Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970)

Halo

In my continuing exploration of many of the classics of speculative fiction, I read Larry Niven's Ringworld. If you're familiar at all with the Halo video game franchise, you know at least one thing this book inspired. The central feature is an artifact, a made world in the shape of an enormous ring. It surrounds a sun, spinning to simulate gravity, with high walls at the edges to keep air, soil, and water from flowing off the edges of the ring's inner surface. "Shadow squares" at a closer orbit to the world's sun provide daylight intervals on the livable surface. To get a good visualization of the Ringworld, you can follow this link, although you should be warned that if you look too closely at it that will provide some spoilers.

Much of the book's descriptions focus on the sheer enormity of the world's scale. The total surface area of that inner ring is about the equal of three million Earths. That's too mind-boggling to really hold in your brain all at once. All of this is a pretty cool concept, but it doesn't by itself justify a novel dedicated to it. Not unless there's something else going on.

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (1980-1983)

The Color That Is Darker Than Black

Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is the best thing I've read in ten years, since the first time I read The Lord of the Rings. In fact, professional critics have placed it right alongside that work. If that doesn't grab your attention enough, let me also state that it's the most metal book I've ever read.

The most key point to explain what makes this book so great is captured in a cover quote from the third volume: "The most extraordinary hero in the history of the heroic epic" (Washington Post Book World). Roger Ebert famously stated that only good villains separate good stories from bad, because heroes are all the same, but that is definitely not the case here. Severian begins as an apprentice in the Seekers for Truth and Penitence, the guild of the torturers. They carry out judicial punishments ranging from all manner of torture to execution. He, like most members of his guild, has no family. He has a strong sense of justice, like all heroes, and the torturers' philosophy to justify their actions is well-considered. But he also does some rather unsavory things along his journey. He is prone to mercy, but can also be quite ruthless. Peculiarly, he often repeats that he remembers everything, and doesn't know what it's like to forget.

At War With Satan (2014) by Steff Metal

Bogus Journey

Whenever I read humorous novels, I always pick them up expecting a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy approach full of wordplay and absurdity. I never get it. So it is with fellow metal blogger Steff Metal's At War With Satan. The tagline on the cover (a quote from Alestorm's Chris Bowes) calls it "part Dante's Inferno, part Wayne's World." Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey was already that in its way, but there's nothing wrong with that.

A demon forms a metal band and blows everyone away with his voice. (That is only superficially like Queen of the Damned.) The real purpose of this band is to get metalheads to fight church youth group kids in a planned mini-apocalypse. The end result is that the protagonists have to go to hell, visiting a few choice locations along the way.

A Regular by Andrew Bonazelli (2010)

The title of A Regular refers to a permanent fixture at a dive bar. And it starts out by observing the man living the kind of life you'd expect of him. Until things take a sudden, drastic turn, and just about everyone in the bar is suddenly a zombie, and our hero capably slays them. Sounds like a cool way to start a novella, right? And it would sound even cooler if I told you there was a pornogrind band, a Decepticon, a conjurer, and a street fight or two, right?

The legendary Clive Barker can throw a shitload of different stuff into a short book. Cabal features a serial killer, fantastic monsters, and a god that makes you ejaculate if you see him (it's been a few years since I read it, but I swear it's true). The book is awesome. That odd juxtaposition of different genre features is a staple of Barker's work, as is the post-modernist declination to explain why it all fits together. He is a master at it.

Helliconia Summer by Brian Aldiss (1983)

I recently read the second book of Brian Aldiss's Helliconia trilogy, Helliconia Summer. You should read my review of the first book to get a description of the setting.

Aside from being set on the same planet, the setting and story in this book have very little to do with the first one. It takes place hundreds of years later, and the setting has been completely transformed by the different weather on the planet. The general writing, characterization, and descriptions are just as compelling as in the first one, which is very strongly in its favor. However, it falls far short of the first one for many reasons.

The book starts out strong--but it starts out 2/3 of the way through the story. This would be fine, if it was only one chapter. But instead, there are three chapters before it jumps back in time, and the fourth chapter is presented as a flashback. So, when I started the fifth chapter, I thought it jumped back forward; I was wrong, so needless to say I was confused for the next couple of chapters.

The setting is not nearly as compelling as in Spring, the supposedly extreme heat of the long season being almost forgotten through most of the book. And one of the reasons Spring was so interesting was that the setting changed a great deal during the story, something that doesn't happen in Summer.

After I finally figured out what was happening, things go interesting for a while. But just when it got really good, some deus ex machina rears its ugly head. And finally, the end is unsatisfying.

The Verdict: Still, the story which is told is a good one, and, as I said, the characters are compelling. So, I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Helliconia Spring by Brian Aldiss (1982)

I recently read Helliconia Spring, part of the Helliconia Trilogy by Brian Aldiss. While the book did not win any of the major awards, it was in the running for the Nebula.

The story takes place mostly on the planet Helliconia, which orbits a rather weak sun, Batalix, which provides little heat and light. Batalix in turn orbits Freyr, a much larger and hotter sun. The orbit of Batalix around Freyr (a "Great Year") takes about 2500 Earth years, and at some points Batalix and Helliconia are closer to Freyr than others. Consequently, the climate of the planet undergoes stark change from centuries of extreme cold to centuries of extreme heat.

The planet is populated by both humans and some wampa-like creatures called phagors, along with several species of subhumans and both plants and animals of remarkable biologies necessitated by the harshly varying conditions of the planet. Aldiss went so far in exploring his premise that he even considered the microbiology of the planet.

Helliconia Spring begins in extreme cold, following a character who moves from a nomadic and extremely difficult solitary lifestyle, to living in an underground society, to finally joining an established surface settlement and becoming their leader. He is the most interesting character in the book, his experiences making him a uniquely capable person.

Sadly, the book drops him about a third of the way through and picks up several generations later. But at least it picks up on another interesting character. The settlement soon experiences the onset of the spring of the Great Year, the ensuing changes in their environment and the creatures inhabiting it, and new challenges brought on by these developments. This arc of the book has many, many characters, but Aldiss somehow manages to present each of them as unique, and I don't ever recall being confused about who was whom. Most of these characters are by necessity flat characters, but enough of them are developed well so as to make them seem human.

I do have two complaints about the book, but very minor ones. First, Aldiss included some history of Earth and a space station orbiting and observing the planet, but the people of Earth and the space station do not affect the events of the story. I am, however, already in the middle of the second book, Helliconia Summer, and am beginning to see that they do affect events later in the series--so this fault is forgiven completely. Second, I found two contradictions in the book. Earlier in the book, a creature called a "stungebag" is characterized as "proverbially difficult to kill," as in, they have a saying something like, "It was tougher than killing a stungebag." Later in the book, they are characterized as easy to kill. The other contradiction is that earlier in the book a phagor would only use his horns as a weapon on another phagor and never a human, but that turns out to be untrue as well. However, the contradictions did not affect the story other than being a minor annoyance.

The Verdict: The characters are compelling, the setting is scientifically plausible (as far as I can tell) and very interesting, and the plot is complex, being driven by independent forces of both people and climate. Despite the very minor problems, I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Black Widowers stories by Isaac Asimov

According to the Wikipedia article:

The Black Widowers is a fictional men-only dining club created by Isaac Asimov, for a series of sixty-six mystery stories, which he wrote starting in 1971. . . .
The stories always follow the same convention: the six club members and a guest sit down to dinner, served by the incomparable waiter, Henry Jackson (almost invariably referred to as simply Henry). During the meal it always comes out that the guest has a problem which varies from the personal to actual crimes. The club members try to solve the problem, raising various issues in the course of the conversation but are unable to come to an actual conclusion. In the end, it is Henry, who is highly-regarded by the club members, who provides the correct, and usually very simple, answer, obtained from aspects of the conversation. Asimov intended them to always follow that pattern.

I recently read my second out of the six published collections of these stories (or five and a half, maybe).

I enjoy these stories a great deal. They are very light reading, something to be taken up when you've just finished something heavy (I had just finished The Dispossessed when I picked this one up). While I sometimes don't think the solutions to the mysteries are fair--they can rely on outside information Asimov assumes everyone has--I still enjoy the manner in which the stories are told, through the interactions among the members of the Black Widowers. In all, the series warrants a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún by J.R.R. Tolkien (2009)

The other day I finished reading The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, by an author who truly needs no introduction, and of course edited by his son.

The idea which spurred Tolkien to write these poems was that he wanted to write poems in the traditional Norse eddic style in the English language, so he picked the most well-known Norse legend in which to write the poems. He is believed to have written it during the 1930s.

I'm not normally one for poetry. However, this particular style of poetry is very immediate, and focuses on alliteration rather than rhyme, something which makes it actually quite readable. (In other words, rhyme should be left to music or children's books. The story is also quite compelling, so it is understandable it had so much meaning to the Norse and other Germanic peoples who told the story.

The actual poems could be read in just a few hours. But Christopher Tolkien added extensive explanation and commentary to help the reader understand; the book could be read with or without the commentary.

In all, as far as the poetry goes, I'm no expert but I'll give that 5 out of 5 stars. I recommend it to anyone interested in Germanic mythology or heroic poetry, or to anyone who (like me) is a die-hard Tolkien fan.

The Godmakers by Frank Herbert (1972)

I recently read The Godmakers, by legendary Dune author Frank Herbert.

The novel explores a distant-future society which had been devastated by a galactic war, resulting in many planets becoming isolated. The protagonist begins the novel as a member of an organization charged with teaching and observing the people of re-discovered planets. If any sign of a war-like history is uncovered, the planet is "occupied," rendering the population harmless but damaging its culture and people permanently in the process. The protagonist is quickly identified as a very gifted individual, and is promoted and then given successively more difficult tasks. Eventually, the book degenerates into one of Herbert's ideological-religious-philosophical digressions, which are almost invariably indulgent, a trend which is true here as well.

I was shocked at how disjointed the whole book was. It didn't feel like a novel at all. Then I looked it up on Wikipedia and found out why: It was expanded from four short stories which had previously been unpublished. Hey, it worked for Asimov's Foundation, right? Well, in that novel it worked because the stories were only loosely connected, separated by decades or centuries of time in between. With The Godmakers, it all seems more or less sequential, and centers on two main characters, so it feels like it should hang together, but doesn't. Also, the theme from one story arc, which explores a non-human civilization, doesn't seem to fit the themes of the book. And the last story arc is the dreadful, pretentious, and faux intellectual digression into religion.

As short stories, I would have liked the first three--including the one about the aliens. I would have hated the last one. As a novel, it's barely worth the small investment of time. [The following edited to conform to my new rating scale:] I don't hate the book, which would result in a 0 star rating, but I don't like it, so I give it 1 out of 5 stars.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974)

I recently read another Nebula and Hugo award winner, which also won the Locus Award, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.

The book concerns two societies situated on what appear to be binary planets. One is an idealistic anarchist society (or non-authoritarian communist society) over the whole planet, and the other has a mix of societies, though the major society in the plot is capitalist. A member of the anarchist society, a physicist of some note, travels to the capitalist society, and we explore his interactions among those people and the impressions he receives. In alternating chapters, we also explore the anarchist society and the protagonist's upbringing. The book provides a stunningly interesting critique of capitalist, communist, and anarchist societies, while following a believable and extremely well-developed main character. The primary strength of the book is in its alternating chapter structure, which illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the two societies, although it does make tracking the less important characters a bit difficult. And some of the chapters which take place in the anarchist society are very powerful. The book provides a wonderful analysis of human nature in terms of society, morals, and the nature of freedom.

I won't judge the book by sci-fi terms, because it didn't have to be written as a science fiction book except for the fact that there isn't a society like the idealist one in the real world. However, even judged on general terms, the book gets 5 out of 5 stars. The only problem is the chapters are exceedingly long, without breaks. This is a small issue indeed.

Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (1972)

I recently read Rendezvous With Rama, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards, the two most prestigious awards given for speculative fiction. The Wikipedia article gives a good, brief synopsis of the plot:

Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a fifty-kilometer-long cylindrical alien starship that enters Earth's solar system. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.

The book is a very good read in terms of hard science fiction, i.e., the plot and the mystery are interesting, the predictions made are plausible, and the characters are of secondary importance. The writing is smooth, without any annoying quirks like you might find in some sci-fi writing, so the dialog and action blend together well and the characters, while mostly flat, are rarely confused with one another (except for a few disposable characters). The tension and sense of wonder are what drive the book, and Sir Arthur Charles Clarke definitely earned his reputation as one of the greats of 20th century science fiction. In addition, the chapters are short and easily digestible, so the book can be read as quickly or as slowly as you like.

This is my first book by Clarke, and I believe his writing is at least on par with, if not superior to, that of Isaac Asimov, one of my all-time favorite authors and the other author usually placed alongside Clarke in short lists.

My only complaint is that the ending should have provided more closure. I didn't think authors set up sequels in the early 1970's (except for planned trilogies and the like), and I certainly didn't think an author would do so and then fail to write the second one until 17 years later. However, this is a small quibble, as it wasn't an awful ending by any means. In all, I give the book 4 out of 5 stars. (To get 5, it would have to be better in terms of fiction generally, e.g., by having more compelling characters, rather than just being great on its own hard sci-fi terms.)

Mainspring by Jay Lake (2007)

I recently finished reading Mainspring by Jay Lake. It is a definite steampunk novel with a very interesting premise. Nearly all steampunk is set in an alternate history setting, but this one is set in a completely alternate world: The Earth literally orbits the Sun on gears, the Moon orbits the Earth in the same way, and a giant gear at the equator (it extends 100 miles from the surface) makes the northern and southern hemispheres almost entirely isolated from one another. It's orrery-as-reality. The major conflict is introduced in the first chapter, when Gabriel appears to the protagonist to inform him the world's mainspring is running down, and tasks him with traveling halfway across the world to wind the mainspring. You find out early on that this is one of the things Jesus is believed to have done (although the evidence is apocryphal).

At its core, the book is merely an exercise in worldbuilding. Most speculative fiction has at least some element of worldbuilding, but in this particular book, the world is so compelling that I would be willing to follow just about any journey into it. In other words, the characters and plot are of secondary importance. Which is not to say they're not worthwhile. Most of the characters are flat, and there are groups of them which are mostly undifferentiated, but they are all believable, acting in consistent ways. The plot does have some moments which could be accused of being Deus ex machina (excuse the pun), but they all make sense in context (in any case, I think there was just a tiny bit less foreshadowing than I would have liked).

My biggest complaint is, as with my last book review, the love story. Here it's not because it's unbelievable, or not compelling, or that it fails to advance the story. It's just weird. I mean, really freaking weird. It turns out to be necessary to the plot, but there are at least a few ways Lake could have written around it. Some of them would have required making the book longer, but anything would have been an improvement. Even with this very weird element, the rest of the book is so compelling that I could easily get past it.

Now, I feel I have to address some of the characterizations of the book as blasphemy, as some reviewers have done. I think it's better understood as taking the speculation in the speculative fiction to its logical extreme. Here, that means asking the question, "What kind of God would make a world like this?" or "If we change the world in this way, how would God treat the world differently?" It's not all that different from C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, where he asked, "What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia . . . ?" Which is not to say Lake was asking that question. Indeed, he does not wholeheartedly embrace any single alternate theology. As in the real world, the characters are not given plain answers to those questions.

In sum, the world is extremely compelling and absolutely unique, the characters are believable, and the plot is intriguing. In all, I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Waking the Moon

Oddly enough, I have never done a book review on this site. I'll make an effort to do them whenever I read them from now on. This time, it's Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand. I discovered it by looking at one of the top 100 lists over at The Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

First, the good points. The primary conflict is an interesting story of a power struggle by an Illuminati-inspired group against a sort of pagan Christ figure or avatar, told mostly through the eyes of parties who are seemingly incidental to the whole thing. The narrative is split into two parts which represent (1) the origin and (2) the ministry of this avatar; whether a similarity to the canonical Gospels was intended is a matter of speculation. Hand can really draw you in with her narrative, with her descriptions often as good as Clive Barker's. The vision of angels she provides is quite possibly the best I have ever read, and some of the more dramatic scenes are very powerful.

However, there are many problems with the book. Sometimes her descriptions seem to be a way to show off her personal taste in things rather than to add any value to the scene, and other times she seems to want to impress you with how much research she has done into the topic of goddess worship. There are about seven or eight characters I can keep straight in my head, but all of the characters are flat. Near the middle of the book, Hand introduces some characters solely for the purpose of killing one of them off in an interesting way without advancing the story; others are introduced seemingly for no purpose at all. There is also a lot of needlessly-inserted drug use and deviant sexuality.

But my biggest quibble with the book is the love story intertwined with the greater narrative, to the extent the love story is the primary vehicle for advancing the story. Had I known this was how the story was told, I never would have picked it up. In any case, the love story seems to make sense and serve a purpose in the first major story arc. However, in the second story arc, Hand seems to try to repeat the pattern, but it neither makes sense nor serves a purpose. And the resolution to the story which finally comes is unsatisfying: Though it was foreshadowed a little bit, it still feels like Deus ex machina. In fact, the whole thing seems plot driven, which is usually a very bad thing.

I suspect female readers of fantasy will enjoy it a great deal. I tried to enjoy it, I thought I was going to enjoy it, and Hand kept luring me along through the story with promises of really cool things that could happen. In fact, the first story arc was exceptionally well-written and compelling, despite its flaws. It's the second story arc that ruins the whole thing. Like I said, she did a great job of drawing you in--but there is no payoff. All in all, I give it 1 out of 5 stars.