Reviews - Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula Le Guin, Mercedes Lackey, John Wyndham
The other promised catch-up post.
The Years of Rice and Salt (Kim Stanley Robinson)
Rather than a novel, this is more like a series of short stories/novellas. It follows the same characters through various incarnations. In some of them the connections are easy to make, in others it's not so easy. The alternate history aspect is interesting, and couldn't have been fully explored without this device, I suppose, but I found it jarring to be jerked from time period to time period, culture to culture, and I never really fell in love with the characters as continuations of the previous characters. There were characters I found interesting in each separate story, but I didn't necessarily like them in their other incarnations, I mean. If I had, maybe I'd have cared more.
As it is, I ended up abandoning this book for a while, and almost skimming to finish it. I really liked "The Alchemist", and kind of wanted more of it than that -- that and the first story especially stick in my head.
An interesting idea, but the execution didn't work for me. I might reread it someday.
Always Coming Home (Ursula Le Guin)
I expected to take a long time over Always Coming Home. In a way, I wish I had: there's a lot in it, and a lot to reward a slower, careful reading -- this time I went plunging through it for the narrative, such as it was, enjoying the layers of understanding that came to me, imagining and figuring out what I didn't know. I didn't read the "Back of the Book" section, this time: another time, I think I will. I just wanted to fly through it, this time, total immersion in a culture that does not exist.
Always Coming Home is a collection of stories, of fake-histories, of poems and plays and things that do not neatly fit into our genres, belonging to a culture that does not exist. The first note says it best, "The people in this book might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern Carolina." It seems to be the story almost of the Native peoples, and then it begins to mention computers and other technologies of our day... The way the world came to be this way isn't really seen clearly, only seen in its effects on the people. It's very interesting to read this way: interesting, and frustrating, because like real history, it doesn't always show you the bits you most want to see.
Ursula Le Guin's writing is beautiful, as always, and easy to read and understand despite the invented words and concepts. I sort of imagine this as the way she might build up any culture, in any book, through the scraps of their literature and histories that come to her... It's quite a nice thought, actually.
I didn't read the "Back of the Book" section, preferring to keep things vaguer, not spelled out. I will probably read it one day, but not now.
Though I greatly enjoyed this, I don't know if I'd dare recommend it to anyone. For me it required some patience with the original idea, which turned into delight as Ursula Le Guin once more captured my heart. For others, who didn't find Earthsea compelling, it'd be dry as dust, I think. And as with many books, but particularly with those that are a bit different, someone might find they love it, when they have never loved Le Guin's work before -- or that they hate it, when they've always loved her work.
Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit (Mercedes Lackey)
Mercedes Lackey's version of Guinevere's story is mostly distinctive in her choice of sources: she has taken elements mainly from the Welsh tradition, and tried to weave a coherent story out of them. The three Gwenhwyfars named in the Triads, the abductions by both Melwas and Medraut, Gwenhwyfach... It's very interesting that she chose to use the Welsh tales.
The subtleties of the relationship between the Christians and the pagans in this story were also an interesting decision. Normally people draw them as diametrically opposed: this co-existence and slow merge is an interesting way to look on it.
However, her characters and plotting are not particularly distinctive. The first three quarters of the book is rather slow, and she doesn't even meet Arthur in that time. Her time with Arthur is largely glossed over, too. She's a Celtic warrior-woman, and a scout, but ultimately that doesn't seem that important... the most important thing in it is her moment of sacrifice, sacrificing that to her duty when she goes to marry Arthur. And even then, I don't think that moment has the power it could.
The relationship with Lancelin is profoundly unsatisfactory, and seems almost a by-the-by to add a touch of romance. If something more was done with them at the end, maybe...
This is a fun enough read, and based on some interesting ideas. But it's a bit slow at times, and it's not exactly a deep and involved retelling
Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)
The Day of the Triffids is a book I've meant to read for a long time. Sometime way back when, I forget quite why, Dad told me the basic story -- not with characters, just the basic ideas -- and as an impressionable little daddy's girl of probably about eight years old, it stuck in my mind.
I actually expected something a bit more trashy than this, after some reviews and comments I read. It's certainly got the seeds (heh) for a lot of horror writing -- Stephen King's work is quite similar in some ways, in The Stand and Cell. It's got some ideas that're creepy as all get out: the lurking triffids, genetic experiments, satellites full of plagues and nukes and god knows what, the return of feudalism...
In a way, I've read this book before -- nothing that happened really surprised me, because I've read enough post-apocalyptic fiction to have thought about how things would work out if [xyz] happened. It's a reasonably realistic guess at how things would've turned out if this was all the case, I think.
It's a reasonably compelling read, too. There's a chapter full of back story, which drags a bit, but for the most part it goes along at a pretty good pace, and there's genuine anxiety about whether Bill and Josella will find each other again and so on.
Stuff here is posted first to Dreamwidth. I won't disable comments here, but I prefer to receive comments on DW. Go here to do so. If you need a DW invite, ask. There is a tutorial on how to set up your OpenID here. If you comment anonymously, please sign your comments!
The Years of Rice and Salt (Kim Stanley Robinson)
Rather than a novel, this is more like a series of short stories/novellas. It follows the same characters through various incarnations. In some of them the connections are easy to make, in others it's not so easy. The alternate history aspect is interesting, and couldn't have been fully explored without this device, I suppose, but I found it jarring to be jerked from time period to time period, culture to culture, and I never really fell in love with the characters as continuations of the previous characters. There were characters I found interesting in each separate story, but I didn't necessarily like them in their other incarnations, I mean. If I had, maybe I'd have cared more.
As it is, I ended up abandoning this book for a while, and almost skimming to finish it. I really liked "The Alchemist", and kind of wanted more of it than that -- that and the first story especially stick in my head.
An interesting idea, but the execution didn't work for me. I might reread it someday.
Always Coming Home (Ursula Le Guin)
I expected to take a long time over Always Coming Home. In a way, I wish I had: there's a lot in it, and a lot to reward a slower, careful reading -- this time I went plunging through it for the narrative, such as it was, enjoying the layers of understanding that came to me, imagining and figuring out what I didn't know. I didn't read the "Back of the Book" section, this time: another time, I think I will. I just wanted to fly through it, this time, total immersion in a culture that does not exist.
Always Coming Home is a collection of stories, of fake-histories, of poems and plays and things that do not neatly fit into our genres, belonging to a culture that does not exist. The first note says it best, "The people in this book might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern Carolina." It seems to be the story almost of the Native peoples, and then it begins to mention computers and other technologies of our day... The way the world came to be this way isn't really seen clearly, only seen in its effects on the people. It's very interesting to read this way: interesting, and frustrating, because like real history, it doesn't always show you the bits you most want to see.
Ursula Le Guin's writing is beautiful, as always, and easy to read and understand despite the invented words and concepts. I sort of imagine this as the way she might build up any culture, in any book, through the scraps of their literature and histories that come to her... It's quite a nice thought, actually.
I didn't read the "Back of the Book" section, preferring to keep things vaguer, not spelled out. I will probably read it one day, but not now.
Though I greatly enjoyed this, I don't know if I'd dare recommend it to anyone. For me it required some patience with the original idea, which turned into delight as Ursula Le Guin once more captured my heart. For others, who didn't find Earthsea compelling, it'd be dry as dust, I think. And as with many books, but particularly with those that are a bit different, someone might find they love it, when they have never loved Le Guin's work before -- or that they hate it, when they've always loved her work.
Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit (Mercedes Lackey)
Mercedes Lackey's version of Guinevere's story is mostly distinctive in her choice of sources: she has taken elements mainly from the Welsh tradition, and tried to weave a coherent story out of them. The three Gwenhwyfars named in the Triads, the abductions by both Melwas and Medraut, Gwenhwyfach... It's very interesting that she chose to use the Welsh tales.
The subtleties of the relationship between the Christians and the pagans in this story were also an interesting decision. Normally people draw them as diametrically opposed: this co-existence and slow merge is an interesting way to look on it.
However, her characters and plotting are not particularly distinctive. The first three quarters of the book is rather slow, and she doesn't even meet Arthur in that time. Her time with Arthur is largely glossed over, too. She's a Celtic warrior-woman, and a scout, but ultimately that doesn't seem that important... the most important thing in it is her moment of sacrifice, sacrificing that to her duty when she goes to marry Arthur. And even then, I don't think that moment has the power it could.
The relationship with Lancelin is profoundly unsatisfactory, and seems almost a by-the-by to add a touch of romance. If something more was done with them at the end, maybe...
This is a fun enough read, and based on some interesting ideas. But it's a bit slow at times, and it's not exactly a deep and involved retelling
Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)
The Day of the Triffids is a book I've meant to read for a long time. Sometime way back when, I forget quite why, Dad told me the basic story -- not with characters, just the basic ideas -- and as an impressionable little daddy's girl of probably about eight years old, it stuck in my mind.
I actually expected something a bit more trashy than this, after some reviews and comments I read. It's certainly got the seeds (heh) for a lot of horror writing -- Stephen King's work is quite similar in some ways, in The Stand and Cell. It's got some ideas that're creepy as all get out: the lurking triffids, genetic experiments, satellites full of plagues and nukes and god knows what, the return of feudalism...
In a way, I've read this book before -- nothing that happened really surprised me, because I've read enough post-apocalyptic fiction to have thought about how things would work out if [xyz] happened. It's a reasonably realistic guess at how things would've turned out if this was all the case, I think.
It's a reasonably compelling read, too. There's a chapter full of back story, which drags a bit, but for the most part it goes along at a pretty good pace, and there's genuine anxiety about whether Bill and Josella will find each other again and so on.
Stuff here is posted first to Dreamwidth. I won't disable comments here, but I prefer to receive comments on DW. Go here to do so. If you need a DW invite, ask. There is a tutorial on how to set up your OpenID here. If you comment anonymously, please sign your comments!