Books read on the iPod, StarTrek
Star Trek was the first show I read fanfic for, although given that it was all published it's never felt quite the same. Anyway, I actually started with the James Blish episode summaries, which were handy given that I only saw a handful of episodes, and I was a bit baffled about where all the books were supposed to fit in for quite some time. Then again, I did also try and work out how old the Famous Five should actually be, given all the holidays they managed to have. I have yet to entirely let go of my desire for a tenuously believably backstory :)
So. Two of these were re-reads - I didn't count The Wounded Sky, because skim-reading it in a secondhand bookstore over fifteen years ago did not leave me with anything other than a vague impression of aliens. I'll start with the entirely new (to me) one first. Those with fond memories should just skip to the last review, because the first three are a touch grumpy.
John M. Ford, How much for just the planet. This is one of the tie-in novels that everyone always goes on about as being funny and well-written and different, and I suspect that I didn't read it because I missed it in my initial obsessive acquisitiveness and then was worried it wouldn't match up to the hype. Which it didn't, but I may well be the wrong audience for this because a) almost all of John M Ford's stuff leaves me distantly admiring but unmoved and b) I am not American. Neither are most of the characters, but the plot behaves as if everyone is equally familiar with American food, customs and media (and from a particular time period, as well) and given at least a third of the cast were aliens and all of them a reasonable distance in the future it persistently ticked me off.
I do like the set-up for this - the Enterprise and a Klingon ship arrive simultaneously on a planet rich in dilithium; the natives, who tend to burst into song at the drop of a hat, engineer matters to ensure that neither of them manage to exploit the colony - but the execution misses me by a mile. It doesn't work for me as humour, either, and I don't know what it is about Ford's stuff. I've been putting off reading The Dragon Waiting for years, because although the subject matter should make it fascinating I just think it won't work for me.
But I did say "most" about Ford's other books, and I should mention that I really liked The Final Reflection (which is a Klingon-based serious tie-in). Haven't read it for years, tho', and reading this made me a bit reluctant to go back.
Diane Duane, The Wounded Sky. I like Duane's work when the stakes are medium-high - Deep Wizardry, say, where the Earth's oceans are in danger, or the other smaller scale wizard books. When the stakes become huge there's a failure of tension - if the whole universe is in jeopardy, is it really going to go wrong? - and, often, a resolution involving a lot of warm fuzziness and lack of specifics. Also, she tends to kill off the non-humans (just not irreversibly). She does come up with some great nonhumans, tho', and the crystal spider creature K't'lk is very cool. The plot, tho', which involves a new supra-warp drive that is distorting the fabric of the universe (by creating another bizarrely non-functional universe that interferes with it) is very much high-stakes, and as the resolution involves teaching the new universe how to love, warm fuzziness as well. I feel like I'm being told how hard and important all of this is, but it never feels like it was going to go any other way.
Also, there is a really annoying bit near the beginning where the Enterprise heads out to test the drive. Everyone knows that it will be targetted by the Klingons, so of course there is no escort, and in the ensuing chase/battle, Sulu executes a manoeuvre that causes a completely harmless star to go nova (and kill the Klingons). I realise non-interference is more honoured in the breach than the observance, but it didn't really have me cheering on the good guys.
Janet Kagan, Uhura's Song. This is a re-read. I really liked this one when I was younger, but it's now wobbling on that border between still entertaining and too much self-indulgence; the main character, an OC, is just that much too perfect. Still. The cat-like aliens are great, and there's at least some examination of intra-cultural tensions and communication problems, even if Evan somehow always manages to say the right thing. The plague, however, never makes it past paper-thin pretext, particularly with regard to its immediate and completely effective cure (a cure that the locals have come up with, despite the condition being a self-limiting mild childhood illness...). And one day I will read an sf/f book that understands the difference between an anti-toxin, a serum and a vaccination, but there appears to be no danger of that here.
Barbara Hambly, Ishmael. I loved this all those years ago and I still like it now. Spock, amnesiac and injured after interrogation with a Klingon mind-altering device, escapes to Seattle, Earth, in the 1860s. Where he manages an unacknowledged cross-over with the TV show Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and in doing so ultimately prevents a time-travel assassination plot that would destroy his future. It's nicely told, the characters are great, the world-building (well, research) works well and I end up caring about a lot of people, especially those involved in slightly unconventional romances. Hambly is one of those authors I keep meaning to read more by, and this has reminded me to track down her historical detective novels.
So. Two of these were re-reads - I didn't count The Wounded Sky, because skim-reading it in a secondhand bookstore over fifteen years ago did not leave me with anything other than a vague impression of aliens. I'll start with the entirely new (to me) one first. Those with fond memories should just skip to the last review, because the first three are a touch grumpy.
John M. Ford, How much for just the planet. This is one of the tie-in novels that everyone always goes on about as being funny and well-written and different, and I suspect that I didn't read it because I missed it in my initial obsessive acquisitiveness and then was worried it wouldn't match up to the hype. Which it didn't, but I may well be the wrong audience for this because a) almost all of John M Ford's stuff leaves me distantly admiring but unmoved and b) I am not American. Neither are most of the characters, but the plot behaves as if everyone is equally familiar with American food, customs and media (and from a particular time period, as well) and given at least a third of the cast were aliens and all of them a reasonable distance in the future it persistently ticked me off.
I do like the set-up for this - the Enterprise and a Klingon ship arrive simultaneously on a planet rich in dilithium; the natives, who tend to burst into song at the drop of a hat, engineer matters to ensure that neither of them manage to exploit the colony - but the execution misses me by a mile. It doesn't work for me as humour, either, and I don't know what it is about Ford's stuff. I've been putting off reading The Dragon Waiting for years, because although the subject matter should make it fascinating I just think it won't work for me.
But I did say "most" about Ford's other books, and I should mention that I really liked The Final Reflection (which is a Klingon-based serious tie-in). Haven't read it for years, tho', and reading this made me a bit reluctant to go back.
Diane Duane, The Wounded Sky. I like Duane's work when the stakes are medium-high - Deep Wizardry, say, where the Earth's oceans are in danger, or the other smaller scale wizard books. When the stakes become huge there's a failure of tension - if the whole universe is in jeopardy, is it really going to go wrong? - and, often, a resolution involving a lot of warm fuzziness and lack of specifics. Also, she tends to kill off the non-humans (just not irreversibly). She does come up with some great nonhumans, tho', and the crystal spider creature K't'lk is very cool. The plot, tho', which involves a new supra-warp drive that is distorting the fabric of the universe (by creating another bizarrely non-functional universe that interferes with it) is very much high-stakes, and as the resolution involves teaching the new universe how to love, warm fuzziness as well. I feel like I'm being told how hard and important all of this is, but it never feels like it was going to go any other way.
Also, there is a really annoying bit near the beginning where the Enterprise heads out to test the drive. Everyone knows that it will be targetted by the Klingons, so of course there is no escort, and in the ensuing chase/battle, Sulu executes a manoeuvre that causes a completely harmless star to go nova (and kill the Klingons). I realise non-interference is more honoured in the breach than the observance, but it didn't really have me cheering on the good guys.
Janet Kagan, Uhura's Song. This is a re-read. I really liked this one when I was younger, but it's now wobbling on that border between still entertaining and too much self-indulgence; the main character, an OC, is just that much too perfect. Still. The cat-like aliens are great, and there's at least some examination of intra-cultural tensions and communication problems, even if Evan somehow always manages to say the right thing. The plague, however, never makes it past paper-thin pretext, particularly with regard to its immediate and completely effective cure (a cure that the locals have come up with, despite the condition being a self-limiting mild childhood illness...). And one day I will read an sf/f book that understands the difference between an anti-toxin, a serum and a vaccination, but there appears to be no danger of that here.
Barbara Hambly, Ishmael. I loved this all those years ago and I still like it now. Spock, amnesiac and injured after interrogation with a Klingon mind-altering device, escapes to Seattle, Earth, in the 1860s. Where he manages an unacknowledged cross-over with the TV show Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and in doing so ultimately prevents a time-travel assassination plot that would destroy his future. It's nicely told, the characters are great, the world-building (well, research) works well and I end up caring about a lot of people, especially those involved in slightly unconventional romances. Hambly is one of those authors I keep meaning to read more by, and this has reminded me to track down her historical detective novels.