Miscellany — October/November 2010

Yes, I have been neglectful of this blog. I have been struggling with paperwork, although that is not a very good excuse. After all, paper is one of the major reasons why there is such a blog in the first place.

I have managed to clear a lot of my 'slush pile' of unread books over the last two months, so this is a bigger post than usual. Here are the 'victims', in chronological order. Note that I've become a bit more explicit in terms of recommendations.

1. Daniel Abraham's The Long Price finally came out in two omnibus volumes of two books each from Orbit. His world is an interesting one; philosopher-poets bind concept beings called andat through the use of explicit definition. It is an exercise of Description Theory which brings magical power to those who succeed and a horrible death to those who botch the process. But what happens over these four well-paced, intriguing, and powerful books is an exploration of what it means to think, to be alive, to have meaning. I recommend this sequence for any reader who wants something to think about and doesn't mind it being well-written fiction at the same time.

2. Ooi Kee Beng's In Lieu of Ideology: An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee is a solid performance in terms of extracting a man's nature from his expressed thoughts. Since Ooi confines himself to a highly structured discourse with little speculation or extrapolation, his conclusions are interesting but seem rather stifled. I'd recommend this book for people interested in the philosophical basis of Singaporean single-party politics.

3. I didn't much enjoy Meltdown, Ben Elton's latest satire. In a sense, it is a modern comedy of manners, one which reminded me of the Instant Sunshine song, Nouveau Poor. Man gets rich and screws it up by overleveraging his wealth in the current financial environment. Entertaining, no doubt. Savagely witty, yes. But it didn't appeal to me because of lack of empathy; I can't remember rooting for any of the characters in the story at all.

4. Lee Child's 61 Hours was the usual stuff. He is always entertaining. You could make any of his books into a movie blockbuster. This one has terrorists in it, and a mindboggling drug conspiracy. That's all you need to know if you already know Jack Reacher. Highly recommended for the thriller crowd.

5. Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon are known for their modern urban horror and other such writings. Together, one might have hoped they would transcend their individual flaws. With The Chamber of Ten, they have failed spectacularly. The undead of Venice are extremely gory and yet unconvincing. The story flails around with amazing ideas that seem to come from nowhere, like a cheap synthetic version of a single chapter from Tim Powers's The Stress of Her Regard.

6. Just Another Judgement Day is Simon Green's 9th book in his Nightside sequence featuring John Taylor, the private investigator who is feared by most supernatural beings. This time, apocalypse beckons (again), courtesy of God's own enforcer, and JT has to stop him. As usual, Green produces a huge fantastic cast of over-the-top characters, a cracking plot, and a dramatic resolution. Pure entertainment. I like short books with punch. This is one. Green is fun.

7. He's also started a new series with Ghost of a Chance. The problem is that after a while, all his writing looks like the same stuff permutated sideways, just as Zelazny's Amber series did. This one is about agents who investigate supernatural events. It's urban horror comedy. Disturbingly, it contains ties to a few of his other series as well, which is happening more often in his books.

8. Matthew Reilly's The Five Greatest Warriors is the work of a thriller writer who unlike Greg Rucka, Lee Child, G M Ford or John Maxim, has not continued to improve or change. Like Tom Clancy, he has deteriorated with time, but more quickly. Since it is the third installment of the series that started with Seven Ancient Wonders, I am braced for more pain. I actually thought he would get better, you know.

9. Cory Doctorow has been writing quirky and entertaining novels for a long time. They are hard to further classify within the 'speculative fiction' genre. I've just read his Makers which is about what people do with machines that can make anything and Somebody Comes To Town, Somebody Leaves Town which seems to be some sort of urban-legend/fairy tale hybrid with many disturbing elements. Both are hilarious and thought-provoking.

10. She-Lover of Death is the 8th Erast Fandorin novel by Boris Akunin. As always, it is quick read with a twisty plot and memorable characters. Akunin deliberately set out to use a different style and genre variation in each of his Fandorin books. This one is about a suicide club with a deadly secret, which might seem a bit obvious. With Akunin's books, the obvious is not always so obvious. Highly recommended (as a series) for readers of period detective novels.

11. Wired For God? is Charles Foster's interesting analysis of the philosophical and biological reasons why humans have God-concepts. There's something to like or dislike here for everyone. I guess there is a place for such writing. It feels a bit light-weight, though.

12. Greg Rucka's latest Atticus Kodiak novel, Walking Dead, follows the usual Rucka pattern of digging up the seamy underside of humanity and making us learn more than we would otherwise have wanted to know. This time it's about human slavery and the protagonist's quest to save a young girl from an organisation that will never let go without a fight. It's gritty and realistic, down to our eventual realisation that they won't let him go either.

13. The Edge of the World is Kevin J Anderson's latest contribution to a genre whose greatest exponent is Guy Gavriel Kay. He has created a world a lot like ours in terms of general geography, history and culture. Then he's twisted it a bit; for example, the city at the centre of his rather Mediterranean world is called Ishalem. But it's a cracking read, to see how people deliberately make trouble for people even when most of them want peace. It's very human, flows smoothly, a good read — but it's not a must-buy.

14. David Golemon is at it again. Unlike Matthew Reilly, however, Golemon has improved a lot since his last three novels. The fourth in the series, Leviathan, is actually pretty good. It isn't beautiful, but it is far better than the others. Put together characters like the Count of Monte Cristo and Captain Nemo, together with assorted historical figures, and you have a pretty good conspiracy technothriller (or whatever).

There are a handful more which I would normally include, but I'll save them for the next post, due in mid-December. Thanks for reading, and I hope it's been helpful.