On My Bookshelf: In War Times

I’ve just finished Kathleen Ann Goonan’s thoughtful and optimistic novel, and I’m not quite sure how to describe it, or exactly what to say about it.

On one level, it reminded me of Connie Willis’ Blackout/All Clear. It’s clear that Ms. Goonan is in Ms Willis’ league when it comes to WWII research. She has inserted portions of her father’s own WWII diary into the pages of this novel. The portrayal of 1940′s Europe seems very real and bombed out, and everyone’s a chain smoker. So that must be right, eh?

On the other hand, I found an emotional distance from the characters. You really only get inside Sam, and that’s mainly through Ms Goonan placing her father’s voice/journal entries into the character’s mouth/pen. Twice toward the end of the book, Sam has a Cat’s-In-The-Cradle moment, “When did my kids grow up?” And the reader wonders about it, too. Why were we introduced to these kids, and why does it take thirty years for people to stop fumbling around with the mysterious device that incorporates physics, biology, and time and actually do something?

In War Times explores one great idea–my own definition for a science fiction starting point. Building on the familiar territory of alternate universes, Ms Goonan weaves in supporting themes of jazz, conspiracy, and mainly a wistfulness about living in an ideal world. The jazz is close, but not quite note perfect. The conspiracy elements are not quite menacing. You know the main characters are being watched. But the watchers don’t seem to care very much. The pacing of the novel is quite largo. As a reader, I wondered where it was going. The idea was fascinating enough that I was hooked to see how the novel would unfold. But impatient readers are not going to wait.

The fantastic sequences hit the reader fast, and a few pages later, as the characters, especially Sam, are wondering if it really happened, I found I was wondering too. I would turn back a few pages and try to catch more of what I just read. That didn’t seem to work, and it’s a credit to Ms Goonan’s literary skill that you just have to go slowly as you progress through this novel. Then hold on for the interruptions.

The conclusion comes quick. It gets set up well. But it’s rather predictable. And optimistic to the extreme. And that’s all I’ll say about it.

 

On My Bookshelf: Astronomy Non-Fiction

Two short and enjoyable reads this past week. Last night I finished Alone in the Universe. John Gribbin takes the reader through a careful tour–in turn: the galaxy, the sun, the solar system, the Earth, the Cambrian Explosion, and human beings. A series of factors contribute to Dr Gribbin’s take that human beings are the only intelligent life form in the universe. Quite frankly, I agree. But I didn’t need this book to convince me.

The first five chapters deal with astronomy and they are absorbing. Chapters six and seven examine two momentous events: the explosion of life about 530 million years ago and the volcanic resurfacing of Venus around the same time. Dr Gribbin makes the case that the latter was the instigation for the onset of Snowball Earth. His theory is that a moon-sized object hit Venus, caused a worldwide volcanic resurfacing of that planet (the evidence of the resurfacing is not in doubt) but that the debris from that collision may have been enough to tip the entire planet Earth into an ice age. Eventually Earth’s own build-up of carbon dioxide and methane from our own volcanoes thawed the planet. Life bloomed as a result.

The blooming of life–of hard-shelled fossils–in undeniable. Dr Gribbin is going to need more than two pre-Cambrian events to show conclusively there is a connection between them. Earth has teetered on going Big Snowball earlier in its history. It would be interesting to nail down those earlier periods and see if there is a correlation to the infusion of dust into the inner solar system. It would be a darned difficult piece of scientific sleuthing.

Despite the weakness on paleontology, this is a good read. I’m convinced, as I was before, that there is no other life in the universe that matches human intelligence. Most critics of this book seem to latch on to the notion that somewhere out there, there’s somebody else. I would be happy if they found people. But I’m not banking on it.

In a similar vein I also enjoyed Dimitar Sasselov’s The Life of Super-Earths. This volume starts in the 1990′s, and chronicles briefly the discovery of planets outside the solar system, and the gradual fine-tuning of our discovery sieve to the point where we can identify planets larger than Earth, yet smaller than Neptune. Hence the term, super-earth.

Dr Sasselov has had a part in these astronomical discoveries of the past two decades, so that personal touch makes this book a bit more engaging. And like modern astronomers, he draws on many disciplines like cellular biology, geophysics, and chemistry to offer his readers a more complete canvas of this scientific frontier.

We will eventually find Earth-sized planets. They may well harbor life. I think it more likely they will be locales for very interesting chemistry and geology. That is still a good reason to explore them.

To the lay reader, each of these books is engaging and readable. Read them quick, because the rapid pace of science these days may render some of the details incorrect, or at best, incomplete in just a few years.

 

On My Bookshelf: Foundation Novels

Isaac Asimov generally abdicated writing much science fiction for many decades in the middle of his life. Apparently by the 1980′s, he and/or his publisher were finally convinced that hardcover sf books would be very profitable, especially if they could cash in on the perceived public appetite for sequels. That perception remains with us today. Really: when was the last time you heard of a movie that wasn’t either a sequel or based on a comic book? For a genre that prides itself on originality, brash and intriguing ideas, and big wonder, have you ever wondered?

For some reason, I found myself inspired to revisit Asimov’s Foundation fiction for the first time in about twenty years. What have come to be known as his first Foundation novels, the original trilogy, are actually four short stories and four novellas published separately in the 1940′s. He added a first “chapter” for the first book, introducing readers to the mathematician Hari Seldon himself. And it was all packaged into three “novels.”

When this emerged in the early 1950′s, it was generally well-received, but not unanimously so. Some critics think he’s a clunker on characterization. And for writing in a big wide galaxy, I have to say his prose doesn’t communicate awe and wonder. I rate Asimov as an A-plus when it comes to ideas. And he is a genius at the surprise ending–no wonder his mystery sf novels are probably his best works.

About three-hundred years into the Seldon Plan (the blueprint that will reduce a galactic dark age from three-hundred centuries to just ten), a mutant enters the fray. The Mule is able to manipulate minds, and he sways enemies. He touches minds, and changes foes to allies. By doing so, a fragile man is able to throw the Foundation off its course and conquer it. This happens in the second half of the second book, Foundation and Empire. The Mule is eventually thwarted by–surprise!–a woman. A Foundation woman who is anti-traditional (she gets married and smokes cigars) no less.

It is up to the Second Foundation to defeat the Mule, and attempt to put the Plan back on track. A culture’s first military defeat, a conquest no less, has damaged their pride and sense of destiny. By halfway through book three, Second Foundation, the First Foundation is reeling psychologically, and the Plan’s chance of success is only about one in five. The small novel that concludes this third book is one of the strongest entries in the series. And it has an intriguing main character. For circa 1950, you have a teenage girl as a protagonist–amazing to ponder that Meg Murry (aka the girl nobody would publish) was still ten years in the future in real-life culture.

That brings me to the book I finished last night, Prelude to Foundation. No question it starts off with a bang. Intrigue and curiosity force the young Hari Seldon on a madcap tour of the capital world of Trantor from about page 15.

Along the way, he meets his future wife, future adopted son, and a most intriguing character who has appeared in other Asimov novels. Asimov also lets out dribbles about things he never wrote about before: the mythical origin planet, different human races, poverty and injustice.

There’s a very good surprise ending, but one gets the idea–at least I did–that Seldon is being “handled” carefully in all this. Instead of a legendary figure at the head of a Plan, he comes off as a very ordinary human being. With a hidden talent for the martial arts, to be sure. And he telegraphs he’s thinking hard about something during all his travels. So you know some intellectual prize awaits at the end of this book, despite Seldon’s insistence that predicting the future with mathematics is impossible. And at book’s end, the reader is told the whole purpose of the story is to move the main character around and inspire his ideas. Mission accomplished: here comes the next book.

With the last four Foundation novels (chronologically, numbers 1, 2, 6, and 7 in the series), Asimov neatly tied together all the various mystery and galactic-scale science fiction he had written. Which is to say, most of everything. It’s clever. But when your publisher is clamoring for best sellers, perhaps clever is the best one can do. Even given Asimov’s select talents as a writer, he could have done better than writing what is essentially good fan fiction.

I’m not sad I reread these novels. But I think I’m going to stop at this point and find something new.

 

Yogo Verbs

After about a month (January) of neglect I’m trying to resuscitate my Spanish studies. One of our parishioners who offered to help me with conversation last month started speaking to me in Spanish the other Sunday and I completely froze up. Muy malo.

The young miss now enjoys drilling me daily on my few hundred vocabulary words. We compare notes on her French and my Spanish. She’s brilliant with languages, so it’s quite possible she’ll pick up more Spanish from our exercises than I. As it is, she’s thinking of adding German instead of Spanish as her elective next year. And why not? The more languages, the better.

Anyway, my wife picked up this classic diccionario at a thrift shop for a quarter. “You need one for your office,” she said. I already have two at home–the big one is by the computer and the little one is usually at my bedside. At the public library yesterday, I picked up 501 Spanish verbs. More information than I probably want, and definitely more than I can handle–Honduras is less then three months away. But still, I’d like to be slightly more advanced in the language than Tourist Spanish for Dummies.

When I was a kid, I loved to read reference books like encyclopedias and dictionaries. Still do. This 1948 edition is no exception. I found the section on irregular verbs and decided I needed to start on these. I noted all these verbs with “go” endings in first person singular. So cute! Our spiritual life peer minister, adept in the language, said to me, “The yogo verbs.”

I put … pongo

I say … digo

I hear … oigo

I do … hago

I come .. vengo

I fall … caigo

I bring … traigo

I leave … saigo

and my favorite Spanish word this week: I have … tengo.

Another embarrassment (not embarazada!) is missing the double l’s in the middle of a few personal pronouns. I was corrected by another one of our peer ministers on this one. I love the Spanish words for rain and key, so how could I have missed the proper pronunciations for “she” and “they”?

On another front, my comprehension is still stuck on day one. I tried watching some Spanish language television, and they’re all talking so fast. Nice looking women, to be sure, but I’m in it for the language, amigos. I do a bit better with listening to Spanish music in restaurants and on YouTube. On the latter, I let the Selena Channel play the other day. “Amor prohibido.” I think I’ve got that one down. Linguistically speaking, of course.

Adios.

 

On My Bookshelf: Books With Ideas

I’m still reading a lot of science fiction this year. Mike Flynn spoiled me. After I finished In The Lion’s Mouth, I wanted more. So I picked up Leviathan Wakes. Okay. I’m spoiled after reading some good literary science fiction. I started rereading Asimov’s Foundation trilogy the other night, and I’m still thinking I’m spoiled.

Let me get to the new book first, then explain my title above a bit more. This tome is well-reviewed on Amazon, and a notable writer, George R.R. Martin praises it. And it does have its good points. There are about five or six big battles/confrontations in the book. And every one is set up with a nice swell of the plot. And then we move on to the next hurdle.

But it’s obviously written by guys who are not deep into science fiction. They seem like they’re deep into television, like a mini-series. And that’s okay, but it doesn’t make for excellent writing.

Leviathan Wakes reads like a tv show. Biggest flaw are the stock characters: a divorced, alcoholic police detective (who’s not nearly the character Jerry Orbach played on Law & Order), a hotshot captain (like James T. Kirk, among others, but we never really get into his head), the woman in love with a guy who doesn’t know she exists (as a woman), etc.. Bad guys (and corporations) are bad. Good guys (and military leaders) are good. And the police detective is really troubled.

Please.

Write some characters not so predictable.

As for the science, I was thinking of Mr Spock’s advice to Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He reminds his captain that Khan’s intelligent, but inexperienced. One key plot idea in Leviathan Wakes seems to assume that an advanced alien race thinks in two dimensions. They lob something into the solar system, but it gets caught in Saturn’s orbit instead of reaching Earth. Stupid aliens and lucky us.

Any alien race of sufficient technology that wants to take over the Earth is not going to lob something in on us along the plane of the solar system’s planets. They will drop something onto our north or south pole and make sure obstacles are minimal. They might even think to plant it personally. Even 21st century Earthlings know there are a boatload of giant planets in the universe. They tend to scatter comets and asteroids and small planets into interstellar space.There are ways to avoid them.

The authors (James S. A. Corey is a pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) have done enough homework to know that when you hollow out an asteroid and spin it, you get the Coriolis effect playing with human dizziness and such. But they haven’t done quite enough homework to write convincingly of other aspects of the science of human space settlement. Intelligent guys I’m sure, but inexperienced.

Let’s get back to characters. I think there are some great characters on television. I liked the way the NCIS writers and Mark Harmon played Gibbs on the early seasons of that show. This dude was a little unnerving, how obsessed he was to find Ari. I like a protagonist that has a little bit of creepiness about him. Just to make me wonder. The Captain in Leviathan Wakes has his issues, as well he should. But they write him a little too straight, and a little too cosmetically. Not nearly enough depth on him or his companions.

In contrast, I’ve started reading the Foundation Trilogy for the first time in decades. Isaac Asimov is not the most literary writer. He’s big on talk and super on ideas, but minimal on characterization. And let’s be honest: not much wonder in his stories in terms of the descriptions of human experience on a galactic scale.

I was trying to think of why the Foundation stories are so superior. I suspect it’s because of the ideas behind them.

Foundation is Asimov’s treatment of the fall of the Roman Empire, only set fifty millennia in the future. The Fall of Rome is a big cultural anchor for western civilization. To top it off, the whole idea of psychohistory, of being able to predict the development of human societies, toys with the idea of self-determination.

If the Seldon Plan is so sound, does an individual human being have any leeway in living her or his life? Are we all pawns of a greater god? Or God? Is it all about us being carried to the ocean in a very swift stream? And thanks to the geniuses in charge, we’re powerless to alter the big picture.

Even reading a book for which I know the ending, I’m drawn in and I’m thinking. Again. Much more enjoyable than a sf book with more sex and shooting. But face it: Leviathan Wakes has one idea. War. Yawn. We had that watching Everybody Loves Raymond with Ray’s wife and mother-in-law tussling. At least Orson Scott Card gave us an original twist to the conduct of war in Ender’s Game. That was original, thoughtful, and something you could ponder for days after you finished the book.

I’m thinking that good science fiction, at least sf that appeals to me, has to have a Big Idea working for it. It has to be bigger than war. Bigger than sex. Bigger than most of what passes for sf in the movies and on television.

I hear that somebody has bought the rights to film Asimov’s Foundation. I have a few ideas on what I’d hope to see, if I were producing such an effort. But that’s a post for later this weekend. Stay tuned.

 

On My Bookshelf: In The Lion’s Mouth

Michael Flynn serves up enjoyable reads, if you like science fiction with great characters to accompany world building and slowly-unfolding plots that surprise. His latest, In the Lion’s Mouth, is the third novel set in a series that explores intrigue and human adventure thousands of years in the future. It strikes me as his most accomplished book to date, and the best in an ottherwise very good series.

Flynn’s human future includes the adventures of operatives of two interstellar empires. They battle it out, sometimes in space with ships, more often in hand-to-hand combat, and occasionally in the living room while attended by a butler. This book opens in the latter setting. Super-agent Bridget ban, a junior associate named Graceful, and Bridget’s daughter Méarana await the homecoming of the Méarana’s father, another agent/double-agent. What they get instead is an agent from a rival empire, who tells how the missing man has got himself embroiled in a power struggle. They and the readers are drawn into a story with enough plot twists and intrigue to keep everyone guessing until the second-to-last page. Then we are given a cliffhanger, and now a two-year wait for the next story.

I recommend reading these books in order. The current read does stand alone. But I would start with The January Dancer (2008) and proceed Up Jim River (2010). The first book is an excellent read, lots of space and shooting and stuff. What some call space opera (think soap opera), and much beloved by fans. I think I was less impressed with the second book, in which Méarana and her father go in search of her then-missing mother. I’ve sort of spoiled the plot point, but just erase from your brain what I wrote and read the book anyway. In the Lion’s Mouth is a superior sf novel. The pace is slow and steady, but the action unfolds well. The settings are fantastic, but believable. It’s nice to have a hard-to-put-down book in one’s hands.

Two observations. One is about world building. This is the craft by which a writer creates a world (or in this case, a region of the galaxy) and develops a culture complete with history, technology, politics, maps, and characters. The stars are vaguely familiar, Edacass is Eta Cassiopeia, 19 light years away; the Century Suns are nearest stars Alpha Centauri A and B and maybe C; Epsidanny is Epsilon Eridani; Serious is the Dog Star, Sirius. Tsol is our own sun. But Terrans (Earthlings) have become the riff-raff white trash of the galaxy. Book four promises a trip to Old Earth–I can hardly wait.

More on world building and especially language–there’s a lot of Celtic people in space in ten thousand years. In their empire, they speak Gaelactic. Cute. Law enforcement folks are magpies and riffs (sheriffs). Some Chinese stuff is going on, too. As is the serving of an ancient dish, hoddawgs and zorgrot. (Get it?) Flynn has a fascinating universe and plays around with language enough to distract me.

Second observation: religion is absent here. I guess the Irish bishops crisis of the 21st century was enough to drive every Celt out of the Church by the 121st. Not many sf writers handle religion well. Most, including the more conservative folks, tend to avoid it entirely. Maybe we’re better off for it. But it makes for an intriguing thought. Suppose you were transported to the far future, ten or twenty thousand years. And you found no Christianity there. What would you make of it? Would you still read the Bible and pray the Hours? Would you attempt to evangelize? Would you look for an underground and hidden Church? Would you give up?

One of the things I’ve done since I was a boy was to put myself in the setting of the stories I read. I’ve imagined myself a Borrower, in Middle Earth, and living in the Foundation. Easily enough, I can imagine myself making and serving food with the elusively rare spice coriander in Flynn’s future. But I always come up short with wondering about how I would live my faith if I were the last Christian in the universe. Maybe that’s a worth a book.

Meanwhile, read Michael Flynn’s books. I really enjoy this series. In order, I would rate these books four stars, three-and-a-half, and four-point-five in that order.

 

On My Bookshelf: The Roof at the Bottom of the World

My wife thought I was crazy bringing this book to bed on a cold winter’s night. But tucked in under the covers, I enjoyed last week’s read from Arizona State’s professor of exploration (that title is so cool) Edmund Stump.

I’ve read a lot on Antarctica, but this book benefits from a unique perspective. The Transantarctic Mountains form the spine of that frozen continent. They were a barrier and a curiosity to early explorers striving for the pole. They form the foundation of this coffee table-sized volume.

This book balances the heroic adventures of the Antarctic explorers with Dr Stump’s personal experiences of science in the field. The author has an artist’s eye, and his photography really enhances this read. Maps old and new. Traveling routes superimposed over pretty pictures. A good bit of the geology of the continent. And always with those remote mountains close at hand.

Great book. It covers those expeditions leading up to and including the 1911 marches to the pole of Amundsen and Scott. The Admiral Byrd era of the 30′s. The establishment of the permanent American presence in the IGY. Even if you want to skip over the science and exploration narratives, you could spend a nice afternoon gazing at and reflecting on the breathtaking scenery.

 

On My Bookshelf: Endings

The night before my wife’s surgery, she caught me reading Chris Impey’s How It Ends: From You to the Universe. She was a little concerned, but it wasn’t about her. Honest.

Professor Impey’s third popular science (PopSci) book (I’ve not read the other two) combines musings on the end of things, mainly biological or astronomical. As for the first, some interesting stuff on the philosophy of death, actuarial tables, long-lived animals, DNA, and such. Did you know, for example, that if you live in Manhattan and decide to drive over to Jersey to buy a lottery ticket, you are seventeen times more likely to die in an auto accident getting there than you are to hit the jackpot?

You would think that an astronomer’s passion would be for astronomy, not biology, and the final two-thirds of the book, where he gets into his passion, is superior to the talk about how it ends for a human body. So I enjoyed the talk about asteroid hits, comet collisions, the death of the sun, moving the Earth to a safe distance from the red giant phase, and the final era of the universe.

I have a science background and most of the nonfiction I read is scientific, so I don’t really care for dumbed-down reading material. (I avoid things to the third-grade side of Scientific American or NatGeo.) So this book was good for the general public that it contained no serious mathemetical equations, and is a generally readable and fascinating account of “how it ends.”

A very enjoyable read earlier this week was Cosmic Butterflies: The Colorful Mysteries of Planetary Nebulae. Dr Kwok’s book has a confectionary shop full astronomical of eye-candy, especially from the various space telescopes out there. He combines the science of the end of stars with a good helping of history–how astronomers gradually came to understand these beautiful objects over decades and a few centuries of observation.

Planetary nebulae came to this name because many of them looked to similar to Uranus and other planets as viewed through a telescope. They are the outgassing of stars as they transition from the red giant phase to the white dwarf existence. Not only are they beautiful to behold, but they give clues to the chemistry of the universe, including how human beings got here and where many of the atoms of our bodies may have originated.

I can imagine this book being narrated while dozens of illustrative images catch attention. It’s easy enough to compare the pictures with the actual descriptions and explanations in the text. So while this could be just another coffee table book, the blending of intellectual probing into the history of astronomy makes for fascinating reading. Skeptics of science would do well to read this book just to get a glimpse of how the society of science really works.

My next read is about Antarctica. I’ll tell you about that in a few days. Meanwhile, Happy Winter.

 

On My Bookshelf: The Weapon Shops of Isher

My libertarian and anarchist friends might be interested in the concept in this novel. American Second Amendment folks might enjoy the most quoted line in the book, as advocated by the mysterious weapon shops:

The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.

The author posits a situation in which (let’s say it) magical guns are offered for sale, much to the consternation of the governing empire of a far future Earth. The idea is intriguing and probably outpaces the material van Vogt gives it in this book, which is a patched-together novelization of three distinct short stories. The short stories are better, if you have access to them, by the way.

A weapon shop appears out of nowhere. Police and military personnel cannot enter the shop. But any other citizen can. Once inside, a merchant describes the nature of the guns they sell. They may be used only for self-defense. They extend a protective shield around the owner impervious to energy weapons, but not bullets, spears, or presumably, punches. The guns are amazingly inexpensive. They are not for passive individuals. When one client finds himself swindled by a bank in collusion with a corrupt rival company, the weapon shop folks counsel him to be polite but to resist the actions taken against him.

If you want to use a weapon shop product for hunting, there is an approved list of animals. Newbies to gun purchasing are amazed there is nearly a perfect implementation of gun ethics. One guy tries to turn a hunting rifle on a weapon shop merchant–the psychological profile drawn from the aggressor when he entered the shop prevents the gun from working. He is easily subdued without injury, and turned out into the street.

Another sf author, Arthur C. Clarke once posited:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The weapon shops of Isher are a magical counterweight to the cruelties and indifference of a ruling empire. There is no hard science behind them in the books. Nothing explained, that is. I suspect many people around the world would wish they had such a fantasy come true for them. One of the interesting aspects of weapon shop ideology is that they do not interfere in the larger picture of politics. They tolerate a corrupt government, knowing that the rulers cannot take the final step toward totalitarianism because of the access citizens have to their weapons.

One of the things I look for in science fiction is an intriguing idea. I can overlook (especially in a 160-page book) an author’s ideology (van Vogt is reported to have been a monarchist, though the emergence of 20th century totalitarianism was extremely distressing to him). I can pass on concepts like sexism or things happening with little apparent reason (like why on Earth did the weapon shop woman marry the country rube?) because a good idea will latch on, and I’ll be thinking about it days later.

As for my next book, it’s back to non-fiction for me. I’ll take my ideas straight with no ideology for the next few books. But if any of you conservatives out there want a quick read that spins you back to the 50′s, and want to chime in on the weapon shops, knock yourself out.

 

On My Bookshelf: Echo and Firebird

Jack McDevitt offers up two enjoyable reads –his latest novels Echo (2010) and Firebird (2011). They feature the intrepid archaeologist/mystery solver Alex Benedict and his assistant (and narrator) Chase Kolpath.

I’ll tell you upfront these books are recommended for those who like good novels. They’re well-written. Like a good mystery, they provide you with enough misdirection to keep you guessing. I hesitate to say these are pure science fiction novels, despite being set several millennia in the future with spaceships. They each function more as a mystery: the main characters are trying to unravel a puzzle. There is a lot of on-the-ground sleuthing. When the action gets into space, then I think things get exciting.

In the far human future, people wonder if they’ll ever find aliens in the universe. Granted, in McDevitt’s future, one alien race has already been found. But one isn’t enough, it seems.

Echo deals with a mystery artifact: is it alien-made, or is it from a lost human colony? A deeper mystery unfolds in the last third of the book, as Benedict and Kolpath stumble on a few human survivors of a world mysterious for having “primitive” technology (gas street lights and suspension bridges). So why are hired killers after the heroes, and why did a well-regarded space pilot and businesswoman commit suicide? It all gets figured out in the end, though there’s a shocking bit of gratuitous news (my opinion) at the end of the volume.

I liked Firebird a bit more. It explores a flying-dutchman-in-space concept. It’s a bit more science fiction than its predecessor. When the main characters attempt a rescue, it has some heartbreaking consequences for some of the people involved. That’s good science fiction, in my opinion. You take an idea of something that is beyond our present experience, and you place real human beings in the way. Good sf makes you think: What would I do? What would the moral response be?

Neither of these is a perfect book. My main complaint about Mr McDevitt’s sf novels is that they seem too much like modern America with a way, way overdone media coverage. Curious that characters know some aspects of “ancient history,” like Billy the Kid, but thousands of years into a computer era, whole human space colonies can somehow get lost.

For good writing, I can ignore little things like that. His novel Seeker won the 2006 Nebula for best sf novel. Same characters. Another good read.

 

Before I Go To Sleep

The concept is hardly original. One of the better episodes of the last Star Trek series explored the premise of a person who wakes up every morning with no memories of the days and years before. I picked up S. J. Watson’s Before  I Go To Sleep hoping I wasn’t going to be reading a derivative work. I was unaware the book has been a bestseller, and widely (though not unanimously) praised. I read this book in three nights. It was engaging, believable, and extremely well-paced. As one might expect from a quality author, it explored a good number of concepts while keeping the reader (and main character) off-guard with a gradual development of information, misinformation, and menace. The key idea emerges very near the end, and was hidden to me until about a page before the main character finally uncovers it herself. I had to intentionally slow down my reading pace to make sure I was catching the last drops of how the novel resolves itself.

This was one of my more enjoyable reads this year. After I finished it last night, I checked various reviews, and I have to say I disagreed with some points of the book’s critics. The 350 pages are more than boring repetitions–the author handles the dribbling of information quite well and logically. A thoughtful reader won’t find it tedious, but I can see how a skimming of the text would produce a yawn or two. It’s actually quite difficult to portray with interest a main character who wakes up every morning with no memories. For a first-time author, this is an impressive feat.

Also challenging is a man writing a woman–he seems to pull this off. (But I’m a guy; so what do I know?) Is amnesia like this a possibility outside of science fiction? I don’t know that, either. But as an sf fan, I was well-prepared to accept the premise, though this is far from being a science fiction work. Then again, I don’t really count Star Trek as science fiction, but that’s fodder for another discussion.

I would recommend this book. It’s a very good read. If I ever write a first novel, I’d be over the moon if it were this good.

 

Summer Magic Realism

I’ve been delving back into fiction this summer. I’ve been mostly disappointed by fantasy and sf as of late. I was looking up promising books that veer close–magic realism.

Alice Hoffman’s The Story Sisters was recommended. Not a book that makes a father feel all warm and fuzzy. The title sisters and mom are abandoned by father/husband. Without the power of the father, things go awry as the sisters roll through adolescence. (Could’ve predicted that.) Grandma to the rescue, but not until the last quarter of the book.

I liked the writing, pacing, and the character development. The ending seemed a little too neat. Lots of really bad things happened to two of the sisters before the grandmother and allies stepped in to help sister number 3. It seemed like a family just unraveled over several years just so everything will work out in Paris for the survivors of this mess.

This read followed The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz, author. I found this novel more sparkling, more funny, and more brutal. Fast-paced, to be sure. It made more sense than the Hoffman. I thought it also lagged toward the last 25%.

My wife has been bugging me to go watch the last Harry Potter movie. I’m not quite ready for that adventure to be over–at least the cinematic part.

I could overlook the editing problems in the later books of that series, as I can overlook the flaws in these two very good reads. But every year or two, I need to get a really good read into my head. Haven’t found it yet. Anybody out there finding good summer reading? Only a month or so left–better find it fast.

 

Science and Fiction

I’m reading a great book right now: astronomer Mike Brown’s neat memoir How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. This is the guy who discovered something larger than Pluto, setting into motion the controversial 2006 reclassification of the former ninth planet as a dwarf planet.

Lots of good science, written for the thoughtful non-scientist, interwoven with bits of his life story: grad school, courting, marriage, and baby daughter. Some hijinx from the scientific community, too.

Brown explains the back story behind the search for planets in the outer solar system–Pluto’s neighborhood and beyond. The Caltech scientist meets his future wife in the basement of the Mount Palomar Observatory. How cool is that?

This is a highly recommended read, especially for the inside human side of science.

I recently finished Iain M. Banks’ Surface Detail, a slightly less impressive book. Less impressive than his previous Culture novels.

At first glance, this book appears to have a theological relevance. There are computer-simulated hells to which the disembodied consciousnesses of dead persons are sent.

Unbeknownst to her, one character has a “recording device” planted into her brain as a young woman, and when she dies, the device broadcasts her personality, memories, skills, and such across interstellar space to a Culture ship.

This, of course, isn’t theology. It’s just technology.

Over the years, I’ve read almost every Culture novel, mostly in order of appearance. It’s a challenge for an author to create what is essentially an anarchic utopia, where citizens are unencumbered by poverty, accidental death, constructions not only on their freedoms, but also their whims.

In the Culture novels, the conflict is from outside this safe society of thirty trillion: what happens when people outside the Culture do bad things, or when individuals within the Culture have to break their own rules to protect a greater good?

A non-Culture society sets up and promotes virtual reality hells. Under the shadow of controversy about this, it is decided to hold a VR war to determine the fate of hell: to abolish them or continue them. One side, however, decides to cheat.

Banks wrote a slew of Culture novels in the 90′s. He’s recently brought out two, this one, and Matter (2008). I found the latter very difficult to get going. A caution: any review is necessarily subjective, even by my own standards. I’ve been reading mostly sf short stories the past few months, so my patience with more complex novels and their slower start-up routines may be tested. I like Iain Banks and his work. Maybe he’s set high standards that I don’t see being met in these later books.

My main problem with the Culture is that its society as a whole seems to produce a boring sameness of indulgence and materialism. And even the exceptions, those agents whose missions make up the stories of the Culture novels, they all seem rather the same, too. The concepts are really interesting, usually. Though a virtual reality afterlife is an extremely tame idea compared to alien artifacts, galactic-scale warfare, or even a doctor of a king on a backward planet. The setting almost seems to be a smarmy nod to religion: let me set up some gods and hells and show you how faith doesn’t work.

Surface Detail also involves a manufactured fleet of three-hundred million warships, but that’s far from the centerpiece of the story. The Culture deals with it as easily as a leafblower, a rake, and a match will resolve November tree litter in a backyard.

In his novels, Iain Banks has created one large character, the Culture itself. That character is untouchable, unmovable, incorruptible. So I ask: where’s the needful conflict to get a large novel moving? Sometimes things are too perfect. And no amount of grisly violence can resolve that.

In a way, the Culture has an analogue in Christian fiction. Like God, it can never be touched or moved. Real three-dimensional characters will always be more interesting. But if you’ve never read a Culture novel, I strongly recommend reading at least one. Banks is an outstanding author who, just from my perspective, seems to be in some sort of slump.

 

Rolheiser on Nouwen

The popular author and speaker has a tribute to “our generation’s Kierkegaard.” Rolheiser writes:

He helped us to pray while not knowing how to pray, to rest while feeling restless, to be at peace while tempted, to feel safe while still anxious, to be surrounded by light while still in darkness, and to love while still in doubt.

I was struck with Rolheiser’s comment that the US State Department’s head found The Return of the Prodigal Son the most significant book in her life. Good choice.

Nouwen could be exasperating in how he wore his weaknesses so openly. But I believe our bishops could learn something from the vulnerable approach to ministry.

As an artist I was impressed with this insight:

And he worked at his craft, with diligence and deliberation. Nouwen would write and rewrite his books, sometimes five times over, in an effort to make them simpler. What he sought was a language of the heart.

Aiming for the heart: something any artist would do well to keep in mind.

 

A Liturgist Looks At Vestments

The novel by John Reimringer, not the clothing.

I picked Vestments off the library shelf a few months ago, and declined to check it out after reading the first few pages–didn’t sound right to me. On a recommendation, I borrowed it a few weeks ago, and I’m glad I did. I enjoyed a good read about a young Minnesota priest, four years ordained, facing a crisis involving celibacy (or lack thereof), a scandal in his country parish, his brother’s upcoming wedding, his estranged parents, his high school sweetheart, his relationships with other priests, and a lot of booze and cursing by pretty much everyone in the story.

The author’s choice of starting his novel off with a priest saying a home Mass for his mother, interrupted by his coarse and alienated father was a bit offputting at first. The book starts slow, I think. About a third of the way through it begins to pick up steam as more of the backstory is revealed, and the characters drawn more finely. The city of Saint Paul is featured with as much description as any human character, and it seemed to me this setting in particular indeed served as a major player in the novel.

There are well-described episodes involving a parishioner attempting suicide, an attempted seduction, and the evolution of Father Dressler from a son of a troubled father to a young priest in search of personal and spiritual grounding.

Some of the liturgy stuff didn’t ring true to me. There were details missed that a priest (or liturgist) would know. But this wasn’t a big handicap to enjoying the book. The church politics seemed about right–old guys living a Vatican II age with Vatican I methods and pettiness. The bad guys were drawn as simple black hats: chancery officials taking marching orders from a nosy parish housekeeper. Bishops and their staffs are groomed by sex abusers more frequently, not country housewives searching through their pastors’ drawers.

Those few bumps aside, the human side of the characters held true. While the conclusion is not a rollicking or surprising one, it does make a degree of quiet sense. It’s a good first novel, a very worthwhile read.