Star Wars: Clone Wars, Volume 1
Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)
Perhaps the best part of the Star Wars prequels was the Clone Wars animated mini-series. General Grievous was robbed in the movie.
This is a collection of comics telling stories of the Clone Wars. A Jedi spymaster has gone missing. The battle for control of the cloning world is told in three parts. Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) goes to negotiate with some Jedi who are considering abandoning the Republic.
I have not read much of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but my impression has been that the stories get better as they get further away from the core characters and narrative. Luke and Anakin Skywalker are indicators that the story is tightly constrained. If the author is playing with fringe characters or original ones, s/he has more room for insights and surprises. You are not allowed to tell us anything new and surprising about the core characters.
The best story here, worth reading, is the first. A Jedi spymaster has gone missing, so they send his padawan to find him. Is he dead, turned, or just in deep cover? It is a story about loyalty, sacrifice, and artifice. The characters are sketched well in very little time, except for some direct characterization on the thief. The art is excellent, making even absurd physiology look good. Full marks to John Ostrander and Jan Duursema. It is almost enough to boost the book to a 2.5.
Their later story is marred by esotericism, as is much of the book. You should know what a "Jedi" is in the previous paragraph, but "padawan" might be unfamiliar. It is the Star Wars word for a Jedi apprentice, which is said in the movies, so you have a chance. How about the names of alien races, some of which are not used in the movies, or better yet the names of schools of lightsaber fighting? You mean you don't know the implications of using Form VII or its variations?
Yeah, me neither. There is enough exposition to get the gist, but one senses that the comics are intended for people who are very deep into Star Wars fandom. That seems fair -- show of hands, how many of you are not especially into Star Wars but occasionally pick up a comic book delving into minor characters? It is not for us.
As a relative outsider, the amount of work is fascinating. I Googled "vaapad" to find out what they were talking about, and there are many essays about the forms and history of lightsaber combat. R.A. Salvatore must have had a field day with the Attack of the Clones novelization. People have spent a lot of time working out implications and backstories, granted not always consistently and coherently.
I wonder how much of this was in Mr. Lucas's mind, in some form, and how much is pure fan creation. I cannot see him having pondered the details of Form IV beyond "Yoda will be jumping around a lot when he fights." Religious apologetics do not go this in-depth in exploring justifications for loosely sketched claims.
I will end this digression with a citation back to Rainbows End. If you doubted whether people would volunteer to flesh out commercial properties and preferentially view the world through that perspective, spend some time on the wikis for various fictional universes. I do not just mean the extended Wikipedia pages; each will have its own (and possibly several) wikis where fans write characters' histories in great detail, including differences in narratives across authors and continuities.
Returning to point, there are five stories in the book. Three are from Ostrander and Duursema. The first is good, cited above. The second is about Anakin and Obi-Wan, which I already described as writing in a straightjacket; the best parts of that come from their interaction with the minor characters from the first story. The third is an extended lightsaber battle with dialogue thrown in.
Wait, you say, how can you have too much lightsaber fighting when the whole point of Star Wars is men dueling with glowing swords (nothing phallic whatsoever!)? I understand the principle by which swordfights can tell stories as well as ballet, but I do not see it happening here. The comic medium does not lend itself to that. Also, my suspension of disbelief takes a hit early on with the mention of some maneuvers that are too close to the dark side. Yes, some ways of swinging a sword are evil. Does ballet have anything like that, where certain dance steps indicate the villains?
We have two other battle stories. One follows a clone soldier who has picked up some of Jango Fett's personality traits, but we get no real insight. The other is from the perspective of the confederate attackers, with how they thought they were going to win the fight. Their hands-on commander remains obscure.
A positive note throughout is that most of the confederates are sympathetic characters. They are right: the Republic is thoroughly corrupt and headed towards absolute tyranny. Palpatine is always one step ahead. The antagonists are given their due.
This brief collection is not good enough for me to recommend it to you, apart from that first story. It is good enough for me to read the second volume.
Amazon link
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
What Would Dewey Do? by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
Unshelved, Volume 2
Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
The second year of Unshelved includes a near miss with the USA-PATRIOT Act, beanbags in the young adult department, a flirtatious teacher, Banned Books Week, and identity theft.
The humor is coming into its own during the second year. I really do not have much to say that I did not say the first time.
Why read this in a book form rather than online? That is a good question, but I do not have a good answer. The online version is much better if you want to show individual strips to your friends. It may be easier to find what you want in the book then send them the link, since you can skim a week at a time. If you want to read away from your computer, you will need the offline version. I cannot push you either way. Go for the book if you like books. As I have said of other comic strip compilations, they make great bathroom reading.
Amazon link
web site link
Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
The second year of Unshelved includes a near miss with the USA-PATRIOT Act, beanbags in the young adult department, a flirtatious teacher, Banned Books Week, and identity theft.
The humor is coming into its own during the second year. I really do not have much to say that I did not say the first time.
Why read this in a book form rather than online? That is a good question, but I do not have a good answer. The online version is much better if you want to show individual strips to your friends. It may be easier to find what you want in the book then send them the link, since you can skim a week at a time. If you want to read away from your computer, you will need the offline version. I cannot push you either way. Go for the book if you like books. As I have said of other comic strip compilations, they make great bathroom reading.
Amazon link
web site link
Sunday, September 16, 2007
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
I find myself in an odd position. While I am not disappointed to have read the book, I am not sure that I would recommend it.
In 1962, California is occupied by the Japanese. After the Axis won World War II, Japan controlled the nations around the Pacific Ocean and Germany the Atlantic, with the United States being divided in the Midwest. Here a few people live out their stories: an Americana dealer who struggles with Japanese superiority and issues of authenticity; a craftsman making fake Americana and genuine new American art; a Judo instructor, moved away from the coast and caught in something she does not fully understand; and a character from each ruling power, a highly placed manager from the Japanese trade mission and a wild card from the European empire.
That is not much of a plot summary, is it? There is no one central plot, just several connected stories. They intersect without the standard way that most books bring all the threads together for one big finish. Instead the characters have links of varying degrees, and the stories are largely character driven. Also, the plot is not 100% complete because the ending is intentionally open; Mr. Dick had intended to write a sequel at some point.
Philip K. Dick is mostly known as a writer of science fiction, but this is not sci fi. It is alternate history, one of the foundational novels of the genre, or so I am told. Much as with Childhood's End, I recognize the foundational nature but the original treatment does not do a lot for me.
The alternate history is not a focus. This book uses an alternate history for its setting, but that is not what the book is about. Most of the alternate history comes from yet another alternate history, because the titular man in the High Castle is an author who has written a novel in which the Allies won World War II. Brace yourself if this threatens to become dangerously recursive. We learn what happened in The Man in the High Castle's alternate history by its contrast with what happened in the novel-in-a-novel's alternate history. This book is one of the elements tying the threads together, as characters across the Pacific States of America are reading it.
To finish discussion of the recursion, the author in the novel parallels Philip K. Dick in some ways, including his method of writing. I once read that Mr. Dick wrote a short story under a pen name, in which a character under that pen name writes a story about Philip K. Dick writing a story. It's turtles all the way down.
One great value of this book to an American audience is the perspective it gives of not being the dominant culture. We are used to being a global hegemon, exporting our culture to the rest of the world and assimilating theirs as we see fit. Here, the Japanese are filling that role. The art dealer sells old pieces of American pop culture, as there is no modern American culture. He deals most directly with the Japanese occupation, and his battling emotions on that are his primary arc. He accepts Japanese dominance while loathing himself and them; he alternately worships and scorns the Japanese. Notice the odd speech patterns, which are meant to reflect Japanese sentence structure.
In terms of action, there are two primary plots, both of which work slowly towards climax. There is a mysterious meeting coming together on the West Coast, involving the Japanese trade mission and German intelligence. I will not spoil that, as it remains shadowy until it is explicitly revealed. It does bring us to the character who feels the other half of the alternate history: the Japanese character is physically sickened by the Germans. Everyone else tries to ignore the atrocities, but he is very aware that the lesser of two evils can still be a horror.
The other primary plot has only tangential connections to the other characters. A woman is in Colorado, sort of hiding from life on either coast. She connects with an Italian and heads north towards the High Castle. I confess to understanding this character less, as she is less logical and gets the more surreal Philip K. Dick aspects.
This being Philip K. Dick, the story veers into questions of reality. We have three narratives of World War II, and there is some question of which is real. A character or two may have wandered into a different reality. Is there perception of different realities, or just hallucination? What is the difference between history and one's perception of it?
The last fifth of the book is uncomfortable. When the POV character has a panic attack, we suddenly have a very unreliable narrator. The writing is interesting, particularly in that the events carry on intelligibly, with the narration veering wildly around them. I trust no one more than Philip K. Dick to document this perspective accurately.
I described the book as open-ended, but each thread has an ending. Every character resolves in acceptance of sorts, satisfying in varying degrees. The events are not resolved, but the character arcs are, and the characters are what drive the book.
Finally, are people still using the I Ching? I think of it very much as a '60s thing. Many of the characters are devoted students of it, consulting it on the many points of their lives. Wikipedia tells me that Mr. Dick used it to decide plot points in the book, which the characters conveniently document when they consult it. America picked up a bit of Eastern mysticism on its own, without a Japanese conquest, but I do not hear much about it these days.
Amazon link
I find myself in an odd position. While I am not disappointed to have read the book, I am not sure that I would recommend it.
In 1962, California is occupied by the Japanese. After the Axis won World War II, Japan controlled the nations around the Pacific Ocean and Germany the Atlantic, with the United States being divided in the Midwest. Here a few people live out their stories: an Americana dealer who struggles with Japanese superiority and issues of authenticity; a craftsman making fake Americana and genuine new American art; a Judo instructor, moved away from the coast and caught in something she does not fully understand; and a character from each ruling power, a highly placed manager from the Japanese trade mission and a wild card from the European empire.
That is not much of a plot summary, is it? There is no one central plot, just several connected stories. They intersect without the standard way that most books bring all the threads together for one big finish. Instead the characters have links of varying degrees, and the stories are largely character driven. Also, the plot is not 100% complete because the ending is intentionally open; Mr. Dick had intended to write a sequel at some point.
Philip K. Dick is mostly known as a writer of science fiction, but this is not sci fi. It is alternate history, one of the foundational novels of the genre, or so I am told. Much as with Childhood's End, I recognize the foundational nature but the original treatment does not do a lot for me.
The alternate history is not a focus. This book uses an alternate history for its setting, but that is not what the book is about. Most of the alternate history comes from yet another alternate history, because the titular man in the High Castle is an author who has written a novel in which the Allies won World War II. Brace yourself if this threatens to become dangerously recursive. We learn what happened in The Man in the High Castle's alternate history by its contrast with what happened in the novel-in-a-novel's alternate history. This book is one of the elements tying the threads together, as characters across the Pacific States of America are reading it.
To finish discussion of the recursion, the author in the novel parallels Philip K. Dick in some ways, including his method of writing. I once read that Mr. Dick wrote a short story under a pen name, in which a character under that pen name writes a story about Philip K. Dick writing a story. It's turtles all the way down.
One great value of this book to an American audience is the perspective it gives of not being the dominant culture. We are used to being a global hegemon, exporting our culture to the rest of the world and assimilating theirs as we see fit. Here, the Japanese are filling that role. The art dealer sells old pieces of American pop culture, as there is no modern American culture. He deals most directly with the Japanese occupation, and his battling emotions on that are his primary arc. He accepts Japanese dominance while loathing himself and them; he alternately worships and scorns the Japanese. Notice the odd speech patterns, which are meant to reflect Japanese sentence structure.
In terms of action, there are two primary plots, both of which work slowly towards climax. There is a mysterious meeting coming together on the West Coast, involving the Japanese trade mission and German intelligence. I will not spoil that, as it remains shadowy until it is explicitly revealed. It does bring us to the character who feels the other half of the alternate history: the Japanese character is physically sickened by the Germans. Everyone else tries to ignore the atrocities, but he is very aware that the lesser of two evils can still be a horror.
The other primary plot has only tangential connections to the other characters. A woman is in Colorado, sort of hiding from life on either coast. She connects with an Italian and heads north towards the High Castle. I confess to understanding this character less, as she is less logical and gets the more surreal Philip K. Dick aspects.
This being Philip K. Dick, the story veers into questions of reality. We have three narratives of World War II, and there is some question of which is real. A character or two may have wandered into a different reality. Is there perception of different realities, or just hallucination? What is the difference between history and one's perception of it?
The last fifth of the book is uncomfortable. When the POV character has a panic attack, we suddenly have a very unreliable narrator. The writing is interesting, particularly in that the events carry on intelligibly, with the narration veering wildly around them. I trust no one more than Philip K. Dick to document this perspective accurately.
I described the book as open-ended, but each thread has an ending. Every character resolves in acceptance of sorts, satisfying in varying degrees. The events are not resolved, but the character arcs are, and the characters are what drive the book.
Finally, are people still using the I Ching? I think of it very much as a '60s thing. Many of the characters are devoted students of it, consulting it on the many points of their lives. Wikipedia tells me that Mr. Dick used it to decide plot points in the book, which the characters conveniently document when they consult it. America picked up a bit of Eastern mysticism on its own, without a Japanese conquest, but I do not hear much about it these days.
Amazon link
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
Unshelved, Volume 1
Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
Unshelved is in many ways a typical workplace web comic, set in a library this time. You will find more library- and book-specific jokes here than you will find ice cream-specific jokes in Herb and Jamaal, although Shortpacked probably beats it with action figure jokes. The size and degree of action figure fandom never struck me until I realized that it supported multiple comics -- at present this is the only librarian web comic.
This volume collects the first year of Unshelved. Meet Dewey, our star librarian, a cynical slacker who answers questions when torn away from his graphic novels. We have a ball of sunshine in the children's section, a technophobe at the reference desk, and a man in a woodchuck costume serving as Buddy the Book Beaver. See unreasonable demands from patrons and irrational responses from staff. It is just like your workplace, with books.
Or maybe you already work in a library. If so, you should already be reading this. You don't really have an excuse not to have heard of it. You work in a library.
Non-librarians will still get most of the value from this. Few of the gags demand library-specific knowledge, and you as a loyal reader already know why Strangers in Paradise is a compromise between comic books and romance novels.
It may help you to know that there are far fewer exaggerations than you might think. People really are that frightened by computers. Parents really do demand that someone protect their children from the consequences of their actions. You know, as I write this, those seem pretty obvious, so let me stress it another way: you cannot out-exaggerate reality. Dewey's responses are made up, since he gets to say what you wish you could say to obnoxious people at work, but I would be shocked to hear that the patrons' questions and demands are unprecedented. Naked lawyers are somewhat less common than invading squirrels, but children misuse crowbars on public property far too often.
If you missed the previous book of odd library questions, now could be a good time.
Like all comics, the humor can be hit-or-miss. Considering how little comic strips demand of you, one really good one per week makes it worthwhile, and Unshelved regularly beats that. In these early strips, there are more jokes that fall flat and others where the humor is less honed. On the other hand, starting out lets them use those lines they had been saving for years.
You can see the art improve over the first year, and a bit more when you compare it to the latest comics. The characters still look very much the same, with little drift. Dewey's nose is looking better these days. It is a typical drawing style, with the familiar comic strip eyes.
As I have worked in a library, Unshelved has a special place in my heart. I know these people. I am not Buddy, despite having been a costumed mascot for a summer reading program.
Amazon link
web site link
Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
Unshelved is in many ways a typical workplace web comic, set in a library this time. You will find more library- and book-specific jokes here than you will find ice cream-specific jokes in Herb and Jamaal, although Shortpacked probably beats it with action figure jokes. The size and degree of action figure fandom never struck me until I realized that it supported multiple comics -- at present this is the only librarian web comic.
This volume collects the first year of Unshelved. Meet Dewey, our star librarian, a cynical slacker who answers questions when torn away from his graphic novels. We have a ball of sunshine in the children's section, a technophobe at the reference desk, and a man in a woodchuck costume serving as Buddy the Book Beaver. See unreasonable demands from patrons and irrational responses from staff. It is just like your workplace, with books.
Or maybe you already work in a library. If so, you should already be reading this. You don't really have an excuse not to have heard of it. You work in a library.
Non-librarians will still get most of the value from this. Few of the gags demand library-specific knowledge, and you as a loyal reader already know why Strangers in Paradise is a compromise between comic books and romance novels.
It may help you to know that there are far fewer exaggerations than you might think. People really are that frightened by computers. Parents really do demand that someone protect their children from the consequences of their actions. You know, as I write this, those seem pretty obvious, so let me stress it another way: you cannot out-exaggerate reality. Dewey's responses are made up, since he gets to say what you wish you could say to obnoxious people at work, but I would be shocked to hear that the patrons' questions and demands are unprecedented. Naked lawyers are somewhat less common than invading squirrels, but children misuse crowbars on public property far too often.
If you missed the previous book of odd library questions, now could be a good time.
Like all comics, the humor can be hit-or-miss. Considering how little comic strips demand of you, one really good one per week makes it worthwhile, and Unshelved regularly beats that. In these early strips, there are more jokes that fall flat and others where the humor is less honed. On the other hand, starting out lets them use those lines they had been saving for years.
You can see the art improve over the first year, and a bit more when you compare it to the latest comics. The characters still look very much the same, with little drift. Dewey's nose is looking better these days. It is a typical drawing style, with the familiar comic strip eyes.
As I have worked in a library, Unshelved has a special place in my heart. I know these people. I am not Buddy, despite having been a costumed mascot for a summer reading program.
Amazon link
web site link
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it) (but it probably is worth watching sometime)
I think that the modal reaction to Beckett is, "What the heck was that?" There is some variation around "heck."
Krapp records his thoughts on his birthday each year. This year, he listens to a previous year's tape before recording. That younger Krapp had just listened to a still younger Krapp's tape before recording his thoughts. Krapp-on-stage and Krapp-on-tape both scorn young Krapp, and live Krapp is glad that his younger self is gone. So much is gone for Krapp, and there seems to be little left but to brood upon it all.
The play does not have events or action. Events from the past are mentioned or described, but they are distant events recounted by a recorded narrator. Most of the play is Krapp listening to Krapp, rather than live Krapp speaking.
In that way, much of the play is not there in the text. How does Krapp react to his tape? How do you stage the play? A simple bit described in a sentence might take a few minutes. Only the larger movements are described in the play's text, so the actor and director have a lot of room. Their decisions will make it worthwhile or not.
That is, if it can be made worthwhile. Beckett is definitely not for everyone. Audiences can easily feel uncomfortable, bored, and disappointed. If you are not in the mood for brooding contemplation, Beckett is not for you.
We mostly see Krapp listening, reacting, and brooding. Line memorization must be easy, with the bulk of the play pre-recorded. This leaves the actor's mind free to react, I suppose.
Krapp himself is not particularly likable. He gives the overwhelming sense that he has wasted his life. His younger selves looked forward to the future, and he has little to say on his last tape. His dreams did not come to fruition, and he can only be glad at the passing of the youth that brought such foolishness.
He has his own foolishness now. He cannot see well to read his old notes, nor can he hear well as he listens to his tape, nor can he remember what he was referring to in places. He goes through several bottles of alcohol (off-stage) and a few bananas. There are vaudeville moments, including a literal banana peel gag. His name is meant to sound like that, and the phallic banana imagery is not an accident either.
Having just read "Imagination Dead Imagine," the lighting here seemed quite intuitive. Plant a desk mid-stage, with one spotlight above. Done. Once Krapp wanders outside the pool of light, he has wandered off the Earth. If you can get the lighting contrast right, that could work beautifully. Krapp-on-tape even comments on nice the effect is.
And so we part. This is not as much fun as Waiting for Godot, or I suppose any fun at all really, but it is a potentially interesting piece. Or it could be really hideously boring, depending on a few production details. This seems really easy to get wrong. Maybe I should come back in thirty years and look at it all again.
Amazon link
If you have a better Amazon link, I am all for it. Krapp is usually in collections. Here, have a DVD collection link. YouTube has clips of a few versions. My sense of absurd thrills at the idea of the audio version, but I don't think there is really a point.
I think that the modal reaction to Beckett is, "What the heck was that?" There is some variation around "heck."
Krapp records his thoughts on his birthday each year. This year, he listens to a previous year's tape before recording. That younger Krapp had just listened to a still younger Krapp's tape before recording his thoughts. Krapp-on-stage and Krapp-on-tape both scorn young Krapp, and live Krapp is glad that his younger self is gone. So much is gone for Krapp, and there seems to be little left but to brood upon it all.
The play does not have events or action. Events from the past are mentioned or described, but they are distant events recounted by a recorded narrator. Most of the play is Krapp listening to Krapp, rather than live Krapp speaking.
In that way, much of the play is not there in the text. How does Krapp react to his tape? How do you stage the play? A simple bit described in a sentence might take a few minutes. Only the larger movements are described in the play's text, so the actor and director have a lot of room. Their decisions will make it worthwhile or not.
That is, if it can be made worthwhile. Beckett is definitely not for everyone. Audiences can easily feel uncomfortable, bored, and disappointed. If you are not in the mood for brooding contemplation, Beckett is not for you.
We mostly see Krapp listening, reacting, and brooding. Line memorization must be easy, with the bulk of the play pre-recorded. This leaves the actor's mind free to react, I suppose.
Krapp himself is not particularly likable. He gives the overwhelming sense that he has wasted his life. His younger selves looked forward to the future, and he has little to say on his last tape. His dreams did not come to fruition, and he can only be glad at the passing of the youth that brought such foolishness.
He has his own foolishness now. He cannot see well to read his old notes, nor can he hear well as he listens to his tape, nor can he remember what he was referring to in places. He goes through several bottles of alcohol (off-stage) and a few bananas. There are vaudeville moments, including a literal banana peel gag. His name is meant to sound like that, and the phallic banana imagery is not an accident either.
Having just read "Imagination Dead Imagine," the lighting here seemed quite intuitive. Plant a desk mid-stage, with one spotlight above. Done. Once Krapp wanders outside the pool of light, he has wandered off the Earth. If you can get the lighting contrast right, that could work beautifully. Krapp-on-tape even comments on nice the effect is.
And so we part. This is not as much fun as Waiting for Godot, or I suppose any fun at all really, but it is a potentially interesting piece. Or it could be really hideously boring, depending on a few production details. This seems really easy to get wrong. Maybe I should come back in thirty years and look at it all again.
Amazon link
If you have a better Amazon link, I am all for it. Krapp is usually in collections. Here, have a DVD collection link. YouTube has clips of a few versions. My sense of absurd thrills at the idea of the audio version, but I don't think there is really a point.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
The Name of This Book Is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)
About 20% of the way through this book, I am still not interested. As usual with abandoned books, comments are open if anyone wants to make the case that this is worth finishing. An anonymous author needs the book to get good early.
Cass and Max-Ernest are setting out to solve a mystery involving a dead (probably not) magician and a box called the Symphony of Smells. There are codes and riddles and secrets.
It opens well, in a flurry of Lemony Snicket. The author is hidden, he should not be telling you all of this, you should not read it. Instead of its being a depressing tale, it is a dangerous one. So we are getting pseudonyms for the (fictional) characters, and we are to imagine that their town is our town. This goes on long enough to become tedious, but Chapter 1.5 ends very well.
It goes badly from there. Neither Cass nor Max-Ernest is likable. Cass is a doom-sayer who wishes people would stop telling her to stop crying wolf, just because she has successfully predicted 500 out of the last 0 disasters to strike town. She is wrong, testy, and none too clever. Max-Ernest is clever but intentionally annoying. He is an aspiring comedian with no sense of humor. He is very talkative and intelligent without being insightful. He seems to have Asperger's Syndrome.
The one-note minor characters hit no early high notes, either.
A footnote suggests checking the appendix. Perhaps it will be better offset in the final edition, but it blends with the last chapters of the book. It looks like there is some interesting stuff going on back there. We have a false ending and a do-it-yourself ending. It looks like the code discussion in the appendix gives away some plot points.
I am reminded of a point from Hofstadter, that an author cannot have a real surprise ending to a book because the reader can always see how many pages are left. If you throw in a fake ending or three, an appendix, and some other nonsense at the back, you can absolutely have the ending come at a surprising moment.
Amazon link
Expected publication: October 2007
About 20% of the way through this book, I am still not interested. As usual with abandoned books, comments are open if anyone wants to make the case that this is worth finishing. An anonymous author needs the book to get good early.
Cass and Max-Ernest are setting out to solve a mystery involving a dead (probably not) magician and a box called the Symphony of Smells. There are codes and riddles and secrets.
It opens well, in a flurry of Lemony Snicket. The author is hidden, he should not be telling you all of this, you should not read it. Instead of its being a depressing tale, it is a dangerous one. So we are getting pseudonyms for the (fictional) characters, and we are to imagine that their town is our town. This goes on long enough to become tedious, but Chapter 1.5 ends very well.
It goes badly from there. Neither Cass nor Max-Ernest is likable. Cass is a doom-sayer who wishes people would stop telling her to stop crying wolf, just because she has successfully predicted 500 out of the last 0 disasters to strike town. She is wrong, testy, and none too clever. Max-Ernest is clever but intentionally annoying. He is an aspiring comedian with no sense of humor. He is very talkative and intelligent without being insightful. He seems to have Asperger's Syndrome.
The one-note minor characters hit no early high notes, either.
A footnote suggests checking the appendix. Perhaps it will be better offset in the final edition, but it blends with the last chapters of the book. It looks like there is some interesting stuff going on back there. We have a false ending and a do-it-yourself ending. It looks like the code discussion in the appendix gives away some plot points.
I am reminded of a point from Hofstadter, that an author cannot have a real surprise ending to a book because the reader can always see how many pages are left. If you throw in a fake ending or three, an appendix, and some other nonsense at the back, you can absolutely have the ending come at a surprising moment.
Amazon link
Expected publication: October 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
The Methuselah Enzyme by Fred Mustard Stewart
Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)
The writing is pretty good, taking any piece in isolation, but the book gets a 2 because of spotty pacing, over-telegraphing its big surprises, and a plot hole that invalidates the entire central conflict. Also, a recurring theme has not aged well.
Dr. Mentius may have the key, a new anti-aging treatment that literally turns back the biological clock. Three patients at his secluded rejuvenation resort have the chance to regain their youth and keep it indefinitely. There is, of course, something strange about this experimental technique, and how everyone else at the resort fits into the picture in this low-simmering novel of suspense.
The book has a similar feel to The Stepford Wives. Both are lightly sci-fi thrillers with a female protagonist who is gradually being let in on the game while alternately following her suspicions and trying to rationalize them away. Stepford wins for packing that into about one hundred fewer pages and not having the obvious device of a secluded manor. The Methuselah Enzyme also fails to build as much suspense; beyond having a more obvious threat, the threat seems more minor because it lands almost no blows throughout the book. If you are half-way through the story and the greatest hardship is that a medical procedure ran long, the stakes seem rather low.
The pacing on the menace is slow. It lingers without building. You can see the plot following a formula, but it is not following it well. The page count to each step in the process feels off. It would have edited well to a film, joining Mr. Stewart's other books there, but no film was made.
I have already described the threat as obvious and over-telegraphed. That is not entirely fair, since I did not see all the twists coming, but the major points are apparent well before they are revealed. The cover says, "Do not reveal the shock ending!" but the shock is almost explicitly stated three or more times in advance. The cry of "foreshadowing!" echoes around the corner well before the plot twists. Also, maybe medical ethics in the 1970s were not what they are today, but everyone should have had warning bells during the exposition. Where is the IRB on this? And being subjected to medical tests without consent did not get real suspicions going anyway? And no one looked back to the exposition after the characters' prior relationships were noticed?
That is leaking into plot holes for me, but hey, most of us do not live as if we were characters in a thriller. I can accept characters' chasing a red herring or being alternately too suspicious and not suspicious enough. The gaping hole is that the entire premise of the central conflict is flawed. Highlight the three whited-out words here to solve the entire problem: (spoiler) fetal pineal glands (/spoiler). You at least need to explain why the obvious solution would not work, especially when you have already decided to leap that lesser ethical hurdle.
Beyond the events of the plot, the philosophical conflict has not aged well. No one says, "Don't trust anyone over 30," anymore. Threats that sound like genocide of the youth are not plausible. Romeo and Juliet has a much more lasting take on inter-generational conflict.
Incidentally, the science in the book has aged relatively well. The details are wrong, of course, but the principle is right. The enzyme he wants is telomerase, or at least that is our best current candidate. The references to fetuses and cancer in the book excited me with the possibility that he had inadvertently predicted science a few decades ahead, but neither of those panned out. The back cover says, "Now The Methuselah Enzyme is fiction! In five years it'll be fact!" More than thirty years later, we think we might be within thirty years of pulling it off.
Amazon link (out of print)
The writing is pretty good, taking any piece in isolation, but the book gets a 2 because of spotty pacing, over-telegraphing its big surprises, and a plot hole that invalidates the entire central conflict. Also, a recurring theme has not aged well.
Dr. Mentius may have the key, a new anti-aging treatment that literally turns back the biological clock. Three patients at his secluded rejuvenation resort have the chance to regain their youth and keep it indefinitely. There is, of course, something strange about this experimental technique, and how everyone else at the resort fits into the picture in this low-simmering novel of suspense.
The book has a similar feel to The Stepford Wives. Both are lightly sci-fi thrillers with a female protagonist who is gradually being let in on the game while alternately following her suspicions and trying to rationalize them away. Stepford wins for packing that into about one hundred fewer pages and not having the obvious device of a secluded manor. The Methuselah Enzyme also fails to build as much suspense; beyond having a more obvious threat, the threat seems more minor because it lands almost no blows throughout the book. If you are half-way through the story and the greatest hardship is that a medical procedure ran long, the stakes seem rather low.
The pacing on the menace is slow. It lingers without building. You can see the plot following a formula, but it is not following it well. The page count to each step in the process feels off. It would have edited well to a film, joining Mr. Stewart's other books there, but no film was made.
I have already described the threat as obvious and over-telegraphed. That is not entirely fair, since I did not see all the twists coming, but the major points are apparent well before they are revealed. The cover says, "Do not reveal the shock ending!" but the shock is almost explicitly stated three or more times in advance. The cry of "foreshadowing!" echoes around the corner well before the plot twists. Also, maybe medical ethics in the 1970s were not what they are today, but everyone should have had warning bells during the exposition. Where is the IRB on this? And being subjected to medical tests without consent did not get real suspicions going anyway? And no one looked back to the exposition after the characters' prior relationships were noticed?
That is leaking into plot holes for me, but hey, most of us do not live as if we were characters in a thriller. I can accept characters' chasing a red herring or being alternately too suspicious and not suspicious enough. The gaping hole is that the entire premise of the central conflict is flawed. Highlight the three whited-out words here to solve the entire problem: (spoiler) fetal pineal glands (/spoiler). You at least need to explain why the obvious solution would not work, especially when you have already decided to leap that lesser ethical hurdle.
Beyond the events of the plot, the philosophical conflict has not aged well. No one says, "Don't trust anyone over 30," anymore. Threats that sound like genocide of the youth are not plausible. Romeo and Juliet has a much more lasting take on inter-generational conflict.
Incidentally, the science in the book has aged relatively well. The details are wrong, of course, but the principle is right. The enzyme he wants is telomerase, or at least that is our best current candidate. The references to fetuses and cancer in the book excited me with the possibility that he had inadvertently predicted science a few decades ahead, but neither of those panned out. The back cover says, "Now The Methuselah Enzyme is fiction! In five years it'll be fact!" More than thirty years later, we think we might be within thirty years of pulling it off.
Amazon link (out of print)
Saturday, September 01, 2007
The Faceless Fiend by Howard Whitehouse
Rating - 3.5: worth reading, parts worth re-reading (borrow or buy it)
[I decided in retrospect that the 4 was just an effusion of my fondness for Howard Whitehouse. The bits in the slums of London are definitely worth skipping in the re-read.]
Rating - 4: worth reading multiple times (buy it)
This book would have been the third most anticipated title of the year, if anyone had told me it was coming. No one did. I hold each of you responsible, individually and personally.
"Being the Tale of a Criminal Mastermind, His Masked Minions, and a Princess with a Butter Knife, Involving Explosives and a Certain Amount of Pushing and Shoving." The (madcap!) adventures of Emmaline and Rubberbones continue, foiling villains' attempts to capture Princess Purnah in the skies, the woods, and the streets of London. They must overcome well-built carriages, poorly built flying machines, cake with slugs, and leather clothing.
If Mr. Whitehouse's previous book was Pippi Longstocking with pterodactyls, this one is Whales on Stilts without the whales. Or the stilts. Okay, the titles don't match, but I don't recall much about stockings in the first book. The tone and writing style are what feel so similar. Also the quality.
The writing carefully and precisely breaks things. The expected word does not arrive, and the sentence ends with understated absurdity. In a crisis, the heroic dog valiantly leaps to get a sandwich. There is no alarm when the princess hits someone with a baseball bat; why wouldn't she? The characters may be absurd, but their world accepts them.
They are sillier in this book because of an increased focus on the stranger characters. Princess Purnah cheers for calamity and violence. Rab has the optimism of the indestructible. Stanley the dog gets more time on stage, if not more intelligence. Professor Bellbuckle has a surprisingly large stock of explosives. Aunt Lily enforces English propriety by any means necessary. They are all such a cheerful bunch. If we are going to be entangled in an international criminal conspiracy, why not enjoy the sausage and explosions while we are there?
Emmaline does not appear as much in this book. That works just fine for me, since she is the serious-minded character who actually cares about the plot. For everyone else, the plot is just a vague set of boundaries within which they can live out their peculiarities.
I favored the first half of the book, when the plot was inchoate. I found the strength of the book in the characters rather than the story, so I was quite happy for Princess Purnah to go on about her demands for chocolate and stabbings. We open with children falling out of the sky, and the first plot element appears under the guidance of a Sikh commando butler. Further plot encroachments are battled with tea. Aunt Lily throws out the expository character before realizing that she was supposed to get the background story from him. Oops.
The titular Faceless Fiend is playing it straight. He is the villain, and he is going to fulfill his role in a Victorian melodrama of intrigue and mistaken identity. He will drive the plot forward kicking and screaming no matter who he has to kill. The rest of the cast is less cooperative, with minions who cannot be bothered to set up the dungeon and hostages who forget to lie under questioning.
If you want a more straightforward story, the second half is for you. The book settles down a bit once they arrive in London. There is a structure and plot-driven events, with plans and surprising coincidences that bring elements together for a climax. You know how this goes, you have read books. There is still silliness, but the balance has reversed, so that the frivolity is within the plot not against it.
Some parts of this do not work for me. Sherlock Holmes, really? The slums of Victorian London are a bit dark, given the book's normal tone. The ending is a bit neat and saccharine, which can be forgiven as a convention of the genre. The gypsy cameo will make no sense if you have not read the first book, and not much more if you have.
There is one scene that was inserted specifically to confound me, I swear. It is one of those scenes where things are going to go badly, you know it will, you can see it coming, this is going to be so mortifying, I can't bear to look ... and it works out, despite the laws of physics. *shake fist* And it works perfectly in the logic of the book.
I enjoyed this more than The Strictest School in the World, last year's surprise gem. Buy a copy for yourself and one for a friend.
Amazon link
author's website and kind of blog
Howard Whitehouse reads to you on YouTube
[I decided in retrospect that the 4 was just an effusion of my fondness for Howard Whitehouse. The bits in the slums of London are definitely worth skipping in the re-read.]
This book would have been the third most anticipated title of the year, if anyone had told me it was coming. No one did. I hold each of you responsible, individually and personally.
"Being the Tale of a Criminal Mastermind, His Masked Minions, and a Princess with a Butter Knife, Involving Explosives and a Certain Amount of Pushing and Shoving." The (madcap!) adventures of Emmaline and Rubberbones continue, foiling villains' attempts to capture Princess Purnah in the skies, the woods, and the streets of London. They must overcome well-built carriages, poorly built flying machines, cake with slugs, and leather clothing.
If Mr. Whitehouse's previous book was Pippi Longstocking with pterodactyls, this one is Whales on Stilts without the whales. Or the stilts. Okay, the titles don't match, but I don't recall much about stockings in the first book. The tone and writing style are what feel so similar. Also the quality.
The writing carefully and precisely breaks things. The expected word does not arrive, and the sentence ends with understated absurdity. In a crisis, the heroic dog valiantly leaps to get a sandwich. There is no alarm when the princess hits someone with a baseball bat; why wouldn't she? The characters may be absurd, but their world accepts them.
They are sillier in this book because of an increased focus on the stranger characters. Princess Purnah cheers for calamity and violence. Rab has the optimism of the indestructible. Stanley the dog gets more time on stage, if not more intelligence. Professor Bellbuckle has a surprisingly large stock of explosives. Aunt Lily enforces English propriety by any means necessary. They are all such a cheerful bunch. If we are going to be entangled in an international criminal conspiracy, why not enjoy the sausage and explosions while we are there?
Emmaline does not appear as much in this book. That works just fine for me, since she is the serious-minded character who actually cares about the plot. For everyone else, the plot is just a vague set of boundaries within which they can live out their peculiarities.
I favored the first half of the book, when the plot was inchoate. I found the strength of the book in the characters rather than the story, so I was quite happy for Princess Purnah to go on about her demands for chocolate and stabbings. We open with children falling out of the sky, and the first plot element appears under the guidance of a Sikh commando butler. Further plot encroachments are battled with tea. Aunt Lily throws out the expository character before realizing that she was supposed to get the background story from him. Oops.
The titular Faceless Fiend is playing it straight. He is the villain, and he is going to fulfill his role in a Victorian melodrama of intrigue and mistaken identity. He will drive the plot forward kicking and screaming no matter who he has to kill. The rest of the cast is less cooperative, with minions who cannot be bothered to set up the dungeon and hostages who forget to lie under questioning.
If you want a more straightforward story, the second half is for you. The book settles down a bit once they arrive in London. There is a structure and plot-driven events, with plans and surprising coincidences that bring elements together for a climax. You know how this goes, you have read books. There is still silliness, but the balance has reversed, so that the frivolity is within the plot not against it.
Some parts of this do not work for me. Sherlock Holmes, really? The slums of Victorian London are a bit dark, given the book's normal tone. The ending is a bit neat and saccharine, which can be forgiven as a convention of the genre. The gypsy cameo will make no sense if you have not read the first book, and not much more if you have.
There is one scene that was inserted specifically to confound me, I swear. It is one of those scenes where things are going to go badly, you know it will, you can see it coming, this is going to be so mortifying, I can't bear to look ... and it works out, despite the laws of physics. *shake fist* And it works perfectly in the logic of the book.
I enjoyed this more than The Strictest School in the World, last year's surprise gem. Buy a copy for yourself and one for a friend.
Amazon link
author's website and kind of blog
Howard Whitehouse reads to you on YouTube
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