There is a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of excellence packed into this "Complete" audio collection of X Minus One. I use the quotes a touch ironicThere is a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of excellence packed into this "Complete" audio collection of X Minus One. I use the quotes a touch ironically here because this collection isn't quite complete, which makes me a little sad, but considering that some of the best episodes got replayed in this collection just as they did in the Fifties, I'm not going to hold the missing episodes against the collection.
As with any old time radio collection, there is some inconsistent quality when it comes to performances, and X Minus One struggles with an added level of inconsistency when it comes to the quality of the adaptations from Sci-Fi short stories to Sci-Fi radio plays, yet this collection doesn't suffer from these inconsistencies as much as something like CBS Radio Mystery Theatre does. And the audio quality of this collection (especially considering the episodes were all recorded in the '50s) is superior to most of its brethren.
I don't feel any great need to single out stinker episodes, but I do want to mention my two favourites: "The Tunnel Under the World" by Fredrik Pohl and "Saucer of Loneliness by Theodore Sturgeon. The former is a famous enough work to make Tom Shippey's fantastic collection, The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, and the latter is so perfectly touching that I want to adapt it for the stage my own self. Even if you don't listen to this whole collection, I urge you to hunt these two tales down on the web. If you love old time radio, I think you'll be happy to listen to them both....more
It was a slow read for me, Dust. It wasn't bad. It was always interesting enough, and as final chapters in a trilogy go, it had enough of the wrappingIt was a slow read for me, Dust. It wasn't bad. It was always interesting enough, and as final chapters in a trilogy go, it had enough of the wrapping things up necessities to keep me interested, but only on the periphery of my brain.
There were other books to listen to, other books to read, other things in my life that kept it pushed aside. My daughter, Scout, started writing an essay a out Wool about two weeks before I finished Dust, and that was enough to finally garner my full attention. With about half way to go, it was a quick read to the finish. A fast, somewhat thrilling, and mostly satisfying read.
I look forward to watching the on-screen version of the show. I hope it is as bleak as the "reality" of the future Hugh Howey has created rather than as bizarrely hopeful as the ending Howey gave us in Dust because that ending that screams of "new beginnings" and "hope" seems to be ignoring precisely what got his people to their dystopian genesis point.
Dust is a good story. I'm just not sure it is a "true" story in the way the Lost Generation would have characterized truth. And a hundred years distant they may be to us now, but they were certainly onto something.
Boldly Stripped is a wonderfully naughty book. It is the perfect smutty gift for every Trek Original Series (TOS) nerd in the universe. The book is asBoldly Stripped is a wonderfully naughty book. It is the perfect smutty gift for every Trek Original Series (TOS) nerd in the universe. The book is as beautifully designed and crafted as Hazel Honeysuckle is herself. The painstaking care in recreating sets, making costumes and prosthetics, painting Hazel's skin to get each alien race just right, along with the playfulness and unrepentant sexuality make Boldly Stripped a must-have artifact for any true lover of TOS.
And the best part of it is knowing that those who produced Boldly Stripped, from Hazel to Dangrrr to everyone in between, are huge nerds just like us. They all love TOS just as much as we do, and they do honour to Roddenberry's original series in a way that far exceeds all the "new" series that invade our airwaves. Boldly Stripped is a labour of love that just happens to appreciate the fact that a little lust never hurt anyone. ...more
I finished my umpteenth rewatch of Firefly last month and was feeling a little sadder than usual that the Serenity and her crew didn't have any more aI finished my umpteenth rewatch of Firefly last month and was feeling a little sadder than usual that the Serenity and her crew didn't have any more adventures for me to watch. Then I thought, "What about the graphic novels?" But I have other graphic novels I've promised myself I will read that are already gathering dust, so I set aside that idea and thought, "What about the books?" And sure enough they're all on audible.
So I started at the beginning with Big Damn Hero, and I've gotta say it wasn't too bad. James Lovegrove (from a story concept by Nancy Holder) delivers what I like to imagine as a steady, middling episode in this literary second season of Firefly. All our favourite characters are present, and they are all very much themselves. It must be a gift to get to write about such well developed characters because so much of the work that needs to be done to endear characters to their readers is complete. And Lovegrove takes full advantage of that, trusting his readership enough to know that we all know everything we need to know. So he knows that we know and we know that he knows and no we all know what we know. And it's good that we know it. I know ... I digress.
The best parts of Big Damn Hero, at least my favourite bits, were the flashbacks to Shadow and Mal's youth. I presume everything in these novels is accepted canon, but even if that isn't so, Lovegrove's really nailed the feel of what Mal would have been like and the folks Mal would have run with, and the events and motivations that would have nudged Mal into his Browncoat, and that feeling of "rightness" is good enough for me.
A quick note on the narrator, James Anderson Foster. The man is "solid." Not mind blowing but "solid" in a Niska way. He doesn't spend his time trying to impersonate the actors; instead, he seems to be embracing their rhythms of speech, and he uses those rhythms to make each character feel like themselves even if they don't strictly sound like themselves. It is an excellent tactic, and he pulls if off fairly well. ...more
Shift was another strange reading experience for me, and I've been having a lot of those lately. The reason for my strangeness with this book is not uShift was another strange reading experience for me, and I've been having a lot of those lately. The reason for my strangeness with this book is not unique to Shift, however. I have happened to be reading a lot of prequels (and watching film prequels too), and I have to admit I really struggle with the form.
And so it turned out with HughHowey's Shift. I'd struggled throughout with the question of whether I really wanted to be reading the book or not, compounded with the thought that maybe Howey should never have even written this chapter of his tale, that maybe the events that preceded Wool should have stayed in Howey's mind, or as a jumble of notes in a file folder in his filing cabinet.
Prequels -- and even sequels -- take away one of the great joys of the creative experience for the reader. Because I think we all forget that thing Wolfgang Iser was trying to tell us about being a reader, that idea that the stars in the firmament are fixed but the person looking into the sky connects those stars with lines that provide shape. So the drive to monetize what came before and what comes after a truly creative series diminishes the imaginations that connect those stars. As I say, however, I struggle, because Howey, surely, doesn't want some other writer coming along when he is gone, and imagining a completely different set of precedents to Wool because some book company or family member or movie company wants to cash in with his brilliant tale. At least this way, with Shift, we get the authoritative events as Howey intended. We now know what happened to the world, we know who, how and why a Solo became, and now no one can take that or change that.
But I miss those days when there were only three Star Wars films and an entire afternoon on a bus then an LRT then on foot, then in a comic book store, then back on foot to the LRT and another bus could be filled with "what ifs?" that could only ever exist in our heads and in that space of a single day with no external record or fan fiction or potential to preclude anyone else's imaginings we could live our very only series of Star Wars prequels. That creativity was fierce and lovely and pure. I long for that creativity as a reader / viewer to come back. And I was enjoying something like that for a spell after putting Wool down.
Shift took that away. Yet here I am still giving Mr. Howey 4 stars, because I really enjoyed Shift and I am glad I read it -- even though it wasn't what I had imagined for myself. ...more
Soylent Green, that classic film manifestation of Harry Harrison's '60's dystopian Sci-Fi novel -- Make Room! Make Room! -- is simultaneously one of tSoylent Green, that classic film manifestation of Harry Harrison's '60's dystopian Sci-Fi novel -- Make Room! Make Room! -- is simultaneously one of the most faithful and most unfaithful adaptations of its source material ever produced.
How can that be? Well, most of the movie, from character names to character relationships to basic plot, come straight from the book. And the book does contain a number of Soylent products, like Soylent Steaks and Soylent burgers. But the whole "Soylent Green is ..." (well, you know. Don't you?!), it's a divergence from Harrison's source material. And a big divergence. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with Make Room! Make Room!.
What Harrison is doing in Make Room! Make Room! is not leading us down an ethical rabbit hole of hidden body horror, but preaching to us about the climate catastrophe that awaits us at the end of runaway population numbers. There was a time not long ago, as world population numbers eclipsed Harrison's projections, that the rest of his fears seemed silly and overreaching. I'm not so sure anymore. The chain of cause and effect may not be exactly what Harrison thought it would be, but the world he imagines at the end of that chain is feeling more and more like exactly the place we are headed. Extreme heat, extreme cold, extremities of having and not having, and even the destruction of guaranteed access to birth control and abortion are all part of the picture Harrison paints, and no it is not pretty but it is possible. I can certainly see it in our not too distant future if not in our exact present (but even that is becoming hard to deny).
I waited a long time to read Make Room! Make Room!, and I am glad I did. I'm not sure I would have appreciated it nearly as much a decade or two ago. ...more
• Subterranean Monsters with multiple, razor sharp, clawed appendages, super strength, telekinesis, and a thirsWhat makes an awesome sci-horror novel?
• Subterranean Monsters with multiple, razor sharp, clawed appendages, super strength, telekinesis, and a thirst for human blood, who just happen to be undergoing hyper-evolution. Yep! Awakened has got them.
• But you have to make sure those Subterranean Monsters have a couple of ridiculous weaknesses. Yep! Awakened is still on target.
• A Nazi-led conspiracy. Hell yes! Awakened gives us Nazis.
• A Rag-Tag assemblage of scrappy humans fighting the subterranean menace and the Nazi-led conspiracy at the same time. Of course Awakened has its assemblage! An ex-Navy SEAL President, an ex-Puerto Rican gangster, a couple of train driving slobs (not so loosely based on some of the author's friends), heroic cops and bodyguards, a bad ass Mayor of New York, and a whole bunch of Subterranean Monster fodder to spray their blood and guts all over the subway tracks. It's the Raggest-Tag assemblage you'll ever see.
• Damsels in serious distress. Zoinks! Awakened doesn't disappoint. All the pregnant damsels are in more distress than you can possibly imagine, but you won't find out why (at least not for sure) until the sequel.
• A Bond-Level mega villain. Check! Awakened has its very own crazy old man in a wheel chair, striving for global domination. And he is Nazi-level ruthless.
• Action ripped from multiple movies and tales that have come before. The derivative train is pulling out on its Awakened tracks and there's no turning back. It is action, action, and some more action. Flooding, explosions, spelunking, murder and mayhem. Oh yeah.
• Victory. Uh oh! is Awakened going to fail us? Will there be no victory? Nope. There is a victory, albeit a Pyrrhic victory, but wait ... that's okay too, because that means sequels. So it turns out Awakened is everything it is supposed to be.
But it is also crap. It is entertaining crap. I had a lot of fun (mostly cause I went in expecting crap that would make me smile, which is what I got), but it is definitely crap. And no, it is not an "awesome sci-horror novel" like a sorta hinted it could be, but I bet it would make one hell of a fun B-Movie.
It could be to the Alien films what Sharknado is to Jaws. And that's as good as bad gets. I am actually, and embarrasingly, looking forward to The Brink. I know. I'm an idiot. But I can't help myself.
When I started listening to The Stars, Like Dust, I expected that I've have to suspend my frustration with Asimov's old school attitudes. I did. When When I started listening to The Stars, Like Dust, I expected that I've have to suspend my frustration with Asimov's old school attitudes. I did. When the inevitable sexist moments popped up -- they really weren't as egregious as I'd expected (which surprised me) -- I was able to compartmentalize them in my brain box marked "Asimov: That Little Piggy," then I moved on without it hurting my enjoyment. I was able to do the same with Asimov's Orientalism. I opened my brain box marked "Asimov: That Western Chauvinist" and plopped his transgressions in, allowing me to move on without too much guilt or pain.
Which was nice because much of The Stars, Like Dust is a hard sci-fi full of political intrigue and the machinations of Empire. I can't say I was a big fan of any of the characters (they're all fairly despicable), but the way they used each other, the way they danced the power dance, the way one topped the other topped the other, it was the sort of power struggle that thrills me. It wasn't a blood bath like Game of Thrones, nor was it entirely sterile. It was, however, utterly believable. I bought it all, and by the time I reached the last moments of the story I was sad to know it was wrapping up. I wanted to go on. And then I hit the last couple of sentences of the story when the fate of "the document" -- the MacGuffin that kicked off The Stars, Like Dust -- was revealed, and it all fell apart. Amazing how a few words can contain so much hurt, so much delusion, so much stupidity, so much disappointment.
I will, of course, continue to listen to Asimov's Galactic Empire, but unless something changes drastically it won't reach the heady levels it reached just before its fall. Oh well....more
I imagine there are those who feel Gold Fame Citrus is experimental and love it for its experimentation. I am not one of those,
Gold Fame Citrus doesn'I imagine there are those who feel Gold Fame Citrus is experimental and love it for its experimentation. I am not one of those,
Gold Fame Citrus doesn't experiment. Not really. It does incorporate multiple narrative forms, but none of these forms is new and there is an arbitrariness to the way they are thrown together that feels more like a Cobb Salad than an artist casting off the past and creating something new and vital.
But that's okay because I love me a good Cobb Salad.
Here are the ingredients in Claire Vaye Watkins particularly tasty Cobb Salad: a linear novel (or perhaps novella if one were to strip away all the other forms she dabbles in); a bestiary / encyclopedia (perhaps fantasy, perhaps faux-reality); duelling parallel monologues (like a classic, fast talking '30s play); holy texts and sermons (real and imagined); satirical interjections (in the form of future television programming that mimic our television of now); interrogations and psychiatric records (suggesting continuities before and after Gold Fame Citrus begins and ends); free verse poems, prose poems, and maybe a dash of Dadaist poetry (stumbled upon? deliberate? hard to say); and sudden bursts of poetic prose that make Watkins' linear novel sing.
All together it is a delicious salad, but it is a salad that left me hungry. I didn't need more control or less play or any regression to something more formal, but I did need more. Gold Fame Citrus is not enough, not in its current form. It should be the first chapter -- or better yet a first draft -- of a lifetime work of world building and imagination.
If anything makes me sad about Gold Fame Citrus, it is that I cannot see Claire Vaye Watkins ever returning to what she has done here. Never. Actually, no. It doesn't make me sad; it makes me mad. In the confines of this book and the world Gold Fame Citrus offers is a masterwork that we will never see. And that fucking sucks. ...more
What an insane amount of fun The Dispatcher is! This is John Scalzi at his Rod Serling best, offering near future Sci-Fi with a light gangster noir edWhat an insane amount of fun The Dispatcher is! This is John Scalzi at his Rod Serling best, offering near future Sci-Fi with a light gangster noir edge + one of the all-time best uses of polyhedral dice in literature.
I think the best way to consume The Dispatcher must be the Zachary Quinto narrated audiobook. His vocal performances are top notch, putting him up there with Rosamund Pike (Amy in the film version of Gone Girl) as one finest actor-turned-audio narrators in the business, ,and here he moves seamlessly from character to character. It actually reminds me a bit of an Orson Welles radio performance I heard not that long ago. If you've a couple audible credits waiting for something worth spending them on, The Dispatcher is worthy....more
Wool is good. Wool is honest. Wool is thrilling. Wool tells us about ourselves. Wool is compelling. Wool is possible and where we could find ourselvesWool is good. Wool is honest. Wool is thrilling. Wool tells us about ourselves. Wool is compelling. Wool is possible and where we could find ourselves. Wool is community. Wool is curiosity. Wool is control. Wool talks about power and how to hold it. Wool is the veil over our eyes. Wool is frightening. Wool is acceptance. Wool is logic run amok. Wool is the fleece of a sheep. Wool is holding back secrets. Wool convinces us of all sorts of things that may not be. Wool is obsession. Wool is good intentions. Wool is a future. Wool is tenacity. Wool is hubris. Wool is satisfying. Wool is hopeful. Wool is good. ...more
Dreamcatcher is the first Stephen King that I have actually loved. I've mentioned this before in other reviews, but it bears repeating: my limited expDreamcatcher is the first Stephen King that I have actually loved. I've mentioned this before in other reviews, but it bears repeating: my limited experience with King has led me to see each of his books as following a three act pattern -- Act 1 blows me away, Act 2 keeps me interested, Act 3 disappoints. Now I haven't read a lot of King. I have always meant to, always wanted to, but each time I am disappointed by a King 3rd Act, I crap out for another year or two. This time I am actually excited to read more. I feel the need to say why I enjoyed all three acts of this book before I wrap this up,, however. I can sum up my love in one word ... well, one name really: Duddits. Duddits and the love he inspires and the love he gives made this crazy Sci-Fi / Horror / Adventure story a love story for me. I couldn't have expected it, I didn't expect it, but I loved Duddits and that, in turn, made me love Dreamcatcher. I hope it happens to you too. ...more
The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World -- Well ... that was a mindfuck. Crosswhen. Crosswhere. Who knows what time? Who knows where? ThThe Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World -- Well ... that was a mindfuck. Crosswhen. Crosswhere. Who knows what time? Who knows where? This tale of madness released from a cosmic Pandora’s Box in the calm, soothing, peaceful center of the universe, dooming everything beyond the center to a madness that is violence and murder, is a hell of a way to start a cycle of short stories. It feels a bit like Ellison -- the infamously combative crazy Uncle of Sci-Fi (or speculative fiction as he would prefer it) -- is daring readers to put down the book after the first story. The Beast ... is a test. If we fail we don’t get to read on. If we pass we get a pass. Don’t just read it once so you can get through it and move on, though. Read this story once, then once again immediately, and go back to it once in a while as you read the rest of the book. It rewards multiple readings. It really does get better and better.
b>Along the Scenic Route -- I have no idea what logic drives the inclusion of Ellison’s short stories in this collection. From a whacky time travelling mindbender, Ellison moves us straight into a B-Movie auto-pocalypse that is half Outer Limits half Death Race 2000. He manages, somehow, to capture and combine the spirit of console driving games, gunfighters in the old west, mid-life crises and technology not that far away from what surrounds us right now. It is as intelligent as it is cheesy, and I am shocked no one has turned this specific story into a summer blockbuster yet. Ten years ago, Bruce Willis would have played George. I wonder who would do that now? Well, whomever they chose, it would need a serious update to gender attitudes. I have a feeling that is going to be a common theme in this work from the late-60s / early 70s.
Phoenix -- This story is a full out Twilight Zone episode. Four (well ... really only three) people wander lost in a desert. There’s some obligatory love triangle conflict at play while some big new technology and theory of the history of time is the driving force of the desert quest. And then there is the big Twilight Zone finale. This collection could be the basis of a pretty kickass Netflix series, especially of with a little tweaking to social attitudes to make them reflect our now. I bet this “episode” would be a fan favourite,
Asleep: With Still Hands -- Whoa! Now this story has had me spinning away for days. This is some classic 60s-70s Sci-Fi based on the meat and potatoes trope that war and suffering are what make us “great”, that they are what make life dynamic, that they are what make us strive for excellence and achievement, that without war and suffering, we stagnate as a culture and don’t live to our full potential (it’s this trope, I think, that led to Ursula LeGuin’s brilliant The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas in riposte). You name the old Sci-Fi T.V. series and this philosophy can be found somewhere in the episodes. Male Sci-Fi writers, a large number of them, bumped up against this idea time and again, so it wasn’t surprising to see old Ellison embracing the concept. I’ve always thought it was bullshit, of the same piss poor propaganda as the idea that capitalist competition leads to achievement, but this time a new layer was added to my spinning thoughts -- is this the true “toxic masculinity”? I don’t usually buy into that new moniker and think it is mostly misplaced, overused and/or misused, but here, perhaps, it may just have some efficacy. Hmm ....
Santa Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.-- Racism is here. Sexism is here. Shitty politics are here. And so is Santa Claus. But I would expect no less from a story that recasts James Bond as Santa Claus, S.P.E.C.T.E.R. as S.P.I.D.E.R. and seems to be messing with the Fleming formula right at the height of Fleming’s success.
At first I questioned Santa Clause vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.’s bona fides as an actual satire, but once Mayor Daly of Chicago appeared, its satirical nature was pretty clear. That doesn’t mean I think it worked particularly well, nor was it easy to sit through (especially when Kris used his one remaining weapon to f*ck his nemesis to death), but it was another fascinating bit of madness from the mind of Mad Ellison, and it definitively eradicated all the expectations I had coming into this collection that there would be a clear thematic line from story to story. After this entry, The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World is officially a hodgepodge.
Try a Dull Knife -- An empath is feasted upon by empathic vampires. And by the end it felt like Eddie Burma was a thinly disguised Harlan Ellison. Yes, Harlan. Your brilliance and your fierce lust for life made everyone flitter around you like moths around an electric light. And they sucked out your soul. Poor you.
The Pitll Pawob Division -- Beings beyond our imagination see us as strangely insignificant creatures, as insignificant as the universe is ... apparently. It’s Ellison being clever. It is also Ellison being boring. Next please.
The Place with No Name -- Ellison’s drug infused take on Prometheus, with a burning Yoatl and a pimp ready to switch places. I am find Ellison’s work in this collection to be an increasing slog.
White on White -- Extremely short with almost a touch of humility, both of which are rare for Ellison. He loves to look at ugly men. I know there are plenty who believe he is a misogynist, but the more of this collection I read the more I think he is a misandrist. Maybe the men he writes aren’t out of over blown Ellison-ego but a deep self-loathing. Regardless, this is most entertaining story since Asleep: With Still Hands.
Run for the Stars -- If there is a better piece of evidence that Harlan Ellison was not the man to be writing an episode of Star Trek or that he simply couldn’t grasp Roddenberry’s vision for the Federation, I don’t know what it is. Forget all their arguments with each other and pissiness over the years, Run for the Stars and its dream dust addicted anti-hero, ??? Tallent, are the very antithesis of the sort of Sci-Fi that Roddenberry was bringing to the world. Turns out, though, that Tallent’s story is a pretty solid read, and Ellison’s take on human nature is a welcome one, but just because Ellison was an impressive writer and could pull off some pretty excellent Sci-Fi, doesn’t mean he could actually write a story that could adhere to a future with the Federation at its core.
Roddenberry’s mistake? Thinking Ellison could write to match someone else’s vision. Ellison’s mistake? Thinking that his own vision was superior to everyone else’s.
Are You Listening? -- Another episode of a potential Ellison Sci-Fi series. This time, a guy has become so boring that in a world with the distractions of television, radio, film, advertising -- all that overwhelming sixties media -- he becomes invisible to the people around him. After a couple of weeks of going a little mad in his loneliness, he discovers a couple of people just like him, and he decides that now he finally has a goal in life: he wants to become visible again. If this had been written today I’d expect the milquetoast to shoot up a school or drive a car through a crowd, but Ellison wasn’t quite there yet in this story. This was okay. Just okay.
S.R.O. -- A UFO, probably interdimensional, hovers over NYC, and some capitalist swine tosses aside the love of his life to make millions of dollars as a promoter. The aliens, it turns out, are a band of travelling performers who deliver a mind-blowing three hour show of telepathy and empathy every night for a few years. And then it ends with Ellison’s dumbest wrap-up of any story in this collection. Harlan desperately needed an editor he would listen to ... hahaha ... What am I saying? It’s impossible! Worlds to Kill -- This short story needed to be expanded. It feels a bit like a story treatment rather than a complete story. At a much expanded novel length, Worlds to Kill could have been an Ellison masterpiece. There are peeks at Ellison’s talent in here, but another two hundred plus pages to deepen the exploration of an interplanetary mercenary bringing horrific war for lasting piece was needed to fully display that talent. Shattered Like a Glass Goblin -- An acid trip turns into a figurative gate to urban fantasy in hippy-era San Fran. I couldn’t wait for this crap to end.
A Boy and His Dog-- I am guilty of loving the ending of this story and of loving Blood, the telepathic, girl hunting dog of the title. But despite how much I love the ending, I can’t love this story. It is a post-Apocalyptic-murder-rape fest, and when I say murder-rape I mean that the murder and rape occurs in almost measure. Our POV character, Vic, is the key murderer-rapist; he is impossible to like. And Quilla June a murderer-rape victim isn’t so much a character as a sick, misogynist fantasy of Ellison’s. She would make it easy condemn Ellison as a horrible sexist, but I think that is lazy and too easy. He IS a horrible sexist, but he is something much worse, I think. This story crystallizes the truth Ellison has been revealing all the way through this collection: he is an entitled misanthrope of the Molierean degree. The man embraces the “great person” archetype, and he writes about it in a way that reveals his belief that the “great person” (who am I kidding? the “great man”) can take anything or do anything he wants, anytime he wants, to whomever he wants -- man, woman, animal, alien, other.
It’s despicable. Ellison was despicable. And I have about had my fill of his philosophy. I will be glad to put this on the shelf and walk away. I think I could use a nice dose of Star Trek hope to wash the filthy Ellison aftertaste out of my mouth. ...more
There was a moment early on in this novel when I was worried that the Leguin I love so dearly had checked out while writing The Eye of the Heron.
It wThere was a moment early on in this novel when I was worried that the Leguin I love so dearly had checked out while writing The Eye of the Heron.
It was two moments at once, actually: Luz, the main character, began to feel like a Disney Princess, just as the Shantih Towners -- the "People of Peace" -- and their non-violent philosophy looked as thought it was going to end up in the realm of fantastical naiveté. But this is Leguin -- not some easily fooled adolescent or some money hungry crafter of drivel. The Eye of the Heron avoided the pitfalls I worried about and delivered something rather beautiful in its simplicity.
It is more novella than novel, but in that condensed space Leguin weaves in many threads from the rest of her great blanket of work. There is a thread of Omelas here, a hint of The Beginning Place there, some Dispossessed over here, a tiny bit of Planet of Exile over here, and others threads that feel familiar but can't quite place.
I come away from The Eye of the Heron not knowing exactly what Leguin was trying to tell me, but knowing full well what I found on the planet Mud.
And if Disney ever decided to make an impressive and important Princess movie, this would be the place to start -- even if that was never, in any way, Leguin's intention. ...more
So I listened to Beyond Shame, and I find myself wanting to apologize to Kit Rocha for listening to her book rather than reading it because my enjoymeSo I listened to Beyond Shame, and I find myself wanting to apologize to Kit Rocha for listening to her book rather than reading it because my enjoyment was completely ruined by the sound of Lucy Malone's voice.
How someone with a voice like Ms. Malone's can have such a successful career as a narrator of smut is beyond me (and that may be the problem, perhaps it is only beyond me and not beyond countless others). To my ears, Malone's voice was anything but sexy; it was nasally, whiny and monotonous. Moreover, her characterizations were as difficult to differentiate as they were to stomach. You can imagine what all of this does to Kit Rocha's erotica ... the result is very far from arousing, although from the words I heard, it should have been.
And this is why I feel compelled to apologize to Kit Rocha. I should have loved this book, but I could barely get through it. Her dystopian near future world, with the gleaming and dysfunctional city of Eden surrounded by the "criminal" sectors and their gangland denizens is a nice start to world building; her penchant for BDSM and group sex is the sort of naughty smut that gets me going (although I would have preferred seeing some Guy on Guy action to go along with the Gal on Gal action); her set up for what's to come actually makes me want to read on (not listen, though), so book one of the Beyond books is really something I should like much more than I do. I am sorry, Ms. Rocha, that it didn't turn out that way, but if you have any influence over Tantor Audio, perhaps you could convince them to find someone better than Lucy Malone to read your stories in the future. You deserve better, I think....more
I knew nothing about All Systems Red when I browsed my way to it on Audible, but it's cover art looked okay (albeit a little Well that was unexpected.
I knew nothing about All Systems Red when I browsed my way to it on Audible, but it's cover art looked okay (albeit a little too polished), it had a sweet little blurb, and it was the perfect length to off-set the monster long books to which I was already listening, so I gave it a shot. Damn glad I did.
All Systems Red is a tasty little morsel that dives straight in to what it means to be human through the question of the autonomy of artificial beings. We're thrown into the first person perspective of Murderbot, a security bot who has hacked out its governing system and made itself a free agent. But Martha Wells doesn't retread old Pinocchio-Replicants-Data territory. Instead, she gives us a being easily distracted by bad TV, a being who finds itself empathizing with its comrades without obsessing over the meaning of it all, a being with clear likes and dislikes, a being able to pity and be pitied, a being much like us. Murderbot just wants to live without having to worry about the deletion of memories, a return to enslavement or the loss of choice. It's a pretty simple being, and a likeable one too.
Martha Wells is tackling one of the future's great ethical conundrums here, and she does it while spinning a kick ass adventure -- not too in-depth, not too intense, just right. Fingers crossed that the series will just get better and better. ...more
Like the wind in Anguilla, Brian Horeck's Minnow Trap blows all the goats. All of those one star reviews you've seen are true, but oddly, I don't regrLike the wind in Anguilla, Brian Horeck's Minnow Trap blows all the goats. All of those one star reviews you've seen are true, but oddly, I don't regret having read this boil on the bum of Canadian Literature.
I came to this book in the best possible way. Over the summer, my son and I were driving across our fair Canada to join the women in our lives in our new home in Winnipeg. It was a glorious drive, filled with stops to visit friends (some of whom are now our chosen family), a day of theatre in Stratford, and long hours listening to Fleetwood Mac along the highway through Northern Ontario. And every couple of hundred kilometres or so, we saw a billboard for the best selling book, Minnow Trap.
After another sign and another and another, with our curiousity piqued, Miloš caved and pulled out his phone. We just had to know what the hell this Minnow Trap was. And once we knew, we decided we simply had to buy it and read it.
There are too many things wrong with Minnow Trap to cover everything, and some of the other reviewers Minnow Trap have already delivered plenty of coverage to make a reader chuckle or groan (check out David's review and Jessica Armstrong's review; they're two of my faves), but I feel I have to point out the utter ridiculousness of a major plot point.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a fifty-something Canadian redneck out in the woods surrounding your lovely cabin on a pristine Canadian lake. You head on down to your well appointed shooting platform the morning after you find a new species of crustacean in your lake. As you reach the bottom of the ladder, a stream of piss hits you from above. You discover it is a Russian soldier who slept on your platform the night before. You brush off the urine, invite the soldier for coffee -- even though he is packing his weaponry and is in full camouflage -- and in short order he reveals to you that your crustacean is an alien lifeform and that more classic, bug-eyed aliens (seemingly crustacean farmers) dropped him off down by the beaver dam. You don't question it. You don't even take a second of pause. Nope, you and your wife and all your friends go all in, then the Russian makes you his strike force because you "know the area"; he takes over the operation completely; he has you reporting to the Russian government over the internet using personal e-mail accounts; he tells you that he is liaising with the Canadian government, but he offers no proof of that; he brings you a crate full of high tech weaponry, which you use on the creatures to "save the planet"; and you do all of this on the word of this Russian guy you only just met. Neither you nor your friends think even once about verifying his identity; you don't contact your own government; you don't contact the local constabulary; you don't even stop to wonder if the Russian guy has ulterior motives; you meet him and do exactly what he tells you. Baffling. Yet Brian Horeck sees nothing wrong with this concept. It all makes sense to him. I gotta shrug and give the old boy a golf clap for arrogant authorial stupidity, if nothing else.
Yet I do have to say something nice about this book. Well, I suppose it is really only nice-ish. Horeck has struck upon a truth in these pages. He has captured a very specific niche of Canadian citizenry. His group of friends -- Steve and Mary, Mike and Carol, Bob and Janice, and Brenda (Nick's Ukranian love interest) -- really exist here in Canada. I know folks like them. Hell, I have some relatives like them. The entitlement, the selfishness, the mechanized outdoorsiness, the sexual innuendo that goes nowhere, the beer swilling, the treating of nature as an object, the disdain for anything that limits their ability to do whatever they want, it is all present in Canada, all true, and Horeck gets his characterizations just right.
Now that I say that, though, perhaps his characterizations are the soil that fills in the massive plot hole Horeck dug. They really are the sort of people who would blindly help Russian Nick to slaughter mega-crustaceans without blinking an eye. Naah! (or should I have said NyaNya?!) that's still not enough of an excuse. The hole remains unfilled.
As for Miloš ... he hasn't read it yet -- only I -- but I have a feeling he won't feel compelled to read Minnow Trap until he's on that long road from Winnipeg back to PEI. I just hope that now that Brian Horeck has passed his signs won't have disappeared. They should stay in perpetuity. What a great addition to the Trans-Canada Highway. A testament to Canadian hubris. ...more
An excellent overview of Science Fiction from an academic perspective, Gary K. Wolfe offers some pretty compelling insights along the way and offers oAn excellent overview of Science Fiction from an academic perspective, Gary K. Wolfe offers some pretty compelling insights along the way and offers one of the finest distinctions between Sci-Fi and Fantasy that I have come across -- without diminishing either genre. A must for anyone just starting their journey in Sci-Fi, and a high recommendation for any old Sci-Fi vets who need a refresher of the roots. ...more
As an opening arc for an ongoing comic series, Bitch Planet,Vol 1: Extraordinary Machine might be up there with my three or four favourites of the lasAs an opening arc for an ongoing comic series, Bitch Planet,Vol 1: Extraordinary Machine might be up there with my three or four favourites of the last decade. The amazing Kelly Sue DeConnick drops us right smack into her Father Earth-Mother Space-verse, and leaves it up to us to navigate our way to understanding what the hell is going on, strategically underspecifying almost everything except what is needed to tell us about her characters and her plot in the immediate now of her tale.
There is a lot going on.
The Bitch Planet is the prison colony for the non-compliant women of Earth -- an Earth fully enveloped in a hyper-patriarchy that seems to have taken on a quasi-religious dogmatism (which reminds me of the Sons of Adam from Racoona Sheldon's Sci-Fi classic, The Screwfly Solution. Non-compliance means almost anything: being obese (so not living up to a nearly impossible physical standard), "talking back" to a husband, being unemployed, sexual orientation, being a "bad mother" and on and on. There is an insane, ultra-violent, hand ball based sport that controls the hearts and minds of Father Earth-Mother Space-verse. Media perpetuates the ills of the nastiest opinions and diverts the attention of the fooled billions. Voyeurism is rampant (and we the reader are implicated in that nasty male gaze at all times). And sexual harassment, assault and rape are ubiquitous.
And the unspoken or barely suggested background of the Father Earth-Mother Space-verse makes Bitch Planet,Vol 1: Extraordinary Machine even richer. All the non-compliance we're faced with and steered into noticing and responding to is matched by a deep level of compliance everywhere else, mostly male but also female. And then there is a hint of non-compliance amongst men too (and questions of what that means and where it will lead made for some kick ass conversations amongst those I was reading this with). There are Pervs Camps that could be the destination of a Peeping Tom guard, raising the question of what other "perversions" the camps are used to punish. Toxicity of human behaviour -- mostly masculine -- is everywhere in the background. And how the world's reached this point hang over the tale like a storm cloud.
And if that isn't enough there is the satirical awesomeness of the advertising pages that end each issue.
This is top notch comic writing. But surely anyone who reads DeConnick's work on a regular basis has come to expect that. If you happen to read these words, though, Kelly Sue, can I ask a favour? Can you take your extraordinary talent and write us a Sci-Fi novel? You see, we lost a goddess of Sci-Fi literature recently, and we could sure use your voice in prose too. ...more
I was really expecting my re-read (well ... my first listen after already reading the book) to deepen my love of Annihilation, but it didn't. It left I was really expecting my re-read (well ... my first listen after already reading the book) to deepen my love of Annihilation, but it didn't. It left me a little bored to be honest.
Some of that may be the fact that I was listening to it in tandem with Ursula K. Leguin's The Dispossessed, and Annihilation simply can't compete with a true modern masterpiece.
It could also be that the narrator of the edition I listened to, Carolyn McCormick, left me a little cold. She wasn't terrible, she wasn't bad, she wasn't even poor, but I wouldn't call her good either. Her performance was adequate. But I wanted more than adequate for Annihilation, and because of her mere adequacy, I found myself having to backtrack to re-listen to passages that my wandering brain missed, passages I was excited to hear after reading them on the page, and that became actively annoying.
A small part of me wonders too if Annihilation really isn't as good as I thought the first time around. I really loved it but only gave it three stars in my first review, and here I am not all that far along giving it three stars again after being disappointed. Surely that has something to do with the story itself. It is a tough call on this one, and I my feelings are unclear. Time for a break from this book. Maybe I will reevaluate things after reading Authority or seeing the movie....more
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