Don't Forget to Read a Book!

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Greg Bear's  Queen of Angels. The Short of It Plot: Overlapping stories show our world fundamentally transformed and stratified by a combination of nanotechnology, AI, and surveillance.  Page Count: 420 Award:  Prequel to 1993 Nebula winner Moving Mars Worth a read : No. Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or  Character ) Bechdel Test : Fail? Technobabble:  Astounding. Review:  A truly miserable read. Densely packed with trite innovations and a tepid future to go with them. At every turn does nothing more than recall better works by better authors. Only one of the many stories here is even remotely interesting - that of an AI gaining self-awareness - but even that drags like a dragon but with none of the flames. Character work is dreadful, pacing is abysmal, and word building is drab. Books like this change this from a reading challenge to a masochistic slog. The Whatever of It Spoiler Free! What is there to say abou...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Lewis Shiner's  Glimpses. The Short of It Plot:  There are so many songs that could have been, music that we almost heard. What if we could get those lost songs, those forgotten albums, the greatest hits of an alternate history? Page Count: 343 Award:  1994 World Fantasy Award Worth a read : No...ish. Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or  Character ) Bechdel Test : Pass Technobabble:  Hot damn. Review:  An odd mix. Bits of time travel and parallel universes, used to pepper a story about two things: a love of music and the difficulty in coping with loss. It's a brutal read and often extremely slow. Characters are frequently terrible, self-destructive, and generally difficult to get along with. Every part of this is too long: the musical sections are only impactful if you're interested in that specifically, the relationship and personal drama drags as well. Yet there are... glimpses... of something much better here. ...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about James K. Morrow's  The Eternal Footman. The Short of It Plot:  People are dropping, replaced by sad husks - fetches - of their former selves. Is there anything that can be done to fight this plague of ennui? Page Count:  368 Award: Third book in the Godhead trilogy Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or  Character )  Bechdel Test : Pass(?) Technobabble:  Spiritual Babble, sure. Review:  A retread of almost the same thing we've read from Morrow, but even less inspired. A dull slog without even the sparks of wit that helped make the previous two books a bit less of a chore. Atmosphere is extremely oppressive, characters are all depressed, bitter, or both. Impossible to care about actual outcomes or story.  The Only of It Spoilers? Not really. Congratulations, this is basically the same book, again. It's just a bit worse each time. I thought about spending a bunch of time writing up a more nu...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Kim Stanley Robinson's  Red Mars. The Short of It Plot:  The ongoing evolution of Mars following its colonization.  Page Count:  Green Mars: 650 Blue Mars: 780 Award:  Green Mars:  1994 Hugo, 1994 Locus SF Blue Mars:  1997 Hugo, 1997 Locus SF Worth a read : Nope (Directed by Jordan Peele) Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or Character) Bechdel Test : Pass Technobabble:  Make it stop. Review:  Written in response to somebody who said, "Mr. Robinson, I enjoyed Red Mars,  but it was just too exciting." This might be the dullest trilogy known to humankind. A massive spread of different topics and world building come into play, once again immaculately detailed. It is just impossible to care because it is impossible to be engaged in any part of this book. A lot of important plot and character moments are built upon an assumed connection between the reader and the First Hundred, which is simp...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Tim Powers's  Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather . The Short of It Plot:  When a particularly powerful ghost resurfaces, the boy he's possessing becomes a major target for all sorts of arcane sorts. His expertise in ghost handling makes him useful to Scott Crane as well. Page Count:  Expiration Date: 384 Earthquake Weather: 416 Award: Earthquake Weather: 1998 Locus Fantasy. Worth a read : No. Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or  Character ) Bechdel Test : Pass. Technobabble:  Mild to moderate. Review:  These two forgo the dark humor and bitter charm of Last Call  and are instead ceaselessly miserable to read. It's hard to tell if this is an intentional choice or if the attempts at humor just don't land here. Pacing is spasmodic: one moment there will be an abrupt string of action sequences, and then nothing happens for the next thirty pages. Characters are generally too selfish to be engaging, and la...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. The Short of It Plot:  An international coalition of 100 scientists is sent out on a mission to establish the first colony on Mars, but interpersonal strife mars their mission.  Page Count:  592 Award:  1993 Nebula. Worth a read : No. Fight me. Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or Character) Bechdel Test : Pass Technobabble:  (Technobabble * Technobabble) < Technobabble["Red Mars"] Review:  Undeniably a masterpiece of hard SF. Incredibly in depth and thought through systems and technologies with a rigorous scientific approach. Also heinously tedious and drier than pre-terraforming Mars. Characters tend to be irrationally inflexible or utterly spineless. Shocking levels of high school-esque romantic drama tossed in to the mix. Pacing is a full on dumpster fire. One can recognize the brilliance of Robinson without finding this remotely enjoyable. The Medium of It Spoiler ...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about James K. Morrow's  Blameless in Abaddon. The Short of It Plot: Who is responsible for the tragedies of existence? God. And he will answer for his crimes... at the Hague.   Page Count:  372 Award:  Sequel to Towing Jehovah Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or Character)  Bechdel Test : Pass Technobabble:  Minor. Review:  A brilliant short story which far overstays its welcome. Feels like an introductory theology class by a disaffected tween. Lots of clever and funny moments, including the creation of a theme park around God's comatose body - but not enough to carry a story. Also relentlessly miserable at points. This is not so much a novel as a point to prove: and the point is reiterated to death. The Medium of It Spoiler Free! Déjà vu Deus dampnas libri! Which is, I believe, French and Latin (Fratin, as the kids say) for, "This book about God feels pretty  familiar." Welcome to...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about James K. Morrow's  Towing Jehovah. The Short of It Plot:  God is dead, and the angels need his giant corpse hauled to the Arctic for burial.  Page Count:  371 Award:  1995 World Fantasy Award  Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or  Character )  Bechdel Test : Pass Technobabble:  None. Review:  A brilliant short story which far overstays its welcome. Characters are established well and have some neat arcs. Truly excellent opening hook which is let down by the book that follows. Pacing turns extremely choppy. This is not so much a novel as a point to prove: and the point is reiterated to death. The Medium of It Spoiler Free! THE IRREDUCIBLE STRANGENESS of the universe was first made manifest to Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday, when a despondent angel named Raphael, a being with luminous white wings and a halo that blinked on and off like a neon quoit, appeared and told ...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Vernor Vinge's  Children of the Sky. The Short of It Plot: Enemies old and new threaten the fragile stability of the alliance between humans on tines. Page Count:  444 Award:  Sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep Worth a read : No. Primary Driver:  (Plot, World, or  Character ) Bechdel Test : Pass Technobabble:  Moderate Review:  Disappointing. Almost exclusively focused on underdeveloped interpersonal relationships between characters. Works within an established world and adds only negligible new details. Dull story beats and poorly executed limited omnipotence regularly eject the reader from the story. This is not a tale that needed to be told. The Short of It Spoiler Free! On its own, or in a different series, perhaps this book would be easier to stomach. As it stands, however, it is a frustrating and disappointing slog, a smudge on the legacy of an otherwise fantastic series. A Fire Upon the Deep is a comp...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Michael Swanwick's  Stations of the Tide. The Short of It Plot: Someone is breaking interplanetary laws and spreading illegal technology, and the culprit must be found before cyclical tides rise, completely changing a planet. Page Count: 252 Award:  1991 Nebula Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or Character) Bechdel Test : Fail Technobabble:  High Review:  Plenty of neat ideas that do not sum to more than their parts. Somehow feels both rushed and tedious. A lot of thought went into the broader world and setting, but the same care was not given to any other aspects of this book. After a solid opening chapter it's all downhill. Uninteresting characters with weak motivations butt heads over uninspired conflicts. A lot of unnecessary sex thrown in, hoping to keep the reader engaged.  The Medium of It Spoiler Free! This is an incredibly ambitious work that falls far short of its potential. The wo...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Sherri S. Tepper's  Beauty. The Short of It Plot: After evading a certain sleep-related curse, Beauty ends up exploring far and wide to reconcile her human and fairy ancestry. Page Count: 412 Award: 1992 Locus Fantasy Worth a read : No. Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or  Character ) Bechdel Test : Pass Technobabble:  Minimal Review:  A remarkably ambitious book that takes a variety of clever turns, but ultimately unsatisfying. Dragged down by inconsistent pacing and passive characters. A lot of very convenient coincidences are needed for things to line up the way that they do, which grows tiresome. The result is an uneven patchwork of well-trodden tropes, though stitched together in a novel fashion.  The Medium of It Spoiler Free! Writing a spoiler free review of this is a challenge, as things go sideways pretty early on. The starting point is that this is indeed, in part, a take on Sleeping Beauty. Our protagon...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. The Short of It Plot:  Thomas is a talented enough bard that even the Queen of the Fairies takes notice. Page Count: 256 Award:  1991 World Fantasy Award Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  (Plot, World, or  Character ) Bechdel Test : Fail(?) Technobabble:  Doesn't apply. Review:  An unremarkable and inoffensive retelling of a fairy tale. Writing quality is the main draw here: lots of good passages that draw successfully upon the style and mood of myths. That said, there's nothing that novel here: standard fairy-related mischief, unrequited love, love transcending worlds... everything that one expects in such a fable. Story is divided into a few distinct blocks - and switches narrators - which does no favors for pacing. Of the four main characters, Thomas himself is the only one of the four main characters who sparks interest.  The Medium of It Spoiler Free! What is there to say a...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Jack Vance's  Lyonesse Trilogy. The Short of It Plot:  Kingdoms vie for supremacy, wizards do the same, and the fairy folk mock them from the sidelines. Page Count:      Suldrun's Garden: 436     The Green Pearl: 406     Madouc: 544 Award:  Madouc - 1990 World Fantasy Award Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  ( Plot ,  World , or Character) Bechdel Test : Pass. Technobabble:  Some magic gibberish. Review:  A fantasy epic with a remarkable number of storylines, sometimes told out of chronological order. As a demonstration of how to effectively interweave a huge number of characters and plots this is a masterclass. This does not, however, make it an enjoyable read. Character work is underwhelming - a few standouts highlight how flat most of the others are. Pacing is choppy - sudden frenetic bursts followed by 100 page slumps. World feels pretty standard for medieval fantasy - t...