Showing posts with label hard science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hard science fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
This novel is about artificial intelligence. The author likes the idea of the Turing test and is describing the process of raising artificial intelligences in this novel. The story touches on many different issues in artificial intelligence; raising artificial beings, designing different thinking patterns than our own, the rights of intelligent beings, artificial worlds, and the emotional life of machines are some of the topics.
Some of the content is mature in nature. The author writes about sex with machines and intentional harm to robotic entities. It is done in a non-sensationalistic way.
The story is very humanistic. The robots are not super intelligent. They start as humanities pets, toys, and hobbies. Later as the story develops some take on the role of customer service and simple assembly.
The setting is the homes and labs of the researchers as well as artificial online worlds. The people in the story are working in startups and research institutions.
The novel is illustrated by Christian Pearce and Jacob MacMurray. These are a few images from Christian Pearce's website: http://christianpearce.blogspot.com/2010/08/art-for-ted-chiangs-lifecycle-of_05.html
The story is very character driven. It is a thoughtful novel, not an action novel. I like that the main human character, Ana joins a startup after her job as an animal raiser at a zoo. This makes the story intriguing.
If you want a character driven story about artificial intelligence this novel is worth reading. The feeling of the settings seems very real to me, more so than most science fiction novels I have read. The world is well built. This is near future science fiction done right.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Morning Thoughts, Afternoon Thoughts, B Movies In the Library
Taft's auto leaving New York Public Library.This photography comes from the Library of Congress photo archive on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/
Morning Thoughts
This morning, I read a little bit more of Acacia on the train as well as some of the book, The Public Domain. It was a quiet, peaceful morning. The only difference this morning is that I had half and half instead of milk in my coffee.
I also requested a robot detective novel, The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez. This is a classic theme in science fiction. I rather like science fiction detectives.
When I got in to work, the first thing I did was look through the Nutshell series printed by Thomson West. They are legal summaries for different subjects like constitutional, family law, and criminal law. I requested a bunch of these be ordered along with a variety of Nolo books for our collection.
Right now, I have a copy of Iron Man the movie novelization by Peter David sitting next to me. The cover says "Based on the screenplay by Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway." That is a lot of authors for a single screenplay.
Afternoon Thoughts
I am looking at the two copies of Vampire Hunter D, volume 1 and 2 by Hideyuki Kikuchi. The novel is being adapted into a manga comic by Saiko Takaki. The publisher is Digital Manga Publishing. The story is rated 16+ on the back of the book. It would be close to the equivalent of PG-13, maybe R, for its content. A lot of the manga publishers are now providing ratings for their books.
I saw Vampire Hunter D as an anime film a while ago. I would give the film about the same rating. It is not a childrens movie. It is full of all sorts of strange mythical creatures, vampires, werewolves, and other things. I enjoyed watching the film, I hope that the manga is just as good.
Right now, I am also contemplating whether or not I should watch Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. It is the story of J.M. Barrie the author of Peter Pan. For some reason, I like watching films about authors.
I can recommend another film about a fantasy author, Robert E. Howard, The Whole Wide World starring Vincent D'onofrio as Howard. It is a very tragic story.
B Movies In The Library
I got home tonight. I watched a short bit of Earth Versus The Flying Saucers. This was a 1950s film, it just was colorized recently. The special effects are by Ray Harryhausen. I think it is kind of funny. I rather like how hokie the flying saucers look. The beginning of the film is classic as soon as the aliens show up, the United States military starts shooting at them.
Watching this film reminds me of some things that have been happening with videos recently. We actually circulate more videos of movies than any other item in our collection. My experience is that these are not great videos, they are often the most mind numbing things imaginable. People love to escape. They especially like television series like the Sopranos, Gilligan's Island, the old Star Trek reruns, and other things like that.
A lot of people come in to check out movies to escape. They want the B movies which aren't in our collection sometimes. We get asked for Rambo a lot even though it is not available. Mindless horror films like Chuckie, or Freddie vs. Jason are also popular.
Also, there seems to be a preference for R rated films. Some even want the unrated versions. There really is no one watching what you bring home to your family. So, people can and will take out anything. There is not an audience like in a theater and nobody knows whether you are watching a good quality film. The only real limitation is that we don't really have anything that is pornographic.
It really is hard sometimes to say why are you checking this thing out. I actually have asked some people why are they checking out American Pie, or Norbit and the generally answer is we need to unwind and escape. We don't want to think too much, we have been thinking a lot at work and we want something which we can laugh at.
It is no different than a lot of the things at the public library in book form. Romance is the most popular item in the fictin room. It is nice to dream about having romantic notions and read inexpensive Harlequin romances sometimes.
Sometimes, you wonder about the choices being made. It is hard to fathom why someone wants to watch House of Frankenstein, or all five seasons the television show Colombo. I guess people have different ideas of what is fun to watch.
You also wonder sometimes about people who will come in and check out three or four videos or dvds every single day and return them the next day. I guess it is free entertainment. It is really not something which I am supposed to ponder too much. If you ask these questions, you are often called an elitist in the library setting. People check out a couple books every single day and return them the next day sometimes.
Are videos and dvds the main point of the library? It seems to be the thing which most people want more than anything else in the library. It becomes a question in the movies also what should we get. A lot of the old classics are not ever watched. However, surprisingly there is a strong demand for the old silent films and some of the classic black and white films. People want to see every old silent ever made.
At one point, I decided that I wanted to see every classic science fiction film ever made. I've seen The Day The Earth Stood Still, 2001, Godzilla, The Empire Strikes Back, Bladerunner, Metropolis, Things To Come, and a huge amount of old science fiction films. I am sure that there are plenty of people who want to see all the classic horror, detective, and monster movies ever made.
I don't always want to see things that make me think too much. I rather like The Three Stooges and I can understand why so many people love Jim Carrey movies. Watching deeply intellectual things can make your head hurt.
Still, you ask yourself, is the library an educational institution for self-education and self-improvement or is it purely for entertainment value. Is it more important to house ballet tapes or slapstick comedy. Where is the balance? I think there is not enough self-reflection on what we are doing sometimes.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Implied Spaces-- Walter Jon Williams-- Thoughts
Implied Spaces-- Walter Jon Williams-- Thoughts
Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams is a science fiction novel set in a world of super science. People can design pocket universes to their specifications. For example the main character travels through a realm with low technology very much like the arabian nights as well as a place which is a water world very much like a beautified South Pacific.
People have reached the heights of technology. They even have super intelligent AI's however, these AIs are chained by Asimovean protocols to serve humans.
The main character Aristide is a wandering adventurer who has lived for close to a thousand years. He travels with his cat bitsy an avatar of one of the supercomputers. While he is wandering in one of the implied spaces, a pocket universe, he runs into a dire plot to change the future.
He must uncover which AI plans to go rogue. People are being stolen and having their brains reprogrammed to be loyal to a possible rebel. Thus we start the novel with a mystery where Aristide must track down the rebel before it is too late. There are fights, intrigue, and super science.
Thus the adventure leads to a confrontation. We face zombie plagues, pod people, and an all out battle for control of the human future with mass drivers, anti-proton cannons, anti-matter missiles, and all out war.
The people in the story remain human with human drives and desires despite having super science. There is still fear, sex, love, excitement, and revenge written into the story. Aristide has his lover Daljit, who he sees occassionally.
The story is quite intriguing. I won't reveal all of it. There is one part, I especially like where the enemy AI has taken over Aristide's and Daljit's brain for a while.
If you want an intriguing adventure story mixed with super science, this is an entertaining book to read.
Walter Jon Williams is a five time hugo nominee. His writing is very entertaining. The book is published by Nightshade Books http://www.nightshadebooks.com . I had reviewed Paolo Bacigalupi's book earlier, Pump Six and Other Stories also by Nighthshade Books. They are producing some very interesting work at this new press. It is high quality writing and does not necessarily follow the traditional fantasy or science fiction tropes. They are willing to take chances with what is being written.
Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams is a science fiction novel set in a world of super science. People can design pocket universes to their specifications. For example the main character travels through a realm with low technology very much like the arabian nights as well as a place which is a water world very much like a beautified South Pacific.
People have reached the heights of technology. They even have super intelligent AI's however, these AIs are chained by Asimovean protocols to serve humans.
The main character Aristide is a wandering adventurer who has lived for close to a thousand years. He travels with his cat bitsy an avatar of one of the supercomputers. While he is wandering in one of the implied spaces, a pocket universe, he runs into a dire plot to change the future.
He must uncover which AI plans to go rogue. People are being stolen and having their brains reprogrammed to be loyal to a possible rebel. Thus we start the novel with a mystery where Aristide must track down the rebel before it is too late. There are fights, intrigue, and super science.
Thus the adventure leads to a confrontation. We face zombie plagues, pod people, and an all out battle for control of the human future with mass drivers, anti-proton cannons, anti-matter missiles, and all out war.
The people in the story remain human with human drives and desires despite having super science. There is still fear, sex, love, excitement, and revenge written into the story. Aristide has his lover Daljit, who he sees occassionally.
The story is quite intriguing. I won't reveal all of it. There is one part, I especially like where the enemy AI has taken over Aristide's and Daljit's brain for a while.
If you want an intriguing adventure story mixed with super science, this is an entertaining book to read.
Walter Jon Williams is a five time hugo nominee. His writing is very entertaining. The book is published by Nightshade Books http://www.nightshadebooks.com . I had reviewed Paolo Bacigalupi's book earlier, Pump Six and Other Stories also by Nighthshade Books. They are producing some very interesting work at this new press. It is high quality writing and does not necessarily follow the traditional fantasy or science fiction tropes. They are willing to take chances with what is being written.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Starstrike-- Taskforce Mars --Kevin Dockery and Douglas Niles-- Review
Starstrike Taskforce Mars by Kevin Dockery and Douglas Niles is a near future action thriller. The Shamani, benevolent aliens have come to earth and given us technology to help us become more civilized. It is the year 2050 and they have helped us build bases on mars as well as given us the technology for an interstellar drive.
To protect earth, a new special elite force is created from the navy SEALs, now they are more than sea, air, and land forces. You add the word space and get a super elite fighting force. This is none too soon because the mars base is attacked by hostile aliens, the Eluoi.
The aliens are classic cardboard cutouts. The Eluoi have solid green eyes and the Shamani have deep red eyes. Otherwise, they look like humans. You might call the Eluoi the evil, slaver, caste society of the galaxy. They are entertaining bad guys.
The hardware in the story is rather interesting. The book is hard science fiction. It is based on what might be possible 2050 with a little help from our magical friends the Shamani. The Seals have a few advantages, they have machine guns, a man portable railgun, explosives, and missiles. The aliens mainly use a mix of beam weapons and slug throwers, not explosives.
This is a story of how a highly trained elite force using small unit tactics defeats larger forces using cunning, deception, ambush, and strategy. The heros don't rush headlong into battle. It reads very much like a futuristic version of a Tom Clancy novel. You could also throw in a little Mack Bolan or Casca for effect.
Some of our heros die in combat, or are severely wounded. This makes it seem a bit more real. They are also captured and escape to wander around the Eluoi planet trying to find a way home. The heros use a backpack nuclear weapon to destroy a space defense platform. This novel isn't particularly politically correct.
The main character is a classic military commander figure who could have stepped out of a World War II novel, Master Chief, Raphael Ruiz.
Douglas Niles has written thirty five novels including the alternate history novel, Fox on the Rhine. Kevin Dockery has written nonfiction books including Future Weapons and Navy Seals: The Complete History. There is a sequel, Operation Orion, which I placed on reserve.
To protect earth, a new special elite force is created from the navy SEALs, now they are more than sea, air, and land forces. You add the word space and get a super elite fighting force. This is none too soon because the mars base is attacked by hostile aliens, the Eluoi.
The aliens are classic cardboard cutouts. The Eluoi have solid green eyes and the Shamani have deep red eyes. Otherwise, they look like humans. You might call the Eluoi the evil, slaver, caste society of the galaxy. They are entertaining bad guys.
The hardware in the story is rather interesting. The book is hard science fiction. It is based on what might be possible 2050 with a little help from our magical friends the Shamani. The Seals have a few advantages, they have machine guns, a man portable railgun, explosives, and missiles. The aliens mainly use a mix of beam weapons and slug throwers, not explosives.
This is a story of how a highly trained elite force using small unit tactics defeats larger forces using cunning, deception, ambush, and strategy. The heros don't rush headlong into battle. It reads very much like a futuristic version of a Tom Clancy novel. You could also throw in a little Mack Bolan or Casca for effect.
Some of our heros die in combat, or are severely wounded. This makes it seem a bit more real. They are also captured and escape to wander around the Eluoi planet trying to find a way home. The heros use a backpack nuclear weapon to destroy a space defense platform. This novel isn't particularly politically correct.
The main character is a classic military commander figure who could have stepped out of a World War II novel, Master Chief, Raphael Ruiz.
Douglas Niles has written thirty five novels including the alternate history novel, Fox on the Rhine. Kevin Dockery has written nonfiction books including Future Weapons and Navy Seals: The Complete History. There is a sequel, Operation Orion, which I placed on reserve.
Monday, June 23, 2008
A Trip To A Bookstore
Image from Hokusai Manga. A Very Early Japanese MangaA Trip to a Bookstore
Good afternoon, I spent a little bit of time at the local bookstore which is a generic Barnes & Nobles. I did not buy anything. Occassionally, I do see things which I want to buy for myself, but not this time.
I had a free $5 gift card from Starbucks which was supposed to be good at any Starbucks. I thought the cafe in the Barnes & Noble was a Starbucks because everything in it was Starbucks. Apparently, it just serves Starbucks and the employees wear Starbucks style clothing, but it is is a Barnes & Noble cafe. I was annoyed. I had hoped to get two free medium coffees with milk. (This might have been why I was annoyed enough not to buy anything.)
Anyways, I instead walked around the store and looked at the various sections in the story. The first part which I looked at was Business. I found something interesting in the business section, apparently, Businessweek has a bestseller list. This is a link to the bestsellers for Businessweek for the last two years. http://www.businessweek.com/slideshows/ss_books.htm Hopefully, this will be useful when I have to order $3000 worth of business books. Wall Street Journal has a bestseller list for business books, but it is almost an exact match of the New York Times bestseller list for business.
There were of course your typical books on business. It of course included books by Warren Buffett, Jack Welch, and Peter Drucker the current American icons of capitalism. I compiled a short list of books which I thought might be useful to order. Two of the books which I put on the list were The Dip by Seth Godin an internet evangelist, and Stirring It up by Gary Hirshberg. I reviewed Stirring It Up earlier on this blog.
As I was wandering around the business books aisle, a gentleman asked me who I was, and I told him that I worked at a library, he gave me a business card that said he was an ecommerce development specialist.
Anyways, I then spent a bit of time looking at the science fiction titles. There were three titles that stood out, Time Spike by Eric Flint, Space Vulture, and The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. There were also a few paperbacks by Mercedes Lackey and Tanya Huff I am considering.
I also saw a few superhero mass mareket paperback fiction titles. These are not graphic novels, but movie tie-ins novelizations of recent movies. There were four that stood out. The reason people read these things is that they saw the movie and it stuck in their mind. They were Ironman, Hellboy The Golden Army, Indiana Jones and The Genesis Deluge, and Batman Gotham Knight. This was kind of fun to look at. The Ironman paperback was written by Peter David who actually is a very entertaining author who has written for Star Trek Pocketbooks, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and the Star Trek television show. This is a link to his blog:
http://peterdavid.malibulist.com/index.html
Finally, I wandered around the manga (japanese comics). I don't know a whole lot about manga, but I did notice that a number of the publishers had omnibus editions of manga, things like Fruits Basket, The Ultimate Edition which combined several of the smaller editions together. There was also The Viz Big Ruruoni Kenshin, XXXholic Omnibus Edition, and Trigun . I am going to look and see if more of the desired titles are available in either ultimate or omnibus titles. Hopefully, this will allow me to get a wider variety of titles for a little less money. I also saw a graphic novel of Vampire Hunter D, one of my favorite animes. This is a lot of fun to watch.
Good afternoon, I spent a little bit of time at the local bookstore which is a generic Barnes & Nobles. I did not buy anything. Occassionally, I do see things which I want to buy for myself, but not this time.
I had a free $5 gift card from Starbucks which was supposed to be good at any Starbucks. I thought the cafe in the Barnes & Noble was a Starbucks because everything in it was Starbucks. Apparently, it just serves Starbucks and the employees wear Starbucks style clothing, but it is is a Barnes & Noble cafe. I was annoyed. I had hoped to get two free medium coffees with milk. (This might have been why I was annoyed enough not to buy anything.)
Anyways, I instead walked around the store and looked at the various sections in the story. The first part which I looked at was Business. I found something interesting in the business section, apparently, Businessweek has a bestseller list. This is a link to the bestsellers for Businessweek for the last two years. http://www.businessweek.com/slideshows/ss_books.htm Hopefully, this will be useful when I have to order $3000 worth of business books. Wall Street Journal has a bestseller list for business books, but it is almost an exact match of the New York Times bestseller list for business.
There were of course your typical books on business. It of course included books by Warren Buffett, Jack Welch, and Peter Drucker the current American icons of capitalism. I compiled a short list of books which I thought might be useful to order. Two of the books which I put on the list were The Dip by Seth Godin an internet evangelist, and Stirring It up by Gary Hirshberg. I reviewed Stirring It Up earlier on this blog.
As I was wandering around the business books aisle, a gentleman asked me who I was, and I told him that I worked at a library, he gave me a business card that said he was an ecommerce development specialist.
Anyways, I then spent a bit of time looking at the science fiction titles. There were three titles that stood out, Time Spike by Eric Flint, Space Vulture, and The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. There were also a few paperbacks by Mercedes Lackey and Tanya Huff I am considering.
I also saw a few superhero mass mareket paperback fiction titles. These are not graphic novels, but movie tie-ins novelizations of recent movies. There were four that stood out. The reason people read these things is that they saw the movie and it stuck in their mind. They were Ironman, Hellboy The Golden Army, Indiana Jones and The Genesis Deluge, and Batman Gotham Knight. This was kind of fun to look at. The Ironman paperback was written by Peter David who actually is a very entertaining author who has written for Star Trek Pocketbooks, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and the Star Trek television show. This is a link to his blog:
http://peterdavid.malibulist.com/index.html
Finally, I wandered around the manga (japanese comics). I don't know a whole lot about manga, but I did notice that a number of the publishers had omnibus editions of manga, things like Fruits Basket, The Ultimate Edition which combined several of the smaller editions together. There was also The Viz Big Ruruoni Kenshin, XXXholic Omnibus Edition, and Trigun . I am going to look and see if more of the desired titles are available in either ultimate or omnibus titles. Hopefully, this will allow me to get a wider variety of titles for a little less money. I also saw a graphic novel of Vampire Hunter D, one of my favorite animes. This is a lot of fun to watch.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Rainbow's End-- Vernor Vinge-- Thoughts
Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge is the story of Robert Gu who has been cured of Alzheimer's and rejuvenated so he looks like a teenager. Robert Gu has to learn to fit in again in a society that has changed tremendously. He is sent to a technical school to learn a new set of skills and be useful again. This is a mix of teenagers and rehabilitated adults.
I rather like the main character, he is a kind of man out of time. His son doesn't know quite what to make of him. The main character is cranky, mean, and does not hesitate to hurt or bother other people if it amuses him.
While at the technical school Robert is drawn into a sinister plot unwittingly. This starts as he joins up with a group of librarians at UCSD who recognize his literary genius from his past life. The librarians are trying to save all the books at the Theodore Geisel library from the shredding and processing machines.
The descriptions of everyday things are wonderful. People use wearable computers and contact lenses which simulate different environments adding overlays to the real world like the SpielbergRowling fantasy overlay. Cars pick you up and drive you where you want to go, then drive off by themselves. It is rather imaginative.
The librarians have a plan to destroy the shredders. This involves creating a disturbance aboveground while they slip past a set of secret biolabs to get at the shredders. This is where the second strand of the story picks up. Getting past the biolabs is really a setup for a crazed agent to plant a research project for mind controlling virus.
Only Mr. Rabbit, an intelligent AI can stop the virus with the help of Robert Gu and his niece Miri.
Aboveground a riot is occurring between the librareome and the people who are against the library. The two sides are trying to take over the library building using robots, construction equipment, toy mechanicals, and various gadgets.
This is a wildly entertaining book with a very convoluted plot which can be mind boggling at times. Sometimes you feel like you are in a state of futureshock like Robert Gu. This book is one of a string of near future thrillers that have come out recently that use familiar backdrops with advanced technology. Two other books in this style are Spook Country by William Gibson and Halting State by Charles Stross.
Rainbow's End won the 2007 Hugo Award. vernor Vinge has won four other Hugo awards. Another book by him which I really liked was A Fire Upon The Deep. This book is hard science fiction. It extrapolates existing science into a future world.
I rather like the main character, he is a kind of man out of time. His son doesn't know quite what to make of him. The main character is cranky, mean, and does not hesitate to hurt or bother other people if it amuses him.
While at the technical school Robert is drawn into a sinister plot unwittingly. This starts as he joins up with a group of librarians at UCSD who recognize his literary genius from his past life. The librarians are trying to save all the books at the Theodore Geisel library from the shredding and processing machines.
The descriptions of everyday things are wonderful. People use wearable computers and contact lenses which simulate different environments adding overlays to the real world like the SpielbergRowling fantasy overlay. Cars pick you up and drive you where you want to go, then drive off by themselves. It is rather imaginative.
The librarians have a plan to destroy the shredders. This involves creating a disturbance aboveground while they slip past a set of secret biolabs to get at the shredders. This is where the second strand of the story picks up. Getting past the biolabs is really a setup for a crazed agent to plant a research project for mind controlling virus.
Only Mr. Rabbit, an intelligent AI can stop the virus with the help of Robert Gu and his niece Miri.
Aboveground a riot is occurring between the librareome and the people who are against the library. The two sides are trying to take over the library building using robots, construction equipment, toy mechanicals, and various gadgets.
This is a wildly entertaining book with a very convoluted plot which can be mind boggling at times. Sometimes you feel like you are in a state of futureshock like Robert Gu. This book is one of a string of near future thrillers that have come out recently that use familiar backdrops with advanced technology. Two other books in this style are Spook Country by William Gibson and Halting State by Charles Stross.
Rainbow's End won the 2007 Hugo Award. vernor Vinge has won four other Hugo awards. Another book by him which I really liked was A Fire Upon The Deep. This book is hard science fiction. It extrapolates existing science into a future world.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The New Weird-- Ann & Jeff Vandermeer Editors, Review
Jeff Vandermeer's Cluttered Office
The New Weird is a collection of short stories and essays edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer. All of the essays are on the concept of the "New Weird." The book claims to be about a new genre of writing weird stories. I like to think of it as a style of writing in science fiction and fantasy. Most of the stories have a baroque, almost excessively detailed style of writing. Some of the best writing in this style occurs in cities that are a cross between a hallucinogenic dream and an odd mix of magic and technology. Places like M. John Harrison's Viriconium, Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris, or China Mieville's Perdito Street.
I read anthologies to find new writers. I found a few writers which I had not read before. I enjoyed reading the Jeffrey Thomas story, Immolation and I thought the chase story by Steph Swainston, The Ride of The Gabbleratchet was superb. Her description of the vermiform creature in the story was fantastic.
There were a number of truly excellent established writers in the collection: Michael Moorcock, China Mieville, M. John Harrison, Kathe Koja, and Clive Barker. The stories written by these authors all had unique twists at the ends and interesting settings.
The last part of this anthology was a series of essays on what "The New Weird" was. This was mildly entertaining. It was at least partly a marketing effort to establish a following for the newly revamped Weird Tales Magazine who Ann Vandermeer is the editor of. I think it is too early in the attempt to create a literary movement to give a definitive answer.
A few of the stories were misses for me. This is true of most short story collections. One of the nice things about short story collections is that you can skip over the places you don't like. I did not particularly like the short story, The Lizard of Ooze. I thought the story The Gutter Sees The Light That Never Shines by Alastair Rennie had some very adult content in it. However, the story was still quite fascinating, even if it was a bit bloody, sexy, and scatological.
The back of the anthology had short one paragraph summaries on each of the writers in the book. There was some quite interesting writing in this short story collection. If you are looking for something different or unique to read in science fiction or fantasy, you might want to try out a few of the stories in this collection.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
When The Tide Rises-- David Drake-- Review
When The Tide Rises by David Drake is military space opera. The book is part of a larger series, The Republic of Cinnabar Navy series. The main character, Lieutenant Leary is patriotic, astute, politically savvy, and willing to take risks. He is a gentleman adventurer much in the style of the historical Lord Cochrane who the character is based on. The book is an ode to the sailing ships of old. The space ships even use sails and rigging to travel through the matrix (hyperspace).
The setting is rather interesting. It is in a distant future. The Republic of Cinnabar, an imperial elitist republic, and the Alliance, a totalitarian government are at war. Both control many different worlds. The Cinnabar characters are jingoistic, patriotic, and class conscious. The naval men and women act like sailors, they fight, brawl, drink, and carry on with the native populations. The main character, Lieutenant Leary has a loyal servant, Hogg, and his freind, the spy, Adele Mundy, has a servant Tovera.
This is one of the few science fiction novels that describes the freindship between a male and female lead character well. Adele Mundy, spy for Cinnabar is a close freind of Lieutenant Leary, commander of the corvette Princess Cecile.
In this novel, Lieutenant Leary is sent to Bagaria to help the rebel government remain free from being taken over by the Alliance. The Bagarians are plagued by inept and corrupt leaders. By todays standard, they would be called a "banana republic."
Lieutenant Leary promptly starts a series of commerce raids, capturing prizes for the Republic of Cinnabar. He also attacks an Alliance base. One of the nice things about this book, is that it is not in the slightest bit politically correct. A spacer is a spacer, and Leary recruits naval troops from his captured ships, as well as calls some of the natives "wogs."
A lot of the action is based on deceiving the enemy. Leary uses the tactics of surprise, espionage, subterfuge, and first strike. On a few occassions, he poses as the enemy using captured ships.
The fights are fast and furious, but often unreal. This is of course a story. However, I find not enough people die or are wounded in the story. Leary loses a few of his allied ships, and one of his crew members Woetjans is injured. This is explained away by Adele Mundy's ability to penetrate the enemies communication networks and collect critical intelligence to turn the tide. She after all was a librarian and is a communications specialist and spy.
There is a political element to the story. Leary's father is a senator in the Cinnabar republic. Also, Admiral Vocaine views Leary as a potential enemy. Because of this, Leary is sent into the hot situations where he will have to be savvy or end up rotting in prison or dead.
Adele Mundy and Daniel Leary also help refine the environment of the science fiction worlds they visit. Daniel Leary is interested in the "natural history" of alien worlds. He observes the odd plants and animals. For example at one point in the novel he is watching a small tentacled flying creature the size of his thumb. Adele Mundy is interested in archaeology, literature, and librarianship. At the end of the book, she visits the megaliths of Diamondia.
I am looking forward to reading more of this excellent series. At the end of the book, Lieutenant Leary is to become Captain Leary. David Drake, the author is an interesting writer. He is best known for his series, Hammer's Slammers about a mercenary tank company in the far future. David Drake also served as an interrogation officer during Vietnam. He is described as often making very exacting descriptions of combat. The books in this series are With The Lightnings, Lieutent Leary Commanding, The Far Side of the Stars, The Way to Glory, Some Golden Harbor, and When The Tide Rises. With the Lightings is available for free from the Baen free library if you want to see what the series is about. http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
The setting is rather interesting. It is in a distant future. The Republic of Cinnabar, an imperial elitist republic, and the Alliance, a totalitarian government are at war. Both control many different worlds. The Cinnabar characters are jingoistic, patriotic, and class conscious. The naval men and women act like sailors, they fight, brawl, drink, and carry on with the native populations. The main character, Lieutenant Leary has a loyal servant, Hogg, and his freind, the spy, Adele Mundy, has a servant Tovera.
This is one of the few science fiction novels that describes the freindship between a male and female lead character well. Adele Mundy, spy for Cinnabar is a close freind of Lieutenant Leary, commander of the corvette Princess Cecile.
In this novel, Lieutenant Leary is sent to Bagaria to help the rebel government remain free from being taken over by the Alliance. The Bagarians are plagued by inept and corrupt leaders. By todays standard, they would be called a "banana republic."
Lieutenant Leary promptly starts a series of commerce raids, capturing prizes for the Republic of Cinnabar. He also attacks an Alliance base. One of the nice things about this book, is that it is not in the slightest bit politically correct. A spacer is a spacer, and Leary recruits naval troops from his captured ships, as well as calls some of the natives "wogs."
A lot of the action is based on deceiving the enemy. Leary uses the tactics of surprise, espionage, subterfuge, and first strike. On a few occassions, he poses as the enemy using captured ships.
The fights are fast and furious, but often unreal. This is of course a story. However, I find not enough people die or are wounded in the story. Leary loses a few of his allied ships, and one of his crew members Woetjans is injured. This is explained away by Adele Mundy's ability to penetrate the enemies communication networks and collect critical intelligence to turn the tide. She after all was a librarian and is a communications specialist and spy.
There is a political element to the story. Leary's father is a senator in the Cinnabar republic. Also, Admiral Vocaine views Leary as a potential enemy. Because of this, Leary is sent into the hot situations where he will have to be savvy or end up rotting in prison or dead.
Adele Mundy and Daniel Leary also help refine the environment of the science fiction worlds they visit. Daniel Leary is interested in the "natural history" of alien worlds. He observes the odd plants and animals. For example at one point in the novel he is watching a small tentacled flying creature the size of his thumb. Adele Mundy is interested in archaeology, literature, and librarianship. At the end of the book, she visits the megaliths of Diamondia.
I am looking forward to reading more of this excellent series. At the end of the book, Lieutenant Leary is to become Captain Leary. David Drake, the author is an interesting writer. He is best known for his series, Hammer's Slammers about a mercenary tank company in the far future. David Drake also served as an interrogation officer during Vietnam. He is described as often making very exacting descriptions of combat. The books in this series are With The Lightnings, Lieutent Leary Commanding, The Far Side of the Stars, The Way to Glory, Some Golden Harbor, and When The Tide Rises. With the Lightings is available for free from the Baen free library if you want to see what the series is about. http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Pump Six And Other Stories-- Paolo Bacigalupi-- Review
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi is a short story collection. It is mainly science fiction. The short story, The Calorie Man, won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. This collection comes from a relatively new press, http://www.nightshadebooks.com It looks like they have an excellent selection of new science fiction and fantasy titles. This book is c2008.
The style of writing is very dark. They address the destructive side of human nature. Contemporary issues like water pollution, agricultural seed control, water supplies, and mans relation to nature are addressed. I would think of this science ficiton as being focused on biological, environmental, and psychological issues. The stories at times are quite cruel.
There is quite a bit of irony used in the stories. For example in The People of Sand and Slag, a group of cyborgs finds a dog in a wasteland, they keep it as a pet until it ceases being satisfying to them, then they eat it.
The Story The Calorie Man and The Yellow Card Man seem to be set in the same future dystopia. It is a future of agricultural plagues and giant companies controlling the genetically modified grains which are used for both the food supply and energy supply. To be at the bottom is to be under the thumb of the environmental police.
In The Pasho, the author philosophizes on the differences between soft power; power coming from technology, culture, and philosopy, and hard power; power coming from war. A Pasho is a kind of pirest of knowledge bent on rebuilding civilization after a long collapse.
There are a total of eleven stories in the collection. I really look forward to when the author finishes writing his novel. The writing itself has surprising imagery in it. There are cheshire chameleon cats, fields of soyPRO and HiGro. The characters have varied names and backgrounds, Soldier Wang, Lao Xia, Lolo, Raphel Ka'Korem, Lalji, and others. This is a writer worth following closely.
The style of writing is very dark. They address the destructive side of human nature. Contemporary issues like water pollution, agricultural seed control, water supplies, and mans relation to nature are addressed. I would think of this science ficiton as being focused on biological, environmental, and psychological issues. The stories at times are quite cruel.
There is quite a bit of irony used in the stories. For example in The People of Sand and Slag, a group of cyborgs finds a dog in a wasteland, they keep it as a pet until it ceases being satisfying to them, then they eat it.
The Story The Calorie Man and The Yellow Card Man seem to be set in the same future dystopia. It is a future of agricultural plagues and giant companies controlling the genetically modified grains which are used for both the food supply and energy supply. To be at the bottom is to be under the thumb of the environmental police.
In The Pasho, the author philosophizes on the differences between soft power; power coming from technology, culture, and philosopy, and hard power; power coming from war. A Pasho is a kind of pirest of knowledge bent on rebuilding civilization after a long collapse.
There are a total of eleven stories in the collection. I really look forward to when the author finishes writing his novel. The writing itself has surprising imagery in it. There are cheshire chameleon cats, fields of soyPRO and HiGro. The characters have varied names and backgrounds, Soldier Wang, Lao Xia, Lolo, Raphel Ka'Korem, Lalji, and others. This is a writer worth following closely.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Matter-- Iain Banks-- Comments
Matter by Iain Banks is a science fiction novel set in the far future of the Culture Universe. It is a tome of a book, 593 pages long. The writing is easy to read and flows very nicely. I especially like the setting. It is on a "shellworld". The shellworld is a giant constructed world consisting of multiple layers of shells of an unidentifiable super material. Linking the shells are huge towers that have stood for millions of years. No one knows what exactly is at the center of the worlds. Some of the natives consider it their "worldgod."
The initial start of the book is a story of intrigue and murder. Ferbin, a prince of Hausk witnesses the murder of his father, the king of Hausk by his closest advisor. Ferbin must flee for his life with the help of his servant Holse. Ferbin sees his only hope in seeking the help of his sister, Djan Seriy Anaplin, an agent of Special Circumstances of the Culture, a galaxy spanning, decadent advanced culture.
We get to learn this small incident is part of larger happenings in the galaxy as the story unfolds. Ferbin must make the grand tour, first travelling through the many levels of his homeworld, and finally to the stars. We get to experience many different types of aliens; cumuloforms (cloud beings), insectile beings, octs, intelligent parasites, and various humanoids. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Ferbin and Holse are travelling inside the cumuloform drifting on the winds. The imagery is wonderful.
Ferbins shell level, is backward, what we might call early twentieth century. The closer to the outside of the shell, the more advanced technology becomes. He learns that he is part of a much larger pastime of the larger galactic cultures around him, a game of "diplomatic noninterference." There are many players in this game, the Culture, the Morthanveld, the Oct, and others. This is a metaphor for the "great game" which allows for adventuresome individuals to change things.
He finds his sister, or his sister finds him, after Ferbin's wanderings seeking for help. The action heats up at this point. We get a two part story. We are introduced to the other prince, Oramen who thinks Ferbin has died. There is a war going on for control of the level which Ferbin lives on. This war leads to a potential tragedy. Ferbin and his sister Djan Seriy Anaplin travel home, interacting with the various strange and decadent beings in the galaxy.
There are some things about this book which some people will not like. There is an incredible plethora of ideas in the book. Possibly, too many ideas for some people. This may make some people unhappy with the book. I rather liked it. It is very much a "grand scheme" type of book which stretches the imagination.
Also, some people might consider it rushed. I think it moves along at a very fast pace. Things can happen almost too quickly to understand. I don't mind this. Other people will. It is also very long. There are points where the book could have been shortened considerably. Because, this book is very much in the style of a grand scheme book I don't think it could be shortened without losing some of its flavor. There is something of Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men in this book in the styling of the book.
I almost think he was writing a somewhat literary style of science fiction, not so much for a general audience, but for editors and connoisseurs. Publishers Weekly gave it a Starred Review. This is not always a good thing. Starred Reviews can indicate that a book is exclusive or has a very literary style.
The book ends with a bang. I rather like it when heros sacrifice themselves. The book is quite satisfying and fun to read. It will not be for everyone. I would recommend it for people who like interesting aliens, space opera, and intrigue. The book has been on the Locus Magazine bestseller list for a few weeks. It just came out in February 2008.
The initial start of the book is a story of intrigue and murder. Ferbin, a prince of Hausk witnesses the murder of his father, the king of Hausk by his closest advisor. Ferbin must flee for his life with the help of his servant Holse. Ferbin sees his only hope in seeking the help of his sister, Djan Seriy Anaplin, an agent of Special Circumstances of the Culture, a galaxy spanning, decadent advanced culture.
We get to learn this small incident is part of larger happenings in the galaxy as the story unfolds. Ferbin must make the grand tour, first travelling through the many levels of his homeworld, and finally to the stars. We get to experience many different types of aliens; cumuloforms (cloud beings), insectile beings, octs, intelligent parasites, and various humanoids. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Ferbin and Holse are travelling inside the cumuloform drifting on the winds. The imagery is wonderful.
Ferbins shell level, is backward, what we might call early twentieth century. The closer to the outside of the shell, the more advanced technology becomes. He learns that he is part of a much larger pastime of the larger galactic cultures around him, a game of "diplomatic noninterference." There are many players in this game, the Culture, the Morthanveld, the Oct, and others. This is a metaphor for the "great game" which allows for adventuresome individuals to change things.
He finds his sister, or his sister finds him, after Ferbin's wanderings seeking for help. The action heats up at this point. We get a two part story. We are introduced to the other prince, Oramen who thinks Ferbin has died. There is a war going on for control of the level which Ferbin lives on. This war leads to a potential tragedy. Ferbin and his sister Djan Seriy Anaplin travel home, interacting with the various strange and decadent beings in the galaxy.
There are some things about this book which some people will not like. There is an incredible plethora of ideas in the book. Possibly, too many ideas for some people. This may make some people unhappy with the book. I rather liked it. It is very much a "grand scheme" type of book which stretches the imagination.
Also, some people might consider it rushed. I think it moves along at a very fast pace. Things can happen almost too quickly to understand. I don't mind this. Other people will. It is also very long. There are points where the book could have been shortened considerably. Because, this book is very much in the style of a grand scheme book I don't think it could be shortened without losing some of its flavor. There is something of Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men in this book in the styling of the book.
I almost think he was writing a somewhat literary style of science fiction, not so much for a general audience, but for editors and connoisseurs. Publishers Weekly gave it a Starred Review. This is not always a good thing. Starred Reviews can indicate that a book is exclusive or has a very literary style.
The book ends with a bang. I rather like it when heros sacrifice themselves. The book is quite satisfying and fun to read. It will not be for everyone. I would recommend it for people who like interesting aliens, space opera, and intrigue. The book has been on the Locus Magazine bestseller list for a few weeks. It just came out in February 2008.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Where Do You Find A New Book To Read
This is a list. I thought I would create one for your enjoyment.
1) Check at your local bookstore. There is is usually a staff picks section. Powell's books
has a nice short Staff Picks section. http://www.powells.com/picks
2) Check at your local library. They usually have staff picks. This is a list of staff picks from New York Public Library. http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showlist.html?sid=5796&list=CNL3
3) If you use public transportation, watch for ads for books. I see ads for John Grisham on the New York subway as well as the Metro North.
4) Read the latest review material like Publishers Weekly or Kirkus Reviews. There are specialty review books like Horn Book for Children, Choice mostly for academic libraries, and VOYA-- Voice of Youth Advocates for teenage books.
5) Read popular magazines like Jet, People, or Newsweek. They all have book reviews.
6) Listen to the radio. Radio shows often talk about books. Jim Freund's Hour of the Wolf interviews science fiction authors. http://www.hourwolf.com/ . NPR-- National Public Radio often has authors reading.
7) Watch television. Most of the talk shows interview authors. Oprah Winfrey has a book club. It is one of those giant things. She revived a lot of classic literature. Charlie Rose invites quite a few authors. A lot of the documentaries on PBS are also in book form. Ken Burn's civil war series has an excellent corresponding book series.
8) Watch to see what other people are reading. People read everywhere, on the subway, at the park, in waiting rooms, and other places.
9) Attend readings if you can get to them. KGB Bar has a fantastic fiction reading series.
http://www.lcrw.net/kgb/
10) Watch the news. Every time something horrible happens, there is a new set of books coming out. O.J. Simpson spawned huge amount of books.
11) Check the obituaries. If an author dies, their estate often releases a lot of material for publication. Also, many people wait until after they are dead to have their biography released.
12) Go to book festivals. New York Is Book Country is the big festival of books for New York.
13) Go to conventions. Book Expo America is the giant book convention for the publishing industry in the United States.
14) Check out authors web sites. Neil Gaiman has an excellent blog. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/
15) Check out publishers web sites. Their new books will be featured prominently.
http://www.tor-forge.com/
16) Make sure to look at your favorite cover artists site. I like Donato Giancola a lot.
http://www.donatoart.com/ They will describe the books which they are creating covers for.
17) Check the various writers professional associations. Most professional associations for writers give awards for quality new fiction. The Horror Writers Association has the Bram Stoker Award. http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm The Mystery Writers of America has the Edgars http://www.mysterywriters.org/
18) Check specialty genre sites like Science Fiction Site, or Uchronia, the alternate history list, http://www.sfsite.com/ http://www.uchronia.net/
19) Most genres will also have forums or newsgroups where they discuss a specific type of book.
20) Expect that your favorite writer in comic books might also write in other formats. Alan Moore wrote his autobiography, Peter David wrote both comic books and regular science fiction books.
21) Don't expect to see an author stick to just one genre. Joe Lansdale writes mysteries, horror, and westerns. Elizabeth Lowell writes science fiction, romance, mystery, and suspense. Walter Mosley writes novels, science fiction, and mysteries. Check to see if your favorite author writes in more genres than one.
22) Check the latest movies. Many of them came from novels. Read the novel before you go see the film. Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is just as good as the film.
23) You can find author readings on Youtube. This really surprised me. I put up a video of Jonathan Carroll reading from Youtube earlier on this site.
24) Philip Jose Farmer has a myspace.com page which is pretty interesting. Authors are taking advantage of the new media. http://www.myspace.com/pjfarmer
25) Authors also do podcasts. Bantam Dell has a nice list of podcasts by authors.
http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/podcast/
26) Don't forget to support your local library. Go to local library booksales put togther by the Friends of the Library.
1) Check at your local bookstore. There is is usually a staff picks section. Powell's books
has a nice short Staff Picks section. http://www.powells.com/picks
2) Check at your local library. They usually have staff picks. This is a list of staff picks from New York Public Library. http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showlist.html?sid=5796&list=CNL3
3) If you use public transportation, watch for ads for books. I see ads for John Grisham on the New York subway as well as the Metro North.
4) Read the latest review material like Publishers Weekly or Kirkus Reviews. There are specialty review books like Horn Book for Children, Choice mostly for academic libraries, and VOYA-- Voice of Youth Advocates for teenage books.
5) Read popular magazines like Jet, People, or Newsweek. They all have book reviews.
6) Listen to the radio. Radio shows often talk about books. Jim Freund's Hour of the Wolf interviews science fiction authors. http://www.hourwolf.com/ . NPR-- National Public Radio often has authors reading.
7) Watch television. Most of the talk shows interview authors. Oprah Winfrey has a book club. It is one of those giant things. She revived a lot of classic literature. Charlie Rose invites quite a few authors. A lot of the documentaries on PBS are also in book form. Ken Burn's civil war series has an excellent corresponding book series.
8) Watch to see what other people are reading. People read everywhere, on the subway, at the park, in waiting rooms, and other places.
9) Attend readings if you can get to them. KGB Bar has a fantastic fiction reading series.
http://www.lcrw.net/kgb/
10) Watch the news. Every time something horrible happens, there is a new set of books coming out. O.J. Simpson spawned huge amount of books.
11) Check the obituaries. If an author dies, their estate often releases a lot of material for publication. Also, many people wait until after they are dead to have their biography released.
12) Go to book festivals. New York Is Book Country is the big festival of books for New York.
13) Go to conventions. Book Expo America is the giant book convention for the publishing industry in the United States.
14) Check out authors web sites. Neil Gaiman has an excellent blog. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/
15) Check out publishers web sites. Their new books will be featured prominently.
http://www.tor-forge.com/
16) Make sure to look at your favorite cover artists site. I like Donato Giancola a lot.
http://www.donatoart.com/ They will describe the books which they are creating covers for.
17) Check the various writers professional associations. Most professional associations for writers give awards for quality new fiction. The Horror Writers Association has the Bram Stoker Award. http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm The Mystery Writers of America has the Edgars http://www.mysterywriters.org/
18) Check specialty genre sites like Science Fiction Site, or Uchronia, the alternate history list, http://www.sfsite.com/ http://www.uchronia.net/
19) Most genres will also have forums or newsgroups where they discuss a specific type of book.
20) Expect that your favorite writer in comic books might also write in other formats. Alan Moore wrote his autobiography, Peter David wrote both comic books and regular science fiction books.
21) Don't expect to see an author stick to just one genre. Joe Lansdale writes mysteries, horror, and westerns. Elizabeth Lowell writes science fiction, romance, mystery, and suspense. Walter Mosley writes novels, science fiction, and mysteries. Check to see if your favorite author writes in more genres than one.
22) Check the latest movies. Many of them came from novels. Read the novel before you go see the film. Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is just as good as the film.
23) You can find author readings on Youtube. This really surprised me. I put up a video of Jonathan Carroll reading from Youtube earlier on this site.
24) Philip Jose Farmer has a myspace.com page which is pretty interesting. Authors are taking advantage of the new media. http://www.myspace.com/pjfarmer
25) Authors also do podcasts. Bantam Dell has a nice list of podcasts by authors.
http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/podcast/
26) Don't forget to support your local library. Go to local library booksales put togther by the Friends of the Library.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Speculative Fiction; The Many Names for Science Ficton and Fantasy
There is a wonderful name for fantastic fiction: Speculative Fiction. Supposedly this means any kind of fiction that speculates about the nature of reality. A big bite to chew off if I may say so.
I've always thought that this was a way to sneak in the literary minded fantastic. This is because speculative fiction is supposed to cover magical realism, science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, and alternative history fiction.
I enjoy reading and I find the urge to say something has literary merit is pretentious. I think it is a way to preserve fiction that is only read by academics. Literary merit should be focused on the truly great books. It is often applied too widely.
Magical realism is a subset of speculative fiction. It was originally started in Latin America. The most famous proponent of magical realism is Gabriel Garcia Marquez who has written numerous books including One Hundred Years of Solitude. He stated that he always liked to blur the line between fantasy and reality. His books are great reading. Also Borges, Isabel Allende, Jorge Amado, and Yann Martel are considered magical realism. Yann Martel's Life of Pi, is very interesting it is about a young boy who spends seven months at sea with a tiger in a lifeboat trying to survive. The tiger is never found in the end. Pi also manages to practice Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism at the same time, a rather fantastic feat.
With this, I will switch to the idea of Alternative History. This genre is about where something different occurred in the past, and the present world is somehow different. Quite often it is things like the Ottoman empire never fell, or the nazis succeeded. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick presents an America where the nazis have concurred it. Another famous series that is more recent and definitely science fiction is Harry Turtledove's World War Series. Alien reptiles invade during world war II and attempt to take over the world. It changes the course of history. A very entertaining series. A classic book in this genre is A Connectict Yankee In King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, a satire where a man from Mark Twain's time travels back to the time of Camelot. For something very contemporary, you might try The Plot Against America about a place where Franklin Roosevelt didn't get elected for a third term, but Lindbergh did. It is about a slow slip into American fascism.
We are moving into the concept of science fiction or as it was originally called by Hugo Gernsback, scientifiction-- scientific fiction. Science fiction was not the original term for the genre. Now there are abbreviations for the genre sci-fi and sf. I think of abbreviations sometimes as being lazy. Science fiction, is most often fiction that speculates about future events usually focused on science and technology. It has been with us for a very long time.
Most people dismiss science fiction as about B.E.M.s, or Bug Eyed Monsters. I happen to really like bug eyed monsters. Aliens are fun to read about in their wide variety. There is nothing like reading about pip the minidragon in the Pip and Flinx series by Alan Dean Foster, or being terrorized by the Coeurla in The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt.
There are many subgenres of science fiction. Hard Science Fiction is fiction which focuses on using real science to predict the future. Jack McDevitt is a wonderful example of a contemporary hard science fiction writer. Also Kim Stanley Robinson when he wrote about the terraforming of mars is writing hard science fiction.
The opposite is soft science fiction. Science fiction about social issues. Ursula Leguin is the quintessential soft science fiction writer. One of the books I have read, The Margarets by Sherri S. Tepper is a good example of soft science fiction. Sherri S. Tepper also wrote The Gate To A Womans Country, a good example of both soft science fiction and feminist fiction. For something more accessible to the every day reader, there is The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood. This was made into a wonderful film that is quite scary.
On this note we have utopian or dystopian science fiction. This focuses on popular fear. 1984 by George Orwell is the ultimate dystopian novel. It is required reading in high school. Remember "Big Brother Is Watching You." Another subgenre of utopian fiction is Ecotopian fiction. The most famous of this type of fiction is Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. More recently there is the Ecolitan series by L.E. Modesitt.
Then there is the concept of cyberpunk, or combining computers with a punk reality. The most famous of these books and some say the first novel in this genre is John Brunner's Shockwave Rider. Cyberpunk has almost become real today. Bruce Sterling who writes science fiction, wrote a book about Kevin Mitnick, The Hacker Crackdown, which reads very much like a cyberpunk novel.
On a side note some of the modern science fiction writers are introducing something that rides the boundaries of science fiction and contemporary thrillers. I call it the near future thriller. William Gibson recently wrote Spook Country which has elements of cyberpunk in it, even though it is considered a mainstream bestselling novel. Also Charles Stross recently wrote a novel called Halting State where police are called in to solve a crime inside an online roleplaying game.
A digression from cyberpunk is steam punk, or victorian era science fiction written by present authors. Alan Moore in his graphic novel sequence, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen revives all of the characters of 19th century science fiction and turns them into superheroes in an odd alternate Victorian england. This is an example of both Superhero fiction and steampunk. Another example of steampunk is The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling. In this world, a secret society controls a babbage machine which they use as a supercomputer and have been using since Victorian times.
David Drake is one of my favorite writers. A series that is loved by many military people is Hammer's Slammers a story about future tank warfare. This is military science fiction. Another example of military science fiction that deals with tanks is Bolo by Keith Laumer. Baen books is the leading publisher of military science fiction today. I rather like their books. They are very entertaining. Jerry Pournelle who wrote the nonfiction book The Strategy of Technology, also created the Codominium universe where Russia and the United States ally to create a bleak future history. The codominium setting is mostly military science fiction.
Of course if you are thinking of military science fiction, you also are thinking of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction as well. Quite honestly, I don't read much apocalyptic fiction. The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard is about as far as I get with this kind of thing. I like to think I have a positive vision of the future. However, if you want a really good well written accessible book about the death and rebirth of civilization, read A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
There are two major acknowledged ages in Science Fiction, The Golden Age, and The New Wave. The golden age of science fiction is mostly the 1930s and 1940s. It is the age of John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding magazine. This is when the major writers and artists of the genre began to be established. Virgil Finlay and FrankR. Paul are the two major artists that came from this time period. Isaac Asimov and others helped turned science fiction more mainstream at this time. The New Wave happened in the 1960's. It is a turn towards soft science fiction or social commentary. During the new wave, Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, and Michael Moorcock expanded the boundaries of science fition.
What most people see as science fiction is really Space Opera, romantic future adventure stories. The real foundation of space opera started with Flash Gordon who was always fighting Ming the Merciless. Today we see two main space operas, Star Trek, and Star Wars. Star Trek is far more romantic than many people realize. The theme song shows this. Captain Kirk is always getting a new woman.
Star Trek Lyrics:
Beyond the rim of the starlight,
my love is wandering in star flight.
I know he'll find
In star clustered reaches
Love, strange love
A star woman teaches.
I know his journey ends never.
His Star Trek will go on forever.
But tell him while
He wanders his starry sea,
Remember,
Remember me.
Star Wars was originally meant to be a comedy when it was first released. It turned into a movie empire. It is what people think of when someone mentions science fiction. There are very strong elements of fantasy with the jedi knights in Star Wars. I think of it as more science fantasy than science fiction.
Space Western is not a category which I know much about. I haven't seen too many of this kind of thing. I am guessing it is high noon in space, or the lone ranger in space. The movie Outland starring Sean Connery is about a lawman coming to clean up a space station. It is definitely a space western.
When I think of science fantasy, I think of Darkover written by Marion Zimmer Bradley with its psychic leroni, or Witch World by Andre Norton with its psionic witches. Both of these books posit a kind of psychic super science in a medieval setting. They set this "science" against modern day explorers who are trying to take the planet for themselves. Both Andre Norton and Marion Zimmer Bradley are writing in the boundaries of science fiction and fantasy.
You can also categorize the Darkover novels as Romantic Fantasy, because there is a strong element of love and intrigue in the novels.
Sword and Sorcery is a very commen theme in fantasy literature. It is a form of low fantasy. Conan the Barbarian is the most famous of low fantasy characters. Robert E. Howard didn't write most of the Conan novels. L. Sprague De Camp basically expanded the series into what we know as Conan. Now there are innumerable spinoffs from Conan. Faffhrd and Grey Mouser are two excellent fantasy characters created by Fritz Leiber. I think of sword and sorcery as have sword will travel.
The first thing which people think of when they think of fantasy is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien this is high fantasy at its best. The Hobbit regularly gets assigned as standard reading for junior high and high school in American schools. It is very well written writing.
The best fantasy has strong mythic overtones. The Queen of Elflands Daughter by Lord Dunsany is an example of well written myth fantasy drawn from myths and legends surrounding Ireland and England. Some more modern examples of myth fantasy are American Gods and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. These are both set in the modern day.
You could almost call them urban fantasy. Urban fantasy is putting mythic elements into a modern setting. Charles De Lint does this wonderfully. I'll probably pick up his new book Little Grrrl Lost about a six inch tall girl and her friendship with a big person in a modern urban setting. There is something always interesting in fairytales or fantasies about little people. I always liked to watch the Lilliputians in the movie of Gulliver's Travels.
There is still the regular fantastic literature to consider. I still read things like Erik Stevenson's Malazan Book of Fallen, or George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.
Something which I don't often read is Horror which is considered part of speculative fiction. I am not big on being scared. I have read Cujo by Stephen King about a rabid dog, that is about as scary as I want to get. There is some relation between science fiction and fantasy. Dean R. Koontz, the bestselling author started out writing science fiction then later switched to writing horror. Dan Simmons writes both science fiction and horror. His Endymion series is quite interesting.
In horror, vampires, werewolves, and zombies seem to define the genre. Anne Rice's vampire novels are more slightly erotic adventure stories than terrifying novels. Also, World War Z by Max Brooks is more of an adventure and survival story about surviving zombie attacks than a true horror novel. Max Brooks other book, The Zombie Survival Guide is more humor than horror. I prefer my monsters to be more humorous than terrifying. You Suck: A Vampire Love Story by Christopher Moore is an excellent example of a humorous vampire novel. Again, I prefer my lycanthropes to be more adventurous than scary. The Werewolves of London by Brian Stableford is more of an adventure story than anything else.
I also actually like H.P. Lovecraft and people who write adventure pastiches on the Cthulhu mythos. Once again, stories like At The Mountain of Madness are not particularly scary, they are more strange than anything else. I don't have a Cthulhu doll like many people, but am thinking of getting one. I might get a shoggoth doll instead.
I don't read many superhero novels. Somehow superheros belong in comic books more than they belong in novels. Nevertheless, now you can buy novelizations of Vampire Hunter D, Batman, Superman, the X-Men and many other characters. I actually enjoyed the Dark Horse comics novelization of Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi. It is no longer in print. The manga of course are much better. There is a certain woodenness in many superhero characters. Of couse, sometimes, if the person creates an original hero for a superhero novel, it can be entertaining. Count Geiger's Blues by Michael Bishop parodies and at the same time tells the story of superhero Count Geiger.
The other type of fantasy not yet mentioned is the pulp heroes, The Spider Master of Men, Doc Savage, and The Shadow. As they say, "The Shadow Knows." Baen has reprinted the Spider Master of Men and is distributing it as a paperback. The original pulp heroes crossed the detective with the superman. Doc Savage is a self made superman, stronger, faster, and more intelligent than the peopel surrounding him. An interesting take off of Doc Savage is a fantasy novel called Doc Sidhe by Aaron Alston. Doc Sidhe is a kind of an alternative Doc Savage sent in an elfen art deco 1930s. There is magic, intrigue, and a very pulpy setting.
Some mystery novels have a fantastic twist to them. There are mysteries set in ancient rome, cat detectives, fantasy detectives, and others. One of the most hated mystery novels by science fiction fans is Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb. It successfully lampoons science fiction writers and fans. There is even a followup, Zombies of the Gene Pool. Isaac Asimov wrote numerous mystery novels.
If you are following the mysterious, somehow supernatural fiction also got mixed in with speculative fiction. I honestly don't know that much about supernatural fiction. Reading about hauntings and ghosts unless they are in The Weekly World News doesn't fascinate me that much. I cannot get myself to read The Amityville Horror, or the Haunting of Hell House by Richard Matheson. The one short story which I can recommend is "Pigeons From Hell" by Robert E. Howard.
By the way, Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is being reproduced for theaters soon. I wish they had done the Incredible Shrinking Man first. It is a much better story.
I've always thought that this was a way to sneak in the literary minded fantastic. This is because speculative fiction is supposed to cover magical realism, science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, and alternative history fiction.
I enjoy reading and I find the urge to say something has literary merit is pretentious. I think it is a way to preserve fiction that is only read by academics. Literary merit should be focused on the truly great books. It is often applied too widely.
Magical realism is a subset of speculative fiction. It was originally started in Latin America. The most famous proponent of magical realism is Gabriel Garcia Marquez who has written numerous books including One Hundred Years of Solitude. He stated that he always liked to blur the line between fantasy and reality. His books are great reading. Also Borges, Isabel Allende, Jorge Amado, and Yann Martel are considered magical realism. Yann Martel's Life of Pi, is very interesting it is about a young boy who spends seven months at sea with a tiger in a lifeboat trying to survive. The tiger is never found in the end. Pi also manages to practice Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism at the same time, a rather fantastic feat.
With this, I will switch to the idea of Alternative History. This genre is about where something different occurred in the past, and the present world is somehow different. Quite often it is things like the Ottoman empire never fell, or the nazis succeeded. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick presents an America where the nazis have concurred it. Another famous series that is more recent and definitely science fiction is Harry Turtledove's World War Series. Alien reptiles invade during world war II and attempt to take over the world. It changes the course of history. A very entertaining series. A classic book in this genre is A Connectict Yankee In King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, a satire where a man from Mark Twain's time travels back to the time of Camelot. For something very contemporary, you might try The Plot Against America about a place where Franklin Roosevelt didn't get elected for a third term, but Lindbergh did. It is about a slow slip into American fascism.
We are moving into the concept of science fiction or as it was originally called by Hugo Gernsback, scientifiction-- scientific fiction. Science fiction was not the original term for the genre. Now there are abbreviations for the genre sci-fi and sf. I think of abbreviations sometimes as being lazy. Science fiction, is most often fiction that speculates about future events usually focused on science and technology. It has been with us for a very long time.
Most people dismiss science fiction as about B.E.M.s, or Bug Eyed Monsters. I happen to really like bug eyed monsters. Aliens are fun to read about in their wide variety. There is nothing like reading about pip the minidragon in the Pip and Flinx series by Alan Dean Foster, or being terrorized by the Coeurla in The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt.
There are many subgenres of science fiction. Hard Science Fiction is fiction which focuses on using real science to predict the future. Jack McDevitt is a wonderful example of a contemporary hard science fiction writer. Also Kim Stanley Robinson when he wrote about the terraforming of mars is writing hard science fiction.
The opposite is soft science fiction. Science fiction about social issues. Ursula Leguin is the quintessential soft science fiction writer. One of the books I have read, The Margarets by Sherri S. Tepper is a good example of soft science fiction. Sherri S. Tepper also wrote The Gate To A Womans Country, a good example of both soft science fiction and feminist fiction. For something more accessible to the every day reader, there is The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood. This was made into a wonderful film that is quite scary.
On this note we have utopian or dystopian science fiction. This focuses on popular fear. 1984 by George Orwell is the ultimate dystopian novel. It is required reading in high school. Remember "Big Brother Is Watching You." Another subgenre of utopian fiction is Ecotopian fiction. The most famous of this type of fiction is Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. More recently there is the Ecolitan series by L.E. Modesitt.
Then there is the concept of cyberpunk, or combining computers with a punk reality. The most famous of these books and some say the first novel in this genre is John Brunner's Shockwave Rider. Cyberpunk has almost become real today. Bruce Sterling who writes science fiction, wrote a book about Kevin Mitnick, The Hacker Crackdown, which reads very much like a cyberpunk novel.
On a side note some of the modern science fiction writers are introducing something that rides the boundaries of science fiction and contemporary thrillers. I call it the near future thriller. William Gibson recently wrote Spook Country which has elements of cyberpunk in it, even though it is considered a mainstream bestselling novel. Also Charles Stross recently wrote a novel called Halting State where police are called in to solve a crime inside an online roleplaying game.
A digression from cyberpunk is steam punk, or victorian era science fiction written by present authors. Alan Moore in his graphic novel sequence, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen revives all of the characters of 19th century science fiction and turns them into superheroes in an odd alternate Victorian england. This is an example of both Superhero fiction and steampunk. Another example of steampunk is The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling. In this world, a secret society controls a babbage machine which they use as a supercomputer and have been using since Victorian times.
David Drake is one of my favorite writers. A series that is loved by many military people is Hammer's Slammers a story about future tank warfare. This is military science fiction. Another example of military science fiction that deals with tanks is Bolo by Keith Laumer. Baen books is the leading publisher of military science fiction today. I rather like their books. They are very entertaining. Jerry Pournelle who wrote the nonfiction book The Strategy of Technology, also created the Codominium universe where Russia and the United States ally to create a bleak future history. The codominium setting is mostly military science fiction.
Of course if you are thinking of military science fiction, you also are thinking of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction as well. Quite honestly, I don't read much apocalyptic fiction. The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard is about as far as I get with this kind of thing. I like to think I have a positive vision of the future. However, if you want a really good well written accessible book about the death and rebirth of civilization, read A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
There are two major acknowledged ages in Science Fiction, The Golden Age, and The New Wave. The golden age of science fiction is mostly the 1930s and 1940s. It is the age of John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding magazine. This is when the major writers and artists of the genre began to be established. Virgil Finlay and FrankR. Paul are the two major artists that came from this time period. Isaac Asimov and others helped turned science fiction more mainstream at this time. The New Wave happened in the 1960's. It is a turn towards soft science fiction or social commentary. During the new wave, Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, and Michael Moorcock expanded the boundaries of science fition.
What most people see as science fiction is really Space Opera, romantic future adventure stories. The real foundation of space opera started with Flash Gordon who was always fighting Ming the Merciless. Today we see two main space operas, Star Trek, and Star Wars. Star Trek is far more romantic than many people realize. The theme song shows this. Captain Kirk is always getting a new woman.
Star Trek Lyrics:
Beyond the rim of the starlight,
my love is wandering in star flight.
I know he'll find
In star clustered reaches
Love, strange love
A star woman teaches.
I know his journey ends never.
His Star Trek will go on forever.
But tell him while
He wanders his starry sea,
Remember,
Remember me.
Star Wars was originally meant to be a comedy when it was first released. It turned into a movie empire. It is what people think of when someone mentions science fiction. There are very strong elements of fantasy with the jedi knights in Star Wars. I think of it as more science fantasy than science fiction.
Space Western is not a category which I know much about. I haven't seen too many of this kind of thing. I am guessing it is high noon in space, or the lone ranger in space. The movie Outland starring Sean Connery is about a lawman coming to clean up a space station. It is definitely a space western.
When I think of science fantasy, I think of Darkover written by Marion Zimmer Bradley with its psychic leroni, or Witch World by Andre Norton with its psionic witches. Both of these books posit a kind of psychic super science in a medieval setting. They set this "science" against modern day explorers who are trying to take the planet for themselves. Both Andre Norton and Marion Zimmer Bradley are writing in the boundaries of science fiction and fantasy.
You can also categorize the Darkover novels as Romantic Fantasy, because there is a strong element of love and intrigue in the novels.
Sword and Sorcery is a very commen theme in fantasy literature. It is a form of low fantasy. Conan the Barbarian is the most famous of low fantasy characters. Robert E. Howard didn't write most of the Conan novels. L. Sprague De Camp basically expanded the series into what we know as Conan. Now there are innumerable spinoffs from Conan. Faffhrd and Grey Mouser are two excellent fantasy characters created by Fritz Leiber. I think of sword and sorcery as have sword will travel.
The first thing which people think of when they think of fantasy is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien this is high fantasy at its best. The Hobbit regularly gets assigned as standard reading for junior high and high school in American schools. It is very well written writing.
The best fantasy has strong mythic overtones. The Queen of Elflands Daughter by Lord Dunsany is an example of well written myth fantasy drawn from myths and legends surrounding Ireland and England. Some more modern examples of myth fantasy are American Gods and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. These are both set in the modern day.
You could almost call them urban fantasy. Urban fantasy is putting mythic elements into a modern setting. Charles De Lint does this wonderfully. I'll probably pick up his new book Little Grrrl Lost about a six inch tall girl and her friendship with a big person in a modern urban setting. There is something always interesting in fairytales or fantasies about little people. I always liked to watch the Lilliputians in the movie of Gulliver's Travels.
There is still the regular fantastic literature to consider. I still read things like Erik Stevenson's Malazan Book of Fallen, or George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.
Something which I don't often read is Horror which is considered part of speculative fiction. I am not big on being scared. I have read Cujo by Stephen King about a rabid dog, that is about as scary as I want to get. There is some relation between science fiction and fantasy. Dean R. Koontz, the bestselling author started out writing science fiction then later switched to writing horror. Dan Simmons writes both science fiction and horror. His Endymion series is quite interesting.
In horror, vampires, werewolves, and zombies seem to define the genre. Anne Rice's vampire novels are more slightly erotic adventure stories than terrifying novels. Also, World War Z by Max Brooks is more of an adventure and survival story about surviving zombie attacks than a true horror novel. Max Brooks other book, The Zombie Survival Guide is more humor than horror. I prefer my monsters to be more humorous than terrifying. You Suck: A Vampire Love Story by Christopher Moore is an excellent example of a humorous vampire novel. Again, I prefer my lycanthropes to be more adventurous than scary. The Werewolves of London by Brian Stableford is more of an adventure story than anything else.
I also actually like H.P. Lovecraft and people who write adventure pastiches on the Cthulhu mythos. Once again, stories like At The Mountain of Madness are not particularly scary, they are more strange than anything else. I don't have a Cthulhu doll like many people, but am thinking of getting one. I might get a shoggoth doll instead.
I don't read many superhero novels. Somehow superheros belong in comic books more than they belong in novels. Nevertheless, now you can buy novelizations of Vampire Hunter D, Batman, Superman, the X-Men and many other characters. I actually enjoyed the Dark Horse comics novelization of Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi. It is no longer in print. The manga of course are much better. There is a certain woodenness in many superhero characters. Of couse, sometimes, if the person creates an original hero for a superhero novel, it can be entertaining. Count Geiger's Blues by Michael Bishop parodies and at the same time tells the story of superhero Count Geiger.
The other type of fantasy not yet mentioned is the pulp heroes, The Spider Master of Men, Doc Savage, and The Shadow. As they say, "The Shadow Knows." Baen has reprinted the Spider Master of Men and is distributing it as a paperback. The original pulp heroes crossed the detective with the superman. Doc Savage is a self made superman, stronger, faster, and more intelligent than the peopel surrounding him. An interesting take off of Doc Savage is a fantasy novel called Doc Sidhe by Aaron Alston. Doc Sidhe is a kind of an alternative Doc Savage sent in an elfen art deco 1930s. There is magic, intrigue, and a very pulpy setting.
Some mystery novels have a fantastic twist to them. There are mysteries set in ancient rome, cat detectives, fantasy detectives, and others. One of the most hated mystery novels by science fiction fans is Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb. It successfully lampoons science fiction writers and fans. There is even a followup, Zombies of the Gene Pool. Isaac Asimov wrote numerous mystery novels.
If you are following the mysterious, somehow supernatural fiction also got mixed in with speculative fiction. I honestly don't know that much about supernatural fiction. Reading about hauntings and ghosts unless they are in The Weekly World News doesn't fascinate me that much. I cannot get myself to read The Amityville Horror, or the Haunting of Hell House by Richard Matheson. The one short story which I can recommend is "Pigeons From Hell" by Robert E. Howard.
By the way, Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is being reproduced for theaters soon. I wish they had done the Incredible Shrinking Man first. It is a much better story.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Thoughts On Looking For Who Reads My Blog, Jack McDevitt Odyssey
I have a variety of thoughts on who might read my blog. I think first of all we have people who are interested in fantasy books, especially roleplaying games and books which might tie into them. I am thinking of authors like Glen Cook, Robin Hobb, Tad Williams, David Drake and other popular mainstream fantasy authors. Not so much serial fantasy writers like R.A. Salvatore or Margaret Weis who write the Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms paperbacks. I don't much care for these things.
This comes from posting about my blog on several threads about books on game sites.
The next obvious group of people are book gadget people, people interested in creating search engines or playing with widgets and ebooks. I had posted a number of ebooks earlier.
The next group would be readers of myth fantasy, people who like Neil Gaiman, Charles De Lint, or Jane Yolen. People who want their fantasy mixed with mythology and fairytales. People who probably have a copy of the complete tales of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault's fairytales lying around the house or maybe the Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, and other strange Dover editions.
The next group might be people who are interested in science fiction, especially literary science fiction, things like Jeff Vandermeer, Cory Doctorow, or Charles Stross. This is all of course conjecture.
I am hoping it is not the people who read all the Star Trek novels. Star Trek is kind of fun in a way, it is "The Lone Ranger In Space", or World War II u-boats in space. Captain fire the photon torpedos.
I have been looking at my hit counters and seeing a pretty varied crowd, so people look at this site from the Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe, The United Kingdom, Australia, and other english speaking countries.
Their might be a few bibliophiles thrown in the mix, people who just like books, bookselling, places where you can get book reviews or hear odd things about books. Right now, I am writing from a pure expository, unedited style with no grammar or spell checker. It is just me and only me.
I have been looking at a lot of booksites. Most of these are very clean, they have a neat little picture of a book, then five or six paragraphs about the book in question. Then there is a little star next to the review with a one to five rating. Not exactly my style.
Of course, most sites are by women, mostly women read novels. This is a given fact. I am a man in a womans world in some ways. The thing which most women read are romances and classics. I see the classics, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, and other stuffy European authors being reviewed. I also see a lot of popular romantic comfort writing, Candace Camp, Eugenia Price, Barabara Taylor Bradford, Victoria Holt and other writers with sweet tales and beautiful flowery covers on their books.
I also think people might come here because I give my exact feeling of the moment on what I am reading. I try not to be too dry.
Another group which comes up is older men who are near retirement or retired who want to have a hobby, and that hobby usually involves books. They choose to write about more obscure literary works like Jack London's Iron Heel, or poets like Lillian Moore or Robert Frost. It seems that an awful lot of older people read poetry.
Some things which I have noticed when looking through book web sites is a real affection for knitting. Knitting is somehow a sign you read. We have a knitting group at our library, in fact two of our librarians teach knitting as part of the group. The other is the presence of cats. A lot of book people have pictures of their cats on their book blogs. Jeff Vandermeer even posted a picture of himself with his cat in the comments section. There aren't as many pictures of people with their dogs. A few are out there.
Many of the blogs have book challenges. The major challenge which people undertake is to read 52 books, a book week and review it by the end of the year. There are also things like graphic novel challenges. Read five or six different graphic novels. This can be almost anything-- books about Albert Einstein, the classics. This is an example of a book challenge sites. Lisers A-Z Challenge http://tint0rera.blogspot.com/ . Read books with titles that run the full gamut of the alphabet. I find this fascinating. Here is another site with a Candadian Book Challenge, read books from Canade. http://bookmineset.blogspot.com/2007/12/canadian-book-challenge-2nd-update.html
I am not a big reader of the classics. I find them to be a bit stuffy at times. Dickens turns me off with Oliver Twist. I liked a Tale of Two Cities however. I can stand the russian novelists like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but they are long, complex and heavy to read. This is the stuff I was forced to read in high school and college and it just got to me.
I much prefer classical literature if I must read old literature in the sense of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages and Ancient China. Li Po's poetry is wonderful. The Song of Roland formed the base for Steven King's Dark Tower Trilogy as well as Gordon R. Dickson's Childe Cycle in science fiction. Gawain and The Green Night and the Pearl are fine examples of the chivalric age. I of course love the Odyssey which my father read to me when I was a small child. The Golden Ass of Apuleius is a great piece of fantasy, sometimes considered the first true fantasy novel.
I am hoping that there are at least a few people who love classical literature, in the sense of ancient literature.
The other group of people I hope are reading this blog are people who are interested in the issues facing libraries in the United States. Things like literacy, digital rights management, internet reference services, and other odds and ends around libraries.
I am hoping that a few people also have an appreciation for bookstores as well. Things like how to display books, proper lighting, bookstore cafes, book kiosks and other details.
This is a pure rant and I am writing it quickly. I write most of my posts in about a half an hour to an hour.
I will try to find interesting authors on video, add widgets which make an almost complete bookstore, build a list of very nice book review sites, set up a list of books I have read recently, write some reviews and generally try and keep this site as entertaining as possible.
Maybe, I am spending too much time trying to drag traffic from places like fuel my blog, newsgroup sites, or bumpzee and I should be trying to get people to visit from other book sites.
The whole SEO, search engine optimization thing is completely new to me and is a real eye opening learning experience.
Anyways good night. I will fill in some more things in the morning and edit this post a bit.
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I started on Jack McDevitt's Odyssey. I like Jack McDevitt's writing style. He is such a good writer that he doesn't have to use violence to create tension. He is very good at describing political intrigue, natural disasters, and accidents. His novels have been nominated for the nebula awards. I would call him a hard science fiction adventure story writer.
He describes things like alien archeology. Also the aliens which humans run into aren't smarter than we are. One alien group is stuck with technology that is from around 1918. Another alien group has to be rescued because their civilization has fallen apart. There are a few planets where civilizations have risen then collapsed completely.
We also aren't super successful colonizers of space. The earth has two marginal colognies. One is run by religious fanatics, the other is run by political wackos. Our lagrange point colonies have not worked out. The earth is in bad shape from global warming and global flooding.
At the beginning of each chapter in Odyssey, he uses the classic mechanism of the fake quote from someone in the future. Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov used to do this. It is a rather entertaining little detail. He also includes short newscasts inside his writing. This takes some skill to make them believable, but he manages to do it convincgly.
This is a novel of first contact with an alien race. Humans have spotted the aliens in space. So far, people are arguing whether they are a natural phenomena or a real alien presence. The Academy, a space exploration group sends out a group to follow the "moonriders" round ships that fly in formation and are sited at various locations.
The ship travels on an odyssey to a variety of worlds trying to track down the "moonriders." Then a young girl on the ship receives a telepathic message that the "moonriders" are going to destroy a supercollider that is being built in deep space.
The ending is marvelous. The Academy tries to rescue the scientists at the supercollider while it is being destroyed by the aliens. There is a subtheme about the supercollider that there is a possibility if it is fully developed it will tear a hole in space time and wipe out humanity. The "moonriders" although they are destroying the object are possibly saving the human race. We never get to actually meet any of the moonriders, they are an enigma to the end.
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I have been looking at a few different blogs in the blog review section of a newsgroup. I found one that surprised me. I usually don't see much good poetry. This is really really good, it has a very smooth and well written feel to it.
http://themusingsofmadness.blogspot.com/
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