[books 2013] the rest of March
Whoops. I had quite a lot to say about some of these, but I doubt I'll be able to remember any of it now.
17. Some Remarks by Neal Stephenson
A collection of various articles and essays and a couple of short stories Stephenson has produced over the years. Fascinating stuff, for the most part. The longest piece is a series of articles he did for Wired about laying pipeline for telecoms, including the internet, in which he travels around the world following the path a line that was being rolled out at the time, and meeting the people who are responsible for it at all levels. Parts of that were less interesting to me, but switched off with things I found really cool, so I can't complain. Highly recommended.
18. A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd
I went to an author event for this, and while I was a bit dubious about the concept, she spoke well and passionately about her work and I was convinced about the level of research she'd put in, so I bought it. It was possibly that she came tot he same conclusion about William Godwin - some good political & philosophical ideas, too bad he was a hypocritical ass and a leech to boot - that I did when I was working in the field that tipped the balance.
Set in London in 1860, her detective character, Charles Maddox, is hired by the descendants of Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Shelley to find out what Claire Clairmont (who really did live to old age) wants from them, as they are desperate to preserve the carefully fictionalised versions of Shelley's life they've presented to the Victorian public. Maddox lives with his great uncle, who was a thief-taker in the 1810s and was involved with the Godwins and Shelleys then, and the very mention of their name causes the old man to have a stroke, so young Maddox just has to find out what happened...
I thoroughly enjoyed this - her research is good and she uses fiction to fill in the gaps in the documentation. Instead of writing in a faux-Victorian style she writes as a 21st-century author to a 21st-century audience, but doesn't do so explicitly too often.
The only thing stopping me buying her book based around Bleak House, Tom All-Alone's, right now is the fact that my to-read pile is still threatening to take over the bedroom.
19. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark
It's entirely possible the world doesn't need yet another book on the origins of WWI, but I got a lot out of it anyway.
The first section details the situation in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 20th century and is splendidly handled - incredibly information dense yet thrilling stuff. It's all conspiracies and secret societies. The rest of it is somewhat drier, where he examines the changing foreign policy situations of the major European powers in that period.
I had a lot of thoughts at the time, but the take away points seem to be:
Serbia and the Balkans were absolutely key. They were already being played down during the "July crisis" leading up to the declaration of war, but there's no getting away from that.
The assassins of Franz Ferdinand were demonstrably Serbian with links to factions in the Serbian government, as the Austrians asserted. However, starting with the Russians, all the Allied powers completely ignored this and refused to look into it.
There were already assumptions that Austria-Hungary was a dying power, long before the war.
Oh, and this book introduced me to my new favourite word: irredentism. Go look it up.
Long, lots of work, parts were not that exciting to me, but I'm really glad I read it. It took me a while to realise that he's the same guy who wrote Iron Kingdom, which I've been meaning to read since it came out; I'll look for it more actively now.
20. Fables from the Fountain, edited by Ian Whates
A collection of short stories based on Arthur C Clarke's Tales from the White Hart (with which I am not familiar, but hope to be soon) that has contributions from Neil Gaiman and Charles Stross. I somehow managed to miss it when it came out. Pat and I bought the only two copies as BristolCon, and otherwise it changes hands for ridiculous amounts of money.
It's based around a fictional pub on a back lane somewhere near Holborn, where a group of scientists and science fiction writers gather frequently to swap stories. They integrate into a whole really, really well. The Neil Gaiman contribution didn't do much for me, but the Stross story "A Bird in Hand", is hilarious. My favourite was "On the Messdecks of Madness" by Paul Graham Raven, even though the characters in it hate HP Lovecraft. The last few stories did less for me than the first, but there wasn't a really bad one in there. One is set in a pub in Edinburgh where a similar group gathers that includes Iain Banks, Ken Macleod and Charles Stross.
Thoroughly recommended if you can lay your hands on a copy. The only thing stopping me buying a copy of Tales from the White Hart is the aforementioned space problem.
17. Some Remarks by Neal Stephenson
A collection of various articles and essays and a couple of short stories Stephenson has produced over the years. Fascinating stuff, for the most part. The longest piece is a series of articles he did for Wired about laying pipeline for telecoms, including the internet, in which he travels around the world following the path a line that was being rolled out at the time, and meeting the people who are responsible for it at all levels. Parts of that were less interesting to me, but switched off with things I found really cool, so I can't complain. Highly recommended.
18. A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd
I went to an author event for this, and while I was a bit dubious about the concept, she spoke well and passionately about her work and I was convinced about the level of research she'd put in, so I bought it. It was possibly that she came tot he same conclusion about William Godwin - some good political & philosophical ideas, too bad he was a hypocritical ass and a leech to boot - that I did when I was working in the field that tipped the balance.
Set in London in 1860, her detective character, Charles Maddox, is hired by the descendants of Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Shelley to find out what Claire Clairmont (who really did live to old age) wants from them, as they are desperate to preserve the carefully fictionalised versions of Shelley's life they've presented to the Victorian public. Maddox lives with his great uncle, who was a thief-taker in the 1810s and was involved with the Godwins and Shelleys then, and the very mention of their name causes the old man to have a stroke, so young Maddox just has to find out what happened...
I thoroughly enjoyed this - her research is good and she uses fiction to fill in the gaps in the documentation. Instead of writing in a faux-Victorian style she writes as a 21st-century author to a 21st-century audience, but doesn't do so explicitly too often.
The only thing stopping me buying her book based around Bleak House, Tom All-Alone's, right now is the fact that my to-read pile is still threatening to take over the bedroom.
19. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark
It's entirely possible the world doesn't need yet another book on the origins of WWI, but I got a lot out of it anyway.
The first section details the situation in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 20th century and is splendidly handled - incredibly information dense yet thrilling stuff. It's all conspiracies and secret societies. The rest of it is somewhat drier, where he examines the changing foreign policy situations of the major European powers in that period.
I had a lot of thoughts at the time, but the take away points seem to be:
Serbia and the Balkans were absolutely key. They were already being played down during the "July crisis" leading up to the declaration of war, but there's no getting away from that.
The assassins of Franz Ferdinand were demonstrably Serbian with links to factions in the Serbian government, as the Austrians asserted. However, starting with the Russians, all the Allied powers completely ignored this and refused to look into it.
There were already assumptions that Austria-Hungary was a dying power, long before the war.
Oh, and this book introduced me to my new favourite word: irredentism. Go look it up.
Long, lots of work, parts were not that exciting to me, but I'm really glad I read it. It took me a while to realise that he's the same guy who wrote Iron Kingdom, which I've been meaning to read since it came out; I'll look for it more actively now.
20. Fables from the Fountain, edited by Ian Whates
A collection of short stories based on Arthur C Clarke's Tales from the White Hart (with which I am not familiar, but hope to be soon) that has contributions from Neil Gaiman and Charles Stross. I somehow managed to miss it when it came out. Pat and I bought the only two copies as BristolCon, and otherwise it changes hands for ridiculous amounts of money.
It's based around a fictional pub on a back lane somewhere near Holborn, where a group of scientists and science fiction writers gather frequently to swap stories. They integrate into a whole really, really well. The Neil Gaiman contribution didn't do much for me, but the Stross story "A Bird in Hand", is hilarious. My favourite was "On the Messdecks of Madness" by Paul Graham Raven, even though the characters in it hate HP Lovecraft. The last few stories did less for me than the first, but there wasn't a really bad one in there. One is set in a pub in Edinburgh where a similar group gathers that includes Iain Banks, Ken Macleod and Charles Stross.
Thoroughly recommended if you can lay your hands on a copy. The only thing stopping me buying a copy of Tales from the White Hart is the aforementioned space problem.