So I am falling more than a little behind in the Hugo Reading Race, two books left to go and not a great deal of time to read them. I had also hoped to read all of the short stories and novellas too if possible – though that goal may prove too ambitious at this stage.
Anyway, here is the latest, and boy did I get stuck on this one. It wasn’t that it was a chore to read, I just kept stumbling along all sorts of other material and found myself devouring it instead. Magazines, online content, comics, other books. Anything other than the novel in question. Which leads me to the novel in question -
Trade Secret – I actually do a draft copy of these scorecards. That is right, what you have been seeing are the 2nd, neater versions. (As I may have mentioned previously on this blog I grip writing implements like an ape unfamiliar with the tools of man, and the resulting writing gets pretty illegible I’m afraid…)
I enjoyed this book, I mean what’s not to enjoy – zombies, airships, lots of characters with a legitimite, environmentally-based reason to dress like they are at a Steampunk ball. So yeah, I liked it. I did not love it. I’m not going to buy it, and I couldn’t see me ever picking up a copy that was laying about for a re-read. We had a nice time but it is not coming up for coffee, and I will not be calling it in a day or two.
A few reasons. It did not surprise me. I mean, ever surprise me. The closest there was to a plot revelation was a something that I had already assumed was the case a few chapters in. Not much really happened, I mean there was set pieces galore and plenty of furtive and adventuresome travel through a condemned and forgotten alternate-Seattle but I found it all a bit claustrophobic, the story never really took flight for me. (Also – I found the geography a complete mystery. I admit following such things is not my strong point but as far as I could tell it was all just “Up, we need to go up!” and “The only way out it down, try to head down!” If you say so….)
My next difficulty I can practically copy and paste from my earlier Wind-Up Girl post – I did not care about the characters. The mother and son duo I was supposed to be rooting for? Meh. Ezekiel was a brat, and Briar wasn’t much better. Am I just supposed to like them because they have cool names? I mean there names are cool, I am not arguing – but what were there defining characteristics? Briar was what… feisty? Good with a rifle? Ezekiel was.. 15? Pissed off all the time? As for the rest of the characters -with the notable exception of Lucy – they all seemed to a succession of broad chested men with different shaped helmets. The few villains of the piece were very sketchily drawn. Dr Minnerecht I found uncomfortably cliche, he may as well have steepled his fingers and given an evil laugh or two as he trotted out the obligatory ‘you are my guests, enjoy my plush hospitality but you cannot leave speech’. (His right hand-man-lieutenant-type initially seemed quite interesting, but his role proved to be cameo-sized.)
The last thing that I found underwhelming, (and feel free to argue here) was the lack of any kind of levity. I didn’t crack a smile throughout the whole book. I mean sure – the world of the novel is a pretty grim place, but since when did that stop a chuckle or two? Personally I think if the author was shooting for any kind of ‘adventure-romp’ tone, adding a touch of black humour might not have been amiss. But apparently the people the Blight-gas didn’t turn into “rotters” had their funny-bones boiled away. (Along with their libidos it seems… but don’t get me started on that.)
All right. Only two books left, on to Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valentewe go!
This cover is about as Steampunk as you can get without featuring actual steam. Actually, the right lens of her oh-so-hip-with-the-kids brass goggles looks a little steamed, so there you go…
Like Richard III, except without the tyrant. No wait – there is a tyrant in this book. Two in fact, depending on how you choose to look at it.
If you want to know who Mister Charles Curtis Easton is then read the book!
So, Julian Comstock.
I really liked it. I had more than that to say I think, back when I finished the book and filled out the scorecard about 3 WEEKS AGO. But for some reason no post was forthcoming. Maybe it was because my Co-Hugo-Racer Lizbt has already read all the damn books and soundly thrashed me weeks out from the deadline…
So here we are.
*SPOILER* (Though not a major plot point)
The footnote, the bit that all my asterisk’s were referring to is the fact that there is a book within the book that features an octopus on the cover despite not actually having an octopus in the story. And as you will note, the cover for this book has an octopus on it despite the fact that there is not really an octopus – though of course in one sense there is because there is the book with the octopus on the cover that doesn’t have an octopus in it. RECURSIVE! I love it! (And considering that I had randomly decided to include the IS THERE AN OCTOPUS? question on the scorecard I was rather excited…)
SPOILER OVER
Tangent- I always loved that bit during the conclusion of the “The Goonies” when Data says “The Octopus was very scary!”, it just seemed so wonderfully mad that he was embellishing their adventure and lying about an octopus when the truth of what they had been up to was already so fantastically unbelievable. Then 18 years later I watched the deleted scenes from the DVD release and discovered there WAS AN OCTOPUS, only the creature effect was so woeful that they had removed it from the finished film. True story.
I am on to “Boneshaker” by Cherie Priest now, and enjoying it so far. My progress is not very swift though, so don’t expect another post for a week or so at the very minimum.
N.B I have decided to go back through the previous posts and added scans of the book covers for you. Because I love you. Yes, you.
I do so hope the next author’s name is easier to spell.
Hmmm….
The previous Hugo entry, “The City and the City” by China Mieville took me three days. This volume, Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Windup Girl”, took me thirteen. Admittedly it was a little longer, but not considerably so – hence the Pageturnability of ‘3′ on the scorecard above.
Lets get to it then! Did I like this book? Well, it was certainly filled with some original ideas.
I found the world of the book quite fascinating. Set in a not-too-distant future Bangkok, global warming has raised the levels of the oceans, the US Empire is no more, carbon fuel is depleted and manually wound springs are what people use for energy. Biotechnology and GM foods have wreaked havoc with the worlds animal and plant-life and ‘calories’ are the most precious of commodities. The prose is rich and descriptive and I never felt less than genuinely immersed in a foreign, but tangibly plausible and detailed, time and place.
The setting gets a big tick then. My problem really, lies with the characters and to a lessor extent, the plot.
My primary gripe with the characters is that there were too damn many of them.
Don’t get me wrong- I believe a book this length can have as many people in it as the author needs to tell their story, but almost half-way through I found myself groaning every time a new ‘central player’ was revealed. It just began to seem increasingly unlikely as I went on the that all of these admittedly interesting people were going to have time to contribute to the story or interact with each other in any meaningful way before I got the last page. And for my money, they didn’t.
My second problem with the characters was the deal-breaker, and to be honest probably would have prevented me from even finishing the book if it weren’t part of this Hugo Adventure – I did not care about ANY of them.
I mean they weren’t all despicable or entirely unlikeable but I just didn’t empathise with any the scheming lot enough to care what happened to them. Who was I supposed to be rooting for? Anderson, the Calorie-man? Because he was WASPish and therefore easy identify with? (For this white-boy reader anyway) Hock-Seng the paranoid refugee? Jaidee the idealistic bully? (Don’t even get me started on Kanya… what a void of a character…) Or was I supposed to be interested in Emiko, the Windup Girl of the title? Well I wasn’t. (Sure, some horrible things happen to her and she has some serious abilities but suffering and ninja-speed do not a protagonist make…)
Essentially, it just boiled down to the fact that I didn’t care about anyone in the book, so found it hard to really get excited as the plot (eventually) started to pick up the pace and Shit Went Down.
I don’t think any of the Hugo Adventure will be bad as such, and I’m not suggesting this one is without some serious merit - I mean presumably they were all nominated as the best the year had to offer in sci-fi for a reason. But here is hoping that whichever story I pick up next isn’t quite such a chore to get through…
Ok. Two down, four to go.
Next up – “Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America”
Is it just me, or is putting ‘astute social commentary’ not really setting a potential reader’s mind aflame with a desire to read the book? Maybe it is just me, maybe other people read ‘astute social commentary’ on the cover and are all like “Oh man, this author is totally going to use their imagination and rhetoric to examine some kind of social issue and maybe even try to promote change through a effective allegory. Strap me down, man. Shit is about to get real!”
It did really hurt my hand. I’m not making that up. (I won’t hold it against the author though, I’m magnanimous like that…)
I am worried that I have peaked too early, that is – I really loved this book.
I’ve heard China Mieville’s name invoked with reverence by many who’s opinion I value, (including my literary hero N___ G____ himself…) but up until this point not read a single word of his fiction. I actually have an earlier work, Perdido Street Station sitting on a bookshelf waiting patiently to be read, and based on how excellent this book was I will get to it as soon as I’ve finished with the Hugo Read-a-thon.
The City and the City was not at all what I expected for my first 2010 Hugo nominated read. The present-day, no frills, Post-Soviet urban milieu took me by surprise – where where the dirigibles, the future designer-drug, the gene-spliced animals, the post-humans?
Now, I don’t think I am spoilering anything too much to reveal that the story starts with a murder and an inspector. I should lay my cards on the table here and say I do not read detective fiction. I mean, don’t get me wrong I devoured all the Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and Poe’s Dupin stories I could get my hands on in my early teens but there it ended, so I was initially very mistrustful when the whole thing was giving off a distinct Sam Spade odour.
My worries were unfounded – the smell of blood and the clomp of police boots were overshadowed by -and then skilfully blended in with- the smell of Ul Qoma coffee, the sound of Bezel citizens walking the streets carefully unseeing things and the all-pervasive feeling of the Breach watching from parts unknown.
I don’t want to say to much more about the plot. Read it. Go on. It is a rare find of a book, and I find myself returning to it in my mind even as I move on to the next title on on my Hugo list. It may not be for everyone – In fact I think what intrigues me so much about it is that judged by the sum of its parts it is not really a book for me. Not my kind of thing. I can’t quite put me finger on why I enjoyed it so much.
I mean it is definitely fantastical, make no mistake. But after you have read it, consider this thought – if you live in a big city, isn’t it unseeing that gets us through the day, one way or another?
Can you identify all the Hugos? 1st person to do so in the comments wins a prize!*
Greetings Dear Readers.
It has been an EXTREMELY long time. What have I been up to I hear you ask? Well. This and that, y’know. Why do you ask? Are you from the tax department? I didn’t get that letter. I changed address, it must have got lost.
Anyway I am back and it is time for HUGO-A-THON.
Lizbt and I are attending Worldcon this year, as it is in our hometown and as such that means we are eligible to vote in the Hugo Awards.
In case you don’t know, the Hugo Awards are like the Oscars for sci-fi/fantasy books – which if you want to continue the analogy makes Lizbt and I members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and as such we take our voting rights very seriously!
Now there are many categories, but for the purposes of this post lets, completely ignore all of them other than Best Novel.
Well, maybe not completely ignore them, Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form has THREE episodes of Doctor Who in it. Who could ignore that? Also Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form gives me chance to show my support for the awesomeness that was District 9 (breathtakingly original, subversive, action packed, cost $30 million, made me laugh, cry and had me on the edge of my seat…) while simultaneously snubbing the Ferngully-meets-Dances with Wolves (see here) digital hurly-burly that was Avatar (3d visuals, 1D characters, crippled narrative, action packed, cost $280 million, made me snort, yawn, eat too much popcorn and gave me eye-strain…)
But, really there are some categories I have nothing to contribute to - what the hell do I know about Best Editor – Short Form or Best Fanzine?
Anyway, back to the important bit for post purposes.
And the nominees for Best Novel are…
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Tor) The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK) Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor) Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra) Wake by Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog) The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
Now, naturally we have to read them all to cast an informed vote. So after a rushed afternoon of much phoning and talking in person to people in bookstores, most of who looked at me like I was asking if they sold erotic cakes (wow, that was an eye opening google image search…) I finally assembled all of the nominated books. A pretty looking lot they are to. I am shamefaced to admit that the only author I have actually read before is Catherynne M. Valente, whose wonderful (and wonderfully free!) book The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making I ate up (mostly on my smartphone during long tram journeys) over a comically extended period of time.
A quick check confirmed that voting closes on the 31st of July, meaning I have only 105 days to read all the books.
Now that might sound like plenty of time to you, Dear Reader (fiendishly attractive, erudite, book-devouring, soaks-up-fiction-like-blotting-paper-soaks-ink lot that that you are…) but I struggle to get through one book every three months these days. I KNOW. Gone are the heady days of my youth when no library was safe, when paperback spinners in book-stores used to tremble at my approach and the local populace came to marvel, open-mouthed as I strode down main street, jettisoning used volumes over my shoulder like spent shell cartridges.
I just don’t read that much or at any decent speed any more.
Well, that is going to have to change!
Doing the maths, I have 17.5 days per book. Best get to it right away. Why am I even wasting time posting when I should be cracking open one of the shorter looking paperbacks and diving in?
See you on the other side, people.
Oh and I may pop up here from time to time to post a review of one of the books, let you know how I am getting on, or to complain about not having a decent reading lamp and the calluses I’m developing on my thumb.
It is good to be back. Let the reading commence!
*Not sure what the prize is. Doubtful that it will be gold bullion, or anything of considerable value. Also, please don’t enter if you live in a tree-house on a remote island with no postal service. On second thoughts if you are living in a tree-house on a remote island and reading this – please DO enter, I’m so impressed with your net access I’ll email you a gift if you win.
The kind of piracy I am not posting about mashed up with the kind I am. (Image courtesy of Rocko)
Hello there Dear Reader.
It has been a bit quiet around here lately but I did manage to have myself a spectacularly nice festive season and now I am back with a vengeance!
Actually my plans for 2010 don’t really include that much in the way of vengeance. Maybe a little vicious retribution here and there, but nothing too excessive.
Oh, by the way… did you notice something different?
*waits while you look around*
That’s right! I changed the layout of my blog, well done for getting it straight away.
What this old thing? Well thanks for saying so but its not that fancy – I just found it laying around a Best of Wordpress Themes site. Actually I didn’t even find it myself, Lizbt picked it out for me so she gets the credit/blame. Thanks to her l33t skillz I even managed to retain the toaster-headed puppy as a mascot.
So there you go. New look for a new year and all that.
Hey, come to think of it you know which group of historical/literary stereotypes were big on revenge? Pirates – that’s who!
So, a few nights ago my friend OceanUnicorn came around to our house and helped Lizbt and I play with the present she had got me for aforementioned awesome Christmas. It was a box with four ‘Stunningly Designed’ (that’s what it says on the back) piracy themed StickyMosaics® . Esentially you just press little coloured adhesive squares to the squares marked on the cardboard with the corresponding number. And as between the three off us we had basic numeracy and motor-skills covered, it only took about half an hour to get one of them done.
Needless to say we cursed, listened to sea-shanties and talked about keelhauling a lot while we worked. I also set up my video camera to document proceedings, and here, me hearties, be the result.
Hi there. Been a while I know. Missed me? You did? Oh that is so sweet. I missed you too. No, you’re the sweetest. No you are. Really. No you.
So thanks to the goings on over at Project Life, my day to day existence is subject to the whims of a stuffed-toy.
Today Monkey decided I needed to organise some kind of soft-drink (soda for my US readers) challenge. No getting around a direct telepathic command, so here is…
Now in case you are not versed in Antipodean Beverage Lore, over here we have two major brands of Passion-fruit flavoured soft-drink. “Passiona” made by Cadbury’s and “Pasito” under the KIRKS label. (Though Kirk’s is really just the Coca-Cola company..)
It is, as far as I can tell, widely accepted that ‘Passiona’ is the ‘Original’ Passion-fruit drink and ‘Pasito’ is the knock off. (I actually haven’t been able to confirm this through research, but I did find a 1952 advertisment for “Passiona” so if nothing else at least I know the Cadbury’s version has quite a vintage.)
The first thing we did was to have the fabulous Lizbt see if she could determine which can was which – using only her sense of touch coupled with any other kind of instinctual extra-sensory perception she might possess….
(King James bible to add the right amount of gravity to the proceedings…)
She guessed wrong.
Then I got her to (while still blindfolded) taste both varieties of Passion-flavored liquid joy.
She totally guessed right.
What a feeling.
Then I underwent the same grueling procedure.
I not only aced the flavour test, but immediately preceeding that I guessed which was which JUST FROM THE CANS. I know. Your excited reading this – I’m excited typing it!
I’m so excited in this shot that I think my IQ dipped right down to that of a Capuchin monkey..
Here is a little insight into our scientific method and the results produced….
And here is the ultimate conclusion that Lizbt came to based on a detailed analsis of the raw data..
I find it hard to argue. It’s science people!
(I don’t want to hear anything at all about us having a 50% chance of being right, so don’t even start on that.)
So there you have it.
Oh, and personally I think ‘Passiona’ is by far the superior flavour. This is probably because it contains Preservative 211 and 202. ‘Pasito’ only has Preservative 211, pale imitation if you ask me…
After an absence of almost two months I really thought I should wait until I had something pretty special to make a triumphant return with. But what can you do when you have to OBEY THE MONKEY.
N.B Hopefully update on gaming related things to follow…
I love “The Graveyard Book”, I’ve posted about it here before, when I spent a few immensely enjoyable days reading it in various graveyards in my vicinity. So when, over at his blog, the esteemed author Mister Neil Gaiman answered a question a reader had about the precise steps for the Danse Macabre, and mentioned that he would try to link to any video footage of readers dancing the Macabray that found its way to the interweb – well, I knew what had to be done.
A few weeks later and here is the video, thanks to the wonderful efforts of Ben, Erin, Lili, Lizbt, M1K3Y, Melodie, Michael, Omega, Rachel, Sam and Warren – who all took time out on Sunday to come down to my local botanic garden and prance around for a spell. Thank you peoples.
Things didn’t go entirely as I’d hoped, as some thoughtless couple decided to choose the exact same time to get married in precisely the bit of the gardens that I had plotted out the shoot in the day before – but the ‘best laid plans of the living and the dead’ as they say…
Above is a cast photo for the Plants vs. Zombies video I shot with some good friends recently. Stay tuned to this blog to see the fan-created homage go up in all its videographic splendour.
Shooting it was lots of fun. And it ties nicely in with what I threatened to talk about in more detail a few weeks ago, the brilliant Typing of the Dead. Now I was going to crack my writing knuckles and really get stuck into some praising the bizzare Mavis-Beacon-meets-Resident-Evil game, but I happened across this article a in the meantime over at Offworld. The article stopped me in my tracks beacuse I think Margaret Robinson has really said all I wanted to say about the game, and probably more succinctly than I would have managed.
Bottom line, it is fun AND extremely educational. So track it down. Play it. Master touch typing and revel in the horrors of the polygonical living dead all at the same time. (The system requirements are extremely meagre so maybe you could run it the old laptop that won’t manage anything else, get some use out if it!)
I’ve also been playing another of my game loot titles, “Titan Quest,” so I may talk about that a bit more about that click-fest in a subsequent post. For the moment I have to get to editing and uploading some video!
Trade Secret – I actually do a draft copy of these scorecards. That is right, what you have been seeing are the 2nd, neater versions. (As I may have mentioned previously on this blog I grip writing implements like an ape unfamiliar with the tools of man, and the resulting writing gets pretty illegible I’m afraid…)
This cover is about as Steampunk as you can get without featuring actual steam. Actually, the right lens of her oh-so-hip-with-the-kids brass goggles looks a little steamed, so there you go…
(King James bible to add the right amount of gravity to the proceedings…)
What a feeling.
I’m so excited in this shot that I think my IQ dipped right down to that of a Capuchin monkey..
A merry crew on a fine spring day.
Another shot of the cast, looking much more glamorous now that they are famous on the internet…
