Honestly, I thought the year would be a lot crappier than it was. It's like books. Sometimes you go intoAnd here we are. The death of 2024.
Honestly, I thought the year would be a lot crappier than it was. It's like books. Sometimes you go into a tome with a certain expectation that just gets blown up like fish in a dynamited pond.
The year wasn't exactly chum. But it did HAVE chum.
Overall, however, at least when it came to books, I had a relatively great time. Tons of LitRPG which is my version of snack foods and popcorn. Lots of classics, which comes out to comfort food and often full, memory-laden 7-course meals. And then there was my fair share of fast, forgettable food.
But my memories are all for the carefully crafted, savory mind-meals. The steaming soup-books, the spicy tomes, the heartwarming oatwords, and yes, the candies. And of course, the non-fiction veggies.
Let me mention a few of my all-time favorites for the year that weren't re-reads of already-favorites.
FRIEREN Beyond Journey's End.
This was something I started as an anime and ended buying every volume I could find, plus plushies. I watched the anime 5 -- yes, 5 -- times. It makes me laugh, and cry, fills my heart to overflowing, and keeps me awake late into the night. When I need real comfort, I turn to this now, and have been turning to it for smiles, deep melancholy, and sometimes deep glee. It has some brilliant fights, but it is all about the quiet moments, the small details, and everything that's utterly human. Even if there is a thousand year elf in it.
My FAVORITE.
There's really nothing that comes close.
As for everything else, I have to include rereads, like Broken Earth or Stormlight Archive. Or Three Body Problem, or Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief trilogy.. All of these are great. Let's not forget Terry Pratchett, of course.
Some books that really stood out for quality and worldbuilding are Ken Liu's fantasy, Alastair Reynold's Prefect books. Or the light-hearted Juveniles of Heinlein.
For LitRPGs, standouts were Mother of Learning books and All The Skills.
For light, fun space operas, my go-to gal is Suzanne Palmer's Finder series. But all-around great SF belongs to just about everything Adrian Tchaikovsky writes. He's a go-to always-trust.
But let's not forget the joy of Robert Greenberg's TLC series for music!
As for all the rest, this is far from being a comprehensive list, but if I'm honest, these are the books that my memory allows in the list late at night after a couple of glasses of wine. In other words, those books that shine brightest in memory.
And who's to say if this is a BAD way to do it? If a book stays with you, it's gotta be GOOD.
Happy New Year!
Personal note: If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to DM requests. I think it's about time I get some eyes on them.
Getting the obvious stuff out of the way, let me just say that I'm gonna get a hardcover copy of this and put it on my diSo, I just got my head blown.
Getting the obvious stuff out of the way, let me just say that I'm gonna get a hardcover copy of this and put it on my display of ultimate pride. Beautiful reading, extremely original, cognitively dense where it ought to be, and gloriously messed up where it HAS to be.
Coming away from this, I have to believe that everyone who has ever read any kind of SF/Fantasy really SHOULD read this as to experience what OUGHT to be a hard-fast CLASSIC of the genre.
Wow, right? It's so creative and gorgeous I'm putting it on the same pedestal as Library at Mount Char. And better, it's a fantastic demonstration of a half-way UF meets Magic School meets higher education pressures. It isn't Harry Potter. It's a true magical college, and what's more, the magic itself is GLORIOUS.
As I was reading it, I was hit by the sensation that I was reading the very best Lovecraftian depiction of higher learning ever, but spread out and given a lot of depth. It kept me wondering till the very end.
I will recommend this unreservedly to anyone and everyone. So beautiful.
My synesthesia review would be nothing less than pure silence, expanded and all-enveloping until my mind broke. And yes, this IS a good thing. :)
Personal note: If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.
Self-aware and bitingly critical even as it spins some really humorous commentary, Gone-Away World is more than a quasi-miliHere's a wild tale for ya.
Self-aware and bitingly critical even as it spins some really humorous commentary, Gone-Away World is more than a quasi-military SF adventure or fantasy fairy tale, but it is simultaneously both, and all of it. Indeed, you may as well just say that Vonnegut is alive and well in Nick Harkaway, and specifically this novel.
The disaster may as well be Ice-9, but the piano players (and Nick's Mimes and Ninjas) have all the levity of a big turd in a punch bowl at a gaudy political fundraiser--and for the sake of perfect clarity, I should mention that I think it's VERY, VERY funny.
But it's not simply humor here. The deep character exploration, the full history, loves, mistakes, realizations all humanize and invest me in the wildly fucked up tale.
We simply don't get novels quite as ambitious as this very often.
I'm certain it'll be sitting in my skull for quite some time. Very memorable.
My synesthesia will now forever experience the kinesthetics of a mime--invading me from the very text.
Personal note: If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.
So, out of the freaking blue, I just read one of my top books of all time.
I think I heard somewhere, something about the SCP and thought the idea was So, out of the freaking blue, I just read one of my top books of all time.
I think I heard somewhere, something about the SCP and thought the idea was cool but then I never put the effort into checking out the website. My bad. And then I kept hearing rumors about this book being insanely good and that it ought to be at the top of anyone's reading list if they like seriously smart SF/Horror, and YEARS LATER, I went ahead and bought a copy.
It's only a little more than 220 pages, and yet, from the very start to the very end, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, my mind rolling and rolling around its ideas, the implications, while I followed all the tiny breadcrumbs laid out for me.
It 100% engaged every single one of my brain cells.
Suffice to say, I think I found a brand new favorite classic SF, even if it isn't very old.
It's amazing on every single level.
Yes, yes, but what is it ABOUT? Well? Take all the very best early fears and existential horrors from Stross's Laundry Files, make it sharper, minimalistic, non-linear, a vast puzzle that never goes in a straight line--for good reasons--and slam us against a true Case Nightmare Green that outdoes just about any Cthulhu story I've ever read. While being hard SF, competence-porn, a fanatically intricate mystery, and so damn sharp I'm STILL cutting myself.
Yeah, I'm giving this all the stars for everything. Readability, originality, characters, pure story, worldbuilding, and most of all, QUALITY. I'll be re-reading this again, with great enjoyment.
My synesthesia doesn't want to feel a tearduct slug, but alas, this is what I feel.
Personal note: If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.
Simply put, this is an exasperating, difficult, gorgeous, horrifying, and to put no finer point upon it--a UNIQUE work of fiction.
I'm not even slyly Simply put, this is an exasperating, difficult, gorgeous, horrifying, and to put no finer point upon it--a UNIQUE work of fiction.
I'm not even slyly suggesting that it's in any way bad.
Indeed, I think it's a work of genius.
It is NOT for the squeamish or the casual. It is, simply, one of the densest far-future bio-punk body-horror Hard SF stories I've ever read. Or rather, the novel is comprised of four entirely different novellas set in this far future post-human towering imagination.
Frank Herbert once wrote, "The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect. Our plugs don't fit."
In this work, it's possible to dig down deep within our own psyches, with horror intact, to jury-rig a plug--but it's awful, shocking, and very often... sublime.
In other words, pick this up, friends, if you want a mind-blowingly brilliant imagination to rummage around in your brain. This is the equivalent to bench-pressing 600 with your grey matter. SO WORTH IT. But it ain't gonna be easy. At all.
This being said, and if you're still reading this wondering if I might bring up theories about what I had just read in the novel--and oh my god I have many--my favorite interpretation is that we are NOT reading four different vignettes regarding a space-faring bio-nanotech-teeming spaceship full of shattered shards of preserved consciousness endlessly shuffled through new incarnations of "people". I think we're reading everything backwards. I suppose the biggest hint was in the "parent" and "child" order of things--made pretty easy to follow with the consciousness seeds, the fragmentary nature within the first novella--and the progressively larger encapsulations of consciousness and how things got closer and closer to baseline humanity as we progressed through each novella. So the last one is the genesis. A far future genesis, perhaps, but still recognizable as the wild, wild broken universe of the last of humanity. Of course, "last" is subjective, and the wild explosion of all different kinds of forms of biomass and "humanity" is just as subjective. But I like this theory a lot.
The writing never lets me down. I absolutely adore everything about this novel.
BUT--I admit to screaming in frustration, putting the book down almost every other page, mulling and seething, before staggering back to the pages in sheer horror and curiosity.
It's a challenging book. It's also extremely rewarding.
You will NOT want to know what my synesthesia experienced as I read this. Think living in a Cthulhu's belly. Now add a fever dream of regular reality. And then have a deadline to meet.
Personal note: If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.
I first read this 25 years ago in an anthology I still have to this day. I had read a lot of short fiction by that time, as well as a mountain of SF nI first read this 25 years ago in an anthology I still have to this day. I had read a lot of short fiction by that time, as well as a mountain of SF novels.
I'm happy to say that this random little story from over two decades ago has done a better job of immortalizing itself to me than any other. Few have shone as brightly as this one. Indeed, I might say this one is my absolute favorite short SF of all time.
Sure, some older SF authors might have touched on the same overall theme and some later authors will have done the same, but this one has everything I love most.
Back in '98, nanotech was still shiny, but what never goes out of style is a good tale: all the love, immortality, sheer unrestrained originality, time, and memory.
It's a densely crafted tale that sets up the seven days of Solomon Grundy, only hard-SF -- and it's full of heart. It rejects the idea that immortality kills love. There's a lot more going on in it than is obvious in even two reads.
I'll be honest here: if I had any way to immortalize this story, make sure everyone in the universe reads it, gets it under their skin, then I would be a very happy man. If any story should not be forgotten, if it should have many, many reprints, then it ought to be this one.
It feels like it's been an awfully long time since I could jump into the timey-wimey, cthulhu-esq, darkly funny and immensely sarcastic world of DavidIt feels like it's been an awfully long time since I could jump into the timey-wimey, cthulhu-esq, darkly funny and immensely sarcastic world of David and John (and Amy!) as they scramble through poverty while fighting the good fight.
They're not Sam and Dean. They don't have that kind of plot armor. But for all that, they are still fighting the fight as shadow people deal deals that only increase suffering, as future cult leaders become Earthly Gods through prophecies spanning backward through time, when phone apps tell your children to feed it human teeth...
Oh yeah, the stakes are always high or at least deeply strange and I LOVE it.
It feels like fourth-wall breaking, especially the first three books that were written under the PoV CHARACTER's name, only to mix things up as the actual author brings out his real name now. Jason Pargin is the ACTUAL writer, post-timey-wimey real continuity, and that's kinda the point.
If you like reality like you like your spaghetti, all tangled up and bloody-red, then I'm sure you'll love this return. :)
It's really not that hard to describe this novel, but it's hard to really capture the real flavor of something, from 1908, really belongs in a meltingIt's really not that hard to describe this novel, but it's hard to really capture the real flavor of something, from 1908, really belongs in a melting pot that includes the Keystone Cops, Kafka, Peter Sellars, and a hefty dose of LSD comedy. If that isn't enough absurdity for you, then please take a BIG helping of Christian Allegory.
*Wait. Did he just say what I think he said?*
Yes, I just lumped Christian Allegory in with all that. Bite me.
Seriously, though, reading this was often a wild and funny ride. We got to play with militant poets and zany upper-crust anarchists and a dire thriller for all those cops trying to put a final stop to the perceived plague of lawlessness and vile bombers.
Of course, I perceived early on that this "thriller" was much more like a satire than a gripping police drama, and this was exactly what it was.
Honestly, at one point, I even expected the last villain to tear off his mask and say, "And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you darn kids!" (But twisted to Chesterton's unique message, of course.) (And no, I'm not spoiling that bit. It's worth enjoying for yourself.)
Oddly enough, I swear SO much of this is used as a template for the best zany cop dramas of today's films, by way of the zany cop films of 50 years ago. One really ought to tip one's hat to this particular novel for paving this particularly goofy way. ...more
Still love it! :) It's just as good the second time as the first.
And you know what? It's VERY good for the imagination. For us, as reaRe-read 5/15/21:
Still love it! :) It's just as good the second time as the first.
And you know what? It's VERY good for the imagination. For us, as readers, to think through the implications and dream and dream about what all those others that might/could/should become a vast side-series.
You now, like Farscape on steroids. *sigh*
I WANT more of this book. I don't know how it'd be pulled off, but I still WANT more and more and more. :)
Original Review:
I just read one of my new favorites not just for this year... but perhaps for this entire decade. Or rather, let's just scratch that and say it's one of my favorites. Period.
Adrian Tchaikovsky himself said, about this book, "I have quite the trip in store for readers," and he wasn't joking around. The opening seems rather scientific and dry, and perhaps some people will appreciate the little primer on evolutionary science through deep time, the first building blocks of life through Earth's current cycle.
Hell, I was personally wondering what the hell it had to do with anything. Of course, with a little patience, it turns out to have EVERYTHING to do with EVERYTHING.
Adrian Tchaikovsky has repeatedly brought OTHER intelligent life to us in so many different forms and thought patterns. Just look at Children of Time (intelligent spiders butting heads with humans) or Children of Ruin (that includes intelligent squid) in a full space opera. Or let's look at his fantasy series with tons of animals (and insects) with their own societies in an epic fantasy! He has a thing for biology. And he takes it further in Doors of Eden than he's taken it anywhere else.
This book is simultaneously MORE accessible, more down-to-earth Modern Earth, than any other book (not including novellas) that he's ever written. But it is ALSO one of the hardest SF novels he's ever written.
Yeah. That tickles me to death, too. How can it be light and heavy at the same time? Because he pulls in real science, truly fantastically creative speculation on how Earth's own species could arise to intelligence if luck had JUST been on their side, and he wraps it all up with excellent modern technothriller sensibilities.
I can't even begin to count how many tropes Tchaikovsky brings in to stand on their head, change forms, and then come back out like a cyborg of its original form.
Or, I COULD, but then I'd be simply listing all the fantastic ideas and how he made them even more fantastic and how the novel kept growing and growing and growing in scope until I felt like it had forever ruined the best aspects of Sliders for me while also sticking a fork in the best First Contact novels I've ever read. :)
To sum up... this book should win all the awards. It's not only accessible, but it does all the Hard-SF ideas justice....more
After reading this book, I'm not only reeling after a great Heist story, but I'm rocking to a Dark Fantasy that happens Sometimes I'm just astounded.
After reading this book, I'm not only reeling after a great Heist story, but I'm rocking to a Dark Fantasy that happens to be Hard SF while very much being a Superhero tale being couched in a Lovecraftian universe while setting me up to be murdered by Bond in its classic thriller milieu just before I wonder if Peter from Peter Pan will ever grow up.
If you're asking WTF, then you're in the right frame of mind.
And it's AWESOME.
For you old fans of Bob and Mo and fairy kingdoms clashing against Elder Gods, put your expectations on hold. There's not much of that here. We're very much in a day and age after a Greater Evil has taken over the government and the best thing that a government employee can hope for is holding the chaos at bay just a few seconds longer.
For the rest of us, and that includes a group of thieves and a thief-taker in modern pre-apocalyptic London, we've got a little mission. And a -- or rather, The Necronomicon.
If you're not just a tad thrilled (or horrified) by this news, then go read some romance fluff. That's the only genre that isn't expertly mashed in this brilliant novel.
Oddly enough, a new reader of Stross could read this particular novel without having read the previous ones. They may miss a lot of the worldbuilding jokes and might freak out at the sheer complexity of the inherent humor of computational necromancy or residual human resources, but that's okay. They'll still be in for a treat. After all, Santa is dead.
Long live Santa.
*I cackle, running off into the sunset, my hair turning pure white just before I jump on a sleigh, fleeing Boris Johnson*...more
It's gonna be rough rating my favorites out of nearly 600 books this year, but I'm in luck: I have my amorphous and totally unreliable intuition to guIt's gonna be rough rating my favorites out of nearly 600 books this year, but I'm in luck: I have my amorphous and totally unreliable intuition to guide me! Yay!
I admit I read this primarily because I learned that the whole cast of The Matrix was forced to read it to get them all primed and pumped for the deepI admit I read this primarily because I learned that the whole cast of The Matrix was forced to read it to get them all primed and pumped for the deeper meaning of the film.
Welcome to the Desert of the Real.
Indeed!
In fact, most of the most salient points of this classic 1981 work of philosophy ARE delineated in the movie! One of the most telling points was when a certain piece of steak was getting cut and he was cutting a deal with the policemen of the Matrix, talking about how much BETTER the steak is.
This book is a regular nightmare to get through if you prefer all your words to get right down to the truth of the matter without being overblown with jargon that could have been better spent elsewhere, but the IDEAS within it are pretty awesome. And often ferociously antithetical to anything I believe. And yet, he's right on so many aspects and I want to fist-bump the air all the time while also, in an aside, wanting to revile him for being the worst kind of monster.
In other words, it's an awesome, divisive read.
There's a lot of great reviews out her on this book, but let me sum up the most salient points:
Maybe you've heard the saying that the map is not the terrain. That the conceptualization, the ideal of a subject or a real-world representation is NOT the thing, itself. But what happens when all of reality IS just our conceptualizations of it? Don't laugh. Our brains do not have a direct line to the world. We process it all through our perceptions and we are always getting that wrong.
So, the more we continue to map out the world, the bigger the map, the more likely we start losing the certainty that we're dealing with the map OR reality. Pretty soon, and I mean this is true for every single one of us, we cannot tell the difference.
This is an idea that has made it almost everywhere since 1981, and I think we can thank Baudrillard for making it popular in academia. He, himself, gives thanks to Philip K. Dick and Jorge Louis Borges and J. G. Ballard for his ideas, among certain mathematicians, philosophers, and nihilists of every stripe. He also gives us many great examples to support the context and the theme that pretty much made me nod and grin and want to curse him.
Why? Because in a lot of ways, he's entirely right. The debate about Art and Life is an old one. Art imitates Life, but Life imitates Art, too. We see it everywhere, from advertising to the great movies of nostalgia for times that never were to practically every dream we subscribe to. Like this example: wishing that we could be just like *insert impossible celebrity that is totally fake*. There is no substance to it. It is an artistic representation that we want to become, but when enough of us strive for it, we change reality to fit that mold in countless little or even big ways until Life, or Reality, has been changed. It doesn't alter the fact that there is no substance. It just means that we're all living the simulacra. The simulation, the Art, is merely the first step, but Art always has its foundations in the simulacra, the Real. When we can no longer figure out what is life and what is art, we have figured out that we are stuck in a recursive loop.
Many modern non-fiction books spell out the idea much more clearly than Baudrillard did. All our language is an example of this. So is our preoccupation with Myths. Let's not forget the very concept of money. They're all fake, but they're used in order to make a map of the terrain. And let's not fool ourselves. Most of us believe in the infallibility of money.
Okay, so you fans of Midnight's Children, behold... Rushdie has gone off the deep end with the sublime, the meta, the satire, and espeOh my goodness.
Okay, so you fans of Midnight's Children, behold... Rushdie has gone off the deep end with the sublime, the meta, the satire, and especially the meta. Did I mention meta? I mean, META, BABY.
Yes, yes, this is a modern take and full homage to the Cervantes classic, but it's a hell of a lot more than just that. For one, our Quichotte is a self-made man in all the best ways like Quixote, but instead of going overboard with Chivalry, we see the full age of tv sitcoms, reality tv, and even SF shows. And yet, this is only a small fraction of the book, itself.
Say what? Yeah. He's practically a minor character in comparison with the author who creates him or the Med Salesman who takes on the role, the far-off maiden who becomes the quest (and I love her own story, huge,) or the sister of the author who must be reconciled. And let's not even start getting into Sancho, the imaginary son of Quichotte who has his own quest to become fully-FULLY real, a-la Pinnochio, Jimmy Cricket, and the Blue Fairy. :)
It's CRAZY, yo! And it is FAR from being a simple satire. After all, we have alternate realities, the end of the world, a moral and ethical decay that is purely American, while flavoring all the waters with Hindu culture in grand Rushdie style.
Is it a mess, too? Yes. But gloriously so. As in, let's just put ALL the crazy on the table here and tie it together with all-too-real interpersonal quests and redemptions and seeking love, whether fixing estrangement between siblings, sons, or yourself. It's also heart-rending, not crazy at all, and subtle. And sweet. Right before it gets crazy cool.
A lot of these kinds of novels often bounce off me. Modern, Avante-Garde, meta for meta sake, too clever by half. But this one has a spark in it that spoke to me. Sometimes I was on the verge of saying 3 stars, then sometimes 4, then back to 3, and then things come together brilliantly and I'm right there with an enthusiastic 5. So what am I saying?
Over and over, I'm confronted with the fact that I'm in love with Emma Newman's writing. She keeps changing tracks with every novel, giving us completOver and over, I'm confronted with the fact that I'm in love with Emma Newman's writing. She keeps changing tracks with every novel, giving us completely different KINDS of novels while still intersecting them all in not very strange but emotionally impactful ways.
I mean, JEEZE. I could just mention what big thing happens in the other books and let all my gushy bits come out, but that's spoiler territory. What I will mention is my total respect for the way she treats trauma, surreal virtual-reality/dreamlike states, and the descent into Borderline territory.
And here's the kicker... I loved every single minute of it. Did I start rocking hard to the excuses, the feel of JUSTICE pouring through my veins, the visceral satisfaction of it?
Yes. Hell, maybe I'm a bit sick in the head. But I can do nothing but praise the author. She writes excellent science-fiction. Period. From science to the imaginative bits to the implications in the SFnal tropes. And all of it is handled beautifully -- even sticking to the current philosophical zeal to AI questions! :) I particularly loved the mirroring between the modern slavery questions and the overall fears we have about Artifical Intelligence.
And then there was the story taking place. :) Muahahahahaha what a kicker. No spoilers, but damn, what a great twist. :)
I love and hate this work. All at the same time and for some of the same reasons simultaneously.
Why? Because it pre-dates a lot of Joseph Campbell's mI love and hate this work. All at the same time and for some of the same reasons simultaneously.
Why? Because it pre-dates a lot of Joseph Campbell's much more interesting and more carefully analyzed use of mythology. The subject matter is the same in a lot of ways, using the analysis of myth to understand what is going on inside us as individuals, but his conclusions are Pure BS.
Look, I know it's easy to sit here and review massively impressive works that feel like a direct-line inheritance from Carl Jung, full of glorious archetypes and VERY impressive scholarship, and let me be clear: I have no problems with the scholarship. The bibliography and the erudition are beyond reproach.
What I have a problem with is something pretty simple. His thesis has no antithesis.
Backing up, the whole idea here is that human consciousness arose from the conflicts between the female and male principles. It's very Jungian but I think Neumann takes it a bit farther. His full analysis is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS from the perspective of Fantasy Worldbuilding. I'd buy and read the hell out of a heroic series of books that expounded everything in here... as long as the FINAL CONCLUSIONS were re-analyzed.
Practically EVERY SINGLE IDEA in here propagates the idea that women, or rather, the World Mother, is the Dragon, the great Oroborus, and that all myth continues this trend all the way down to the overthrow of the female. From ALL the myths of castration to the extrapolation of the Furies as the ubermyth from which all our legends stem, justifies the patriarchy.
Where's the devil's advocate, here? A little lip service saying that men are spurred on and challenged by the female principle and women are spurred on and challenged by the male principle?
So what? Freud had been around for generations by this point. And at the end of the 40's, we should have gotten a little bit beyond this. But wait, it's the 40's and WWII was still fresh on everyone's minds.
I appreciate the attempt to analyze the models of our subconscious reliance on all the models that now seem broken and I LOVED the rich, rich, rich mythology and even the attempted thesis, but there's no serious counter-argument going on here. And there are TONS of possible counter-arguments.
Do I really need to write a book on this book? Suffice to say, WOMEN AREN'T EVIL. Let's leave it at that. Sheesh....more
This is a very hard book to review, but one thing is absolutely true:
I'm absolutely blown away by this book.
Ameristan! Lol MOAB! lol
This is definiteThis is a very hard book to review, but one thing is absolutely true:
I'm absolutely blown away by this book.
Ameristan! Lol MOAB! lol
This is definitely one of Neal Stephenson's better books. Just for the ideas and the great twisting of several tales in one, I'm already looking forward to a glorious re-read. He does lead us down a few winding paths that eventually turn out to be VERY important to the whole, and I admit to laughing out loud several times when the important bits bit me on the butt. :)
All told, it's the hundreds of wonderful details, ideas, technological problems, and the nature of our world of Lies and Truth in the Miasma (Stephenson's term for the future of the Internet) that make this an extremely memorable book, but it's the depth of the themes that go well beyond the obvious Milton's Paradise Lost that make me grin like an idiot.
My favorite is the whole perception-as-reality by way of Philip K Dick, hitting all the big points AND even throwing the scholars a bone by setting up a fantastic Manichean Heresy (Real God and the Flawed God and the temperance of Sophia.) (And for you PKD fans, look no further than Divine Invasion.
The other obvious theme connecting it to Paradise Lost is actually a subversive red herring. There's a big twist to this that makes it a lot more like PKD, including the paranoia, the corruption, and the faulty memories.
I came into this kinda expecting a single viewpoint adventure like many old SFs that take on uploaded consciousnesses and/or Hell, but you know what? This is so much better. We have many viewpoints, great adventures, and very little actual Hell except in a (you brought this with you sense). Kinda awesome when you think about it. No cheap theatrics, only an in-depth issue revolving People doing what People always do. Character-driven, with a lot of added juice.
Like several ages of mythology run by high-speed processors in the ultimate game of Life (as an afterlife), skirting the edges of a technological singularity, and wrapping it all up with a reality-based hackathon by way of a Gamer's Ultimate Quest.
I think I see the point, here. For all of us future afterlifers, let's MAKE SURE THE GAME DESIGNERS retain control over it. Please? No one wants to live an (after)life CONTROLLED BY THE BEAN COUNTERS. :)
The book has some great mirroring going on, rooting itself in near-future meatspace with tons of corporate intrigue, funny/nasty worldbuilding that put the quality of Truth on trial. The whole SF of tackling perception-as-reality is taken to new heights and multiple threads that keep twining and intertwining in really great ways. And then it takes on HUGE significance in the digital realm. Nasty significance. :)
Lordy! The Moab disaster (in more ways than one) is the very thing that sparks the Heaven 2.0 disaster! I loved that! The whole mad-god theme is great! And perfectly in-line with regular corporate madness, too. :) Why shouldn't we bring all our usual messes into the afterlife? We are, after all, only human, even when some of us become gods, angels, or incarnations of DEATH. :) lol
I had such a fun time with this, I can't even begin... or rather, I have begun, but I could keep going on forever.
Like I said, it's a really hard one to review. :) It has a lot of great depth to it that is rather MORE surprising than I ever gave it credit for, and this is coming from an avowed fanboy of Stephenson. I definitely like it more than Seveneves and Reamde. I'd have to re-read Snow Crash and Diamond Age again to see where it ranks by those. :)
I will always have Anathem as my primary love, tho. :)
BUT I think I will have to nom this one for next year's Hugo. Just for its sheer audacity and richness. :) ...more
Merry lobstery Christmas! Come take a Reality Pill and make all your trippiest dreams come true!
Or rather, sidle up to your best buds, take as much LSMerry lobstery Christmas! Come take a Reality Pill and make all your trippiest dreams come true!
Or rather, sidle up to your best buds, take as much LSD or tokes that you like, and welcome the alien invasion, man. Don't forget to jam and rap! This is gonna be one wildly imaginative ride. :)
Welcome to the hippiest days of NYC when walking hallucinations roam the streets or transform them, where milling crowds take the drugs that let their imaginations change reality, where six-foot pacifist lobsters in Jesus Robes enlist a devoted hippie pacifist to fight their wars for them.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
Honestly, I've read a good number of mind-blowingly imaginative books that revel in the strange and the wonderful and just don't care whether or not you're on any mind-altering substances. Hell, I've written a few books like that, myself. But after all this time and a rather huge bibliography to draw from, I can honestly rank this one up there with the very best. :)
Context is important. This came out at the height or the very end of the beginning of the LSD heyday in 1967. Chester Anderson more than capitalizes on the movement... he puts himself right in the tale. As a character. With reality slipping all the time.
This is a real trip and a half to read and imagine. I bet he had a fantastic time writing it. :) It takes courage, strength, and fortitude to let quite this much of yourself hang out for the world to see.
Of course, I really should mention that it would work just as well to read this in today's age for one good reason. Comics and superheroes play a huge part. Context-wise, back then, it was usual for kids and a very select number of the counterculture to still love Marvel. Not like today where the love has gone totally mainstream.
So, for the day, it's not exactly normal to read about dropping acid and going totally green-lantern in the middle of NYC. I'm a huge PKD fan, but even he never pulled something quite this extroverted. :)
In a lot of ways or perhaps all of them, the only way to review this book is through spoilers. So here's your mild warning.
There's a lot going on undeIn a lot of ways or perhaps all of them, the only way to review this book is through spoilers. So here's your mild warning.
There's a lot going on under the surface that is both essential to the tale and interesting enough that we actually NEED to talk about it in a review or the awesome JUST CAN'T BE SHOWN. :)
I mean, I could just say it's awesome and all but that kinda misses the point. WHY?
Because... the New Adult clone of Jesus created by an AI virus from another star system is getting into trouble, is taking on the monstrosity of the future Religious State, and she's not doing it alone.
The virus has plans of his own and he's just as godly as before. He's including the poor guy from the previous novel, too. And if this wasn't cool enough, the whole nature of reality, virtual reality, of alternate universes and times as seen through branching-off versions spawned through wormholes, is on full display here.
As the Stones might say, we've got ourselves a revolution.
I mentioned once in the review of the Cygnus Invasion that the author takes the ball from Philip K Dick and runs with it. And he does. There's a lot of godlike stuff going on here. Zakreski has a zany core here while retaining the serious exploration of the original subject. It's treated lightly, quickly, as well as with all the solemnity and depth it requires. I can't ask for more. Easy to read and yet it tackles a lot of complex topics.
Religion, godhood... beware the Spear of Destiny. It looks like a little quantum tomfoolery is on its way. :) Beware the minotaur in the labyrinth. :) ...more
When I got this book, I freaked out. I mean, let me put it this way: Cixin's imagination is heads and shoulders above most of the crap out there. MaybWhen I got this book, I freaked out. I mean, let me put it this way: Cixin's imagination is heads and shoulders above most of the crap out there. Maybe even a large portion of a torso. :) So the moment I got it, I started dancing around and played the fool because anyone who puts so many AWESOME ideas on the page is going to make me do the happy-jig.
Fast-forward half a second.
I'm reading this. I dropped all my other projects like hot potatoes and felt very little guilt about it.
The establishing text is very down-to-earth despite the fantastic beginning of this kid's parents being turned to ash a-la a certain Avengers movie. Cue Deep Fascination Time. More establishing character moments in school, studies, post-work, and still he's devoted his life to the one phenomenon we STILL don't understand well... Ball Lightning.
Since this is near-future and everything is very recognizable as our reality, it really comes as a shock when, after certain military projects finally take off and other discoveries come to light, the world we knew and understood took a HUGE turn to the strange.
Not magical strange. Our understanding of reality strange.
And once we get to that slow boiling point, we're fully ready to eat. The novel TAKES OFF.
I don't want to spoil things, but OMG I'm still reeling from all the freaky AWESOME stuff that goes on here. Remember Three-Body Problem's AI housed in a multidimensional TINY matrix? Remember Death's End crazy bubble universes created to spec? Well, how about electrons in the macro universe hitting an excited state every once in a while? Or how about Schrodinger's observer effect played LARGE?
OMG all the possibilities and explorations, not least in the military-apps. A small boat versus a flotilla of Cruisers? Check. A macro-nuclear explosion precise enough to burn the hair from every living thing on the Earth? Check.
For the pure idea realm, I give this book ten stars and a Hugo nomination for next year. Easy.
I should mention this is a new translation of a book published in the mid-oughts. In point of fact, it came out before Three-Body Problem. So putting that all together with all those ideas running around in his head, I think this MIGHT be a more standard and accessible novel than TBP while running with one aspect of the coolness that made the other book so wild.
Who knows?
All I really know is that I'm going to EAGERLY await every single novel finally translated into English for my devouring pleasure. :)...more
There are very few things I can say about this novel except it's Brilliant, Brilliant, Brillant. That, and I am afraid I'm a total fanboy of all RussiThere are very few things I can say about this novel except it's Brilliant, Brilliant, Brillant. That, and I am afraid I'm a total fanboy of all Russian novelists and this one in particular.
And I thought Dostoyevski was good. Damn. This one is completely modern, absolutely unappreciated in his time, dead young, and hailed as one of Russia's most popular novelists. Ever. And for good reason. The satire, written in the 50's, lambasts Moscow's '30's and continues to be a threat to all Russia today. It became super popular in the 60's America and was the direct inspiration for The Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil.
Does this ring a few bells?
Let's get down to the reality of this novel a bit. The Master is the novelist writing about Jesus and Pontus Pilate. He falls in love with a woman, and she with him, and her name is Margarita. She becomes a witch. And in the meantime, we've got ourselves a total retelling of Job, a satire that raises the level of Cons to all new heights. *What? Moscow has CON-MEN?*
And of course, we have hard-drinking cats, the Devil, and Pontus Pilate running around Moscow, present day. Lots of action ensues, with decapitation, thugs running amok, plays that are really major shakedowns, rampant nudity, the walking dead, and the UTTER HORRIBLE TERROR that are all editors.
Did I mention I might have just found one of my favorite all-time books? Yeah. This here is gonna have to fight for room on my top 100 list of all time. Maybe it won't have to fight very hard. In fact, I might have to bump it up into the top 20 or maybe even top 10.
It's just that good.
I was reminded a lot of Neil Gaiman's American Gods in a very good way. I was also reminded of a lot of modern comic masterpieces. In execution, it's half-Noir and all literary despair in the other.
I'm in love. :) I wanna do a huge Russian kick now. Maybe re-read all the greats, and then head back to this one and revel away. :) Just. Wow....more
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