The Spear Cuts Through Water is a fantasy story: two boys – one an outcast, the other of royal blood – are on the run, escorting the nearly deceased bThe Spear Cuts Through Water is a fantasy story: two boys – one an outcast, the other of royal blood – are on the run, escorting the nearly deceased body of a goddess trying to escape her husband, a despotic Emperor, and their monstrous sons, the Three Terrors.
The biggest delight of reading Spear was the wonder Jimenez offers. His worldbuilding and the details of the story offered a fairly consistent stream of the new – like psychic tortoises being used as telecommunication, just to name one thing. Not that Jimenez veers into Weird territory: there is no weirdness or otherness just for the sake of it in this novel.
The result is a story that delivers the unexpected and fantastic regularly, surprising the reader with things they never read about before, but still in a consistent, solid secondary world. For me, reading fantasy is generally about that: invoking awe and escapism through the power of an author’s imagination. Jimenez also describes a fair amount of violence and action. As such, for me this was a book about sets and scenes, and Jimenez excels at it.
There is another layer to this book, a meta one. The story is partially told in the second person (a you that’s a descendant of one of the characters), and some of the story is told to him by his grandmother, and he also sees big parts of the story performed as a dance in some kind of dream theater. That latter mode is the bulk of the novel, and as such Spear mostly reads as a regular 3rd person narrator.
Much is made of this formal structure in other reviews – some even calling the book an experimental triumph. I don’t fully agree.
It’s clear some readers are confused or put off by the formal choices Jimenez made, judging by some Goodreads reviews – mind you, the book still has an excellent rating. Others, like Jake Casella Brookings in the Chicago Review of Books go full on with their praise.
I expected something different - Lemian versions of M. John Harrison's great fictional short reviews in 'You Should Come With Me Now'. What DNF at 50%
I expected something different - Lemian versions of M. John Harrison's great fictional short reviews in 'You Should Come With Me Now'. What we get instead often has more to do with the canon of literature (think Crusoe, Dostoevsky, etc.) than actual science fiction. The fictional reviews are dense, longwinded and have a lot of meta-literary stuff - and there're more tedious synopses than actual reviews, by the way.
'Pericalypse' and the introductione were great though, and there might still be gems in the second half of the book, but I lacked the stamina to hunt for them.
Sentimentality is the book’s main draw. We feel for Charlie when he slowly realizes he was once retarded. We feel for Charlie as he remembers being buSentimentality is the book’s main draw. We feel for Charlie when he slowly realizes he was once retarded. We feel for Charlie as he remembers being bullied. We feel for Charlie when his mother can’t accept him being different. We feel for Charlie when he has trouble connecting with women. Again, making readers feel something is no mean feat at all, and Keyes deserves credit for that.
The novel’s themes by themselves are not superficial: what does intelligence do to a person? What does being smarter than most people around you do to someone? How are emotions and intelligence correlated? I’m sure lots of brainy people that read lots of books have bumped into these questions as teenagers, and possibly in their later lives as well.
But sadly this novel doesn’t show a lot of insight in the human condition – not that Keyes doesn’t have ambition, opening his novel with a quote from Plato’s Republic. Yet the end result is more philosophical soap opera than probing analysis: it seems as if the book only adds plot & emotion to the original short story, not so much ideas.
First the good: the novel is well-written, well-crafted, well-constructed – even if it’s sometimes transparent & obvious. Pacing is excellent, and theFirst the good: the novel is well-written, well-crafted, well-constructed – even if it’s sometimes transparent & obvious. Pacing is excellent, and the progression feels great: it starts as a regular book about an abusive dad, and slowly morphs into a mystery in the cold depths of space. I can see non-SF readers being sucked in, surprised by what they ultimately end up reading.
At the same time, even though it is set in the near future, In Ascension keeps it real – and MacInnes’ realism is what makes the later space scenes so harrowing and claustrophobic. Those might be the most true space ship scenes I have ever read – and that’s including Aurora from Robinson or Redemption Ark by Reynolds – who both in their own & very different ways tried to convey possible realities of fictional space flight.
But realism is not the full denominator: the alien stuff is handled differently, and remains vague & unresolved. There’s a bit of how Christopher Priest might handle such stuff there, and, as said, Stanisław Lem. MacInnes writes something that is both creepy and mystical, yet he doesn’t make it feel less real even if it is all handwavium. It also doesn’t dominate the story at all, and like the other speculative near future elements, generally remains in the background. Very well done, and rather unique.
Also the character arcs are well-done, and MacInnes lets our perception of the main character end up in some kind of liminal space. In a way there is no resolution or conclusion, or at least no definitive answer to the exact psychology of Leigh, and somehow it fits the story and its themes.
Serious novels get serious reviews, and googling will get you some quality writing on the book easily. As such, it’s nice to review this a few months after the fact, and engage in a dialogue not only with the book itself.
A few reviewers, like Duncan Lunan of Shoreline To Infinity and Stuart Kelly on The Scotsman, refer to an author’s note accompanying the review copies of the book – nowhere to be found in the edition I bought.
I don’t have a ton of analysis to offer this time, and the main intention of this review is to get you to start book 1 if you haven’t read this s(...)
I don’t have a ton of analysis to offer this time, and the main intention of this review is to get you to start book 1 if you haven’t read this series yet. I’ll start by reiterate its selling points.
No bloat. Lean & mean, nothing spoonfed, nothing stretched nor repeated, no world building except for what happens. No bullshit. No self-serious convoluted magic system, no glossary, no maps. No borders. Cook writes what he wants, in full freedom and with an unrestrained, original imagination. No brainwashing. Cook has no political agenda – except maybe showing that morals are messy, and that evil exists.
Ballingrud’s novel length debut is not ‘bad’, so to say, but the story failed to connect with me. I can’t fully point at what the problem was – it migBallingrud’s novel length debut is not ‘bad’, so to say, but the story failed to connect with me. I can’t fully point at what the problem was – it might have been the fictional 1930s Mars, which was obviously a fake construct – a cross between Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Western movies and a bunch of other stuff.
After some time, I started to notice it simply didn’t engage me. I didn’t care about what happened to the characters, and I wasn’t interested in the world building either. I stopped reading at 55%. It might have been the prose – somehow it seemed devoid of a soul. In all fairness, this got high praise elsewhere, amongst others from Speculiction.
I still have high hopes for Ballingrud’s short story collection North American Lake Monsters though. The short form seems better suited for his kind of fantastica – for this particular reader at least.
Stephen Markley had high ambitions for his book: “emotionally reorient the reader around what’s happening, so we can actually feel in our hearts what Stephen Markley had high ambitions for his book: “emotionally reorient the reader around what’s happening, so we can actually feel in our hearts what the stakes of this moment actually are.”
This moment refers to the ongoing predicament of our biosphere: The Deluge is climate fiction.
As with any book, it won’t work for everyone. Especially if you don’t believe rapidly reducing our carbon emissions is necessary, or if you feel the current American political & economical system generates enough equity, The Deluge might annoy you for ideological reasons. Markley does try to be balanced – more on that below – but it’s no denying this book advocates progressive measures rather than conservative ones. It’s impossible to write books that appeal to everybody on the political spectrum, and this book won’t convince anyone who doesn’t already think society is in peril because of human emissions. But for those who do, it will put the urgency in much, much sharper focus.
So, for me, Markley did achieve his goals: the novel gave me new insights, and it affected me emotionally. I cried numerous times while reading it, and it put a knot in my stomach – tight and then even tighter.
The Deluge is set in the US, and its 880 pages chronicle 2013 to 2040. It is a big, big book of the sprawling kind, told through the eyes of seven characters – a scientist, a poor drug addict, an ecoterrorist, a Washington policy adviser, an advertising strategist, a high profile activist and her partner.
These characters all have families and friends, and it is trough their well-drawn relations Markley managed to evoke strong emotions in me, as the cast experience climate catastrophes and political upheaval primarily while they are connected to other human beings. In a sense, this book is as much about love and friendship as it is about ecological systems and politics: we fear for what’s coming, because we fear for our loved ones.
The Deluge is immersive, cinematic reading. Stephen King called it the best book he read in 2022 and “a modern classic (…) Prophetic, terrifying, uplifting.” I concur. At times I felt 14 again, utterly absorbed by The Stand. Markley wrote that kind of book – with the occasional boardroom debate thrown in. It’s arguably better, as The Stand had no real-world stakes.
The novel was 13 years in the making, and so Markley had to constantly revise and change stuff he’d already written to suit new political and scientific developments. It makes it an exceptionally timely book: to really experience what Markley pulled off, you need to read this now – not in 10 years.
So what exactly does he achieve in The Deluge – aside from showing, on a basic level, what could happen the coming decades: drought, fire, flood, food scarcity, inflation, migration & death?
Anyway, for me The Man in the High Castle‘s main draw is its collection of really, really good scenes. Scenes about a shop owner. About two guys (...)
Anyway, for me The Man in the High Castle‘s main draw is its collection of really, really good scenes. Scenes about a shop owner. About two guys trying to set up a handmade jewelry business. About a woman having a fling. Small, slow scenes, unspectacular in the light of World Politics or the African Holocaust. Yet somehow Dick manages to imbue them with life and atmosphere and humanity. Somehow they stand their own in the midst of sentences about history “passing us by”, the evocative power of fiction – “even cheap popular fiction”, “plutocrats”, “Fascist theory of action” or the fact that “it’s all darkness”.
So maybe Joe Cinnadella is right when he claims that it is no “big issue” who wins out. Maybe Dick was a cynic who tried to show that either way, life is life.
Throughout the 12 volumes, Trondheim takes the reader in unexpected directions. You never know when the story will turn, nor where it will turn t(...)
Throughout the 12 volumes, Trondheim takes the reader in unexpected directions. You never know when the story will turn, nor where it will turn too. It is a wild ride, yet all feels smooth and logical. This is no mean feat, and there seems to be some similarity to how the character Ralph Azham approaches things, and the way Trondheim plots. I’m not sure how thought out the full story was beforehand, but to me Trondheim seems to improvise his storytelling – and masterfully so – just like Azham seems to follow his gut.
And just like it often seems all a joke to Azham, the story is not too serious – even though it deals with serious stuff. Paradoxically, Azham mostly manages to do the ethical thing, without being sanctimonious. Similarly, Trondheim’s story touches upon themes of power and moral calculus, all while avoiding pontificating or ideological smug. Ralph nor Lewis put forward grand theories or ethical arrogance or thou-shalt-pomp, there’s just praxis. When Ralph exclaims “I feel like I don’t control anything” in the final volume, even though he has risen to power, Trondheim shows him to be a version of some textbook postmodern anti-hero – even though Azham feels very much its own thing throughout.
In the final pages the character succumbs to disappointment and cynicism, yet choses to break free nonetheless.
This is high quality writing, playful and thoughtful at the same time.
The Martian Chronicles is one of those titles I saw listed again and again as one of science fiction’s key texts – it ranks sixth on the aggregate lisThe Martian Chronicles is one of those titles I saw listed again and again as one of science fiction’s key texts – it ranks sixth on the aggregate list Classics of Science Fiction. But because I thought Fahrenheit 451 was so awfully preachy, it took me 8 years to pick up this other Bradbury title. The lesson here is: never judge an author by one book – The Martian Chronicles indeed is a deserved, enduring classic.
While there is a certain naivety in the book – Earthlings just go and bang on an alien door and introduce themselves, unafraid of pathogens or possibly dangerous Martian mores – and Bradbury doesn’t seem too concerned with realism on that front, the book does manage to evoke a real enough image of certain crucial aspects of the human condition.
It will also delight certain readers The Martian Chronicles is critical of colonialism, American imperialism, consumerism and the nuclear arms race. It was published as The Silver Locusts in the UK, a title that clearly advocates a political interpretation. And yes, in a way, this early 50ies book is ‘woke’ indeed. But as Jesse pointed out on Speculiction, Bradbury does so without overtly preaching or easy dichotomies – is this really the same guy who wrote Fahrenheit 451?
Content aside, what struck me most was the book’s formal power.
Does that mean that Glitterati is esthetics only? I wouldn’t say so, but esthetics are the main dish, even if some ruminat1,5 stars - rounded up.
(...)
Does that mean that Glitterati is esthetics only? I wouldn’t say so, but esthetics are the main dish, even if some ruminations about human society can be discerned. The problem is that those ruminations are fairly superficial and mostly standard too, so don’t expect any thorough analysis.
According to Jean Baudrillard the cycle of fashion gets driven by 2 impulses that are contrary to each other: the impulse to belong and the impulse to stand out. I don’t think the way fashion works in Langmead’s book is realistic in any way, not even in the book’s own terms: the social (fashion) rules of the Glitterati sub-society seem primarily there to amuse Langmead and Langmead’s readers, they are not there to reflect human conditions, provide insight in our own society or say something about how creative fashions or art works. Again, it’s mainly esthetics over ethics in Glitterati – and by esthetics I don’t mean theoretical esthetics, but neat shiny things. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: satire also aims to amuse, and there surely is an audience for this.
“How do you know what to say before you know how to say it?”
I’ve read most of Harrison’s 21st century output, and loved it all – aside from Empty Spac“How do you know what to say before you know how to say it?”
I’ve read most of Harrison’s 21st century output, and loved it all – aside from Empty Space, which I DNFed at 60%, and resulted in a fairly lengthy analysis that might interest you if you’re interested in theorizing about literature, genre, deconstruction and science fiction.
I always mean to read something of his 20th century work – his debut appeared in 1971 – but he keeps on publishing new titles. This new book is new indeed: formally inventive. Part memoir, part short fiction, part poetics – with a focus on the latter.
Wish I Was Here contains lucid thoughts about the nature of writing, our culture at large and the function of speculative fiction; but also sharp ruminations on life, growing older and memory, amongst other things. It’s a wonderfully mixed and varied reading experience that frustrated me at times, but which is always imbued with a depth that seems bottomless, steeped in the experience of a life both centered and at the edge of things.
Harrison’s prose is not always easy, but whenever I reread a part I did not get at first, it turned out that I was to blame: there’s nothing in these pages that concentration can’t handle. Moreover, in each case, it turned out that Harrison had found an elegant combination of words to tentatively express something which is hard to express to begin with. Part of Wish I Was Here is about the ineffable – the mystery of life and existence – but not the ineffable as some storified narrative, not the miracle as some event in a causal chain.
So – I’m not ashamed to admit I didn’t get everything, but that doesn’t seem necessary, and I don’t mean this in the way some readers still enjoy certain poems while they don’t get them either. I think that would be the easy way out: approach parts of Wish I Was Here as prose poems. That’s not it. Harrison chiseled his latest from the tremendous amount of notes he made during his life, and it is obvious that some of these notes are private and as such incomprehensible to others – it does not make them poems, even though they are just as composed, contain metaphors too and sound A-okay when read out loud.
All and all, when I turned the final pages, the book had floored me – even though I hadn’t been aware that there was a fight going on. Not that Harrison is a boxer, a chess player or an existential wrestler. But it is about getting grip – grip while you sit, breathe and read, grip on a bunch of words that signal something.
With 1/4th of the story left, I'm tending towards a 4.5 stars as a final score. Again a creative story that keeps on doing unexpected things without fWith 1/4th of the story left, I'm tending towards a 4.5 stars as a final score. Again a creative story that keeps on doing unexpected things without feeling contrived.
Trondheim also introduces a bit of political ethics this time, nothing too serious or heavy handed, but fitting the overall mood of the story so far.
Very much looking forward how this will wrap up - curious if more depth will be added, or if the focus will remain on creative entertainment. There's nothing wrong with the latter by the way, especially not if it's so well done.
Hard to pass a definite judgement - this is just the first 4th of the full story.
It is very promising: a creative story that keeps on doing unexpecteHard to pass a definite judgement - this is just the first 4th of the full story.
It is very promising: a creative story that keeps on doing unexpected things without feeling contrived. My hunch atm is that I'll give 5 stars when I complete the full series.
Let's hope the final 2 volumes of the English translation will be published sooner than later.
And even though parts of the physics are fictional, and Egan’s brand of advanced transhumanism is a science fictional pipe dream, Diaspora offers(...)
And even though parts of the physics are fictional, and Egan’s brand of advanced transhumanism is a science fictional pipe dream, Diaspora offers an overarching, fundamental lesson: our existence is shaped by our perception and processing of information. As such a certain degree of solipsism is inescapable, and our struggles with that very notion are one of life’s continuous calibrations. Plato has written about a cave too, but Egan explicitly adds the element of identity: getting additional data changes one’s personality. It’s obvious, but I hadn’t thought about it like that, and so Egan changed my perspective, yet again.
Diaspora won two awards, the 2006 Seiun, a Japanese award for best translated novel, and the 2010 Premio Ignotus – basically the Spanish Hugo – for best foreign novel. I myself am unsure about what to award this novel: there are 5-star parts, and 5-star ideas too, but some parts couldn’t grip me at all, having me skim too much to speak of a fully successful read. But even though I didn’t put in the full effort, the ending was somehow very emotional – no mean feat. I hope one day, if I can anticipate it, my own death will not feel as a death either, but rather as completion. What more can one wish for?
It must be de rigueur today to like exiled Russian authors - living in Berlin no less. Telluria "is set in the future, when a devastating holy war betIt must be de rigueur today to like exiled Russian authors - living in Berlin no less. Telluria "is set in the future, when a devastating holy war between Europe and Islam has succeeded in returning the world to the topor and disorganization of the Middle Ages", "an array of little nations that are like puzzle pieces, each cultivating its own ideology or identity, a neo-feudal world of fads and feuds, in which no power dominates."
Set in the same world of Day of the Oprichnik - a book that has been called prophetic given current events - Sorokin seems to indulge in navel-gazing about the 'idea' of Russia. Already on page 10 one of his main insights is spelled out: what if Russia, as an empire, had properly collapsed in 1917? Granted: a sharp thought indeed.
The 50 vignettes this novel consists of don't spawn a larger narrative nor fleshed out characters, and that, for me, results in boredom. It's the old adagio: in a world where everything is possible, nothing really matters.
I was amused or interested occasionally - Sorokin surely can be inventive - but ultimately he didn't manage to engage me. His writing felt pompous and self-serious, a self-seriousness dishonestly disguised by irony, a bit of salacious sex (who cares?), expensive drugs and shapeshifting wordiness.
So I jumped ship at 36%. I'd rather read some of Sorokin's interviews if I want to learn something, or even better, more of Varlam Shalamov's vignettes.
Glen Cook was already an experienced writer when he published The Black Company in May 1984: I counted 9 novels. The Black Company would spawn 11 noveGlen Cook was already an experienced writer when he published The Black Company in May 1984: I counted 9 novels. The Black Company would spawn 11 novels and a bunch of short fiction. Shadows Linger, the second book of the first trilogy, appeared a few months later in October. That same year Cook also published The Fire in His Hands, which started the Dread Empire series.
In 1985, when the third Black Company title appeared, Cook put out no less than 6 novels. Most of those seem to have gotten only one print run in the 80ies, and yet around 2010 Night Shade Books did reprint them.
That might be on the strength of The Black Company: the series that had a profound influence on Steven Erikson and The Mazalan Book of the Fallen. Cook was a very busy writer, but so far The Black Company remains very, very readable. I enjoyed Shadows Linger a lot.
Most of what I’ve written in my review of the first book holds for this sequel too. And yet this is a different book altogether.
Mind you: it is not different in quality or appeal. Cook still deploys solid prose & snappy writing, and spoon feeds nothing. The pacing is excellent, and there’s no frills or attention to immersive details – demonish enemies are just referred to as “creatures” and Cook doesn’t waste pages nor paragraphs explaining how they look: they are creatures, they are dark, and they attack. It’s a breath of fresh air in today’s fat fantasy market. More importantly: it gives the reader agency.
I can understand the cultural significance of this book – it’s so significant I don’t need to explain to you what this book is about: you know.
That miI can understand the cultural significance of this book – it’s so significant I don’t need to explain to you what this book is about: you know.
That might be one of the reasons I felt this to be utterly boring: I don’t think I learned a thing, it all felt so familiar, generic even.
Because of its central place in the Western literary canon, my feelings about 1984 are hard to parse. Might I have loved this if I hadn’t known so much about it? If I’d read it when it first came out?
I’m not so sure. It felt like Orwell was preaching the entire time, and I generally don’t like MESSAGE literature. I didn’t like Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale didn’t feel fully realistic either.
Another issue: I didn’t buy Orwell’s future world. It seemed so binary – everything in service of Orwell’s didactics. I missed the path towards the state of affairs described: such a path would be complex & interesting, but Orwell basically reduces the Ingsoc state system to a bad boogeyman, and the motivations of the characters that installed and sustain this system aren’t really explored. Indeed: I missed a certain kind of depth.
I know I’m in a minority position. The cultural norm is to like books that are against totalitarianism: over 4 million ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.19 average. Most dissident voices on Goodreads – the one and two star reviews – say the same: not enough story, too much essay, bland characters, heavy-handed exposition, a cartoon villain.
That said: what Orwell does extremely well is illustrate blatant lies as a powerful political method.
Next!
ps – For those of you who don’t read the comments, somebody posted a link to a 1984 review Isaac Asimov wrote in 1980. Asimov is highly critical, and raises interesting points. Definitely worth your time. Check the link on my blog.
Biggest draw are the characters. Lyd, Mott and David are realistic and recognizable, even though they have severe personal i4.5 stars rounded up.
(...)
Biggest draw are the characters. Lyd, Mott and David are realistic and recognizable, even though they have severe personal issues. Meginnis’ main focus is on how certain people try to dominate others emotionally: both the mother and the father are quite cunning on that front. I’d go as far and say the book is connected to Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, in the sense that this book too is a thinly disguised story about mental problems, resulting in a similar eerie atmosphere. It didn’t surprise me when I read in an interview that Meginnis has suffered from a deep depression – like Jackson.
Meginnis makes this aspect of psychological horror something that is both timeless and very much about our time, like when he has a character parrot discourse about personal growth, exposing a culture high on its own catchphrases & meritocratic therapeutic delusions.
I also felt a connection to the work of visual artist Paul McCarthy, as Meginnis has his characters move inside a social landscape of decay, dysfunction and a certain form of timid excess. I use the adjective ‘timid’ here because Meginnis never outdoes it, striking a difficult balance between certain satirical elements and realism, and between genre stuff and originality. McCarthy’s video work comes to mind because he also exposes – admittedly much more explicitly – dark undercurrents in American society.
I read the splendid Everyman’s Library edition – a hardback with an excellent 15-page introduction by Michael Dirda that’s isn’t expensive nonethelessI read the splendid Everyman’s Library edition – a hardback with an excellent 15-page introduction by Michael Dirda that’s isn’t expensive nonetheless. That introduction guided my reading a bit, and I’ll get back to it a few times.
First, a warning: I’ll have to let down recurring readers expecting a long analysis like those of the Dune books or The Book of the New Sun. This post won’t be 5,000 or 10,000 words – only 2,300. I simply don’t have that much to add to all that has been written on this seminal work, considered a “watershed” in literary history by many. Dirda quotes SF editor Donald Wollheim: “Stories published before Foundation belong to the old line, the stories published published after belong to ‘modern’ science fiction.”
Before my actual reread of the trilogy, I thought this review might turn into a big examination about how Asimov deals with free will in the books, not dissimilar to my post on LOTR. It turns out that there just isn’t that much to discuss, but I’ll spend a few paragraphs on it nonetheless, as it is the crux of the series.
Did I think this trilogy has become way outdated, and did I enjoy my reread? To answer that and more, let’s get back to Dirda – three times.
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