Book Reports
About this time of year I start putting a serious dent in my incoming book pile. Here's a few books I've read recently and enjoyed:
- Neal Stephenson, The System of the World (**** [out of 5])
The thrid and final book in the Baroque Cycle. A bit of a letdown after the rapid pace of The Confusion as we return to the philosophy and quiet politics of the first book (Quicksilver). A hundred pages lost would have improved it a great deal. But Stephenson's great historical novel of the birth of the modern world is quite worth reading. History is not when and where, but why and this makes why very clear.
- James Ellroy, American Tabloid (***1/2)
Story of the Kennedy Presidency and the conspiracies behind it, the Bay of Pigs and the assassination. If you like your cynicism unadulterated unalloyed, this one's for you. I found it a bit too dark -- sure things can be rotten, but they're not all rotten. Think of it as Tarantino in a bad mood.
- Peter F Hamilton, The Night's Dawn Trilogy (*****)
Actually composed of 6 paperbacks starting with this one, Night's Dawn is a 4,000 page space opera. Wonderful stuff. The human Confederation thinks it has it all nailed -- secular values have finally led to a interstellar golden age. Immortality has been achieved by recording the minds of the dead and storing htem. Then for a very odd reason the souls of the dead start returning -- taking over living bodies -- and the Confederation gets to rethink nearly everything (e.g. their secular attitudes can't explain things like souls) while fighting a losing war against the rapidly expanding legions of the Possessed. Heaven, Hell and then some.
- John Birmingham, Weapons of Choice (****)
First novel in an alternate history. The USS Hillary Clinton and her battle group are transported back in time to just before the Battle of Midway, which never happens as a result. Things start to diverge and the foregone conclusion of the Allies winning WW2 becomes oddly less certain with the addition of this powerbul asset to the Allied side. It doesn't help that the racist, sexist and fascist culture of the 1940s grates on the crew or the 21st Century battle group. And vice versa. Picture a 1942 Georgia boy under the command of a lesbian black woman and you get the drift. Meanwhile the bad guys are changing their plans. Great fun, but the unreasonable opening coincidences delayed my "willing suspension of disbelief."
- Harry Turtledove, Return Engagement (***)
The alternate history begun in How Few Remain enters a second World War against a dictatorial South which is hellbent on finding a final solution to the "Negro Problem." Once a good idea, the series has gotten predictable in the extreme.
- Chris Moriarty, Spin State (*****)
First novel by a new female writer. Think of Moriarty as a cross between C J Cherryh and Richard K Morgan, with a bit of Vinge and MacLeod tossed in. Humanity is utterly dependant upon certain Bose-Einstein condensates that can only be found on one planet (see: Arrakis), in order to operate their quantum entanglement technology. Lose that and it's back to relativity. Push has come to shove, and Catherine Li is tossed by the Powers That Be into the middle. She's not expected to survive -- and that's if she wins. First of several connected books.
- Larry Niven, Ringworld's Children (***)
Ringworld's Children is half a book. The first half was the previous Ringworld Throne. Unfortunately, Niven didn't combine them, toss out the filler in "Throne", and write the book that would have been the worthy successor to "Ringworld" and "Ringworld Engineers." But he didn't, and the two half books don't make a whole one. What we have instead is (like "Throne") the outline of a great novel, a few sketches of characters (and not even that for some: Chmee's son whatsisname), and Louis Wu solving a few puzzles with clues we never see. Larry Niven once said that the Ringworld offered so many opportunities for sequels that it would make Edgar Rice Burroughs look like a case of "writer's block." Sadly, having created such a mental playground, Niven is unable to capitalize on it.
- Peter F Hamilton, Pandora's Star (****1/2)
Hamilton is the best modern writer of grand space opera. This new set of books (2? 3?) details the conflict between the expanding Human Commonwealth, whose economy is based on transport gates, and an utterly unexpected attack by a single alien. Of course, the alien has a lot of resources and the Will to win. Do the humans have the will to defend? Or is it just going to be politics as usual as segments of humanity grasp for advantage, not realizing they're in a war to the death? To be continued.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at December 14, 2004 08:46 AM
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