Month: July 2008

The Sparrow

Mary Doria Russel

Like Perdido Street Station, I found this book from a list on the site IO9.com (can’t remember the exact article) — some of the books I had read, and some I had never heard of before.  This was one of the latter, but most of the comments on the article spoke highly of it, so I went out on a limb and bought it.

Turns out it’s not bad — man’s first contact with interstellar life is received in the form of radio signals emanating somewhere around the Alpha Centauri system (conveniently close).  Whilst the UN and other worldly bodies are dickering around about what to do, the Catholic Church is actually quickest to the punch, organizing a mission (composed of Jesuits and some scientists) to encounter whoever or whatever is now living on those planets.

Oh, but that’s just how it starts.  The problem of near-light speed travel is actually solved by easier means than you think (just use an asteroid as your ship, and keep using its fuel to slowly accelerate you to near-light speed travel, turn around halfway, and decelerate), and with relativity the time passed by the people on the ship is only about 10 months, even though something like 20 years passes by on Earth (it’s amazing how the universe works, isn’t it?).

The story is told partly in the “present” (the goings-on of the landing party) and partly in the future by the only surviving member, a Puerto Rican priest.  He hasn’t aged more than a few years, though nearly 40 years have gone by on Earth, and he’s since returned to Earth.  However, he’s not well received, and is currently being softly interrogated by his fellow Jesuits on Earth.

Apparently, the landing trip didn’t go so well, and this  is slowly revealed through both the present-tense storytelling and the future.

Also, this book has one of the most fucked-up endings imaginable.  Luckily, it has a sequel, and I’m going to get it eventually.

(Seriously, my review of  this book sucks.  Read it if you get the chance — it’s not hard SF, and is very enjoyable.)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

By Philip K. Dick

The book that the movie Bladerunner was based off of.  It’s only loosely connected, as usual — they both have androids.  The main character hunts them.  That’s about where the similarity ends.

Good book, though, if short.  Earth is a dying world in the book (the result of nuclear wars), and everything is decaying and falling apart — not quite the bustling economy is present as was in the movie. :P

Perdido Street Station

By China Mieville

My new favorite book.  Seriously — this book is both wonderfully written and incredibly exciting;  I couldn’t put it down for a week.  (Yes, a book can be wonderfully written but incredibly boring — anything by Charles Dickens comes to mind.)

I guess you’d call China Mieville’s novels “steampunk-ish,” because they’re not exactly steampunk, as I understand — Perdido Street Station doesn’t take place in Victorian England, for one thing — though it’s very much like it.  Think steampunk mixed with a small bit of magic and elementalism, with many types of creatures other than mankind.

The story centers (somewhat) around Isaac, an overweight scientist, and his half-human, half-insect lover (yes, lover), a “khepri” called Lin.  (Though, they wouldn’t say they’re half-human, half-insect — they claim humans are “khepris with the heads of gibbons.”)

Isaac is approached by a creature known as a Garuda — think half-man, half-bird — who has had his wings ripped off by his people as a form of punishment.  Isaac does not know for what, and doesn’t pry — the Garuda has sought him out, due to Isaac’s small bit of noteriety in the field of biomechanics.

…and that’s just where the bloody story begins. The world of Perdido Street Station is absolutely huge, even though the entire story takes place within just one city!  I found myself constantly referring to the map at the beginning, just to try and figure out in what section of the city a part of the story was taking place in.  (It’s not necessary — I just like looking at maps.)

The book is just absolutely filled with amazing characters, places, and descriptions — Mieville is able to describe this dirty, decrepid city amazingly.  You can almost smell the raw sewage, garbage, and shit lining the streets.  (The world of Perdido Street Station isn’t quite falling apart, but the people who live there have both forgotten many different scientific subjects, all while learning new ones.)

I’ve already got his other book Iron Council waiting to be read on my bookshelf, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it as much as this one.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a book review — life has been pretty busy lately.  I’ll try to catch up — luckily, most of what I’ve reading has been part of a big series and I can pretty much review the whole thing in one go.

Tetrasomy Two

by Oscar Rossiter

Another classic science fiction novel, Tetrasomy Two reminded me very, very much of Chuck Palahniuk.  (That probably should be the other way around, of course — this book was published 20 years before Chuck ever published anything.)  It had that gritty, sarcastic first-person dialog written in short, bursts of sentence fragments that I just love (another author I love who writes like this is my personal favorite, William Gibson, of course).

The story centers around a character who’s somewhat of an introvert — he’s a first-year doctor working in a psychiatric ward.  He finds himself receiving “messages” in the form of one-word sentences from a particular patient, and soon begins to doubt his sanity.  However, as this catatonic patient seems to somehow “feed” off of our protagonist’s wants and desires (including delivering an attractive nurse at the ward into our main introverted character’s bed), he decides to just go along with whatever is happening to him and make the best of it.

I won’t spoil it for you, in case you ever come across this book, but it’s definitely a good read, and one of the better out of the “classic” old SF novels I’ve managed to randomly find.

The Forgotten Realms Series

by R.A. Salvatore

Might as well just get the whole series out of the way at once, eh?

I’ve been being told to read these books for years, both by a good friend of mine and by my brother.  I avoided it for as long as I could — not because I had anything against Mr. Salvatore, but just because I didn’t want to start another hugely long series of Fantasy novels!  (I think I’m up to three, now.)

However, the books are good.  Salvatore’s a good writer — even if he claims that his books are mostly based upon his experiences in playing Dungeons and Dragons. :P

The series is somewhat centered around a character named “Drizzt Do’urden” (you’ve probably heard that name before, even if you’ve never read these books) — an elf from an evil race of elves, yet one who’s trying to avoid the dark ways of his people.

Salvatore’s description of Drizzt starts off somewhat differently than it is in later novels — in the earlier novels, I almost swear that Drizzt is described as a semi-sane dark elf that, though he’s forgone the demon-worshipping, sacrificing ways of his people, is still somewhat cruel and less than honorable.  This seems to change in later novels, as Drizzt seems to become more and more “pure” in his actions and thoughts.

The books have all the staples — dwarves, orcs, goblins, wizards, paladins, several different types of elves — I’m starting to see plenty of influence from these novels present in World of Warcraft, that’s for sure. ;)

Triton (also published as Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia)

by Samuel R. Delany

Phew boy.  What can I say about this book.  If you know Delany, and you know how he was, then you’ll love this.  It’s seriously one of those books that when you get done reading it, and you know it’s not part of a series, that you’re left saying, “What the fuck?  I want more!”

The book is beautifully written, full of humor, and the development of the main character couldn’t have been done better.  Bron Helstrom is an incredibly introverted man (emotionally wise — this could also be described as being “narcisistic,” I guess), and this is shown beautiful through the third-person narration, which, as an interplanetary war is unfolding, all Bron seems to care about is himself.  The world of Triton is a wonderfully libertarian (culturally) utopia, where anyone can be happy, yet Bron is miserable.

And when he goes through his “change,” well, I’m just going to go ahead and tell you that I didn’t see it coming from a mile away, even though it’s HUGE.  I’ll let you figure it out for yourselves.