A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith My interest in human space travel had waned somewhat as progress seemed to have been minimal. Fortunately, the starting point of this book - which is about the prospects for creating human colonies in space - is the observation that after plateauing for decades, the costs associated with launching rockets have begun to reduce significantly. With the obvious corollary that this will likely lead to more ambitious manned missions, the authors (who are a husband and wife) explore the feasibility of colonisation, asking both whether we can and whether we should. The conclusions are not necessarily happy ones. Firstly, human physiology. Despite long-term space missions in orbit lasting a year or so, we have little to no useful data of how or if human beings can survive permanent relocation to other parts of the solar system. Things like reproduction might be impossible. Secondly, technologically - our ability to create self-sustaining biospheres is lacking. Experiments in this area are very limited. Thirdly, locations are few - there is a small volume of "good" real estate on the moon and somewhat more on Mars - but everywhere else is hellish and deadly. Fourth, the legal structures in place around this are badly in need of an update - and this seeming unlikely, it is possible that there will be conflict between spacefaring nations over what they can and should do. The prescription given is that we ought to "wait and go big", having made some progress on these issues, if we act at all. It's an interesting book, from which I learned a lot. But while I understand a desire to avoid the dryness that can sometimes be problematic in science books, the jocular tone used throughout can be grating.
I remember being really creeped out by the people with memories of dying in a nuclear attack in another timeline. But all in all, a book with great ideas but only meh writing.
This isn't a book review but I think it belongs here: These authors were sold a romantasy convention. Instead, they got the Fyre Festival of the book world
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie This is the first of Christie's many Poirot novels. Despite having no prior exposure to it, it's one of those whose tropes have become so familiar in culture that I found much of it was in my head by some sort of osmosis. Set during the Great War, it concerns the murder of a family matriarch in her mansion - and everyone's a suspect! Only Poirot can unravel the labyrinth of deceit. It has been said that it isn't her best and this is probably accurate. The first person narrator, a participant in the events, acts as a foil and occasional assistant to Poirot. Their conversations read almost like a Socratic dialogue concerning the investigation. Unfortunately said narrator often comes across as a dimwitted Doctor Watson, constantly disparaging Poirot's conclusions and methods - even after he displays veritable superhuman powers of deduction. Suffice to say that there are many twists and turns but that the murder is eventually solved. So while entertaining and able to hold the attention, there is much here that isn't fully formed - presumably a problem that will diminish when I read further entries in the series.
The trailer looks good, and had some of the scenes from the book in it. The movie will probably condense some of the characters into one or others. Hoping it doesn't suck.
Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer That Changed Irish History by Richard O'Rawe The 1981 hunger strikes were a key moment in the recent "Troubles" in Ireland, when IRA prisoners sought to fight the policy of criminalisation pursued by the Thatcher government. Among other things it marked the moment when the Provisional movement entered constitutional politics, winning elections on the back of the outrage that ensued. Richard O'Rawe was a participant in the events as PRO for the prisoners at the time. In 2005 he wrote a book which challenged the accepted narrative around the events, specifically claiming that the IRA leadership had overruled the prisoners to reject an offer from the British which would have saved the lives of several of the strikers. In this, published a few years later, he elaborates further and relates what happened in the ensuing period as the Irish Republican mainstream sought to smear him and fight back against his claims. While O'Rawe presents the issue as ground-breaking and comes across as self-important, for anyone not invested in the minutia of Irish political history, the reaction to all of it might be a bit of shrug. I'm somewhere in the middle. There's a lot of "he said, she said" and he leans very heavily on seemingly contradictory statements made by his opponents (who do in fairness close ranks) but we all know that events that occurred decades ago are open to different interpretations and that recollections can be flawed without being dishonest. As a dissident who was opposed to the entire thrust of the peace process, his motives are also open to question. But for what it's worth, I think he's telling the truth. Gerry Adams is the primary villain here - he has played a complex role in the recent past, with strict honesty never his strong suit. All in all, there was more substance in O'Rawe's later book about Stakeknife, previously reviewed, by which time he had matured as a writer. The material here is much too thin and his connection too personal for one to be convinced of his objectivity.
The Cornerstone - Zoe Oldenbourg Originally in French, this is a historical novel based in 13th-century France. One day the old baron sets his fief aside and goes on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Left in charge is his fat son Herbert, whose own son Haguenier shortly returns from Normandy, full of courtliness and ready to be knighted. Three threads of plot thus follow these men and the men and women surrounding them. This is well worth its blurb identifying it as a masterpiece of historical fiction. The setting feels confidently and immaculately filled out with details of culture, religion, dress, and nature. The characters have inner and outer lives, contradicting themselves in a realistic fashion. Herbert, for example, is an ambitious, cruel man guilty of incest and attempted murder at minimum, but he likes to think he's really not such a bad guy (don't we all) and he complains about his bad luck every time the world does something he disapproves of. Haguenier is good-willed and well-mannered but boy does he make poorly considered decisions. The prose can be beautiful, typically in description of nature or religious ecstacy. The characters lead worldly lives (aside from the old baron who totally locks in on his faith), but this is a very unironically religious book. Characters often wrestle deeply to reconcile their desires and good and ill fortunes with their church-taught principles and what they imagine God must want from them and for them. But the narration is neutral and there is no unified, explicit message or theme to be found, other than perhaps where people's desires lead them, as "I want __" drives much of the plot. Very, very good read. New words: leman, hydromel, novenas, rebec, under the rose, Macaire, farandole, frumenty, prie-dieu, chatelaine, stoup, cheap-jacks, hazel-hen, bevor joint, Shepherd's star, venery.
I'm currently re-reading David Eddings' 'The Belgariad Vol. 1' . It's fundamentally swords-n-sorcery without the hack&slash and/or whizBang elements (not much, anyway) with perspectives that make it very character driven and it has a nice subtle sense of humor. Not comedic ala Sir Terry Pratchett but seamlessly woven mostly into the dialogue between characters. My current favorite book is actually a two-book series by Daniel Suarez: 'Daemon' and 'Freedom'. Part detective story (at first), part sci-fi, part action, and all well done. The tech is believable and really not far off some of the things we can already do but the applications of that technology are brilliant and often make me wonder why we haven't already been doing things like that in the real world. I would love to see the story continued but as far as I can tell it's only going to be the two books he's already written.
You Like It Darker by Stephen King - "You like it darker? Good. So do I." So says the tagline from King on the back. Yes, Steve, I do like it darker. Some of my favorite short stories of yours (Popsy, The Raft, The Mist) are miserably dark. But nothing in this book is. It's sunshine and rainbows. Yes, weirdly horrific things happen in them (Like a man getting his head bit off by an alligator, which isn't a thing that really happens), but the protagonist is always a-okay hunky dory by the end. Hell, he dies a reimagining of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", but in this one the crass asshole grandparent beats the Misfit stand-in to death with a baseball bat and the family goes home happy (Good way to miss the point of that story, by the way, Steve). Every story I thought stated out string, and by the end I felt deflated by an ending that was overly happy, and often arrived at with a lot of nonsensical plot twists. Just disappointing all around.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer Critically well-recieved and the first in a series of sci-fi horror novels with a reputation for mindfuckery, this seemed right down my alley. I'd watched the movie previously, although that departs from the source material fairly drastically. The story is about Area X, a sealed zone where some incident has occurred that has caused nature to spiral out of control in some bizarre, dangerous and supernatural-seeming ways. We're dropped into the story with a protagonist, known only as "the biologist", one of four on an all-female team sent to investigate. It's the twelfth such attempt, earlier efforts generally having ended in disaster. The mystery and suspense certainly held my interest, even as events became more and more nightmarish. The narrator is unreliable and admits to misleading the reader at certain points. She disagrees with her colleagues about the nature of even basic events and objects. The purpose of her mission, those who sent her there, even her own past are called into question, creating a kind of metaphysical ice-rink where firm footing is difficult to come by. The relationship of humans to the natural world and our presumption at mastery over it is certainly an important theme. And some echoes of Stanislaw Lem (who I think is great) in terms of his pessimism and absurdism. By the end, there are hints at what might be happening and some theories developed but any resolution is left for subsequent books in the series. I'll be starting on those immediately and while a full explanation of everything would probably defeat the purpose, I'm hoping that there's a rewarding payoff.
'Area X' aka 'The Southern Reach Trilogy' is spectacular. The movie (with Natalie Portman) is only very very loosely based on the first book ('Annihilation'). Very little aside from a few characters' names is an accurate representation of the book's contents. That's not to say it isn't a good movie but if one has only seen the film one really doesn't have a clue what VanderMeer created when he wrote 'Annihilation', 'Authority', and 'Acceptance'. I can't recommend this trilogy highly enough.
I'm on a big Stephen King kick right now. I read Revival this weekend and that was bleak as hell. Plodding through It right now, and I got a paperwork copy of On Writing at the B&N the other day.
Slightly off topic: a couple of years ago, a Boise film maker turned King's "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" into a short film. (I was an extra and production assistant/golfer). Apparently, King likes to sell movie rights to some of his material to small-time producers for a $1. Apparently he granted rights to several producers because there are several films under that name on Youtube. Back on topic (more or less) McFarland Publications has submitted narrations of "Isis and the Yazidis" by Ben Wood and "Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor's Surprising Journey Inside America's Gun Culture" by David Yamane for Audie Awards. It's a small step, since the Audies are extremely competitive, but Mcfarland Publishing has been awesome to work with. Next up: "A History of the Doc Savage Adventures in Pulps, Paperbacks, Comics, Fanzines, Radio and Film" by Bobb Cotter. Hopefully out in July .
The Inimitable Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse The first Wodehouse I've read with both Jeeves and Wooster in it. In this one, weak-willed, idle rich bachelor Bertie Wooster goes through a series of episodes usually connected with his dread Aunt Agatha, his continually love-struck friend Bingo, or betting schemes. Jeeves assists in his inimitable way as long as Bertie isn't frosting his map with flamboyant wardrobe choices. Silly, enjoyable fluff. New words: mazzard, limado, gaspers, tiddler fish, landaulette, Bohea, bonhomous and other quirky variations of actual words, curvet, stumer, toofah/two-for cigar, Lilian Gish, snooter and probably sundry other Wodehouse-only isms
Authority by Jeff VanderMeer The second in the Sourthern Reach series, Authority shifts the action from Area X to Southern Reach itself, the secretive agency responsible for investigating the anomaly and from which the expedition in the first novel was sent. It's not as good as Annihilation. Significantly longer when it doesn't feel like it needs to be, there are elements of spy fiction - factions and covert missions - that dominate the first half. Things speed up in the second half and much of that is made redundant. There are one or two plot devices that are overused. Overall, there is a lot more information given and some additional context added to the first mission and the people involved. But with no real attempt to provide an explanation for the central mystery, one merely goes away with a heightened sense of intrigue and dread. Hopefully this is "middle chapter" syndrome and the closing entry in the trilogy is better. Onwards to that.
Guantánamo Diary: Restored Edition by Mohamedou Ould Slahi Abducted from his native Mauritania on behalf of the US and tortured in Guantanamo Bay following a series of renditions through other black sites, this is the inside account of one of the great injustices of our times. The text itself is interesting. The original version was heavily redacted by the US government and though the full content in this edition is now visible, the portions that were redacted are highlighted for the reader. It's apparent from this how petty the process is, with many of the redactions being inconsistent and pointless even on their own terms. Both the original and a new introduction are also included with background information. Mohamedou did join Al Qaeda in the early 1990's before the fall of communism in Afghanistan. However, he did no fighting and his involvement ended there. He continued to associate ocassionally with some of the people in the organisation through Mosques and so forth (he is ardently religious) which was the reason for his captivity. The author eventually confesses to everything his captors accuse him of but he retracts and the courts rule the evidence inadmissible due to how it was obtained. The US government (eventually) concluded that there was a whole lot of smoke without fire in his case. He was finally released in 2014. It's not a literary masterpiece. Despite the nonlinear narrative mixing things up a bit, the accounts of interrogation and mistreatment are quite repetitive. English is his fourth language and one he'd learnt only recently at the time of writing. Yet much humanity shines through. His magnanimity towards his guards never seems to waiver and he correctly identifies the more significant villains as their superiors.
Holly, by Stephen King How do you make a story about academic cannibals kidnapping people and feasting on their livers boring? Jam a reference to COVID or MAGA into every other page. I agree with King politically, but holy fucking shit give it a rest. Talk about ripping me out of the story every few minutes. Every time he mentioned Covid, it was like nails on a chalkboard. To make it worse, I did not care about the credulity-stretching side story where a brother and sister both coincidentally stumbled into being bestselling authors. Not everyone has a easy a time in publishing as your kids do, Steve. A very cool and creepy concept, undone by what felt like self-indulgent bullshit. Your Utopia by Bora Chung A collection of sci fi / horror short stories, each one engrossing and unique. I really enjoyed this one, it felt a lot fresher than many other things I've read recently. Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay It had some "Brand New Cherry Flavor" vibes to it, and was suitably creepy. I was engrossed until the ending, which i thought came a bit out of left field. But in general, a good horror story.
An Antarctic Mystery, Jules Verne (1897) A Strange Discovery, Charles Romyn Dake (1899) At The Mountains Of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft (1936) Pym, Mat Johnson (2011) Yep, Arthur Gordon Pym sequel-thon. Ironically, the page count adds up to just about the same as "The Complete Tales and Poems Of Edgar Allan Poe".
