Book Reviews

Just read a couple of books over the last two months.
(Having needed to purge myself of the ghost of Philip K. Dick)
I thought I'd share mythoughts with you.
Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton. Great book. Hamilton never lets me down. He is kind of hung up on the military thing, but his storiies are complex, well thout out, and his science and technology are always amazing. Good read IMHO.
Metaplanetary by Tony Daniels. Probably the most original science fiction novel I've read in a long time. Very well crafted, well thought out, with a unique perspectiv on what it means to be human. Took a bit to get into the flow of the book, figure out what was going on, but definately worth the read. He has a sequel coming out next year that I'm looking forward to.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Not really science fiction, more men's thriller ala Tom Clancy, but it has anitmatter used to threaten the Vatican, a centuries old plot against the Catholic Church, an interesting commentary on science and religion, and, well, its main character is an art historian. Fun read.

Limit of Vision by Linda Nagata. This is a novel about the creation of an artificial life form, how humans interact with it, and how the world responds. The idea is interesting, the writing is okay. I definately enjoyed reading it, but it felt like light reading considering its topic. In a way it also deals with what it means to be human, like Metaplanetary, but it feels as if the author of Limit of Vision is a less sophisticated writer when it comes to dealing with such issues. maybe If I hadn't read both novels so close together I wouldn't feel this way.

Last but not least...Evolution by Stephan Baxter. I'm actually not done with this, but so far, well, its a good read but...
This a novel about the evolution of humans, from the earliest primates to modern man. Its interesting, but hard to realte to a shrewlike creature who the author calls Purg and who scuttles around dinosaur feet at night smelling dino farts and looking for food. Or a horny raping primate named Solo who uses brute force to get females pregnant. Don't get me wrong. the writing is good and I'm sure he's got the story as close to reality as modern science can speculate, but so much of what he describes is hard to relate to as fiction. He would have been better off just writing a non-fiction yet somewhat speculative book describing his interpretation of the history of our ancestors. Worth the read, though, just to get a glimpse of lives worse then our own:)

I read all three, and it was a struggle. I found the writing in Robinson's Mars series to be adequate in terms of mechanics, but the plot and characters were boring.

That's perhaps too harsh -- the characters themselves were okay, but what they did usually wasn't so interesting. The books lacked in tension.

And that is again perhaps too harsh -- the real problem, I think, is that he would spend 1/4 of a book on one character then switch to another, and what they did was totally unrelated and you would never go back to the first character.

The first book had a great lesson on what [b]not[/b] to do. He starts off in the "present" by showing how everyone reacts to the death of a particular character, then starts the rest of the book as flashbacks. The character who died becomes a main character, in fact THE main character, in fact the only truly interesting character. So you already know he is going to die, and basically how. There is no tension. When the flashbacks are over and I got to the part where he died, I lost interest completely. I had to force myself to read the rest of the book.

In fact, I had to force myself to read the rest of the series. The series is a showcase for Robinson's vision on colonization of Mars and the rest of the solar system, and major technological and social developments in the near future.

It's really, truly, brilliant stuff, and it's worth reading just for that.

But it's tough going. I felt enlightened, and relieved when I finished the third book.

Anyone reading the Harry Potter series? (or maybe, is anyone NOT reading the Harry Potter series?)

I started reading them recently, to keep up with my kid. I can highly recommend them. They are imaginative and fun for all ages. They are a good influence on kids. They show children acting like children who are naive but intelligent, and brave when it counts. They are polite, unlike the precocious brats portrayed in American television and movies, where they show a ten year old kid acting like a smartass to adults and everyone laughs. Or the kid in commercials, where Mom just smiles while following her five year old around with a bottle of some miracle cleaner while he's drawing on walls and furniture.

Rowling's kids face bullies, peer pressure, anxiety, prejudice, temptation, just like real kids. In a fantasy setting she can explore these issues in a way that's interesting to children, and the life lessons don't come off all preachy.

Plus it gets kids reading again. My eight-year-old just finished the fourth book. He read it all himself -- all 600+ pages -- and he can tell you all the characters and what they are like and what they went through. He has Playstation and TV and other distractions, but he still likes to read.

As for the writing, she is definitely hitting her stride. The first two were charming but a bit amateurish (they are children's books, after all). The third one was much more involved, and the 4th one was her best so far. I am about halfway through the 5th one, and it is a real page turner. The plot is twisted, and woven with that from previous books. Snowballing sequels.

I wonder if it's going out of scope though. Is she trying to appeal to an older audience now, on purpose?

Although, my kid seems to be following it okay. The point of view never changes (always looking over Harry's shoulder), she keeps the words and sentences short, and finds opportunities to explain things, but the plots are getting more complicated. Then again, one reason kids like these books is they aren't so kiddish.