First Book Foo of the Year!
I guess I haven't been posting much. Part of this is the traditional post-Christmas-spiral-into-crippling-even-more-depression-than-usual, which I'm weathering but, as usual, doesn't make me feel especially communicative (also yay, even greater depression trigger coming next week). But also I haven't really been doing much, things have been dead on a number of fronts. TV's kind of blah, I'm checking out Alcatraz but I'm still a bit iffy on it. At least some of that's due to change... Walking Dead comes back this month, and April for Game of Thrones, the new Spidey cartoon, and, I'm hoping, the new Avatar series (I heard a rumor somewhere, but I don't remember where or know how accurate it was).
But I have been reading... so, let's do a book foo!
Finished: Spin State by Chris Moriarty
Part of the reason this book caught my eye was because the author was listed as one of the apparently few female writers who write 'hard SF'. Part of this is because they're apparently actually steered away from it, due to the percepion (whether real or not) that readers aren't interested in it. To the point that, in this case, Chris Moriarty looks like a male name (and I actually checked... in the 'about the author' section, and references to her in other reviews printed in the book, not only is there no picture, but they seem to studiously avoid any gender pronouns that might give the game away). The odd thing was, I saw these books in the store an awful lot before I knew Chris was a female author, and it just didn't catch my eye even to the point where I picked it up and read the back (maybe once)... pretty much what got me to give it a real look was hearing she was a she.
Anyway, enough about the author. The story involves a military officer and genetically-constructed being who's drafted to do a murder investigation in a mine on her homeworld. And the verdict... the science was a little less Hard than I was hoping, and the story's just okay, but it didn't blow me away. More spoilers behind the cut, nothing huge but just in case.
That's not to say there's not hard science elements, but a lot of it is nearly magical hard science, you know, the kind that's almost indistinguishable from 'just making stuff up', with a pretty technobabble glaze that might have a little more to it than say, the average episode of Star Trek, but is still extrapolating an awful lot. And that's okay for a story choice, hell, often it's the BEST story choice, it's just not what I hope for when I'm in the mood for 'hard SF'. Maybe it's a problem with my own definitions... for example, I wouldn't consider, say, much of Charlie Stross's singularity stuff 'hard SF', even though there's a lot in it that could be doable with only a little bit of extrapolation, and he's one of my favorite authors. This one, well, I admittedly don't understand the science enough to know exactly how much is reasonable speculation and how much is technobabble, but it feels like the latter.
Two parts in particular stand out, one of them whole-heartedly takes it out of hard SF territory, and one is plausible but I just don't think it really... 'works'. Much of the plot hinges on the social setup based on an extremely rare natural resource that exists nowhere else in the known universe, that the technological basis of everything exists on. Not only does this feel like it's done just to give the excuse to have 'ununionized miners with a horribly hard life' as a major plot element (and in fact, the book reads a bit like a western story where a soldier's sent to investigate a coal mine and has to deal with potential illegal strikes and unions and politics, only it's been transposed into the far future), but there's so much with that goes on with it that just feels... the only quasi-word that comes to mind is "hippy-dippy". You know, the kind of thing you see in (mostly bad) SF, where say, human beings have a 'life force' that can be drained independent of everything else, that's more mysticism than science. The other, more plausible technologically, is the depiction of 'the Net', which never really sold me. I can't really get into specifics (mainly because it's been about a month since I read it and the specific details are fading).
It sounds like I am being a little hard on it... but there is a lot to like. The main character isn't quite one of them, but I think that was the point, the parts that I disliked weren't overwhelming but were part of a growth arc that will continue into the sequels, but I did like a lot of things like her relationship with an AI, and some of the speculations about the way cultures of 'engineered human life' might develop if they broke away were kind of cool.
I'll probably read the sequel, eventually.
Finished: Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold
Another book in the Miles Vorkosigan series by Bujold, involving a short, brittle-boned but brilliant spy from a society where mutation is feared. In this one, he's on a diplomatic mission to another culture where he gets involved in shenanigans.
I don't really have a lot to say about it. I enjoyed it, and yet... I think I may be done with the series. Not because this one is bad by any means, and the character is still appealing, but I've read 5-6 books with him in it and it just feels like if I don't read any more, I'm okay with it... and in fact, the effort of trying to figure out which books I've already read and which one I need to get next to continue reading his adventures outweighs the positives I'd get from actually doing it. Maybe this is just my general blahs leaking through undeservedly on the series, and in a few months I'll get an inkling to try again, but right now I'm not feeling any particular urge to keep reading it.
Finished: The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi
Set in a future where oil has virtually run out and so the world has expanded (or horizons have shrunk, depending on your point of view?), metaphorically (because sail is about the fastest form of travel and so it takes weeks to make journeys that used to take hours), and biotechnology has in some ways ravaged and in others improved the world, the story is set in Thailand where a corporate spy seeks a suspected secret genetic library and a fugitive genetic engineer, Thai officials cope with severe corruption and the competing drives to protect their borders from dangerous products and to help themselves by encouraging trade, and a genetically engineered girl is a slave not just because she was designed to be subservient but also because she has no right to exist in the country and would be mulched if the wrong people find out.
The book won both the Hugo and Nebula (tying one of them, I believe, but it's still a win), and I can see it as an ambitious work. I'm actually not really sure if I like it or not. Part of the problem was that there were few people I could really wholeheartedly root for, aside from the title character. Viewpoint characters who seemed okay at first would contain traits I find wholly unsympathetic (and the exceptions to the rule are usually horribly mistreated in the course of the story). That can be a good thing, it can mean the characters are complex but in this case, I don't know. I'm also not sure I buy entirely into some of the premises of the world. Yet there were cool ideas and occasionally images, and I think I'll be thinking about it longer than most books I read.
I'm still struggling with the 'did I like it' question. I'm deeply ambivalent about it, but I am glad I read it.
Finished: The Oroboros Wave by Jyouji Hayashi
This is a translation of a Japanese SF novel.
This one actually IS a hard SF novel. Humanity discover a miniature black hole in our solar system and decides to harness it, build a ring around it to provide virtually unlimited energy. In many ways it's a series of linked short stories with a few shared characters, rather than a novel. In fact, they tread on a lot of the tropes of classic hard SF short stories... there's the "slight astrophysical mystery that has a rather mundane, though unexpected cause", the "new biological life form" and others.
It also feels a little stilted at times, particularly where characters are concerned, which may simply be because of the translation, or it may be just like a lot of English hard SF (particularly of early decades), where that aspect was second fiddle to the plot and science.
I did really enjoy it though, maybe in part because I was craving hard SF and not entirely satisfied by the other books on my list. I felt it fell down a little towards the end, where it feels a little unfinished, but I suspect that's because (if I interpreted the author's note correctly), it's meant to have a sequel.
This is my first experiment with the "Haika Soru" imprint of novels (from Viz Media, who also I believe imports Manga), and only the second Japanese-translated novel I've read, after Battle Royale (also released through Viz, but not from that imprint... probably before). So, quite a good start. I think I'll be checking out more of their work in time.
Started: Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Started: A Thousand Words for a Stranger by Julie E. Czernada
In other news, the Beta for Gotham City Imposters is now closed. The game releases today on some platforms, tomorrow for XBL I think I'll purchase the game, it is quite a bit of fun, and now I don't entirely suck anymore. I'm still nothing compared to awesome players, and my aim overall sucks (particularly when in a running battle), but there are certain methods and tricks I can use that make me potentially formidable among newer players or those who don't pay attention - I use a stealth build, invisibility gas and a one-shot (With about 30 seconds between uses) weapon that kills virtually everybody in one hit. So I'm getting skilled at sneaking up on people, uncloaking, and throwing my hatchet to kill them. Doesn't work as well if they're running around, since you have to aim it precisely, but nothing's quite so satisfying as taking down a huge guy while he's guarding an objective. (Invisibility also isn't perfect, you can see a blurr, so I can be targeted and spotted, it's just not always easy).
But I have been reading... so, let's do a book foo!
Finished: Spin State by Chris Moriarty
Part of the reason this book caught my eye was because the author was listed as one of the apparently few female writers who write 'hard SF'. Part of this is because they're apparently actually steered away from it, due to the percepion (whether real or not) that readers aren't interested in it. To the point that, in this case, Chris Moriarty looks like a male name (and I actually checked... in the 'about the author' section, and references to her in other reviews printed in the book, not only is there no picture, but they seem to studiously avoid any gender pronouns that might give the game away). The odd thing was, I saw these books in the store an awful lot before I knew Chris was a female author, and it just didn't catch my eye even to the point where I picked it up and read the back (maybe once)... pretty much what got me to give it a real look was hearing she was a she.
Anyway, enough about the author. The story involves a military officer and genetically-constructed being who's drafted to do a murder investigation in a mine on her homeworld. And the verdict... the science was a little less Hard than I was hoping, and the story's just okay, but it didn't blow me away. More spoilers behind the cut, nothing huge but just in case.
That's not to say there's not hard science elements, but a lot of it is nearly magical hard science, you know, the kind that's almost indistinguishable from 'just making stuff up', with a pretty technobabble glaze that might have a little more to it than say, the average episode of Star Trek, but is still extrapolating an awful lot. And that's okay for a story choice, hell, often it's the BEST story choice, it's just not what I hope for when I'm in the mood for 'hard SF'. Maybe it's a problem with my own definitions... for example, I wouldn't consider, say, much of Charlie Stross's singularity stuff 'hard SF', even though there's a lot in it that could be doable with only a little bit of extrapolation, and he's one of my favorite authors. This one, well, I admittedly don't understand the science enough to know exactly how much is reasonable speculation and how much is technobabble, but it feels like the latter.
Two parts in particular stand out, one of them whole-heartedly takes it out of hard SF territory, and one is plausible but I just don't think it really... 'works'. Much of the plot hinges on the social setup based on an extremely rare natural resource that exists nowhere else in the known universe, that the technological basis of everything exists on. Not only does this feel like it's done just to give the excuse to have 'ununionized miners with a horribly hard life' as a major plot element (and in fact, the book reads a bit like a western story where a soldier's sent to investigate a coal mine and has to deal with potential illegal strikes and unions and politics, only it's been transposed into the far future), but there's so much with that goes on with it that just feels... the only quasi-word that comes to mind is "hippy-dippy". You know, the kind of thing you see in (mostly bad) SF, where say, human beings have a 'life force' that can be drained independent of everything else, that's more mysticism than science. The other, more plausible technologically, is the depiction of 'the Net', which never really sold me. I can't really get into specifics (mainly because it's been about a month since I read it and the specific details are fading).
It sounds like I am being a little hard on it... but there is a lot to like. The main character isn't quite one of them, but I think that was the point, the parts that I disliked weren't overwhelming but were part of a growth arc that will continue into the sequels, but I did like a lot of things like her relationship with an AI, and some of the speculations about the way cultures of 'engineered human life' might develop if they broke away were kind of cool.
I'll probably read the sequel, eventually.
Finished: Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold
Another book in the Miles Vorkosigan series by Bujold, involving a short, brittle-boned but brilliant spy from a society where mutation is feared. In this one, he's on a diplomatic mission to another culture where he gets involved in shenanigans.
I don't really have a lot to say about it. I enjoyed it, and yet... I think I may be done with the series. Not because this one is bad by any means, and the character is still appealing, but I've read 5-6 books with him in it and it just feels like if I don't read any more, I'm okay with it... and in fact, the effort of trying to figure out which books I've already read and which one I need to get next to continue reading his adventures outweighs the positives I'd get from actually doing it. Maybe this is just my general blahs leaking through undeservedly on the series, and in a few months I'll get an inkling to try again, but right now I'm not feeling any particular urge to keep reading it.
Finished: The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi
Set in a future where oil has virtually run out and so the world has expanded (or horizons have shrunk, depending on your point of view?), metaphorically (because sail is about the fastest form of travel and so it takes weeks to make journeys that used to take hours), and biotechnology has in some ways ravaged and in others improved the world, the story is set in Thailand where a corporate spy seeks a suspected secret genetic library and a fugitive genetic engineer, Thai officials cope with severe corruption and the competing drives to protect their borders from dangerous products and to help themselves by encouraging trade, and a genetically engineered girl is a slave not just because she was designed to be subservient but also because she has no right to exist in the country and would be mulched if the wrong people find out.
The book won both the Hugo and Nebula (tying one of them, I believe, but it's still a win), and I can see it as an ambitious work. I'm actually not really sure if I like it or not. Part of the problem was that there were few people I could really wholeheartedly root for, aside from the title character. Viewpoint characters who seemed okay at first would contain traits I find wholly unsympathetic (and the exceptions to the rule are usually horribly mistreated in the course of the story). That can be a good thing, it can mean the characters are complex but in this case, I don't know. I'm also not sure I buy entirely into some of the premises of the world. Yet there were cool ideas and occasionally images, and I think I'll be thinking about it longer than most books I read.
I'm still struggling with the 'did I like it' question. I'm deeply ambivalent about it, but I am glad I read it.
Finished: The Oroboros Wave by Jyouji Hayashi
This is a translation of a Japanese SF novel.
This one actually IS a hard SF novel. Humanity discover a miniature black hole in our solar system and decides to harness it, build a ring around it to provide virtually unlimited energy. In many ways it's a series of linked short stories with a few shared characters, rather than a novel. In fact, they tread on a lot of the tropes of classic hard SF short stories... there's the "slight astrophysical mystery that has a rather mundane, though unexpected cause", the "new biological life form" and others.
It also feels a little stilted at times, particularly where characters are concerned, which may simply be because of the translation, or it may be just like a lot of English hard SF (particularly of early decades), where that aspect was second fiddle to the plot and science.
I did really enjoy it though, maybe in part because I was craving hard SF and not entirely satisfied by the other books on my list. I felt it fell down a little towards the end, where it feels a little unfinished, but I suspect that's because (if I interpreted the author's note correctly), it's meant to have a sequel.
This is my first experiment with the "Haika Soru" imprint of novels (from Viz Media, who also I believe imports Manga), and only the second Japanese-translated novel I've read, after Battle Royale (also released through Viz, but not from that imprint... probably before). So, quite a good start. I think I'll be checking out more of their work in time.
Started: Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Started: A Thousand Words for a Stranger by Julie E. Czernada
In other news, the Beta for Gotham City Imposters is now closed. The game releases today on some platforms, tomorrow for XBL I think I'll purchase the game, it is quite a bit of fun, and now I don't entirely suck anymore. I'm still nothing compared to awesome players, and my aim overall sucks (particularly when in a running battle), but there are certain methods and tricks I can use that make me potentially formidable among newer players or those who don't pay attention - I use a stealth build, invisibility gas and a one-shot (With about 30 seconds between uses) weapon that kills virtually everybody in one hit. So I'm getting skilled at sneaking up on people, uncloaking, and throwing my hatchet to kill them. Doesn't work as well if they're running around, since you have to aim it precisely, but nothing's quite so satisfying as taking down a huge guy while he's guarding an objective. (Invisibility also isn't perfect, you can see a blurr, so I can be targeted and spotted, it's just not always easy).