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aseFour books. Four. Including spring break, where inroads were minimal. Bummer of a book month. But I finally finished The Selfish Gene, so I can't say I really care about the count.
The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester): Reread. Because, as we all should know by now, Bester's two Golden Age novels are the best that era has to offer. (His '80's work is considerably less fun, alas.) So you all know what I'm going to say, right? About love for the genre and how much stuff is of its time and how if you think about the '50s, the themes of conspicuous consumption - Victorianism - tenacity - restraint - losing restraint (also sometimes called self control) seem to say less about where '50s America was going than where it was. But blood and money are universal agents of corruption - the trappings of The Stars My Destination may be dated, but the themes at the heart of the novel still speak to the attentive ear.
The Graveyard Game (Kage Baker): Reread. Fourth novel in the Company series: Joseph and Lewis search for the missing Mendoza and poke at the curious life of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax while the world quietly crumbles toward the Silence.
The first time I read this the little grey men seriously annoyed me, and I'm still offended by their narrative existence. It breaks my suspension of disbelief: dead people have bones, and leave other evidence of their existence. Baker has invented these guys out of - well, out of fairy myths - and the LGMs have all the plausibility of a fairy dropped into a shopping mall. If there was even a bit of handwaving - look, the poor Company agents have had to spend so much time keeping mortals from finding thus-and-such category of artifacts at these sites; the LGMs have bones that crumble into dust when they die, poor LGMs (gollum!) - I'd be cool. But there isn't, so their abrupt introduction in the fourth book deeply irritates my sense of narrative.
As long as I'm under a cut, I'd like to make an outside bet that when Mendoza and her boyfriend of the many lives burst into the Company's offices and files they find themselves running the Company. It would be nicely evil and paradoxical and stuff.
Other than that, the book is very good. Fast moving plot, vivid characterization, blackly amusing extrapolation of contemporary coddling and PCness into a hyperhygenic ubervegan world where booze and chocolate are illegal. Still very much looking forward to the sixth book.
The Lost Steersman (Rosemary Kirstein): Third book in the Steerswoman series. Definitely not a good place to jump in. If you haven't read the first two, find a copy of The Steerswoman's Road before trying The Lost Steersman. Blurb: back from the Outlands, Rowan searches the disarrayed Steerwoman's Annex for further clues of the wizard Slado's history and plans.
Reactions: Kirstein is wandering towards Fat Fantasy Epic territory. Book One: Problem introduced. Book Two: Problem expanded. Book Three: Minor part of Book Two expansion bifurcates. I'm not sure if I should be dismayed by the global scope Kirstein's trying for or delighted by the elegant propagation from the first book's premise. But what a way to bog down! It's not enough to set up a smackdown between those who have knowledge and those who'd really like to, she's got to throw in a native sapiency crisis too! What an incredible can of narrative worms. Usually SF authors avoid cataclysmic terraforming of worlds with native sapients, it's very much an "us versus them" limited resource situation. Very ugly.
Possibilities are four: did the initial settlers/terraformers make a deal with the natives? Have the wizards made one since? Were the pre-settlement surveys sloppy? Or did the settlers just not care? The first seems unlikely on the face of it - wouldn't there be lingering stories of some sort of bargain? - until one remembers that it's already established that the wizards are restricting information, particularly stuff related to higher tech. At which point - what would probably be part of a deal with the natives? Would they, say, want the cessation of terraforming, particularly the 20-year microwaving cycle? Which ties neatly back to the "what are the wizards up to?" theme established in earlier books. The third possibility - no one noticed - is more tragic and lets everyone currently living feel very guilty without really being responsible for it. Except for Janus, but he's Poor Goat Guy anyway. (More on that later.) The possibility that the settlers knew and didn't care is fairly morally reprehensible (c. turn of 21st C) but has much of the appeal of "screwup" with added ancestor guilt. But I'd think that someone would have stories of the evil demons who Must Be Destroyed in that case. Instead we have stories of scary demons who Must Be Avoided. So my hot theory at the moment is possibility #3 (aka People Are Stupid - a fact I rediscover every time I stab at my calc homework), with an outside bet that whichever wizard is monkeying with the Guidestars is also dealing with the demons.
Tangentially, I am horribly tempted to draw parallels between Outskirters, demons, and native Americans. Not because such is intended by the author, but because then you have the vaguely NA-ish types doing major damage to a native intelligence's habitat *cough*buffalo*cough*. Irony is sweet, and makes me wicked. Despite the fact that comparisons to nomadic Siberian/Asian groups would probably be at least, or possibly more, valid.
One thing that annoyed me in The Lost Steersman is Kirstein's use of another Poor [Scape]Goat Guy. In The Outskirter's Secret Fletcher got to be all bent out of shape and angsty; in The Lost Steersman it was Janus. This is a character type with limited appeal, especially when there a bias toward just the men losing their minds. (I remain an equal-opportunity character breaker.) First they're sympathetic, then they're weird, then they're on the enemy's side. Do you know how long I was waiting for someone to accuse Janus of being a wizard's man? I really, really hope Kirstein's done creating characters of that type, now that Janus has run off to the wizards (we are led to believe). You just get the impression that nice man can't be trusted. Fortunately, there's a plethora of slightly less plot-critical characters that counter that assessment.
The Poor Goat Guy thing might be coupled to the vaguely slashy Rowan/Bel vibe: Rowan spends an awful lot of time wishing Bel were around, during The Lost Steersman. Not a thought of particular importance, but worth kicking out for conversation.
Here's my totally off-the-wall theory for the steerswoman series: Slado's actually a rogue AI. I have no evidence for this other than his (or her) lack of corporeal presence in the series to date and his (or her) weird name. People tend to have vaguely nice fantasy names with European-ish antecedents - Rowan, Bel, Fletcher, Janus two-face. In that context, the name is weird. Also, SLADO just sounds like a great acronym. I suspect my theory will be nicely exploded in the fourth book, since there has been absolutely no indications of advanced AI in the series so far. Also, people are supposed to be off investigating that "ships vanish" business with an eye to Slado's wizardly keep, so I'd expect some movement on that front in book four. But without further information it's a fun theory.
[N.B.: I wrote that before I found a slightly spoiler-ish review of book four. I am now on fire to read it. When I'm not hip-deep in the academic swamp.]
So yeah. Fat epics are bad, but so far the Steerswoman series is keeping me guessing and interested in the characters.
[Edit: Spoilers for the fourth book, The Language of Power, in comments. Avoid the "Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power" if you want to remain unspoiled for tLoP.]
I would like to note that I started reading a copy of the second edition of The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) in early January, and finished it at 8:20 AM on March 30th. It was worth it: The Selfish Gene is a lively, detailed argument for the operation of natural selection at the genetic level, a brain-bending concept in chapter one, but eloquently illustrated by the end of the book. Dawkins, a noted evolutionary biologist, politely disagrees with group selectionism and occasionally slams the notion that "contraption contraception is bad" with great ill-will. In the '89 edition, there are also cool "followup" footnotes clarifying concepts and touching on new research (naked mole rats!). There are also two chapters of extra new material, including the "extended phenotype" chapter. (The entire concept is either on crack or possibly very useful. Or maybe both.) The enire book makes me want to dig up early ground-breaking evolutionary bio papers and books, and look at newer research to see what's been done since The Selfish Gene was published. I would encourage anyone who's interested in bio to take a stab at this, because it's interesting, and because it's seminal: my bio prof is basically recapping The Selfish Gene this semester. It makes a fairly painless course very, very easy. Yay Dawkins! And three cheers for my sister, who made me read this.
The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester): Reread. Because, as we all should know by now, Bester's two Golden Age novels are the best that era has to offer. (His '80's work is considerably less fun, alas.) So you all know what I'm going to say, right? About love for the genre and how much stuff is of its time and how if you think about the '50s, the themes of conspicuous consumption - Victorianism - tenacity - restraint - losing restraint (also sometimes called self control) seem to say less about where '50s America was going than where it was. But blood and money are universal agents of corruption - the trappings of The Stars My Destination may be dated, but the themes at the heart of the novel still speak to the attentive ear.
The Graveyard Game (Kage Baker): Reread. Fourth novel in the Company series: Joseph and Lewis search for the missing Mendoza and poke at the curious life of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax while the world quietly crumbles toward the Silence.
The first time I read this the little grey men seriously annoyed me, and I'm still offended by their narrative existence. It breaks my suspension of disbelief: dead people have bones, and leave other evidence of their existence. Baker has invented these guys out of - well, out of fairy myths - and the LGMs have all the plausibility of a fairy dropped into a shopping mall. If there was even a bit of handwaving - look, the poor Company agents have had to spend so much time keeping mortals from finding thus-and-such category of artifacts at these sites; the LGMs have bones that crumble into dust when they die, poor LGMs (gollum!) - I'd be cool. But there isn't, so their abrupt introduction in the fourth book deeply irritates my sense of narrative.
As long as I'm under a cut, I'd like to make an outside bet that when Mendoza and her boyfriend of the many lives burst into the Company's offices and files they find themselves running the Company. It would be nicely evil and paradoxical and stuff.
Other than that, the book is very good. Fast moving plot, vivid characterization, blackly amusing extrapolation of contemporary coddling and PCness into a hyperhygenic ubervegan world where booze and chocolate are illegal. Still very much looking forward to the sixth book.
The Lost Steersman (Rosemary Kirstein): Third book in the Steerswoman series. Definitely not a good place to jump in. If you haven't read the first two, find a copy of The Steerswoman's Road before trying The Lost Steersman. Blurb: back from the Outlands, Rowan searches the disarrayed Steerwoman's Annex for further clues of the wizard Slado's history and plans.
Reactions: Kirstein is wandering towards Fat Fantasy Epic territory. Book One: Problem introduced. Book Two: Problem expanded. Book Three: Minor part of Book Two expansion bifurcates. I'm not sure if I should be dismayed by the global scope Kirstein's trying for or delighted by the elegant propagation from the first book's premise. But what a way to bog down! It's not enough to set up a smackdown between those who have knowledge and those who'd really like to, she's got to throw in a native sapiency crisis too! What an incredible can of narrative worms. Usually SF authors avoid cataclysmic terraforming of worlds with native sapients, it's very much an "us versus them" limited resource situation. Very ugly.
Possibilities are four: did the initial settlers/terraformers make a deal with the natives? Have the wizards made one since? Were the pre-settlement surveys sloppy? Or did the settlers just not care? The first seems unlikely on the face of it - wouldn't there be lingering stories of some sort of bargain? - until one remembers that it's already established that the wizards are restricting information, particularly stuff related to higher tech. At which point - what would probably be part of a deal with the natives? Would they, say, want the cessation of terraforming, particularly the 20-year microwaving cycle? Which ties neatly back to the "what are the wizards up to?" theme established in earlier books. The third possibility - no one noticed - is more tragic and lets everyone currently living feel very guilty without really being responsible for it. Except for Janus, but he's Poor Goat Guy anyway. (More on that later.) The possibility that the settlers knew and didn't care is fairly morally reprehensible (c. turn of 21st C) but has much of the appeal of "screwup" with added ancestor guilt. But I'd think that someone would have stories of the evil demons who Must Be Destroyed in that case. Instead we have stories of scary demons who Must Be Avoided. So my hot theory at the moment is possibility #3 (aka People Are Stupid - a fact I rediscover every time I stab at my calc homework), with an outside bet that whichever wizard is monkeying with the Guidestars is also dealing with the demons.
Tangentially, I am horribly tempted to draw parallels between Outskirters, demons, and native Americans. Not because such is intended by the author, but because then you have the vaguely NA-ish types doing major damage to a native intelligence's habitat *cough*buffalo*cough*. Irony is sweet, and makes me wicked. Despite the fact that comparisons to nomadic Siberian/Asian groups would probably be at least, or possibly more, valid.
One thing that annoyed me in The Lost Steersman is Kirstein's use of another Poor [Scape]Goat Guy. In The Outskirter's Secret Fletcher got to be all bent out of shape and angsty; in The Lost Steersman it was Janus. This is a character type with limited appeal, especially when there a bias toward just the men losing their minds. (I remain an equal-opportunity character breaker.) First they're sympathetic, then they're weird, then they're on the enemy's side. Do you know how long I was waiting for someone to accuse Janus of being a wizard's man? I really, really hope Kirstein's done creating characters of that type, now that Janus has run off to the wizards (we are led to believe). You just get the impression that nice man can't be trusted. Fortunately, there's a plethora of slightly less plot-critical characters that counter that assessment.
The Poor Goat Guy thing might be coupled to the vaguely slashy Rowan/Bel vibe: Rowan spends an awful lot of time wishing Bel were around, during The Lost Steersman. Not a thought of particular importance, but worth kicking out for conversation.
Here's my totally off-the-wall theory for the steerswoman series: Slado's actually a rogue AI. I have no evidence for this other than his (or her) lack of corporeal presence in the series to date and his (or her) weird name. People tend to have vaguely nice fantasy names with European-ish antecedents - Rowan, Bel, Fletcher, Janus two-face. In that context, the name is weird. Also, SLADO just sounds like a great acronym. I suspect my theory will be nicely exploded in the fourth book, since there has been absolutely no indications of advanced AI in the series so far. Also, people are supposed to be off investigating that "ships vanish" business with an eye to Slado's wizardly keep, so I'd expect some movement on that front in book four. But without further information it's a fun theory.
[N.B.: I wrote that before I found a slightly spoiler-ish review of book four. I am now on fire to read it. When I'm not hip-deep in the academic swamp.]
So yeah. Fat epics are bad, but so far the Steerswoman series is keeping me guessing and interested in the characters.
[Edit: Spoilers for the fourth book, The Language of Power, in comments. Avoid the "Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power" if you want to remain unspoiled for tLoP.]
I would like to note that I started reading a copy of the second edition of The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) in early January, and finished it at 8:20 AM on March 30th. It was worth it: The Selfish Gene is a lively, detailed argument for the operation of natural selection at the genetic level, a brain-bending concept in chapter one, but eloquently illustrated by the end of the book. Dawkins, a noted evolutionary biologist, politely disagrees with group selectionism and occasionally slams the notion that "
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 11:00 pm (UTC)I'm thinking I've got to read The Selfish Gene now. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 02:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 04:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 07:55 pm (UTC)Now I've gone & ordered the 4 books, & it's _all your fault_!
Go me! Only now I'm envious, because I haven't snagged the fourth book yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 01:00 pm (UTC)Erm, your mileage may vary on that. I've read them both, but they are not among my top 5 for the 1950s decade. (Heinlein wrote better stuff.)
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for a mass market PB of The Graveyard Game. Have not yet read it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 08:17 pm (UTC)Doesn't the library have a copy of Graveyeard Game? Or are you avoiding checking it out? It's very much a middle-of-series book (plus it has the Stupid Plot Spoiler which consistently infuriates me) but it's got sufficient plottishness and amusing writing to be worth reading.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 11:11 pm (UTC)Er, um, typo?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 08:49 pm (UTC)Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power
Date: 2005-04-10 01:50 am (UTC)Yes, definitely. In this interview (http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2003/0308/Rosemary%20Kirstein%20Interview/Review.htm) she says that there are supposed to be seven volumes, plus a prequel; rather comparable to George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire," though not nearly as bad as the Robert Jordan stuff. Still, if she could just manage to get them written, I'd be more than eager to snatch them off the shelves and do my little happy dance all the way to the cash register. Words cannot express how much I love this series; I understand about the "academic swamp," but in my opinion The Language of Power was better than The Lost Steersman, so I'd say read it when you can.
Possibilities are four:
Here's a fifth: the settlers' ship, heading for a properly surveyed system, malfunctioned, stranding them here and forcing them to make do with the planet they had available, unsuitable though it might have been. There are some hints toward that scenario in the fourth book, though there are also some things that argue against it. Then there are some vague, contradictory hints about the question that I've been wracking my brains wondering about since the first one came out a decade and a half ago: Why?! I think it's fairly well established even by the end of the second book that the Guidestars are fairly important to the terraformed ecosystem that supports all human life on this planet; what possible reason could Slado ( who presumably knows this ) have for destroying one? Unless he's just plain nutso, of course. At the end of The Lost Steersman I was thinking perhaps he had developed a conscience with regard to the demons, but we sort of "meet" him through second-hand accounts in the fourth one, and he is NOT someone who listens to moral arguments, at all.
Actually, no movement on the "ships vanish" issue in book four ( that interview I linked says the next book is supposedly titled The City in the Crags, so it should be in there ), but what you call the "Goat Guy" character kind of goes a different way, if you actually want to apply that label to him. I hadn't quite noticed the parallel between Fletcher and Janus until you pointed it out, but there is a little bit of "even men you think are your allies have other motives" vibe in the fourth book too; not nearly as drastic as those two, but enough for you to be a little uneasy about what he might be doing.
Since I read Black Projects, White Knights, The Life of the World to Come, and The Graveyard Game ( plus a few eBook "Company" short stories ) for the first time all at once at the beginning of this year, my memory isn't altogether clear about which bits of story go with which book, but doesn't she make quite a point about the LGMs actively and strenuously hiding from the other strains of humanity? Granted, that's a pretty thin excuse for finding no fossil evidence, but at least it's something. Plus, they do live in caves that they sterilize whenever they have to scurry to a new hiding place, so maybe they're just really thorough.
Better submit this before I run out of space; sorry I'm running a few days behind.
Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power
Date: 2005-04-11 01:44 pm (UTC)On possibilities: a Darkover-esque setup? (I know, not the only example, just the one I ran into first.) We're really speculating in advance of the data, but there's nothing that explicitly rules it out, and some of the chance comments in tLoP about the wizards' power tentatively support such an explanation.
My "Slado the AI" theory is nicely exploded. I am a happy, happy reader. Either he's fruitbat, or something got out of his control (extremely unlikely, but then one remembers how much effort went into the Chernobyl accident) or there's information we don't have. Kieran's actions make me think there's a strong element of the third.
Re: Goat: but he's neither fruitbat nor dead! Unlike Janus and Fletcher. And he seems like he could wind up Bel's counterpart with the Inner Lands peope -look how he organized Donner. For once, there's a possibility that a man close to Rowan will make it out of the series with his sanity relatively intact. I'll be over here, doing the dance of "not in an overly Cherryh-like universe." And waiting for the other shoe to drop, because it always does.
there is a little bit of "even men you think are your allies have other motives" vibe in the fourth book too
That's a useful way to describe it. But from Rowan's PoV it's true of pretty much every character, really... except maybe Bel and the other Steerswomen. (Steerspersons?) Possibly it's related to Rowan's principles: she's got a Thing about truth, and Janus and Fletcher went to some lengths to decieve her.
(Tangential thought: depending on the quality of the wizards' med tech, Berry and her husband might be really bribable. The City in the Crags could be unfortunate for that whole "people decieve Rowan" thing.)
Re Baker: I read BP, WK after tGG, so anything in there hit my conciousness after my first "intro" to the LGMs. IIRC they were originally introduced in one of the Asimov's shorts I haven't read yet ("The Fourth Branch" - blurb on Fictionwise.com), so my frustration probably isn't justified. Still, even if they're fabulous sneakers, they've got to leave some shadow of their presence - if only, as you pointed out, in strangely sterile or deformed caves. Absence can be a sort of presence, or a clue of presence. The Company novels are usually pretty good about conforming to Chekhov's "gun on the mantelpiece" rule, so to have the LGMs shot off out of nowhere - from my perspective - still annoys me. Not enough to make me stop reading, but enough to make me comment.
Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power
Date: 2005-04-12 06:49 pm (UTC)I, too, am very strongly inclined to think Slado's behavior has to be explained by information we don't yet have, because that's kind of the meta-theme of the whole series: having to hypothesize from insufficient information, both Rowan and we as readers. Every time we think we have a theory that might account for what's going on, along comes some new fact that blows it out of the water, but provides a new base upon which to build the next one ( how's that for a mixed metaphor? ). There has to be some way that having the Guidestar crash benefits him, that we haven't yet seen evidence of.
About whether or not Berry and her husband might be bribable: it seems to me that while they might be open to it, I'm not sure it would occur to the wizards to make the offer. Their control of the populace seems much more weighted to the "threat" side of the scale, especially Slado himself. I can't see him even concieving of the idea of a bribe, much less following through on it, because he would have to see them as actual people who had motives to be manipulated, rather than merely objects to be used to achieve his aims. Plus, in order to bribe someone to give you information, you have to at least suspect that they have information you want, and I think at this early stage the "conspiracy" is still operating below the wizards' radar.
Yes, I think "The Fourth Branch" does give the most information about the mysterious little men ( I got it from MobiPocket, more or less the same as FictionWise ); I also liked it because focuses on Lewis, who doesn't otherwise get much "onstage" time in the series, just little bits here and there. "The Queen in the Hill" also talks about the interaction between the Company and the LGMs, but it's very oblique and you really have to read between the lines. Now that I think about it some more, I seem to remember being somewhat annoyed when they were first introduced, too; kind of an "Oh, no, she's not going to go there" feeling. I guess I was just enjoying the other parts enough that I kind of forgot about it until you reminded me.
Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power
Date: 2005-04-13 09:53 pm (UTC)Apology accepted. I might be a little jumpy about Kirstein spoilers because coming into the series spoiler-free made it a lot more fun, I think.
As you said, readers have insufficient information re: Slado's motives and the Guidestar to draw really solid conclusions. The major effect (so far) seems to be that the wizards' access to Farside's been sliced off, unless you're willing to bounce a signal off the ionosphere or hike to it in person. So either there's key information at Farside, or the images our protags have are the critical bit. There's only a very little information to speculate on, so far.
Berry: I was thinking of an entirely opposite scenario, where Berry and whats-his-face got cataract surgery or whatever in exchange for not telling anyone what they saw in the south. Denial of information, not access to. Which sets them up for a major fall with Rowan, if such a thing played out.
As far as the LGMs, I'll buy them when I see where Baker's going with them, and if it's not unutterably silly.