Thing 68: Done!!!

Apologies apologies, once again, blah blah blah, same old story, etc etc.

But look at the title of this post! I come with interesting news!

Less than two years into my 1001 days I have read 101 books! Fabulous, what?

That makes 23 things done, and so many still left to do. I became resigned to the fact that I wouldn't get them all done some time ago, but am still determined to get a lot more of them completed in the next year, just as I am to eventually pick up the pace with this blog and get it somewhere near a regular thing again.

See you in the New Year?

New Moon & Eclipse

The second and third books of the Twilight saga took me four days to work my way through, which is a strange way of putting it because at no time did it feel like a chore or hard work to be reading them. Not that the books are "easy to read," as Meyer is doing some quite interesting world-building in her books, mixing a real world setting which jumps out at you as real with supernatural characters that walk off the page just as naturally as the Washington State setting.

Romance is the order of the day, and in case there is someone reading this who hasn't read the books and is spoiler-phobic, I'll try to stick to plot points that don't give too much away. As with Twilight, Meyer continues everything from the first person perspective of Bella, and for the most part this works wonderfully; Bella is a real person, full of passion and emotion and contradiction - she changes her mind, she wants one thing one moment and then the next her mind is in turmoil as she realises what that means. In some ways she is not a very likeable character, and it's to Meyer's credit that you continue to feel so engaged by her heroine.

New Moon and Eclipse build to a love triangle between the lead and her two beaus, Edward and Jacob, who are on opposite sides of a feud started long before Bella was born. This has developed some way in New Moon and by the start of Eclipse you can see the storm clouds gathering on the horizon, and know that someone is going to end up hurt, no matter what happens. Running parallel to this, and for my own taste perhaps not shown enough, is a conflict that is brewing all the while; it takes a long time to come to a head, and even then I was left feeling perhaps that not enough was done with the continuing plot thread from Twilight regarding the vampire Victoria. But as I said at the start of the previous paragraph, romance is the order of the day; Meyer doesn't neglect the action and suspense, but you are in no doubt from the start as to where her focus lies.

Books two and three of the Twilight saga in no way diminish from what has gone before in the first book; Eclipse especially is a fantastic read, really drawing you further into the supernatural world that Bella has found herself belonging to. I don't have the fourth part, Breaking Dawn, but I know that I will read it before too long. Given the ending of Eclipse and the plot threads left dangling I have absolutely no idea where the story is going to go, or what is going to happen, but I am sure that it will be an entertaining and interesting read whatever happens.

Terminator Salvation

The absolute best thing about Terminator Salvation is the flawless digital cameo towards the end of an actor who was associated with the first three films but not with this new franchise.

I say new franchise, because there is absolutely no way that I will ever think of it as being part of the original franchise (I have a hard enough job considering Rise Of The Machines to be canon sometimes). Previously the films - especially T2, my personal favourite - were about fantastic sequences and special effects welded with interesting, dynamic ideas and plot. Salvation had the effects, and at times it even had the ideas but the plot and script let the whole affair down with huge gaping chasms of logic and some terrible, terrible dialogue.

I wasn't even going to write about the film (the old adage, if you can't say anything nice...) but watching the magnificence of T2 yesterday really threw Salvation's shortcomings into stark relief.

Eastern Standard Tribe

As any regular reader will no doubt have noticed from my reading list, I am a bit of a Cory Doctorow fan. I like the kinds of things that he champions on Boing Boing, and while I think I first heard of him through the short story When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth it was reading Little Brother for the first time last year that really made me like his work a lot. Little Brother is a really great near future thriller that young adults can really get their teeth into and get something out of since it deals with such interesting ideas as civil liberties and digital freedoms.

If Little Brother is a mini-masterpiece then Eastern Standard Tribe is an early sketch, a rough drawing that shows a lot of promise but which ultimately falls short for the reader. The ideas - derived from circadian rhythms and being culturally connected to people not physically close to you in the digital age, as well as a slew of well-handled ideas on things like new media and a more bureaucratic society - are cool and interesting, and no-one can doubt that Doctorow has a great ability for taking interesting ideas and dropping them into stories. However, in this earlier work it shows in the plotting that he is still developing as a writer. The build up of the story is interesting, but the end appears so quickly and happens so fast that you have to blink in case you miss it (much like in Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom).

I've just realised looking back over my first two paragraphs that I've not really told you much about the plot, but I think that's OK, that's something that you can discover for yourself. As a springboard for an interesting future that has some well thought out ideas playing in the foreground, Eastern Standard Tribe does not disappoint. The plot is fast-moving, and though I felt a bit cheated at the sudden end it is a great ideas novel and well worth reading as an example of an author with a brilliant mind for speculating about the future.

Eastern Standard Tribe is available to download for free under a Creative Commons license.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

I've perused a few parody novels before and found them to be pretty lacklustre thing: someone injecting 'funny names' and abbreviating the sequence of events that was present in the original work, while the reader supposedly chuckles at the antics. Nothing wrong with that per se, everyone's got to earn a living, but not my cup of tea.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is different, because it quite literally takes Jane Austen's classic as the starting point, complete with love stories, deceptions and characters, and then weaves in the story of an England under threat for half a century from zombies. Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters have been trained in the mysteries of Shaolin, all the better to beat back Satan's armies. They are great warriors, but their heads can still be turned by more than the moan of a 'manky dreadful' and soon we have the familiar story of Messrs Collins, Wickham and Darcy, all familiar and yet all cleverly re-interpreted in this parallel England.

When I heard about the book I laughed out loud, such a simple idea, the title alone could probably have sold many copies even if the story had been badly written. The great delight of it all is just how well it works, the balance that Seth Grahame-Smith achieves in juggling the original storyline and prose and the descriptions of herds of zombies and the fate of poor Miss Lucas.

Finally, a nice 'Easter Egg' at the end are questions for book groups, which start off funny and slightly off-beat (as with the rest of the book) and culminate in this fantastic final question for readers:

"Some scholars believe that the zombies were a last minute addition to the novel, requested by the publisher in a shameless attempt to boost sales. Others argue that the hordes of living dead are integral to Jane Austen's plot and social commentary. What do you think? Can you imagine what this novel might be like without the violent zombie mayhem?"

Casablanca

A film I should have seen years and years ago. A film that has a fantastic cast and a fantastic script. A film that still seems fresh today, undiminished by years of misquoted lines and riffs on the themes or scenes.

Bogart is just wonderful: a no-nonsense guy, but from the instant he sees his lost love you begin to see the armour crack, fall away. Even when he learns the circumstances of why she left him in Paris... It's the perfect example of loving someone so much but knowing that you have to do the right thing, that you have no choice but to let them go.

This will be a very short piece, because I just can't find the words to express how great I thought the film was. I'm 28, and I've only just seen Casablanca... What other truly great films have I missed?

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe

In my previous review I said that I could confidently say (having read Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe) that volume four was my favourite of the series. This isn't because volume five is inherently bad or flawed in some way. Once again Scott and Ramona and their friends are flung into a crazy little adventure as more of Ramona's evil exes show up to challenge Scott. The difference this time is that, while Scott is holding his own against the robot minions of the twins, his relationship and social life seem to be drifting away from him.

Knives Chau tells Ramona that Scott cheated on them both (which he technically did way back in volume one). This leads to Scott and Ramona fighting, which seems totally wrong. But then Ramona doesn't seem to be herself really. What's with the glowing head? It's book five and we don't know why that happens?

The band are falling apart since they're not practicing, they're recording; Kim decides to leave; Scott gets drunk! Has the whole world gone mad? The artwork is as great as ever, although for the most part the fights (between Scott and a series of cool looking robots) take place mostly in the background. O'Malley seems to be incapable of putting a foot wrong with the artwork. I don't think the plot of book five is a severe mis-step either, it just seems a bit heavy after the all out brilliance and lightness of book four. But then, I think, in the background of the last few volumes there has been an undertone that Scott has to grow up, that despite the fact that he lives in a world where experience points and boss battles are real things, he also has to face up to the real world, being responsible and taking responsibility in his relationships with others.

Who knows where volume six will take us. The final pages are certainly ominous enough! Although Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe doesn't pack the same emotional high for me that the other books have, it is still a great read. I can't recommend the series highly enough, it's just a joy to read (start at the beginning!) and I'm now slightly sad that there's probably a wait of at least a year for the next book.

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together

I'm writing my thoughts on Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together with the hindsight of having read the next book in the series as well. With that knowledge I can confidently say that it is by far and away my favourite book in the series. Seeing Scott receive experience points for getting a job (and later for getting his job back) was great. His likening getting a job in the kitchens of a restaurant as "something like a job system in a game" was hilarious. Pulling a sword from his chest after he has levelled up and gained "the power of love" was just magical.

The book is longer than the others so far too, and the extra length really helps the book to flow well. There's plenty of room and time for support characters, and no one is lost along the way. Having Scott actually start to pull his life together - getting a job, saying 'I love you', moving in with Ramona - is a really cool storyline. Expanding on some of the other elements of the world that he lives in (where people can travel through subspace and possess baseball bats which have +1 bonuses against blondes) increases the charm of the whole series. As crazy as it can be at times, no explanation is required, because it all kind of makes sense really.

After reading this I had a big silly smile on my face - even bigger than after I read the first book for the first time - and I was desperate to have a life where text appears in midair to tell me that I've levelled up or received experience points. This book has a +10 bonus against all other forms of literature.

Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness

Bionic arms. Vegan psychic powers. Survival challenges in value stores. Insanely good artwork. Brilliant, three dimensional characters that you care about. Jokes referring to the fact that this is taking place inside a comic book. Jokes making reference to the video game like nature of Scott Pilgrim's world.

I want to say that I will wait, but if my local comic shop has volume four in this week then I am buying it. Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness not only raises the bar on the previous two books, it pretty much blows them out of the water - which is saying something. The world is getting more and more fleshed out, while at the same time retaining a strange sense of mystery to it (it's the modern world, but full of curious little touches that none of the characters bat an eyelid at).

Scott Pilgrim books: GO AND READ THEM.

The Club of Queer Trades

Having read some GK Chesterton before, I was mildly disappointed by this book of detective stories. The book starts off so well, setting up the main characters and an organisation of individuals who earn a living doing things that no-one else does. The first few mysteries are genuinely strange, and are always resolved with a note that the persons involved are connected with the Club of Queer Trades. However, the fact that these stories are linked together turns out to be an extremely wafer thin twist at the end, and for me the conclusion was quite disappointing.

The characterisation, the trades that the various individuals engage in, and the way that the story makes you feel like you are there - living and breathing in Victorian London - all conspire to make you fall in love with the book. Ultimately though, while the individual strands of the six stories are enjoyable, the resolution of the book left me quite nonplussed. Read The Man Who Was Thursday instead.

Every Last Drop

Every Last Drop is the fourth book in the Joe Pitt series of novels by Charlie Huston. It's not a good place to jump into the story, as in the previous three novels there have been so many double crosses and switches of allegiance a beginner would struggle to know exactly what's going on and who knows who.

However, the Joe Pitt novels are a series that are well worth getting into, fusing classic noir fiction themes with a compelling vampire mythos set in present day New York. In this installment he finds himself even more on the outside than usual, everyone who he's ever allied himself with - and a few he hasn't - all trying to play him against the other vampire organisations in New York, while he just tries to survive and take them down a peg or two for the trouble they put him to.

I'd recommend the Joe Pitt novels to anyone with a love of good noir: start with Already Dead and work your way through them all. Four books in the series so far, one more to go - I'm hoping that the final book will be out before I finish 101/1001, so I can give a review of the whole series. 'Til then, without wanting to give too much of the story away, I will just say that I love these stories, and I think you will too.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

I was going to wait. I was going to give it a month or so before buying book two. At least.

But then I was walking around Worlds Apart last Thursday, and I happened to glance at "S" in the graphic novel section. And there was Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I had had a good morning, been to a meeting about a workshop I would be tutoring on this coming week... Well. Since I am writing a mini-review about it, you can guess what happened.

The opening of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World goes off in a different direction given that book 1 focuses on Scott so much; it threw me a little, but then I was back in with it and hooked right through to the end. O'Malley's artwork is just as fresh and sparkling as it was in the first volume, and the story continues to twist and turn away. The blurring of the edges of reality are great, you never quite know how far things could go in it - when Scott defeats Ramona's second evil ex-boyfriend and gains a "power-up item" as a result I started giggling.

When it turned out that he couldn't take it because he had chosen a different skillset at an earlier levelling up opportunity I laughed out loud.

As with volume 1 I read the book in one sitting, just before bed one night. Volume 2 is brilliant, a fantastic continuation of the story; I know that not all of the series has been released yet, and I am hoping that I can stretch out the pleasure as long as possible before I reach the end of the volumes already released. But I just don't know if I can. I might have to see if Worlds Apart has volume 3 when I go there this Thursday.

Don't read Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World if you haven't read Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. Do go and read them in order at your earliest opportunity.

Recent Books

With Script Frenzy approaching I am winding down on reading books at the moment and trying to turn my mind to writing more, but I have a few books out from the library at the moment, and so feel that I should get them finished before I start writing my breakthrough screenplay.

Or graphic novel. I haven't really decided between one or the other yet.

Earlier this week I finished End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood; I've been meaning to read something by him for a long time, and vaguely had an idea that he had written a sequence of books (or maybe more than one, I don't know), so when I saw the book on the shelf my first instinct was to check that it was not "Book One of..." End of the World Blues centres on Kit Nouveau, a British ex-pat living in Tokyo. He runs a bar with his Japanese wife, a famous artist, and teaches English to a woman he is having an affair with.

A series of events leave him convinced that someone wants him dead, and so when his dead ex-girlfriend's mobster mother visits to ask for help in finding out whether or not his ex really is dead, he leaves Japan pretty quickly and begins investigating. Neku is a Japanese teenager who tags along with him; she is also one of the last humans from the far future and her presence in our time is as much a mystery to her as it is to the reader. The novel alternates scenes from now with scenes of a strange feudal future in the last years of Earth, and while this makes for an interesting novel I'm not entirely convinced that it makes for a totally satisfying experience. The disconnect between the two eras is quite profound, not least because there is very little crossover between the two storylines. Neku isn't out to change the future or perform some desperate mission - which quite refreshing, a time traveller not out to save the world in some way - but at the same time the expectation at the start that she is there to perform some vital service fizzles out (especially since she is dramatically introduced into Kit's life).

End of the World Blues is an interesting novel, and an engaging read; for me, it's main flaw was that the scenes in the far future could have been skipped without effecting the enjoyment or understanding of the parts of the novel set in the present day.

Dr. No is the sixth James Bond novel, and while it's not one of my 101 things to read all of the Bond books I have a feeling that I might have managed that by the time my 30th birthday rolls around. Fleming's genius is taking us on a real escapist journey, and making the reader feel as though they really are there with James Bond as he tangles with the henchmen of the mysterious Dr. No, or that we are living the high life as a double-0 agent.

I don't want to spoil any of the story at all; it's as well-crafted as any of the Bond stories that I have read so far, with a mix of glamour, danger and excitement, bound together by the paradox of cold-hearted killer and ladies' man that is James Bond. I'll keep my eyes peeled for Goldfinger once Script Frenzy is over and I am back to borrowing from the library.

The Man Who Smiled

I really like Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander mysteries. My friend Dave got me into reading them a few years ago when I first started getting interested in reading crime stories and noir, and The Man Who Smiled is the third Wallander novel I've read. I think that the brilliant thing about reading these stories is the setting and the atmosphere that Mankell creates. The crimes are well thought out, as is the description of the way that Wallander and the team in Ystad eventually solve them. The main draw for me is the way that you feel like you are there with him as he follows the clues and makes the deductions that lead him to the answer.

When he is on the job, Kurt Wallander eats poorly, sleeps little and gradually becomes more and more dishevelled. His personal life is an endless series of thoughts to call his family - which he invariably puts of to later - and reflections on why he became a police officer (he can't remember any more). In The Man Who Smiled, he begins his journey even more lost than usual. Wallander has taken a leave of absence that has lasted over a year, ever since he had to take a man's life in self-defence. On the day that he is to officially resign he discovers that a friend of his has been murdered, and in an instant he decides to return to work, and so the cycle begins again for him.

The Man Who Smiled is a good mystery story, although perhaps not the best place to start for people who've not read any of the other Wallander novels. You should definitely try One Step Behind if you get the chance, which is a fantastic mystery story, again permeated by the brilliant atmosphere that Mankell expertly builds up.

The Shack

A few weeks ago my mum said, "I've got a novel for you to read; it's called The Shack and... Well, I'm not really enjoying it, but I want someone else to read it so I know I'm not crazy for not liking it."

"What's it about?" I asked.

"It's about this man, and his young daughter is killed by a serial killer, and then a few years later he gets a note from God saying that he has to come to the shack where his daughter was killed - "

"O-kaaay..."

"- yeah, and then, when he's there, he meets God. And God is three people: an old black woman, a thirty-something Middle-Eastern man and a young Asian woman."

"Shall I just read it?"

"Maybe you'll like it more than I did," she said, "I skipped the last quarter to go straight to the end..."

So, once I had finished a stack of library books I borrowed it and started reading. The basic outline is exactly as my mum described it, and one would think that that opened up a lot of possibilities for an interesting story. Instead...

I'm going to be as concise as possible about the experience; from the front and back cover heaping praise on it, and the two pages of people giving quotes inside it - and in some ways throughout the story - it smacks of being a book that is going to desperate lengths to get itself noticed. At points it does this to the distraction of the story itself. There's a covering story, that the person who has written it is a friend of the person who all this happened to; this device bookends the story. The (fictional) writer has done a disservice to his friend; the narrator often refers to the protagonist's grief as The Great Sadness - italicised every time and always with capitals - and as strange as it seems at those (frequent) points it becomes absolutely ridiculous when the protagonist refers to his grief as The Great Sadness when talking to others...

My mum says that she hated the book; I don't know if I would go that far. I couldn't recommend it to anyone, I really couldn't. Some elements of the story challenged my own personal faith, but not in a positive way - in some ways it made me think, "Am I foolish for having religious faith?" One of the themes that runs through the story is that humans by and large don't really understand that faith (the Christian faith) is not about rules and religions, but about relationships. But then, why should we believe the message of the author? What does he offer apart from an argument that "other people get it wrong"?

Fundamentally, I didn't enjoy reading the book. The pacing is weird, the writing is quite strange at times and to my ear the dialogue rarely rang true, as if it had been written for two people sat on a chat show couch having a staged conversation. The denouement was the final straw, offering with one hand proof that the man had experienced everything that he said he did up at the shack and then taking away with the other what little internal logic the story had by summing up the consequences of this in a few lines.

As I said, the covers carry many endorsements and facts about sales - New York Times #1, a million copies sold - and the inside back cover asks people to blog about the book once they've read it, get the word out, etc. Well, here's my review: "Don't read The Shack. It's a frustrating, poorly written thesis on faith dressed up as an Oprah/Richard & Judy novel of the week."

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

I've been meaning to read Scott Pilgrim for a very long time; recently, I don't know why, that feeling has been building up in me, a desire to find out what it's all about. I had an idea of the basic story - that a guy has to face the seven evil ex-boyfriends of the girl of his dreams - but had no idea of the specifics of it. I'm not sure I have ever read anything else by the creator of the series Bryan Lee O'Malley, but whenever I have come across a Scott Pilgrim illustration I have smiled at how cool it looks.

(I have seen various things recently about volume five being released, and had heard that Edgar Wright and Michael Cera were in the process of making a film based on the first few volumes; maybe that's why it has been sticking in my mind so much)

I've been economising recently, cutting down on what I do and where I go (credit crunch plus slow work period as a freelancer over the last few months) but last Thursday when I was in my local comic shop (Worlds Apart, near Lime Street Station in Liverpool) my regular order came to less than a fiver. A slow week for comics. And I thought, "Hmmm, maybe, maybe now is the time to see what Scott Pilgrim is like...?" I had a look around and finally (after asking) found volume one (it had been placed with manga due to the style of the artwork).

Normally, when I go to the comic shop I go immediately to the train station after that and get the train home, maybe read a few comics on the way, and read the rest after dinner. On Thursday I was going to meet my writing group, and then we went on for dinner. I read the two comics I had bought, and thought, "I'll read the first chapter of Scott Pilgrim before bed." (it is a graphic novel, broken down into chapters inside)

Well.

I couldn't put it down. The combination of artwork, story, technique, romance, humour - if I hadn't been lying back in bed, it would have floored me. This first volume was released back in 2004, so I'm playing catch up on the cool curve I guess; I had no idea just how absolutely brilliant it was. I like all kinds of comics and graphic novels, but apart from some of the webcomics I read I very rarely go for series that have a humourous focus. To say too much about where Scott Pilgrim gets its laughs from would spoil the surprise - the final twenty pages or so had me alternating between laughing out loud and literally gasping with delight. The dialogue, the story, the artwork - it combines to make a perfect entertainment.

I've looked over the last five paragraphs and realised that really this is a terrible review: aside from the one line synopsis, which is based on what I thought I knew about Scott Pilgrim before I read it, I have told you nothing about what happens or anything really. All I have done is gush about how I came to read it and how fantastic it is. Oh well.

(by the way, if anyone reading this has ever read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, it struck me that Bryan Lee O'Malley understands comics - the various things that he uses in it that McCloud talks about in the book just jumped out at me, and not in a distracting, obvious way, just the way that he framed things, used motion lines, drew characters and everything...)

I'm economising, but I am going to put pennies and pounds to one side over the coming weeks and months so that I can get the other four volumes that are currently available. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life is a fantastic slice of pure joy, a wonderful piece of sequential art and a bloody good story.

Recent Books

For my birthday my sister got me the Nintendo DS application "100 Classic Novel Collection", which is something that I thought was quite exciting when I first heard about it just after Christmas. To give it a go I decided to re-read a novel that I thought was really interesting when I first read it a few years ago, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

I'm not going to say too much about the novel itself - you should definitely check it out, whatever your views on classic literature, it's a fantastic story and really effective - but I wanted to say a word or two about the presentation medium. Given the price and restrictions of some ebook readers, it's quite nice to see something simple like this for the DS. A hundred novels (for around £15 if you shop online) all on a little cartridge and the interface is a piece of hardware that is relatively cheap compared to the current generation of electronic readers. The display isn't quite big enough, as even the smallest text it displays is quite narrow on the screen, almost like a newspaper column.

There's a big homebrew movement for the DS, so I'm sure there are people out there who have put together some kind of ebook reader, but this is something that Nintendo should definitely get on to - nevermind classic novels and plays (the application for the DS at the moment is a collection of out of copyright works), I want to be able to use my DS to read ebooks that I've downloaded, or even pdfs I've produced! Nintendo, get on to it!

From the library I got Something's Down There by Mickey Spillane; I got it in lieu of being able to get one of his Mike Hammer novels (I'll check the online catalogue soon, see if they have any). It was a pretty interesting thriller, as gritty as his Mike Hammer stuff, but I didn't find it quite as interesting as, say, My Gun Is Quick. Haven't read a good piece of noir for a while; I'm currently re-reading the complete Chronicles of Narnia, but think I will go looking for some more noir when I'm done with that, maybe something by Raymond Chandler.

Five Little Pigs

Five Little Pigs is the second book by Agatha Christie that I've read, and the first featuring Hercule Poirot. I thought it was quite an intriguing mystery, very different from any that I've read so far, but at the same time featuring many of the tropes that one would expect from a good detective story: reversals and red herrings, unexplained acts that don't fit with the facts and suspects who alternate between trusting and cooperating with the detective one moment to blowing up and accusing him of being a charlatan the next. All good stuff.

I really liked the character of Poirot, and the manner that he conducts himself during his investigation. In seeing a character like Columbo coming years later you can definitely see the impression that Poirot has made on the landscape. The way that the mystery unravels is easily the equal of something by Mickey Spillane (who is my favourite mystery writer), with everything unresolved to the last minute as characters' true motivations come to light. I loved it, and will definitely be reading some more Poirot in the future.

Snow Crash

While I love William Gibson's cyberpunk stories (well, all of his novels in fact, whether or not one would call them cyberpunk explicitly) it was really refreshing to read something a bit different in a cyberpunk novel as in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. While Gibson's novels are always interesting and entertaining, I often feel like there is something in the way that he writes that separates the reader from the novel, from the story. I don't quite know how to put it, but if you have read any of his more recent works I hope that you know what I'm talking about.

Snow Crash is a thrilling, interesting, engaging and thought-provoking novel; the main character, the smartly named Hiro Protagonist, is a world class hacker, master swordsman and one never doubts for a second that he could be both of these two things together as incredible a combination as that might be. The world that he lives in shows a fractured future America, splintered into separate corporate entities and states; hyperinflation has people paying with quadrillion dollar bills, the police and emergency services are gone - people have to rely on private companies - and a pizza delivery guy not showing up within thirty minutes is prime time newsworthy.

As is the appearance of "Snow Crash" a strange new drug that can be administered both intravenously and through viewing files online (in the Metaverse, considering that the novel was written over fifteen years ago he got some of the internet developments spot on). The whys and wherefores of what the drug is form some of the really interesting moments in the novel, with chapter after chapter going in to discussions of Mesopotamian deities and neurolinguistic hacking - without being overly intellectual or distracting to the plot. The action is spot on as well, exhilirating sequences in the real and digital worlds, and plenty of genuine "how are they going to get out of this?" moments.

I've not read any Neal Stephenson before, although I have had a friend recommend his Baroque Cycle quite a few times now. I think that once I get a chance I might give it a go; you should go and give Snow Crash a read if you have any interest in science fiction. And even if you don't.

Recent Books

I've been a bit negligent about book reviews recently; apologies, I have been active in doing other things, not just sitting around doing nothing. Hmm, well, I have done a little bit of that, but I guess that most of my writing in the last few weeks has been to do with fiction, or writing programs for the Project Euler stuff.

Time for a quick catch up then!

Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey
Interesting book in the travel writing section; quite short, only took me two sittings to read it. Was interesting and made me nostalgic for my time in Japan, but also seemed like a kind of weird story. The title makes a lot of sense, in that every one of the author's preconceptions were wrong when he finally went to Japan with his son. I could never quite figure out what the purpose of it all had been (perhaps it was mentioned and it just didn't stick out in my mind). It's an accessible book, and good if you want to maybe know a little more about Japan in a rounded sort of way, but you probably could get more of an insight from reading a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide.

Year's Best SF 13 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
I've been reading this anthology over the last few months; I've been renewing it for ages. It wasn't a bad anthology, but I have read much better. A few standout stories - I should have written down their names, but the two that spring to mind are about kids growing up too quickly, lingerie models at the age of ten; and one where holidaymakers get pressganged into military service through the application of a drug that negates a sense of self and personal identity, reducing a person to understanding the world in third person - can't quite make up for the rest that tend to underwhelm. The annual "Mammoth" books are much better; I think I'll be working my way through one of those over the next few months.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
I was a bit indifferent to this book in the end; the thesis of the book is that there are areas where we can make almost instant judgements about situations and circumstances based on great background experience of an area or just common sense. In fact, by thinking about something for too long we can often derive the wrong opinion on something. I think that there were lots of good little stories and case studies about how we can use this kind of philosophy and ideas, but in the end I failed to see where the evidence to support this kind of thinking applies more generally. Interesting, but it didn't make that much of an impact in the end, although I'm still thinking about it I suppose. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much...

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
I've read all of Reynolds' previous novels, and this one didn't disappoint, even if it didn't reach the heights of some his previous brilliant novels. The central idea - a dynasty of 1000 clones touring the galaxy, six million years old, comes under attack - is done brilliantly. The whys and wherefores of how this happens take some time to go through, and then it seems like the second half of the book is rushed a bit, right up to the end. I kind of felt like it was going to lead up to something more than it did, but the sheer scale and scope of the ideas is mindblowing. Space opera is a genre I really like, and after reading this I think I'll be re-reading some of his other books as part of my re-reading. Oooh, and I'll re-read some Peter F. Hamilton too!