Neuromancer, but it did not feel overused there.
Dialogue though, is tight, clean.
Some details did not add anything to the story for me. E.g., Shapely and the AIDS cure. And I thought Yamazaki's character could have been nixed completely without affecting anything.
For pacing: the book is slow until about halfway, then it slows down again until the very end. Mainly from all the details and thoughts, explained above. The ending feels like it comes out of nowhere, and was not satisfying.
Years ago, after inhaling all of Raymond Chandler's novels, I read The Maltese Falcon looking for a similar flavor from Chandler's predecessor. But, I found that Sam Spade wasn't that, and then I never got around to exploring the rest of Hammett's stuff.
This book though, sates the palate. First: the clear, straightforward prose keeps the action moving, gets punchy in the right places, and is just a pleasure to read. Second: the Continental Op is a cunning smartass with deadpan snarks that Marlowe himself might have quipped. (The Op acts more like a vigilante here than a private dick though, and his morals are a shade darker than Marlowe's).
Plotwise, well, I like hardboiled stuff for the scenes and characterizations, not the plots. The underlying impetus here is vengeance and vigilantism though, not the usual need to solve a mystery. I found this refreshing.
The story felt a little muddy towards the end, like Hammett was tiring and wanted to wrap it up. Still, a very enjoyable read, and now I'll have to see what else of Hammett's I might have overlooked.
Interesting ideas, bad execution, frustrating read.
Famous singer Jason Taverner wakes up to find all records of his existence have vanished. His efforts to figure out why draw police attention, starting a chase that lasts the whole story. It lasts the whole story because Jason repeatedly makes unbelievably boneheaded moves at odds with the urgency of his situation. For example, Jason: discovers a woman helping him is a police informant, but willingly accompanies her back to her apartment; overstays in a safehouse although he knows the police are likely on their way; consumes drugs with Alys, the Police General's sister in the General's apartment.
Jason gets up to all this bumbling despite proudly being a 'Six'—a genetically-engineered human with enhanced smarts and resourcefulness, although I never saw it.
There are several attempts at redeeming Jason's character—when he contrasts his life with the people on the streets and also when he meets the potter—but these never coalesce to any satisfaction.
The idea of a drug that gives reality-changing powers was interesting but wasted, receiving only a few throwaway lines in the denouement.
A trippy exploration of Sapir-Whorf and neurolinguistics set in Embassytown, an alien city on the planet Arieka, and namesake of the novel.
The central conceit is Language, the language of the indigenous 'Hosts'. Language has particular qualities necessitating specially engineered Ambassadors: twins who can speak Language and interact with the Hosts.
The story starts slowly because one of Miéville's techniques for building up the world is to first casually drop in neologisms, like immer or miab or exot, then provide a detailed explanation later on. This is cool because it disorientates which enhances the alien feel of the setting, but slows you down while your brain tries to comprehend all the mysterious terms.
The middle picks up the pace a little bit by introducing a crisis (essentially an Ariekei civil war). But, it slows down again by spending too much time swimming in the main character's soup of thoughts. This blunts any urgency and anxiety from the unfolding crisis. Language plays a central role in the crisis, so the chapters here grow dense with exposition on it which also slows down the story.
I felt the ending was rushed and the solution disappointing—brute forcing what is basically an evolutionary change in the Hosts by repeating 'lies' to them? In the midst of a civil war, and while the protagonist and her cadre are being hunted? Also, this evolutionary change benefits Hosts almost immediately like they're just hot-swapping hardware into a computer? Just seems too fantastic to me.
While the world is wonderfully-built and the characters' motivations compelling, the choppy pacing and deus ex machina ending dulled my enjoyment.
The frame structure is well-deployed here to simultaneously develop the characters, the pilgrimage, the greater setting, and the nascent faction conflict. The stories are all good, and distinguished by different styles and tones. The Detective's story clumsily quickens its pace halfway through though.
Oh, there are several sex scenes if you're into that (Netflix in the 2010s should have been all over this).
The abrupt ending is disappointing.
I thought this story had a compelling setting and view of a possible future.
I liked the use of uplift here (i.e., the artificial acceleration of a species' intelligence). I feel like it's not a concept featured so frequently in written sci-fi (I can name several examples in film though), nor is it featured as prominently as it is in Children of Time. Usually, monkeys are the ones uplifted, and/or it's a horror story. Here, we have uplifted spiders in a non-horror story. Very cool! And jumping spiders too, the bros of the spider world—look them up.
I also liked that time dilation was featured, similar to how Alastair Reynolds does it. Most of the other SF stories I've read sidestep this by allowing faster-than-light tech, or drastically limiting distances traveled. So it's refreshing to see time dilation explicitly described and how it can affect characters, etc., even if it ultimately is a minor thing in this story.
The structure is relatively simple: chapters alternating between spiders and humans. Between the two, I felt the human side was weaker—the characterization for the humans was a bit meh. I would describe the prose as straightforward, direct, but not spartan—it's more detailed than, perhaps, Isaac Asimov's style. Personally, I prefer simpler styles like this that get out of your way, so the writing here was right up my alley. You might not like it if you prefer flowery and meandering, or dense and expository dump-style prose.
I've only read a little Hemingway, just The Sun Also Rises and some short story collections, but I enjoyed all that a lot. So I was disappointed that I couldn't get into this one.
Plainly, it's the fishing. It's boring to read about. It's handlining too, not fishing with a rod or a net, so you'll read a lot about Santiago's hand pain. I didn't even take it all in as a tragedy in the end, more of an admonition of Santiago's unpreparedness.
I enjoyed the beginning and the end the most, where Santiago interacts with the boy. And of course, the prose is beautifully crafted as expected of Hemingway.
I enjoyed this book. It is structurally-similar to the two previous entries, Look to Windward and Matter, but corrects some of their deficits: Surface Detail is paced better, and locations and alien races serve a purpose. The same goes for the central characters, although the Quietus agent's arc was weak and could have been dropped.
One thing though: the contentiousness of the virtual hells and the War in Heaven is never sufficiently developed to match the apparent in-universe furor for them. The Pavulean perspective is in the middle of changing towards anti-hell. And other advanced civilizations (like the Culture) are anti-hell because they oppose the barbarism of virtual hells. But, counter-arguments from advanced, pro-hell civilizations (like the Nauptre) aren't shared in detail. This didn't affect enjoyment of the book because the War is just something happening in the background, and is not central to the main character's story.
This was a good read, but it's hard to rate.
I liked the detail of the world: Orwell's portrayal of methods of control (widespread surveillance, growth and scarcity, language, and psychology) give Oceania a grounded believability. The main character, Winston, was sympathetic enough. It was no hard work to follow along with him.
On the other hand, the writing is a bit verbose. Particularly the first half. The wordiness seemed to create a sense of paranoia that complemented Winston's moments of introspection, so maybe this was intentional by Orwell. Nevertheless, I prefer stories that don't make you feel like you're wading through words.
Lastly, I respect that Orwell didn't go with a stereotypical happily-ever-after here, but I did not enjoy how the story wrapped up. The ending goes beyond sad, beyond tragic, and instead seems designed to antagonize the reader with despair. Being able to provoke such a strong reaction makes 1984 worthy of full stars by another rubric though, I'm sure.
In short: I can see why 1984 is a classic. I'm happy I read it. But, I probably won't read it again.
Awesome book. Could be my favorite Culture book. This one is narrated by natives on a medieval-level world, sharing their observations of two individuals—a Doctor and a Bodyguard—who are ostensibly Culture citizens. Inversions actually plays out the debate over contact methodology that Diziet and Linter have in The State of the Art.
Narrating from the natives' perspectives achieves two big things here:
First, it cuts down on infodumps and meandering parentheticals which can interrupt the flow of the story. Banks sometimes overuses such asides in other Culture books. Their relative absence here made Inversions a smooth read for me.
Second, the book has a subtle humor throughout that comes from contrasting the natives' ignorance with the inference that some omnipotent Culture tech is behind the scenes. This intertextuality means its important to have some understanding of the Culture and Special Circumstances from reading other Culture books before this one. (Sufficient context shouldn't be an issue if you're reading along in publication order).
The only thing I didn't like was the lack of interaction between the Doctor and the Bodyguard. If you start to expect a reunion between the two, well, that never materializes.