Yet another year where I didn’t read that many books — only about 60. And mostly junk, because I was busy with other stuff.
Do I have anything to say about any of them… er… let’s see…
Hangman (by Mary Binyam) is an interesting novel and I like the way it’s written, but… OK, I read the short story in Paris Review first, and that short story is an edited-down version of the first half (or something?) of the novel. And that short story is excellent, and that’s why I bought a novel by the author — but I didn’t know about that I was about to read an expanded version of the short story. But isn’t more of a good thing even better? Well… the novel leads up to a twist ending, and that twist ending is quite satisfactory — it ties together most of the stories we’ve been told in a “whoa” way. But on the other hand, it’s a twist ending, and that makes the entire novel a kind of Gothic horror novel? Because it leaves us thinking whether the entire novel takes place while he’s dying, or “is he a ghost!!!” or whether “oh, it’s just literature, keep up, daddy-o”…
Also, I was wondering whether the novel was a parody of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy during parts of the book.
But it’s pretty good? The short story was wonderful, but the novel is just pretty good.
I realise that this is a classic — my copy says that it’s the 42nd printing of this edition from 1994, which means that Vintage goes back to press with it more than once per year, still — but I thought it was naff. There. Sorry for using such harsh language, but it’s naff. I can totally see how it was liberating and stuff back in 1969, what with the many scenes of masturbation and constipation, but it’s just not that funny. Perhaps it’s because the schtick presented by this book has been so thoroughly digested by society through Woody Allen movies (I’m guessing he’s a fan) and countless sitcoms? And the delivery is a standup comedy thing, and I hate standup comedy so much. As a wise man once said: “Humour is never funny.”
The first book here set up a really interesting universe (or rather, multiverse), and we kept learning more and more about it in an intriguing and satisfying way. But there were lots of things left unanswered, and I assumed that the second book would answer those questions… and it didn’t at all. Instead it’s just a kinda straight-forward thriller/heist book, so that was disappointing. I mean, these books are fun, exciting reads! I recommend them heartily. But it’s annoying that the multiverse here works in a kinda stupid way, and the only way for the plot to proceed is to have everybody except the protagonists be really stupid.
Like, we’re told again and again that the multiverse contains infinite universes, and it’s not like it’s expensive to find them or explore them. The protagonists set up a rinky dink shop and explore gazillions of universes on basically no budget. The Pandominiom, which has hundreds of thousands of worlds, surely could have explored trillions of universes … per day, so it’s just like “eh? eh?” why their reaction to discovering universes that are inhospitable (due to there being mightier beings there etc) wouldn’t just skip those and go to the next ones. “Infinite” is a big number. There’s no reason to quibble. But everything in this infinite multiverse is so picayune. The Pandominion as a could dozen “bivouac” planets filled with soldiers… but only a couple dozen! That’s nothing! And when the author tries to imagine a wondrous farming planet… he has them using manual labour! to harvest… meter-long corn cobs! CORN COBS!!! What the fuck? The lack of imagination and scale is staggering!
OK, in comparison with the events taken place on this Earth the past couple of years, I can’t really say that people and gummints acting stupid is unrealistic, but it sure is annoying in a novel.
Which brings me to my quibbliest quibble: If the universes are dividing and creating new universes all the time, then why aren’t there a multitude of Pandominions, and why doesn’t it encounter other versions of itself all the time? Sure, you could handwave something — like, “a universe that has invented a stepping machine to go to another universe no longer divides itself”. Sure, fine, but he doesn’t even bother to do that. But that doesn’t help any — if somebody’s just about to invent a stepping machine, then there should be hundreds of thousands of universes being created over the, say, days before that happens, and the vast majority should follow the same trajectory, being almost totally identical, so their steps should be to the same universe, in the same place, and they should all end up saying hello to a quantillion versions of themselves, and and and and
OK, OK, OK, OK… “Sci fi book with mechanics that doesn’t make sense. News at 11.” The reason it’s annoying is that the book tries so hard to be smart (S.M.R.T.) and tell the reader that it’s smart, and it doesn’t cover self evident quibbles like this at all.
IT”S AN OUTRAGE!1!
Speaking of stupid…
This is the first book “James S. A. Corey” has written after the Expanse books, and… it’s OK? But you really have to have a huge tolerance for the Stupidest People Possible trope, because man, nothing in this book would have happened if the people involved didn’t make the stupidest decisions possible. At every point. It also suffers from a lack of imagination (for instance, once species look a bit like monkeys, but they’re materials scientists… but they still fight by biting (like monkeys) and flinging poop (like monkeys) and planting bombs (kinda unlike monkeys) instead of just sharpening a knife and killing all the humans they want at their leisure.
But I mean — it’s a pretty good read? It doesn’t have any of the memorable characters The Expanse had (or any characters with character at all, really), but it’s pretty entertaining.
Each book in this trilogy won the Hugo Awards, so all the other SF authors must have given a sigh of relief when it was over. Time for somebody else to win! And the thing is, I can totally see why they won those awards, because these books a really addictive. The world building is (literally) awesome — she keeps on introducing (or explaining) these really astounding features in this world she made, and it’s riveting.
I didn’t much care for the way it’s written on a sentence by sentence basis. There’s like an unnecessary amount of drama. The characters think sentences like “Oh. Oh!” and so on, and I have emphasis in writing so… much!
The third book suffers a bit in that she has to infodump a bit much, but there’s a lot of interesting bits about the world that has to be explained, and she manages to do so in a fairly interesting way. They’re good sci fi/fa books. *two and a half thumbs up*
Who could have imagined that Stendhal wrote good books? I know! It’s fab.
This, on the other hand, I thought was going to be a lot of fun, but it was kinda dull. I can totally understand that it’s been made into nineteen movies and seventy five TV series, but I have zero interest in watching any of those, because this just isn’t as much fun as it thinks it is.
This is Tepper’s final novel, and it’s a sequel to several of her earlier books. And it’s understandable that she’d want to wrap those up, in a way, but — first of all, those were here weakest books, really, and second of all, they didn’t really need any further wrapping. Up of.
Despite all that, I did enjoy spending some more time with Tepper. Realistically, it’s not a very good book, but I liked it anyway.
I didn’t read all that many Wodehouse books this year. I’m reading them chronologically, sort of, and I’ve reached the early 30s, I think. But I’ve bought all the rest, so I’m set.
Because I thought I should buy them all before they become more expensive — these Everyman editions (from about a decade ago) are really nice. That is, nice size, nice typography, nice everything.
Except the cover illustrations. They suck.
I also somehow found myself re-reading a bunch of Robert Barnard books. (Oh, I see a Brandon Sanderson has snuck in there, too)…
When I have a cold, or if I am under the weather, there’s nothing as relaxing as reading a Barnard mystery. They’re kinda smart, and kinda well written, and doesn’t tax the brain at all.
OK, I did read some non junk this year — look at all these issues of the Paris Review! *counts* 15? Something like that. I usually only read Paris Review when travelling (on planes and stuff), but there’s been a few years with less travelling (*cough* rona *cough*), so I fell behind. But I’ve started going out and eating a leisurely lunch about once a week, and I’ll read half an issue.
Er… don’t have much to say about the rest.
All empty and ready for a new year.