Mirror Mirror, The Maze Runner, Yellow Blue Tibia, and Deep Storm
This is going to be a long one, because I've been too busy to actually post anything.
Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire
The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm -- and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia -- decadent children of a wicked pope -- no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest, he leaves Bianca under the care -- so to speak -- of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest salvation can be found as well...
A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror gives fresh life to the classic story of Snow White -- and has a truth and beauty all its own.
So, this is the second Maguire book I've read now, and frankly, I was no more enamoured with this one than I was with Wicked, and for similar reasons, I think. I found both stories just seemed to move very slowly, with very little actually happening, and I found the characters in both to be very... distant, almost. I can't quite put my finger on why, but in both books, I never feel like I really know the main characters. I got a reasonable sense of Lucrezia in this one, thanks largely, I think, to a few chapters written from her perspective, in the first person (although that in and of itself was also a little weird -- most of the book is told from omniscient third person, except for a few Lucrezia chapters. Maybe I'm missing some symbolism in that or something.), but Bianca was mostly just a pretty but empty shell for me. If love for his daughter counts as a personality trait, then Don Vicente had that, but little else. Cesare was a very flat, lifeless sketch of the ruthless schemer he was supposed to be. So I kind of feel like I'm being drawn to the conclusion that Gregory Maguire is just not very good at characterization. Which is rather unfortunate for a writer whose books don't have that much action in them, all things considered. Books like that need to have well-drawn characters, or they're just dull, and unfortunately, that's what this one was for me. I will try one more Maguire, I think, but for now, I remain underwhelmed by him.
The Maze Runner - James Dashner
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he's not alone. When the lift's doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade-a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.
Just like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they've closed tight. And every 30 days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.
Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up-the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.
Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.
OK, so, the good news about this book is that there's at least one sequel, and I can't wait to read it. The bad news is that there's at least one sequel, and I have to wait to read it, as this one just came out, and its sequel hasn't been written yet. Grrrr. This is why I usually avoid brand new books.
That aside, I quite enjoyed this book. You got into the action fairly quickly, and from then on, it was pretty fast-paced, with a good amount of suspense. You got a very good sense of Thomas's confusion, and his frustration when no one will tell him anything, but at the same time, he gets treated like a noob because he doesn't know anything. There are some twists at the end that I at least didn't expect, and I just generally enjoyed reading it. Where it ended, too, was a good place. Enough of a pause in the action that if you didn't happen to like it, you wouldn't feel like you simply *had* to read the next one just for the closure, but still enough unanswered questions that if you did like it, you'll want to find out what happens next.
As seems to be the case with books I liked, I don't really have all that much to say about it. I just liked it, and it will for sure be added to my list of books for boys. And I will be keeping an eye out for the next one.
Yellow Blue Tibia - Adam Roberts
Konstantin Andreiovich Skvorecky was one of a group of Russian SF writers called together by Josef Stalin in 1946. Stalin, convinced that the defeat of America was only a few years away, needed a new enemy for Communism to unite against. Skvorecky and the others were tasked with creating a convincing alien threat; a story of imminent disaster that could be told to the Soviet peoples.
And then after many months of diligent work the writers were told to stop and, on pain of death, to forget everything; everything they had imagined, everything that had happened, ever being asked.
Little is known of what happened to the writers subsequently but in 1986 Skvorecky made a dramatic reappearance at Chernobyl claiming that everything that he and the others had written was coming true.
His assertion was widely disbelieved but Skvorecky claimed (tastelessly many believe) that the Chernobyl disaster and the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle conformed to the pattern set by Stalin's scenario.
Skvorecky believes the alien invasion is ongoing.
In addition to being questionably punctuated, I found this blurb to be rather misleading. To me, at least, it implies that the Chernobyl disaster will happen fairly early in the book, and the rest will deal with Skvorecky trying to convince people that it was caused by aliens. Perhaps there would be mounting evidence to support this, that would be explained away by the rest of the world while the aliens continued their conquest. Perhaps there'd be some question as to whether these things were really happening, or if Skvorecky was just suffering from some kind of delusions. Something like that, though, is what I expected from the book.
That is not what the book was about. For most of the book, Skvorecky doesn't even believe in aliens, and certainly doesn't run around trying to convince other people that they exist. And Chernobyl doesn't even happen until abut 3/4 of the way through the book. The blurb would be more accurate if it added something to the effect of, "This is the story of what happened to Skvorecky that led him to this realization," or something, because that's really what it is. And while none of that is really Roberts' fault (assuming he had nothing to do with the blurb, which is my understanding of how these things usually work), I don't know if I would have even read the book if it had been accurately described.
But I did, and it was... not really my thing. It was somewhat reminiscent of another author, but I can't quite put my finger on it. It's not quite Pynchon (it wasn't *that* incomprehensible), and it's not quite absurdist. One review I read compared it to Bulgakov, so that might be it, but it's been a while since I read Bulgakov, so I can't be sure. In any case, there was a certain ridiculous futility to much of it that I might be inclined to describe as Kafka-esque had I actually read any Kafka, but it just didn't really do it for me.
Apparently it's brilliant satire, but really, hasn't satire of Soviet bureaucracy kind of been done to death already? Apparently there are also many witty insights and observations about the sci-fi genre generally, but I didn't really see that, either. One example that at least two reviewers held up of this was a doctor claiming that she doesn't read sci-fi because she's not a teenaged boy or someone who builds plastic models. In fact, she claims, as a mature woman, she is the exact opposite of a sci-fi reader. This is a brilliant observation? More like an over-used, cliché-ed stereotype.
Then there are the two American Scientologists who show up and feature prominently in the book. As the religion was founded by a sci-fi writer, aliens do play some part in it, but it was never made clear why they were relevant to this story. You could write it off as just a piece of character description, except that it was brought up numerous times that these two were Scientologists. No idea why. Nor do I fully understand why the aliens were so keen to keep Dora (one of the Scientologists, who apparently has some sort of reality-influencing ability) alive. Obviously, her ability affects the way things turn out; that much was clear. But what do the aliens intend to do with that ability? Exactly how will they use it for their benefit? This was really never made clear.
As for the aliens themselves, according to the author's note, they, and this book, were kind of his stab at an explanation for why reports of UFO sightings and abductions are so widespread despite no real evidence of them. If this is the case, though, I would think you'd play up the aliens' role a bit more throughout the book, instead of just tacking on this random bit of exposition at the end explaining the aliens and the way they exist (they're able to exist in many alternate realities simultaneously), which made the book seem like just a bunch of set-up for this revelation. A revelation that, by the way, comes across as rather anti-climactic, and left the reader with no real resolution. It pretty much leaves it at "Yep. Aliens are here." Which is presumably the part where Skvorecky would now go and claim that Chernobyl was an alien attack.
And in case you're wondering, yes, "Yellow Blue Tibia" does mean something, and is explained. Why was it chosen as the title of the book? That, I couldn't tell you.
Deep Storm - Lincoln Child
Former naval doctor Peter Crane is urgently summoned to a remote oil platform in the North Atlantic to help diagnose a bizarre medical condition spreading through the rig. But when he arrives, Crane learns that the real trouble lies far below -- on "Deep Storm," a stunningly advanced science research facility built two miles beneath the surface on the ocean floor. The top-secret structure has been designed for one purpose: to excavate a recently discovered undersea site that may hold the answers to a mystery steeped in centuries of myth and speculation.
Sworn to secrecy, Dr. Crane descends to Deep Storm. A year earlier, he is told, routine drilling uncovered the remains of mankind's most sophisticated civilization: the legendary Atlantis. But now that the site is being excavated, a series of disturbing illnesses has begun to affect the operation. Scientists and technicians are experiencing a bizarre array of symptoms -- from simple fatigue to violent psychotic episodes. As Crane is indoctrinated into the strange world of Deep Storm and commences his investigation, he begins to suspect that the covert facility conceals something more complicated than a medical mystery. The discovery of Atlantis might, in fact, be a cover for something far more sinister... and deadly.
This book was what it was. Which is basically the male equivalent of chick-lit. You've got your action, your excessive unnecessary detail that might as well have a sign pointing to it reading, "My grade school English teacher told me that good writing is descriptive, so here are some descriptive details," your people all referred to by last name (which was particularly funny immediately after one character assured another that they were all on a first-name basis here), and you've got your military presence. As such things go, though, this one wasn't bad. It didn't have the author writing himself in to pass off the key piece of information because he couldn't think of any other way for the hero to get it, so that sets Child up at least a notch from Clive Cussler.
I think it was a bit too long, though. Until Crane starts to figure out what's going on, you just feel like you're floundering, and while Child certainly piles on the gruesome deaths in an effort to keep things interesting, and make sure that he really hammers home that SOMETHING BAD IS HAPPENING, really, it got dull. If a chapter opened with an introduction to a new character unrelated to any of the established plot lines, you pretty much knew he was going to die a horrible death within the next few pages. I picked out the mole a little bit before the reveal, but looking back, there were clues, so that's pretty good. His red herring was OK, but a little too obvious to ever really suspect him. The developing romance was also pretty predictable.
I did like, though, the way he left it at the end. Everything pretty much tied up, and then bam, one more revelation that leaves things up in the air just a little bit. Not even in a sequel kind of way, since a sequel would pretty much force Child into pure sci-fi territory, but in a make-the-book-stay-with-you-just-for-a-bit kind of way. Which is kind of an accomplishment for a book of this nature, since there really isn't all that much to it.
Anyway, it was a decent read. Fulfilled its purpose. Oh, and unlike most chick-lit-for-dudes I've read, this one actually had a few female characters who were actually developed, and existed for more than just a lust interest for the hero. So yay for that, too.
Next up: Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire
The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm -- and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia -- decadent children of a wicked pope -- no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest, he leaves Bianca under the care -- so to speak -- of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest salvation can be found as well...
A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror gives fresh life to the classic story of Snow White -- and has a truth and beauty all its own.
So, this is the second Maguire book I've read now, and frankly, I was no more enamoured with this one than I was with Wicked, and for similar reasons, I think. I found both stories just seemed to move very slowly, with very little actually happening, and I found the characters in both to be very... distant, almost. I can't quite put my finger on why, but in both books, I never feel like I really know the main characters. I got a reasonable sense of Lucrezia in this one, thanks largely, I think, to a few chapters written from her perspective, in the first person (although that in and of itself was also a little weird -- most of the book is told from omniscient third person, except for a few Lucrezia chapters. Maybe I'm missing some symbolism in that or something.), but Bianca was mostly just a pretty but empty shell for me. If love for his daughter counts as a personality trait, then Don Vicente had that, but little else. Cesare was a very flat, lifeless sketch of the ruthless schemer he was supposed to be. So I kind of feel like I'm being drawn to the conclusion that Gregory Maguire is just not very good at characterization. Which is rather unfortunate for a writer whose books don't have that much action in them, all things considered. Books like that need to have well-drawn characters, or they're just dull, and unfortunately, that's what this one was for me. I will try one more Maguire, I think, but for now, I remain underwhelmed by him.
The Maze Runner - James Dashner
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he's not alone. When the lift's doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade-a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.
Just like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they've closed tight. And every 30 days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.
Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up-the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.
Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.
OK, so, the good news about this book is that there's at least one sequel, and I can't wait to read it. The bad news is that there's at least one sequel, and I have to wait to read it, as this one just came out, and its sequel hasn't been written yet. Grrrr. This is why I usually avoid brand new books.
That aside, I quite enjoyed this book. You got into the action fairly quickly, and from then on, it was pretty fast-paced, with a good amount of suspense. You got a very good sense of Thomas's confusion, and his frustration when no one will tell him anything, but at the same time, he gets treated like a noob because he doesn't know anything. There are some twists at the end that I at least didn't expect, and I just generally enjoyed reading it. Where it ended, too, was a good place. Enough of a pause in the action that if you didn't happen to like it, you wouldn't feel like you simply *had* to read the next one just for the closure, but still enough unanswered questions that if you did like it, you'll want to find out what happens next.
As seems to be the case with books I liked, I don't really have all that much to say about it. I just liked it, and it will for sure be added to my list of books for boys. And I will be keeping an eye out for the next one.
Yellow Blue Tibia - Adam Roberts
Konstantin Andreiovich Skvorecky was one of a group of Russian SF writers called together by Josef Stalin in 1946. Stalin, convinced that the defeat of America was only a few years away, needed a new enemy for Communism to unite against. Skvorecky and the others were tasked with creating a convincing alien threat; a story of imminent disaster that could be told to the Soviet peoples.
And then after many months of diligent work the writers were told to stop and, on pain of death, to forget everything; everything they had imagined, everything that had happened, ever being asked.
Little is known of what happened to the writers subsequently but in 1986 Skvorecky made a dramatic reappearance at Chernobyl claiming that everything that he and the others had written was coming true.
His assertion was widely disbelieved but Skvorecky claimed (tastelessly many believe) that the Chernobyl disaster and the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle conformed to the pattern set by Stalin's scenario.
Skvorecky believes the alien invasion is ongoing.
In addition to being questionably punctuated, I found this blurb to be rather misleading. To me, at least, it implies that the Chernobyl disaster will happen fairly early in the book, and the rest will deal with Skvorecky trying to convince people that it was caused by aliens. Perhaps there would be mounting evidence to support this, that would be explained away by the rest of the world while the aliens continued their conquest. Perhaps there'd be some question as to whether these things were really happening, or if Skvorecky was just suffering from some kind of delusions. Something like that, though, is what I expected from the book.
That is not what the book was about. For most of the book, Skvorecky doesn't even believe in aliens, and certainly doesn't run around trying to convince other people that they exist. And Chernobyl doesn't even happen until abut 3/4 of the way through the book. The blurb would be more accurate if it added something to the effect of, "This is the story of what happened to Skvorecky that led him to this realization," or something, because that's really what it is. And while none of that is really Roberts' fault (assuming he had nothing to do with the blurb, which is my understanding of how these things usually work), I don't know if I would have even read the book if it had been accurately described.
But I did, and it was... not really my thing. It was somewhat reminiscent of another author, but I can't quite put my finger on it. It's not quite Pynchon (it wasn't *that* incomprehensible), and it's not quite absurdist. One review I read compared it to Bulgakov, so that might be it, but it's been a while since I read Bulgakov, so I can't be sure. In any case, there was a certain ridiculous futility to much of it that I might be inclined to describe as Kafka-esque had I actually read any Kafka, but it just didn't really do it for me.
Apparently it's brilliant satire, but really, hasn't satire of Soviet bureaucracy kind of been done to death already? Apparently there are also many witty insights and observations about the sci-fi genre generally, but I didn't really see that, either. One example that at least two reviewers held up of this was a doctor claiming that she doesn't read sci-fi because she's not a teenaged boy or someone who builds plastic models. In fact, she claims, as a mature woman, she is the exact opposite of a sci-fi reader. This is a brilliant observation? More like an over-used, cliché-ed stereotype.
Then there are the two American Scientologists who show up and feature prominently in the book. As the religion was founded by a sci-fi writer, aliens do play some part in it, but it was never made clear why they were relevant to this story. You could write it off as just a piece of character description, except that it was brought up numerous times that these two were Scientologists. No idea why. Nor do I fully understand why the aliens were so keen to keep Dora (one of the Scientologists, who apparently has some sort of reality-influencing ability) alive. Obviously, her ability affects the way things turn out; that much was clear. But what do the aliens intend to do with that ability? Exactly how will they use it for their benefit? This was really never made clear.
As for the aliens themselves, according to the author's note, they, and this book, were kind of his stab at an explanation for why reports of UFO sightings and abductions are so widespread despite no real evidence of them. If this is the case, though, I would think you'd play up the aliens' role a bit more throughout the book, instead of just tacking on this random bit of exposition at the end explaining the aliens and the way they exist (they're able to exist in many alternate realities simultaneously), which made the book seem like just a bunch of set-up for this revelation. A revelation that, by the way, comes across as rather anti-climactic, and left the reader with no real resolution. It pretty much leaves it at "Yep. Aliens are here." Which is presumably the part where Skvorecky would now go and claim that Chernobyl was an alien attack.
And in case you're wondering, yes, "Yellow Blue Tibia" does mean something, and is explained. Why was it chosen as the title of the book? That, I couldn't tell you.
Deep Storm - Lincoln Child
Former naval doctor Peter Crane is urgently summoned to a remote oil platform in the North Atlantic to help diagnose a bizarre medical condition spreading through the rig. But when he arrives, Crane learns that the real trouble lies far below -- on "Deep Storm," a stunningly advanced science research facility built two miles beneath the surface on the ocean floor. The top-secret structure has been designed for one purpose: to excavate a recently discovered undersea site that may hold the answers to a mystery steeped in centuries of myth and speculation.
Sworn to secrecy, Dr. Crane descends to Deep Storm. A year earlier, he is told, routine drilling uncovered the remains of mankind's most sophisticated civilization: the legendary Atlantis. But now that the site is being excavated, a series of disturbing illnesses has begun to affect the operation. Scientists and technicians are experiencing a bizarre array of symptoms -- from simple fatigue to violent psychotic episodes. As Crane is indoctrinated into the strange world of Deep Storm and commences his investigation, he begins to suspect that the covert facility conceals something more complicated than a medical mystery. The discovery of Atlantis might, in fact, be a cover for something far more sinister... and deadly.
This book was what it was. Which is basically the male equivalent of chick-lit. You've got your action, your excessive unnecessary detail that might as well have a sign pointing to it reading, "My grade school English teacher told me that good writing is descriptive, so here are some descriptive details," your people all referred to by last name (which was particularly funny immediately after one character assured another that they were all on a first-name basis here), and you've got your military presence. As such things go, though, this one wasn't bad. It didn't have the author writing himself in to pass off the key piece of information because he couldn't think of any other way for the hero to get it, so that sets Child up at least a notch from Clive Cussler.
I think it was a bit too long, though. Until Crane starts to figure out what's going on, you just feel like you're floundering, and while Child certainly piles on the gruesome deaths in an effort to keep things interesting, and make sure that he really hammers home that SOMETHING BAD IS HAPPENING, really, it got dull. If a chapter opened with an introduction to a new character unrelated to any of the established plot lines, you pretty much knew he was going to die a horrible death within the next few pages. I picked out the mole a little bit before the reveal, but looking back, there were clues, so that's pretty good. His red herring was OK, but a little too obvious to ever really suspect him. The developing romance was also pretty predictable.
I did like, though, the way he left it at the end. Everything pretty much tied up, and then bam, one more revelation that leaves things up in the air just a little bit. Not even in a sequel kind of way, since a sequel would pretty much force Child into pure sci-fi territory, but in a make-the-book-stay-with-you-just-for-a-bit kind of way. Which is kind of an accomplishment for a book of this nature, since there really isn't all that much to it.
Anyway, it was a decent read. Fulfilled its purpose. Oh, and unlike most chick-lit-for-dudes I've read, this one actually had a few female characters who were actually developed, and existed for more than just a lust interest for the hero. So yay for that, too.
Next up: Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson