Bimonthly Book Foo! + some other stuff

[newnumber6]

TV's been pretty slow lately, however, there have been a few things of interest:

Wayward Pines: Surprisingly watchable, and surprisingly SF. I mean, a bit silly at times, but I enjoyed it and I appreciated them not dangling out the mystery, they actually solved it about halfway in and the rest was dealing with other issues. THAT is how you do it

Comments

[newnumber6]

I haven't read it yet but Empire of Bones by Liz Williams also takes place mostly in India from what I understand, it's on my 'eventually' list. I've actually seen it a few times in the used bookstore but I tend to be very methodical in my browsing and by the time I get to the W's I've usually got a fair number of books already. :) Other than that I can think of only a few books that have parts that take place in Indian but not a specific focus. There's also a faint tugging at the back of my head that thinks it remembers something fairly recent in that vein but won't provide a name or any more details and so may be completely mistaken and thinking of another country.

Yeah, I was probably kinder to Terms of Enlistment than it probably deserved (particularly obvious after reading Linda Nagata's The Red, a milSF novel which I enjoyed so much more), although I should note that some of the recommendations were specifically that it really starts to get good in the second book (where IIRC he's got a role where he's more directly dealing with bureaucracy and logistics rather than combat), not that the first book was anything special beyond dumb MilSF fun or that it was deserving of an award on its own, and I sort of approached it on that basis: mindless popcorn action, not to think too deeply on. So although your points against it are fair, they just didn't bother me as much as they should have (although they did bother me), and maybe a few things you thought of as the book assigning blame I generously assumed was intentional, reflecting the character's lack of empathy, and not meant to be applauded. And of course, after The Forever War had forced promiscuity among the soldiers I can buy a military where fraternization is a little more tolerated. On the aliens, maybe it bothered me less because I wasn't taking it for granted that the motivations were what we saw, or even that the giants were necessarily the aliens themselves as opposed to tools, I sort of viewed it as a incomprehensible alien first contact and took it for granted, possibly incorrectly, that they'd become more interesting and nuanced in a sequel. Maybe I'm wrong on all of those, but the justifications are enough to get me to, potentially, try out the sequel and see, before dismissing it as not worthy of it's nom on its own merits (although I'll probably wait till I find it used).

[occamsnailfile]

I can grant your point on the aliens--it just felt really shallow to me. The fraternization is something that happens in SF mils sometimes I will also agree, it just bugged me in this one for being a wish-fulfilling entirely sexual relationship.

But really I would give the book maybe a softer version of the same criticisms if it weren't being nommed as 'BEST OF THE YEAR' by certain parties--it just is not. 'needs a sequel to get better' isn't generally award-worthy IMO. I don't really plan to read the sequel given how much other stuff I have to read--I respect the author for pulling out of the rugby scrum when he realized he was one of the balls but his writing doesn't give me enough to really keep going on. Especially when The Red is also in my pile--I'm looking forward to that one.

Also, I've added Empire of Bones to my reading. I've read a couple of Liz Williams's books and she's alright, not my favorite but enjoyable, so I'll have to check that out. I tend to be kinda methodical in bookstore browsing too, though I start with the anthologies. >_>

[newnumber6]

Fair enough, although I do feel the need to point out that it actually WASN'T this book that was promoted as being one of the best of the year and nominated for an award, it WAS the sequel that he was nominated for (and withdrew). I just had to read this first because I can't start in the middle like this, but that's why I give it a little more benefit of the doubt when people tell me the sequel's worth the nom... they might still be wrong, but I've experienced that with other series.

Unless of course I'm reading you wrong and what you mean is you separately heard the "best of the year" buzz for the first one as well, and were commenting on that, which is quite possible... I personally wasn't even really aware of it when it was still new as I tend to ignore most milSF until after it's already gotten a fair bit of buzz.

[occamsnailfile]

You're right, I forgot it was the sequel that was nominated, which I should have realized. So maybe I will have to read it. I also had never heard of it, given that I don't spend a lot of attention in that part of the genre either.