Burning Chrome by William Gibson; 9/10

Go figure, this is actually the best book I have read by Gibson to date, in my opinion, and it is his collection of early short stories. The first and last of these stories, Johnny Mnemonic and Burning Chrome, formed the foundation for Gibson's most famous work, the Sprawl Trilogy, by creating some of the important characters, exploring the technology and society of the near-future, and creating the Sprawl itself. Burning Chrome also coined the term "cyberspace" and introduced it to a world of noobz in 1982.

Johnny Mnemonic is a story of a man carrying a very important data chip in his head, which places him at odds with Japanese mafia types. Meet Molly, the razorgirl assassin of Neuromancer, and the general world of the Sprawl, with its "blank, tv-set" sky! Burning Chrome, on the other hand, contains much of the hacker element that provides the other plot/technology half of the Sprawl trilogy. Between these two stories you have a young Gibson essentially plotting out the work in an experimental way that would define his career.

But wait, there's more! Those two stories aren't even the best ones here, if you ask me. My favorite was called Hinterlands. I won't spoil it except to say that it creates a space mystery of horrific degrees and proportions, and it boggled my mind. It is worthy of becoming a larger story (like a novel or a movie) if it is ever revisited, though much of its strength lies in what it leaves to the imagination.

The Belonging Kind, a story co-written with fellow Cyberpunk writer John Shirley, has a very Lovecraft-meets-cyberpunk feel to it, and had an excellent conclusion. Loved it. Dogfight was a marvelous story of emotionally damaged people having a heck of a time, a theme running through much of Gibson (and cyberpunk). Its protagonist is a fellow named Tiny Montgomery (Basement Tapes, anyone?). The Winter Market is an early exploration of mind-transfer and artificial immortality, a concept I personally find very intriguing (for more on which, see Altered Carbon).

All in all, a brilliant collection, which represents the very cradle of Cyberpunk. You'll have to have your thinking caps on, because these stories are complex and twisted and highly intelligent. But they are all the more rewarding for that. Johnny Mnemonic agrees: it's mindblowing!

Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf; 8/10

Read by Virginia Leishman [Who was solid if not particularly memorable]

 Well I feel like a pretentious asshole reviewing this book at all, and especially giving it anything less than a 10. My uncle, a professor of English Literature at Wake Forest, told me of this book that it is as close as anyone has come to writing a "perfect novel." Michael Chabon, a great writer previously reviewed, said of Virginia Woolf when Karen and I saw him that he didn't like her at first but came to realize she was a "rockstar."  So I think I have some growth ahead of me in my Virginia Woolf appreciation, but broadening horizons is what this whole deal is about. At the time of reading, I'd say this started out as a 4-5 and worked itself up to a 7-8, for what that's worth.

I think a better or more helpful rating would be to say that even as I read it I knew that I didn't understand it well enough and would have to read it a second time to really get it, though I did follow both the plot and what I think the author was doing fairly well. Woolf is one of Karen's absolute favorites, so I hoped to get a bit of insight into her taste by reading this, an endeavor in which I hope I was successful.

Mrs. Dalloway follows a small group of characters through their ordinary lives over the course of a single day in postwar (that's the Great War) London. She peers into the minds of her characters with a candor that eclipsed many of the writers of the previous generation, and which became a major hallmark of good writing in that age. But she also brings something essentially feminine, and more importantly, proudly feminist to the work which I have read was revolutionary. It is not hard to believe this when you read Mrs. Dalloway (which I recommend for most, though not all of my friends). Her word choices, her prose, her glimpses of unguarded reflection were very well done and very striking, and grew on me in leaps and bounds as I read.

I particularly found the character Septimus compelling, and the parts of the narrative which dealt with him said things about the effects of war from a point of view one does not often get. Clarissa Dalloway herself is a fascinating and intricate character study, and I suppose at the end of the day the question of whether or not you like this book will come down to how you feel about her. Bottom line: reputation deserved, but I'm a second reading away from completely getting it.

VALIS, by Philip Kindred Dick; 5/10

Read by Tom Weiner

The Empire never ended!

The English language sometimes fails us. There is a thing for which we need a word or two, and we just can't express that thought. Reviewing VALIS is not such an occasion. The words one needs are "lunatic" and "ravings."

Look, now, read my other reviews of his stuff. I LOVE Philip Dick. I think he was bloody brilliant, the very definition of insanely genius artist, the Van Gogh of post-war writing in more than one way. But there is less genius to this particular book and more crazy.

VALIS is an acronym representing the "Vast Active Living Intelligence System." Would we call this system "God?" Would we call it superpowerful aliens? We could call it any number of things. There are people who think that VALIS is the height of brilliance, that it was PKD's best book, that he had truly seen a glimpse of a hidden reality and reported it as a last and greatest act to cap a superlative literary career just a few years before he died. These people are mistaken.

I think any doubts that you may have that the author, who makes himself by clever naming transposition the protagonist of the novel, is suffering from schizophrenia will evaporate as you read VALIS. Have you ever met or spoke with a schizophrenic person? I have, and I find the experience, and therefore this book, mostly tragic. It is an illness which causes in some the effect that they believe they have perceived a secret truth that nobody else can see.

In Philip Dick's case this illness led to a streak of paranoia that was inseparable from his work and defined much of his personal life. It also was fully fleshed out as the basis of a number of novels, starting with Radio Free Albemouth, and finishing with the VALIS trilogy, comprised of this book, The Divine Invasion, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, which were the (in my opinion unfortunate) final works he produced while alive.

Much of the inspiration for these works was taken from what Philip Dick called his "Exegesis," or his explanation of the hidden workings of the world and the universe, etc, which has recently been edited and published by Jonathan Lethem, the most important points of which are included as a (unsettlingly zany) postscript to VALIS. He regarded the plot of this story as a work of partial fiction, but much of the philosophy/cosmology/whateverology he reveals in it, particularly this postscript, represents his actual crazed view of reality, and that is the part of the work that makes the whole enterprise feel tragic, and gives me some mild discomfort in even contemplating enjoying it. I guess reading the book doesn't feel that far off from indulging in the suffering in a fellow human being.


[Tom Weiner was the best part of this. He's a great fit for sci-fi that's so crazy you can't turn away. More books read by him to follow!]

What to say of the work itself? I could tell you of the rock stars who are actually aliens or angels, of the extraterrestrial intelligence that helped bring out the truth in the Watergate scandal to depose the evil Richard Nixon, or of the continuing existence of the Roman Empire, and the salient meaning of this fact towards the protagonist's gnostic outlook on existence. But you know what? It grows tiresome because it's just batshit, and it is sad that it had to happen to such a brilliant man. The saddest, but perhaps best part of the work is that Philip Dick knew, or at least was aware of the possibility that the entire thing was a delusion created by his mind.

Do you want to know how truly unhinged Philip Dick's mind was when he was on a bad day? Read this book. Do you want to know why he was such a great writer? Read Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, or a short story collection.

If you are undecided, I can help make up your mind with a series of images taken from the emotional camera gallery of my mind while I read VALIS. For maximum effect, create a soundtrack by either putting on music by John Cage or just banging keys on a piano, scroll through the following images sloooowly, AND THEN SUDDENLY, and then slowly, and then go ahead watch Pink Floyd's The Wall afterward.

 

 

 

 

The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth; 8/10

Read by Ron Silver.

This book was surprising in a number of ways. I was aware of the plot, and aware that the premise had previously been mostly or partially used by Philip Dick in a novel called The Man in the High Castle. I was aware that the author, Philip Roth, is regarded as perhaps the finest literary talent of his generation, though this may not be one of the foremost works propping up that reputation. And my mother both recommended and lent me the book, which has put the kiss of death on the reading of nearly every book that has received either treatment (which is to say that for reasons surpassing my understanding I never, ever read things my mother recommends. Not out of choice, it just doesn't happen?).

This book was so intricate. The characters are built so painstakingly, the world they live in developed so finely, with such attention to detail. I remember, perhaps best of all, the narrator/main character's description of his stamp collection. It is a little thing about a character that ties so much of the work together into a package that feels completely real. And the realism was the best part of this book.

I have read four or five alternate history novels in the last few years now, and they have all been winners. Maybe I should be trying more of them. The alternate history in this one, however, is less of a military outcome than a social and political one, which is to say that it doesn't describe an alternate universe in which America lost WWII (the Man in the High Castle) but rather one in which it followed the same road to fascism and ethnic purity seen in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, with one of the foremost American fascists, Charles Lindbergh, at the helm.

This did not in any way touch a sci-fi vein, but it touched a historical one that really impressed me, and overall it just reverberated. It has stuck with me quite well, and I recommend it unequivocally.

If you can get ahold of the audio, Ron Silver did an excellent job. He was perfectly suited to the source material, and I believe added significantly to the experience over what I think I'd have gotten from the print on its own.

The Snows Of Kilimanjaro, by Ernest Hemingway 7/10

Do you feel like you remember longer books better? I do. I remember Lord of the Rings super duper well, but the Hobbit much less well. I remember David Copperfield extremely well, and Great Expectations less so. And I remember The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell To Arms significantly better than I do this novella/short story, though I've read it more times and more recently.

You've got a bitter writer type (I wonder if Ernest Hemingway knew anyone like that?) dying from a flesh wound on a safari in Sub-Saharan Africa, and his special lady friend trying to take care of him while he complains about all of his poor decisions and blames her for many of them. It is well written, it takes a good, hard look at death, and is generally bold and gritty. It definitely is the kind of story that makes you think... I just can't remember what many of those particular thoughts were when I read it back in the summer of 2010.

I don't have a lot more than that to say about it, because it hasn't really stuck up there all that well in the old noggin. Maybe the third time I read it, which will come when I tackle my Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, I'll have more interesting things to say about this. Or maybe I said all the interesting things I would ever have to say about it in Ms. Hope-Gill's class in high school. I dunno. Sorry to lame out on you here, but I have to figure I really liked it at least, it's Hemingway for God's sake.

"The Mote In God's Eye" by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle; 8/10

Read by LJ Ganser.

Allow me to draw attention to the quote by my erstwhile reading nemesis, the famous Robert A. Heinlein, on the cover of one of the editions of this book: "Possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read." Wow, we both like the same thing for once!

This book is a cut above, and I was completely surprised by its excellence, having been fairly unimpressed by "Ringworld." Having read more by Larry Niven both with and without Jerry Pournelle's co-writing, I have come to the conclusion that Pournelle compliments him in exactly the right ways, i.e. he is good at what Niven is, in my opinion, not so good at.

To put it more concisely, "The Mote In God's Eye" is the best and most complete alien first contact story I have encountered in print or film. They have done such a thorough job here in attempting to create something that is unique and interesting, but also that is plausible and that holds together well. I was really pleasantly surprised.

The novel is set fairly far in the future, but, like Arthur C. Clarke's writing, it is grounded by Niven's thorough understanding of physics, so even when he inserts a future technology that they obviously need, like the "Alderson Drive," he does it in a way that is different. The world is different and cool, the process of contact is well-done, and the race itself is varied and fascinating. Very fine indeed.

The only significant place this book breaks down to me is under deep consideration of the inner workings and logic behind the alien culture, and the contrast between that background and what some of the alien characters do. Most of these things, however, are fairly well accounted for in the text, and really the fact that I was thinking about them in such depth to begin with indicates that there was a lot here to think about.

I would add that the characters, though feeling realistic most of the time, aren't really larger-than-life, just ordinary, pretty much without exception. Again, this is not a particularly harsh criticism given how engrossing the story is. You'll probably barely notice.


LJ Ganser was a good narrator. Not brilliant, but solid. You get the idea.

That this novel failed to win a Hugo was fairly astounding to me until I looked at the publication year and what it had to go against. 1974 really was just a solid year- "The Forever War" (previously reviewed), "The Dispossessed," (currently reading), and "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said," (top of my read-list for ages now) were all published the same year. Great year for the genre.

I have many friends with whom I have discussed sci-fi over the years, and I can't think of one who would be unlikely to enjoy this book. It really is excellent science fiction.

"Flowers For Algernon" by Daniel Keyes; 7/10

Read By Jeff Woodman

Karen had talked up this book to me, and I'd been hearing of it occasionally over the years, and it was available through Audible, so I said "hell" and took it up.

Karen, as you may or may not know, really likes depressing books. That isn't to say that all of the books she likes are depressing, or that depressingness is prerequisite to her liking them; it's just something to remember. And remember it I did as I read "Flowers For Algernon," the tale of a mentally handicapped lad named Charlie who is chosen to be the subject of a series of intelligence-enhancing experiments.

The novel is presented as his diary, and the narrative conceit is that as his intelligence changes, so does his writing style. This was, I would say, by far the most interesting aspect of the book from a creative standpoint. Thematically, the book was, I am given to understand, revolutionary in the way it looked at the lives of people with handicaps, its investigation of prejudice and maltreatment. It was most uncomfortable at times, but it said things that needed and deserved to be said, and for that it is to be highly commended.

These things being said for it, I will say that while I found it thought-provoking, I am really happier to have read it than I was to read it, if that makes sense. I think primarily that I just found that the book said more than it did, that I rarely viewed characters or dialog as more than vehicles. Didn't love it.

Jeff Woodman is fine, nothing special, but he was passable.

"Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare; NR

Seriously, who am I to rate the Bard? Billy Shakes has some brilliant lines in this play, which my ignorance of had previously caused numerous people to stand agog over the years. "And you- an Ancient Historian and Latinist?!"

I had to put it to rights, and as it happened, Barnes & Noble had just installed internet browsers on our computer terminals, so I behave like a 12-year-old and abused the privilege in secret... by reading Shakespeare on the internet. Hm. I was going to do "Tempest" next but I just really didn't enjoy reading on a computer screen. Call me crazy.

So anyways, yeah I obviously should have read it before. The history isn't particularly accurate for the most part, but it is fun.  Like most of his plays I found this one inconsistent in the motivation of the characters and in the writing, but that doesn't stop it from having some of the best passages in all of drama.

What are your favorite lines? I'll close with three of mine.

"He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."

"Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol."

"Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."

"Hyperion" by Dan Simmons, 10/10 [H]

 Another 10? Am I just hot-cold on things or was it really that good? It was totally that good, and you don't have to just take it from me, because the Hugo and Nebula voters agreed, which is something they don't often do. Others accorded this level of recognition include the previously reviewed "Ender's Game," "The Forever War,"and "Neuromancer."

If you have had the misfortune to read this entire blog (my deepest sympathies) you've seen me refer to this book already a couple of times. Like "Lord of Light," I was impressed enough by it to get several friends to read it. The same people actually...

Anyways, this book is a series of numerous ingenious premises, held together by a narrative structure deliberately and brilliantly patterned after Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." So you are presented with the reason why the group of pilgrims are traveling together, given some background info, and then they tell their stories. Each story (I won't tell you how many, because it'd be a bit of a spoiler) carries a number of original sci-fi concepts in it, almost all of which were just tip-top.

One of the best things about the format from the point of view of having read it is that discussions of the book's quality can break down around the characters and their stories, which are very different. My two favorites were "The Scholar's Tale" and "The Detective's Tale," the latter of which contained a cool homage to William Gibson, and was like, totally freaking epic. In fact I think we can go ahead and apply that last bit to the whole book. It was stellar, and just kept getting better.

A bit of warning: know going in that there is a second book, and a third, and a fourth. That is an important thing to keep in mind when one gets to the ending, which I'll say no more about. But just as a foretaste, the second book is going to get rated in the 8-9 range. I just got the third book for Xmas, so whoopee! I get to keep going.

"Hyperion" is an absolute must for a science fiction fan, and I'd say by far the best book I've read yet for the aspiring futurist. It's scope and ambition have few peers in genre fiction that I am aware of, and it is one of my favorites.