The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)

Depending on your idiosyncrasies, this could be a four or a two. It has the hallmarks of the flawed novel that becomes a cult classic. It mixes neat ideas, farcical conceits, and good characterization. Except for the primary plot driver, which is a surprisingly forgivable "except," it is a great book.

Eric Sanderson has a dissociative disorder that has gradually been erasing his memory. Today, he woke with nothing, but letters from himself start explaining how to protect himself from conceptual sharks that feed on memories.

That would be the plot driver that throws me: conceptual sharks in the stream of consciousness. More completely, the book treats concepts as if they were "out there," not just bits in your head. If you take Platonic realism seriously, I have trouble taking you seriously. But hey, it's a book, we'll throw that overboard, as it were. Let's play as if concepts were ontological entities rather than epistemological ones, why not?

The why not comes in the name of Mycroft Ward, a sort of equal and opposite to the conceptual shark. Although the description of how he got going smacks a bit of Jules Verne's science fiction, the result is actually within the bounds of near-future technology. Let's call him a memetic lich or a potential singleton. If you did not understand that, great, no spoiler; if you did, you probably understand how those concepts might not work with Platonic realism. We have an interesting and more believable potential antagonist, introduced and mostly set aside in favor of the sillier one.

But hey, everyone likes sharks, right? Also, if the idea of neuro-linguistic hacking from Snow Crash fascinated you, here is another trip on a parallel path. The light bulb text encryption, and the bonus revelation late in the book, might appeal of Cryptonomicon fans, but I have yet to read that one.

The book has excellent structure. Let's discuss it in line with its four parts.

In the first part, we meet Eric Sanderson and get an idea of his situation. This feels like a dull version of Memento (good movie, see it sometime). For the first half, I was looking forward to that 20% point where I sometimes jump ship, so to speak, although the interaction between Eric and Clio is fun. Chapter six is where the conceptual story comes to the foreground, after a great foreshadowing page in chapter three. I decided to give the wacky idea a chance, as does Eric.

In the second part, Eric sets out to find himself. As he is an amnesiac, this is in a more literal sense than usual. If you're not sure whether this is worth reading, get to (or skip to) chapters fourteen and fifteen. They sold me. They add action to the book and start giving real weight to the implications of a world where free-floating concepts can affect us. I have my fridge logic complaints about why Mr. Nobody has the worst schedule timing ever, when he provably knew better, but it is a great bit. Heck, worth reading even if you think the whole thing sounds like rubbish.

In the third part, Scout guides Eric on the path he needs. This is the best part of the book, on the strength of characterization and character interaction. I am fond of Scout; she clicks with Eric better than Clio did, and I liked the Eric/Clio almost-flashback chapters. This part takes us deeper into the rabbit hole, as the conceptual realism becomes the surroundings, again in a literal sense. Part three includes the story of Mycroft Ward and some great scenes of people hurting each other because they don't know how else to deal with their own pain. Not that I am all about suffering, but this is really well done pain, heart-wrenching in its simple effectiveness, although I say that having become a huge sap some years ago.

The fourth part goes completely overboard with the conceptual realism, once again literally. That's cryptic enough to be non-spoiling, yes? Reality falls into the background as realism takes over. I will spare the details, since this is the ending, and you are going to finish if you have read this far. Let me give you two notes. First, this section is shorter than it looks, due to a fifty-page flipbook of ASCII art. You heard me. Second, if you are hunting a conceptual shark from the concept of a shark-hunting boat, made rock solid because most of the world has had the same mental image of a shark-hunting boat for decades, you might remember that shared mental image comes from Jaws.

You can decide how you feel about the ending. Remember, our potentially unreliable narrator identifies himself as potentially insane from the very beginning.

Amazon link

Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition edited by Rich Horton

Rating - 2.5: parts of it are worth reading once (borrow it from a library)

I suspect that Prime Books could not actually get permission to reprint the best of the year.

This is a collection of science fiction short stories from 2005.

This is not a stellar collection. Some of the stories are good, and I would recommend three to six of the fifteen stories. Some others play with ideas without having great stories attached. Others fail at both writing and ideas, which makes "Best of the Year" an inapt title. Is it misleading to have Joe Haldeman headlining the cover, when he has three pages inside?

The first story, Michael Swanwick's "Triceratops Summer," has two elements of science fiction. The titular trikes are part of a surprisingly quiet summer. A time-like loop in the background provides the triceratops and the premise for a story with a different take on what you do when the world is going to end. It is a peaceful and whimsical tale.

Two fifty-page stories help the page count. The first, "Bank Run" by Tom Purdom, reads like Asimov with a bit more action. It mixes banking, diplomacy, strategic combat, and an extended chase. If you like the idea of someone running expected value calculations during a gunfight, you will like the protagonist. As a minor plot point, I would have expected him to push harder on the deal with Possessor Dobryami, given what happens to her if the protagonist loses. On a larger point, empathy with the protagonist is hampered not only by his Vulcan logic, which I could never decry, but also by the amorality of the situation. If kidnapped, the protagonist will be psychologically conditioned to serve his captor, which sounds pretty bad until you recall that his entire support staff was genetically conditioned and raised from birth to be willing, devoted slaves. The entire culture seems to accept this, with the only questions being whether this particular enslavement would be inconvenient for the global banking system and who might profit along the way. The subplot that recasts it as a sort of love story fails in this regard. On the other hand, Tom Purdom has packed a lot of world-building into a short story, and I would read more in this setting.

"The Policeman's Daughter" by Will McCarthy approaches some great questions of immortality and personal identity with a novel set up, then ducks almost all of them in favor of briefly considering the questions' legal implications (with an echoing love story). I enjoyed it even as my philosophical desires were thwarted.

Leah Bobet's "Bliss" does something similar with drugs and the ability to affect how our brains function. It again ducks the interesting issues, this time through characters' unreflective adherence to present morés. Its excellence is in the tone of the protagonist's emotional life, heavy with resignation and haunting at the end.

"The Jenna Set" by Daniel Kaysen is easily the most fun story in the book. It is a somewhat nonplussed romance story involving automated phone systems, number theory, individuality, and oral pleasure. Jenna is our first-person narrator and mostly innocent bystander, caught in events whose explanation she finds really boring. At least they propose a solution to her dating problems.

The other long story, "Understanding Space and Time" by Alastair Reynolds, is a very good story character-based story attached to a fairly poor idea-driven story. It tells of the last human being, the final survivor of the Mars colony after a Catastrophe kills everything on Earth. He is a stoic survivor, abjuring the madness of loneliness with hallucinations of Elton John. The story takes a different turn after the protagonist's death, and I prefer to think of that as the end. By one interpretation of the following events, it is.

"The King of Where-I-Go" by Susan Palwick, "Finished" by Robert Reed, and "The Inn at Mount Either" by James Van Pelt have some neat ideas but are unexceptional stories. "Where-I-Go" has the nicest spirit. "Mount Either" has some vivid descriptions, but they smother the story driver, which becomes predictable and uncompelling by the time of the big reveal.

The other stories did not seem worth mentioning. The book itself could use some copy-editing. I am not used to seeing this many typos and missing words in a professional publication (several per story). In terms of organization, they did it right, putting two of the better stories first and last, with strong stories next to them and in the middle. That order sells the book best. Unfortunately, it leaves some doldrums when you read through.

I recommend seeking out "Triceratops Summer," "Bliss," and "The Jenna Set." If you pick up this book to get them, also read "Bank Run," "The Policeman's Daughter," and "Understanding Space and Time." You might also read "The Inn at Mount Either" and "Search Engine" while you are there.

Amazon link