[Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (cclapcenter.com). I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C[Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (cclapcenter.com). I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.]
I know, I know, you haven't been seeing very many reviews this year from our buddies at Akashic Books, which is because they simply haven't been sending very many books this year; and that's a shame, because it seems like every time I pick a new one up by them, at the very least it's still okay but much more often some of my favorite reads of the year. Take this most recent double-header, for example, the "soft apocalypse" noir thrillers The Dewey Decimal System and The Nervous System by former Shudder To Think guitarist Nathan Larson, which turns out to contain one of the most inventive post-apocalyptic milieus I've ever come across (and I read a lot of post-apocalyptic novels); two tales concerning a black former soldier with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, who has recently moved into the New York Public Library with the goal of manually reshelving all its books, within a Manhattan that after an endless series of coordinated terrorist attacks in the near future has voluntarily emptied to roughly one-tenth the population it once was, like The Yiddish Policeman's Union these use simple crime-novel plots as a sly way to explore this expansive alt-history universe, even while layering in an ultra-slow reveal concerning "Dewey"s actual past, the terrible eugenics experiments performed on him by the US military, and why it is that he can't remember any of it, despite still having an autonomic sense memory of how to speak Korean (for one example) or how to kill a man with his bare hands (for another). Two of the most legitimately exciting novels I've read in a long time, these had the rare ability to completely suck me out of my daily reality while I was in the middle of reading them, something that doesn't happen to me much anymore now that I read 150 books a year; and I always take that as an extremely good sign, taut genre actioners that belie the usual tropes of their genres, and which will undoubtedly be making our Best Of The Year lists come December.
[Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (cclapcenter.com). I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C[Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (cclapcenter.com). I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.]
I know, I know, you haven't been seeing very many reviews this year from our buddies at Akashic Books, which is because they simply haven't been sending very many books this year; and that's a shame, because it seems like every time I pick a new one up by them, at the very least it's still okay but much more often some of my favorite reads of the year. Take this most recent double-header, for example, the "soft apocalypse" noir thrillers The Dewey Decimal System and The Nervous System by former Shudder To Think guitarist Nathan Larson, which turns out to contain one of the most inventive post-apocalyptic milieus I've ever come across (and I read a lot of post-apocalyptic novels); two tales concerning a black former soldier with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, who has recently moved into the New York Public Library with the goal of manually reshelving all its books, within a Manhattan that after an endless series of coordinated terrorist attacks in the near future has voluntarily emptied to roughly one-tenth the population it once was, like The Yiddish Policeman's Union these use simple crime-novel plots as a sly way to explore this expansive alt-history universe, even while layering in an ultra-slow reveal concerning "Dewey"s actual past, the terrible eugenics experiments performed on him by the US military, and why it is that he can't remember any of it, despite still having an autonomic sense memory of how to speak Korean (for one example) or how to kill a man with his bare hands (for another). Two of the most legitimately exciting novels I've read in a long time, these had the rare ability to completely suck me out of my daily reality while I was in the middle of reading them, something that doesn't happen to me much anymore now that I read 150 books a year; and I always take that as an extremely good sign, taut genre actioners that belie the usual tropes of their genres, and which will undoubtedly be making our Best Of The Year lists come December.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
This technothriller by W.G. Marshall posits a well-worn idea at its core (a freak accident turns a couple of people into six-thousand-foot-high giants, at which point all hell breaks loose), but easily elevates itself above most other stories of this kind by taking an ultra-realistic and scientifically accurate look at just what such an occurrence might actually be like in the real world; so not only are our normal-sized heroes battling the giants themselves, but also the now human-sized and unstoppable bacteria that was on these people's skin when the transformation took place, the airplane-crashing waves of superheated air that come with each exhalation by the giants, not to mention the simple challenge of trying to communicate with a creature whose ear alone is the size of a skyscraper, making even the most powerful amplifier ever made effectively non-comprehensible. So as such, then, readers shouldn't expect anything above Jerry Bruckheimer level in terms of characterization and plot; but I have to admit that I found this to be a real rollicking delight anyway, merely from the pure audaciousness of its mundanely disgusting details (ugh, igloo-sized piles of dandruff, UGH) and the breakneck speed in which it introduces these details. A strong contender for CCLaP's Guilty Pleasure Awards at the end of this year, it comes strongly recommended to Michael Crichton fans and other lovers of simply-told but fantastically imagined what-if stories.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Regular readers will remember Midwestern bizarro author Patrick Wensink, whose previous titles Sex Dungeon For Sale! and Black Hole Blues have both been reviewed here in the past; and now his latest and most ambitious is here, the booze-fueled rock-and-fast-food trippy comedic saga Broken Piano for President. Although let's be clear right away, that this is simply going to be way too silly for a lot of people's tastes, a sort of grown-up fairytale about a grizzled music veteran, JFK conspiracies, world-dominating burger franchises locked in mortal combat with each other, and a lot more; but for those who do consider themselves fans of the decidedly underground literary subgenre known as "gonzo fiction" (think Douglas Adams combined with psychobilly music, filtered through a six-year-old who's been given a sip of beer at a family reunion and now won't stop screaming poop jokes), Broken Piano is absolutely on the high end of the gonzo scale, a well-done piece of dark wackiness that will be adored by the same people who enjoy getting wasted and going to Monty Python midnight screenings. Sure, it got panned terribly at Publishers Weekly, but it was still a bizarro novel from a basement press that managed to get reviewed at Publishers Weekly; and that should tell you everything you need to know about the relative strengths of this book within a genre that is usually fairly weak, a foul-mouthed charmer that comes with a strong but limited recommendation, only to those who think in advance that they might enjoy such work. (You know who you are!)
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I was a big fan of Ken MacLeod's last book with Pyr, the fascinatingly unique day-after-tomorrow political thriller about central Asia, ancient mythology, and MMOs used for revolutionary purposes, The Restoration Game; but this newest is a big step down from that one, a book that that similarly aims conceptually high but unfortunately falls flat most of the time. In fact, it takes a big suspension of disbelief even to swallow the premise and get past page one -- that after losing a "holy war" with Muslim countries over dwindling oil supplies in the near future, spurred by conservative Western politicians using fundamentalist Christian propaganda to sell it all to the public, the US and Western Europe are taken over by radical-left socialists who literally ban all public mention of religion ever again; and that although those radical days are over and a more stable government has started normalizing society again, there is still a deep cultural precedence for Christian worship being a semi-secret underground activity that in Orwellian style is not even officially recognized by the government as existing, even going so far as to insist on addressing church officials as "doctor" instead of "reverend" or "bishop." That's a pretty big freaking pill to swallow, which you have to do for the rest of the book to make sense, essentially a sneaky detective thriller set within this alt-history, concerning murders within this shadowy underground Catholic community and who might be committing them for what purposes. Interesting in its way, I myself found it just not as well-written as his previous novel, and full of the kinds of ultra-hacky genre-novelist stuff that makes me want to sometimes claw my own eyes out with so many of these midlist SF titles (such as the whole subplot taking place among the packed but silent danceclubs that have seemingly been made out of every old cathedral and mosque in existence, where "VJs" [virtual DJs, get it?] pump the music directly into people's heads and throw around enhanced-reality special effects across the room with their hands "Minority Report" style, while everyone watches along with their virtual-reality "iThink" glasses, UGH, UGH, enough, MacLeod, enough). Only for the extra-committed genre fan, although all of you should like this well enough.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
This is the third volume now of Mark Hodder's steampunk series, in which the real-life Victorian explorer Richard Francis Burton and libertine artist Algernon Swinburne fictionally team up for a series of adventures in an alt-history 19th century, and nicely illustrates the problem with missing the first title in such a series when it comes to following along with the rest; for while I didn't seem to have much problem following along with the second volume, The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, mostly I suspect because it didn't contain much background material about the first volume, this third chapter contains just a huge infodump about the book that started it all (The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, that is), a complicated backstory that involves time travel, multiple possible histories, and a sacred prehistoric meteorite that holds the key to the far-future quantum mechanics that are causing all the space-time-hopping messes in the first place (or, um, something like that), and I have to confess that I had a hard time simply trying to keep up with all the complex exposition. (Also, series fans, be aware that Hodder seems to have grown tired of the entire premise of Swinburne playing Dr. Watson to Burton's Sherlock Holmes, and that this third volume is mostly a Burton adventure with a few drunken wisecracks by Swinburne randomly thrown in here and there.) Granted, this universe is a much more original and creepy vision than most steampunk novels, the main reason to read the books in the first place -- in particular I really love the idea of genetic engineering being mastered long before electronics, so that the streets and skies are filled with giant dead bugs whose hollow exoskeletons are used as industrialized human vehicles -- but I also have to confess that by not getting hooked on this series from its start, I'm finding it increasingly difficult with each new volume to stay emotionally connected to the proceedings, the problem in a nutshell with all these endless so-so series that sci-fi publishers love putting out. It should be kept in mind when deciding for yourself whether or not to pick up a copy.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I never quite appreciated the distinction when I was younger and simply a fan, but now that I'm a full-time reviewer of such work, I've come to realize that there are actually two different strata of success in the world of science-fiction: there is the cream of the crop that bleeds through into the general culture, the William Gibsons and Neal Stephensons and Charles Strosses of the world, and there are the much greater number of authors who aren't exactly bad, but who deliver exactly what that genre requires and not a single tiny bit more, the "pushers" of the fetishistic "highs" that come with that genre for that fan, which is all that they're looking for to have considered that project not a waste of their time. (Or to think of it another way, many of these second-tier SF authors also double as screenwriters on syndicated SF and fantasy shows, Buffy and Fringe and whatnot, successful and popular shows all, but purposely designed to mostly be consumed once then never thought of again, except for that small number of convention-going hardcore fans who keep that author's mortgage payments coming in each month.) And that's what L.H. Thomson's The Process Server is, basically, a very serviceable cyberpunk-tinted space opera but not much else, that will satisfy fellow fans of cyberpunk-tinted space operas but make most everyone else say, "Eh, okay, whatever." Set among a dystopian humanity that now spans the galaxy, it posits a complexly Doctorowian political situation that essentially makes our hero a planet-hopping noir-like server of court papers, with a saucy 250-year-old stuck in a 14-year-old girl's body as a spaceship pilot, stuck as pawns within a blackly comic thriller played out among nation-sized corporations and a galactic population terminally addicted to a sensurround virtual reality. A well-done story for what it is, it breaks not even a single step of new ground within the genre but will be a minor treat anyway for fans of this type of work, which is why it's getting a good score but not a great one, and a limited recommendation instead of a general one.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Regular visitors will know that I'm currently in the process of reading every novel sci-fi author Charles Stross has ever written; I started last time with his very first, 2003's Singularity Sky, which told a surprisingly funny and absurdist tale set in the far future, centuries after the human race was split and flung across the universe one day by a far advanced alien life form, because of a united humanity recently discovering time travel and thus technically now capable of accidentally wiping out this "Eschaton"s very existence. And this is the same universe where his next novel is set as well, 2004's Iron Sunrise, although it's not exactly a sequel; for although it features the same duo of main heroes as the first book (a plucky female UN inspector and a male secret agent for the Eschaton, the two now married after falling in love in the first novel), the story itself takes place among an entirely different planetary system, basically starting with the unexpected explosion of a local star and the destruction of the world orbiting it (the "iron sunrise" of the book's title), which leads us down an ever-widening rabbithole of conspiracies, ultra-fascist organizations, and galaxy-domination plots.
And indeed, the either good or bad news, depending on what you think of the subject, is that Iron Sunrise adheres much more strongly to the traditional tropes of 1990s and early 2000s cyberpunk, after a first novel that cleverly combined hard science-fiction with the gonzo silliness of countercultural "motley fool" writers like Ken Kesey; the latter now features such familiar genre touches as a rebellious 15-year-old girl as our main protagonist, five or six different small storylines that all come together into one giant climax at the end, spaceship chases and planet-hopping bloggers and all the other things you would expect from a SF tale written in those years. (Also, this second novel makes it clear that the Eschaton is actually a single entity, essentially the result of a cloud computing system like the Google server farm gaining sentience; and while that helps make things clearer from a plot standpoint, I admit that it kind of removes the fun in the first novel of never quite knowing what exactly the Eschaton is/are.) Still, although far from his best or densest or trippiest work, Iron Sunrise is definitely an interesting read and worth the time of Stross completists; although I have to confess that I'm looking much more forward to the next title in my reading list, 2005's Accelerando, the first of Stross's books to make a big splash in America and coiner of the entire cultural phrase "The Accelerated Age" (a popular way among SF fans to refer to stories that take place in a post-Singularity universe). ...more
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Even the author of this trying book admits right in the introduction that there is now already a plethora of well-written books regarding each and every little sub-topic that exists concerning the long-running Star Trek franchise; and so that begs the question of why we should care about this newest one, or indeed why it even exists at all. And the answer after wading through this filler-crammed fluff piece is, "Hmm, I'm not exactly sure," which besides the serviceable, Wikipedia-quality cores of each chapter are otherwise padded out with the very definition of "page-filling pablum;" the trouble starts right at the beginning, with multi-page looks at every tiny little previous acting part every cast member of the original Star Trek had had before joining the show in the mid-1960s, and just pretty much gets worse from there. It's not terrible, which is why it isn't getting a terrible score; but like the author says, I found it difficult to understand why it even exists, and recommend that you instead pick up a better-written specific guide to whichever topic in particular you're most interested in.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
As regular readers know, there's a special quirk to CCLaP's 10-point rating system that maybe a lot of other places don't have; that no matter how good a genre book like science-fiction or crime thriller actually is, in terms of sheer quality, it's not allowed to score in the 9s or above unless it somehow transcends its genre and becomes of interest to a general audience, a rule which I believe makes CCLaP's ratings far more accurate when it comes to any particular random person trying to decide whether or not to pick up any particular random title. So for a genre novel to score a perfect 10 here, as has happened only two or three times in the five years and 700-odd reviews that have been published at CCLaP, means something special indeed -- that it's not only exquisitely done, not only one of the best books ever published in that genre, but is a title that should literally be forced on people who normally hate that genre, the proverbial "one [fill in the blank] book you should read if you only read one [fill in the blank] book a year." And ladies and gentlemen, I have found that next rare genre book to score a perfect 10, ironically by complete accident on the "New Releases" shelf at my neighborhood library; it's called Zone One by Colson Whitehead, and could very well be the very best post-apocalyptic novel since Cormac McCarthy's The Road six years ago.
And indeed, like McCarthy, Whitehead is not a genre veteran but actually an academically celebrated mainstream author, a MacArthur "genius grant" recipient whose most famous novel Sag Harbor (an autobiographical coming-of-age tale about wealthy blacks in 1980s Long Island) is talked about online by its fans in the hushed, revered tones of the religiously faithful. And like McCarthy, this first foray into genre actioners by Whitehead is actually a highly metaphorical tale as well; for by setting it a full ten years after the outbreak of a plague that turned 99 percent of the population into flesh-eating zombies, and by concentrating the story on the efforts to reclaim lower Manhattan as a source of national pride to a deeply shaken population, Whitehead is clearly echoing the real events of 9/11 and the dark chaos of the resulting Bush Era, not from the perspective of those actual years like so much "Bushist" literature in the early 2000s did, but rather from our current Obamian recovery times, a period here in the 2010s when it seems that we are perpetually on the cusp of America devolving into permanent ruin, offset by glimmers of hope and a can-do attitude but by no means with any guarantee yet that we won't be sliding straight into the abyss around every next corner.
And in fact, this is the main issue that makes Whitehead's book so brilliant in the first place, and so profoundly more original and inventive than almost any other zombie story that's ever been written; because by setting the story in a time and place where the majority of the most dangerous "skels" have now all been killed, the novel instead explores the complex ways that the survivors have learned how to cope and even think of the events that transpired a decade previous, and of all the complicated factors that would actually go into rebuilding the country back into a state of normalcy, the novel's first page being where most zombie stories usually end. It's here where Whitehead really shines, offering up literally dozens of little tidbits that will make you think as you're reading, "Oh, that's a smart touch; oh, and that's a smart touch too" -- just for one great example, how the recovery process (being directed from the new national capital in Buffalo, New York) is mostly being funded by corporate interests, with various surviving vice presidents and CEOs giving formal permission as a PR stunt for the growing civilian/military population in the semi-safe "Zone One" of lower Manhattan to "officially loot" this or that specific brand or product from the hundreds of abandoned stores around them, and with a thinly-veiled Disney being the official supplier of the new zombie-proof armor of this post-disaster world, all the helmets now emblazoned with a gun-toting, cigar-chomping Mickey Mouse on the side.
And why does this growing population in Zone One bother following these kinds of regulations over what can and cannot be "officially" looted in the first place? Well, because following rules is one more detail that makes things feel like they're finally getting back to normal -- hell, just the fact that there actually are rules again in the first place -- which is yet another brilliant thing that Whitehead has done here, is pay mere lip service to the usual fantastical Mad-Max scenarios that most other post-apocalyptic novels offer up. For example, through extensive flashbacks that pepper this entire manuscript, Whitehead makes it clear that literally thousands of little fiefdoms, communes, warrior tribes, militia compounds and slave plantations actually did arise in the aftermath of his apocalyptic event; but he also makes it clear that nearly all of them collapsed of their own volition mere months later, and that the vast majority of the population quickly reverted back to normalcy and decency because that's what most human beings are, normal and decent -- that this is how we get even the definitions of terms like these, because most humans are simply hardwired in their DNA to act in a normal and decent way, and that the minority who aren't pretty much all died at each other's hands not even a year after this state of anarchy was established in the first place. And just to make it clear, there's literally a dozen more pages of these kinds of insights I could point out in this review but won't, concerning everything from race and class to why most of us both love and despise effective marketing, just an incredibly intelligent story but one that absolutely does not skip on the usual firefights, rotting flesh, and heart-pounding excitement you expect from genre actioners.
But even with all this, what truly makes Zone One an instant classic is its unforgettable ending, the details of which I won't spoil but let's just say now stands as one of the most emotionally moving catastrof-cks in the entire short history of 21st-century literature. And again, Whitehead uses this not just to offer a thrilling, fanboy-satisfying conclusion but to make a metaphorical statement about our own times, a pretty devastating one at that -- that as bad as 9/11 and the resulting Bush years were, they're a mere drop in the bucket to the looming disasters still to come in this country, as it becomes more and more undeniable that the United States as a hegemony has finally and fully reached its "Fall of the Roman Empire" moment in the larger picture of world history, and that all the "Yes We Can" posters, "Detroit Pride" commercials and Starbucks "Let's Create Jobs" bracelets in the world won't amount to a damn bit of difference when all is said and done. And that's because like every hegemony in history, from the Romans thousands of years ago to the British Empire right before us, America has grown insolvably lazy, stupid and corrupt because of its role as undisputed and unstoppable global champions; and that just like the pagan barbarians that eventually overran the Roman Empire no matter how much money or how many soldiers they threw at the problem, the only destiny possible for a "F-CK YEAH U-S-A!" is a bitter, violent and humiliating total collapse on the world stage, a series of disasters just around the corner that will make 9/11 look like a freaking tea party.
That's a hell of a statement for Whitehead to symbolically make, but may turn out to be the most prophetic one you'll hear all year; and by making such a pronouncement not in the middle of the Bush years when things seemed at their worst, but at an Obamian point of optimism about the future, Whitehead differentiates himself for the better from The Road and all the other dour Bushist novels that came out last decade, daring to look unblinkingly into the gaping maw of Downfall right at a time when it is politically incorrect (at least among academic liberals of color) to do so. It's for all these reasons combined -- the keen insights, the powerful metaphors, the simultaneous embrace of potboiler genre conventions, the poetic style, the unexpected conclusions -- that Zone One today becomes the first book of 2012 to receive a perfect score at CCLaP; it's an unforgettable novel, destined to become a landmark of our well-meaning but deeply flawed Obamian Age, and it comes strongly recommended even if you normally despise zombie stories.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
To tell you the truth, about a month now after I first finished this book, I just now had to re-look at the manuscript just to remember what it was about; and that should give you a good idea of this book's inconsequential nature, competently done but bound to be quickly forgotten by the culture at large. One of those funny "bizarro" authors who uses over-the-top scenarios to comment on some ultra-trendy issues, this story sees the rest of the galactic community finally discovering the presence of Earth, specifically by becoming obsessed with Earth music which is thousands of times better than their own, but then getting bogged down into a universe-collapsing crisis over exactly how much money they owe Earth lawyers for the trillions upon trillions of illegal downloads the universe has unwittingly perpetrated. Well done for what it is but awfully silly nonetheless, it comes recommended to hardcore fans of, say, Douglas Adams or Monty Python.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
This is volume two of a new "steampunk meets superheroes" series from Andrew P. Mayer, a rather potboilerish adventure tale about masked vigilantes with fantastical weapons fighting crime in late-1800s New York; I reviewed the first volume last year and found it only so-so, while after finishing this latest found it…er, only so-so. And that's because Mayer never really does anything with this admittedly fascinating premise once he comes up with it; the action scenes are ho-hum, the dialogue purposely written with a kind of comic-book simplicity, and in general with plot developments that never rise above the clunky pulp serials that Mayer is obviously trying to emulate. And that's not bad if that's specifically what you're looking for, which is why it's getting at least an okay score today; but I'll warn you now that you'll be bored and disappointed if you're expecting even an ounce more than a competent genre quickie, and that this should be kept in mind if you're picking it up yourself. It comes recommended to steampunk fans who have a high degree of patience, but pretty much no one else.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
This is volume two of a new trilogy by T.C. McCarthy, detailing a day-after-tomorrow war in central Asia from the viewpoint of three very different types of combatants; but unfortunately, while the first book Germline made CCLaP's best-of lists last year and in general just really blew me away, I found myself much less captivated by this newest chapter. And that's because, I've come to realize, what I really loved the most about part one was the unique kind of narrative that came with dropping a drug-addicted gonzo journalist into the middle of a Vietnam-like bloody quagmire within the former Soviet states over the world's diminishing supplies of "trace metals" (almost useless except in the manufacture of cellphones and other mobile tech, and thus suddenly one of the most important resources on the planet in a world just around the corner from us); but with part two narrated by one of the genetically engineered teenage-girl super-soldiers bred specifically for wars like these, I found the missing element of flawed, decaying humanity to result in simply a less compelling manuscript, and now no longer offset by McCarthy's pleasingly shocking vision of near-future warfare (including micro-bullets that need no gunpowder, spacesuit armor with its own atmosphere, all troop movement conducted via thousands of miles of underground tunnels, and more), thought-provoking surprises in part one but old-hat by now. Granted, this is perhaps an unfair assessment, because Germline was just so freaking badass that its sequel was maybe fated to be disappointing no matter what -- and I'll absolutely be reading volume three of the trilogy as well when it comes out, Chimera in 2013 -- but unfortunately Exogene is a step down into mere "good" level from a debut that was almost perfect, and so will simply suffer in direct comparison. It should be kept in mind when reading it yourself.
The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label
Essay #66The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label
Essay #66: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), by Robert A. Heinlein
The story in a nutshell: Conceptualized in the early 1950s, but not written and published until 1961 (supposedly so that "society could catch up with it," according to the author), Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land is a classic example of a science-fiction (or SF) novel acting as a premonition to its real-world times, only moderately successful when it first came out but eventually a must-read touchstone among the hippies of the Countercultural Revolution a decade later. It starts with the first-ever manned mission to Mars, which because of its length was crewed only by couples, which ended tragically with the unexplained deaths of all on board; but when a second team finally arrives twenty years later, they discover that one of these couples had secretly had a baby, one Valentine Michael Smith, and that the lone survivor was raised by the insanely unhumanlike native Martians as one of their own, guaranteeing his re-introduction to the human race being as awkward as Tarzan being returned to Greystoke Manor.
And in fact, surprisingly the entire first half of this long novel is dedicated merely to the complicated legal questions that have arisen by Smith's appearance, including what powers he exactly has to grant property and mining rights to individual nations or even to commercial interests, cleverly reflecting the real debates that were going on at the time over these same questions in regards to the Soviet/US race to the Moon. And so this is how the gentle, confused man-child eventually becomes friends first with the feisty nurse Gillian Boardman at the hospital where he's being kept; then her sometimes lover, brash journalist Ben Caxton; and then Caxton's friend and one of the most memorable characters in all of modern American literature -- lawyer, doctor, curmudgeon, millionaire hack author, angry libertarian, proud sexist, sculpture collector, Poconos-mansion-owning octogenarian Jubal Harshaw*, who eventually invites the whole party to an extended stay at his secluded Austin-Powersesque compound (including a household staff straight out of a James Bond parody -- three beautiful women who also happen to be experts at office management, cooking, engine repair, high diving and more). And indeed, there's a good reason that it turns out to be such a complex battle to get Smith away from the draconian "protection" of the US government; because hey, it turns out that such "psychic abilities" as mind-reading and telekinesis are actually ho-hum scientific principles, as easily accomplished when you know what you're doing as solving a hard math problem is, just that no human had been smart enough to "crack the code" until Smith was basically raised from birth with the knowledge by the evolutionally superior Martians, skills that the US Army are awfully anxious to learn themselves.
It's when the action switches to this compound, then, that the much more famous second half begins; because with Smith being the curious, inquisitive soul that he is, of course the first thing he wants to do once gaining his "freedom" is to tramp across the country vagabond-style, exploring as much as he can about human life and sampling a wide variety of traditional and mystical religions, trying to find something that can adequately explain the curiously hippie-like belief system the Martians adhere to, and especially the all-important concept in their culture of "grokking" (not quite the simple act of understanding something, not quite religious revelation, not quite a profound connection between two living creatures, but a sort of combo of them all, impossible to fully understand unless you can actually speak Martian yourself). And indeed, this is exactly what Smith ends up doing, is creating his own religion (the Church of All Worlds) dedicated to teaching humans to speak Martian so that they can fully grok this new, enlightened way of living, which apparently also includes a nudist lifestyle and lots and lots of hot group sex…or, er, communal free love, I mean. (Man, those Martians are some real swingers.) Needless to say, this doesn't sit well with most of the other religions of the world, including the suspiciously Scientologist-like "Fosterites" who Heinlein also explores in depth in the book's second half, leading to an easily anticipated martyr-like death for our perpetually misunderstood hero; but not before Smith has a chance to let his followers know that what he's really done is kickstart the next step of human evolution, and that those who refuse to learn the new ways will eventually become as obsolete and then extinct as the Neanderthals are to us.
The argument for it being a classic: Well, for starters, it won the prestigious Hugo Award the year it came out, with Heinlein himself the very first winner of the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America (in fact, when people refer to the "Big Three" SF authors of the 1960s, Heinlein is one of them, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke); plus the Heinlein estate claims with some authority that this is the biggest selling SF novel of all time, with it certainly undeniable how much of an influence it's had on the culture since, including the introduction into the general lexicon not only of "grokking" but the phrase "Thou art God"**. And that's because, fans claim, Stranger in a Strange Land is a perfect example of genre fiction as metaphor, of a fantastical story that actually helps guide us in our everyday lives; that its perfect combination of humor, drama, action and philosophy preaches important lessons about self-determination, loving your neighbor (in all sorts of ways), and the facile nature of so many traditional religions, to say nothing of fringe cults that prey on the weak-minded. A landmark publication in the history of Libertarianism (and with Heinlein in general the originator of the "Libertarians in SPAAAAAACE!" trope now so common in science-fiction), fans say that its lessons of thinking for yourself and rejecting bureaucratic BS couldn't be more timely, the rare book that can be positively cited by both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement; the fact that it almost single-handedly pushed the entire SF industry into mainstream respectability is mere icing on the cake, simply an external sign of just how important this novel is.
The argument against: Ahem. "Oh, are you freaking kidding me, you stupid grokking hippie trash?" That's an attitude you heard from a lot of people in the years after this book first came out; and while the vitriol has calmed down some in the 51 years since, it still remains the most effective argument against it, that this silly ode to long-hair orgies and Stickin' It To The Man isn't nearly as well-written or as important as its fans claim, and that it mostly has the reputation it does merely because Heinlein was damned lucky to have put it out right at the exact moment in history when mainstream society was most clamoring for a story like this (an accusation we've heard before in this essay series, don't forget, when we were discussing Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer). And this didn't get any better at all, they claim, even after Heinlein's widow in 1991 managed to get over 60,000 words from the original manuscript put back into the official bookstore version, after originally being cut in the early '60s for being "too scandalous;" because almost all of this cut material happens to be from the novel's infuriatingly repetitive and digressive second half, with literally hundreds of pages in the modern edition now dedicated to dated, rambling explanations of this group's adherence to free love, public nudity, water-based sharing rituals, and the importance of being "one with the universe" (that is, when you're not violently raging against the commies, capitalists, and other SOBs who are trying to steal away all your personal liberties -- oops, sorry, Heinlein apologists, did I just poke a hole in your precious little peacenik logic? Sorry about that!). And besides, say his critics, Heinlein was a cantankerous sexist and military booster who may or may not have been a fan of certain ideas commonly associated with fascism (but see Starship Troopers for a lot more on that), so you're officially forgiven for not buying into his luvey-duvey New Age charlatanism.
My verdict: So for those who aren't familiar already with the fine points of SF history, perhaps it's best to start with the following to understand my thoughts today about Stranger in a Strange Land -- that between the early days of this genre, when it was considered good for not much more than empty kiddie crap, and our own post-Star Wars age when we just take it for granted that a genre project can have millions of fans and generate billions of dollars, there was a perfect storm in the 1950s and '60s (aka "Mid-Century Modernism") when an obsession with rationality and philosophy, a weariness over dogma-fueled wars, the explosive birth of the Electronic Age, and the sudden maturing of American literature all came together in a glorious mess in the world of science-fiction, a "coming of age" moment in which the genre was suddenly the single hottest thing in the entirety of the arts; and Heinlein had a huge role in helping to make this happen, demonstrably the very first genre author in history to get published regularly in conservative, mainstream, middle-class publications like The Saturday Evening Post, and also one of the first people in history to write SF stories where the fantastical science was simply a given, the stories themselves exploring the more underlying human-interest subjects that would naturally come with such innovations (now known as "social science fiction," and again not reaching its true apex until the Countercultural Era a decade later).
So for Heinlein to put something as shocking and subversive as this out in the Kennedy years, after having a following of millions for his generally suburban-safe post-WW2 "juvenilia," was very much like the Beatles putting out "Sgt. Pepper" a mere three years later; a game-changer, in other words, not just a new project but a literal gauntlet that forced other writers to catch up, a line in the sand that served as an easy litmus test in those years to determine whether someone could "dig it" or not. And indeed, reading it for the first time a half-century later, this is still a very funny, thought-provoking and above all highly entertaining novel, full of intelligence and wit and great surprises; and sure, its critics have a point, that the second half does get bogged down occasionally with Heinlein's love for pontification (plus overly detailed descriptions of hippie orgies), but in an era that gave us Walden Two and Atlas Shrugged, it's important that we be more forgiving of this than we would with a contemporary novel, and understand that overblown philosophical treaties disguised as genre actioners are actually one of the most charming things about Mid-Century Modernist literature in general. Granted, this book inspired a lot of awfulness after the fact, not least of which is the entire trope of "Brilliantly Advanced Space Alien Who Acts Like Sweet Guileless Mentally Challenged Man Child Merely Because He Doesn't Yet Understand The Dirty Ways Of Our Flawed World" (see E.T., Starman, K-PAX, The Man Who Fell to Earth, ad nauseum); but in general, this is exactly as groundbreaking and still inspirational as its fans claim, and I have no hesitation today in declaring it a literary classic that everyone should read at least once before they die, a title that I'm convinced is just going to become more and more important as the years continue. It comes strongly recommended to one and all, as long as you approach it with a little patience and forgiveness, just as you should with all Mid-Century Modernist genre novels.
*And hey, yeah, just how autobiographical is good ol' Jubal? He sure looks and talks like Heinlein, after all; and in fact many have argued that the main character in this novel is not Smith but rather Harshaw himself, and that the entire Martian premise is just a thinly veiled excuse for Heinlein to essentially rant for several hundred pages on the subjects of women's lib, artists who receive state money, out-of-control central governments, and how much he hates each and every one of them. But on the other hand, genre editor and Heinlein friend David G. Hartwell has said before that Harshaw was based on mystery author and "Perry Mason" creator Erle Stanley Gardner, who like Jubal was a prickly former lawyer who got filthy rich off an endless series of hacky pulp novels.
**And speaking of its impact on the real world, here's an amazing piece of trivia I came across that didn't fit well into the main essay: that a year after the book first came out, a man who now goes by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart started a very real church modeled after Smith's fictional one, which like the novel adhered to a strict policy of hedonism and Do What You Want. And they're still in operation! ...more
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
So before anything else, a quick disclosure, that author Jason Jordan has participated in past CCLaP virtual book tours via his popular litmag decomP; although I don't imagine that many will accuse me today of favoritism, because I have to admit that I found Jordan's new post-apocalyptic novella The Dying Horse to be decently written but only a so-so story overall. And I also admit, a big part of that is because I happen to have coincidentally also been reading Colson Whitehead's Zone One at the same time, which turned out to be one of the most inventive and original post-apocalyptic novels I've ever read, which of course is what happens when the recipient of a MacArthur "genius grant" decides to write a zombie story; and so compared to that, Jordan's own straightforward and cliche-laced story is simply going to suffer, as almost anyone's would under such circumstances. That's why I want to reiterate that The Dying Horse is at least well-written, and will appeal to heavy genre fans who don't mind a bit of cultural repeat; or to put it another way, if you don't mind that a show like The Walking Dead essentially consists of a series of well-known tropes you've already seen a hundred times, since it's trumped by how well The Walking Dead in particular presents these tropes, then you are sure to really like The Dying Horse as well. It comes recommended in that specific spirit.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I recently had the chance to acquire every single book ever written by trippy sci-fi author Charles Stross, and so have decided to spend the year actually reading and reviewing them here for the blog; and I've decided to read them in chronological order, too (or, the general books by chronological order, then take on the themed series one at a time), which means that first up is his 2003 novel debut Singularity Sky, which along with his other early classic Accelerando are the ones that really first established him as a major genre force, and that helped cement the cliche of the SF "British Invasion" of the early 2000s. And so that's what makes it an even bigger shock than normal to find out that the novel is not a serious-minded brainteaser, like I think of whenever I think of the other Stross novels I've already read, but rather a very funny absurdist comedy along the lines of late-period Robert Heinlein. Not actually a story about Ray Kurzweil's famous theory of the "Singularity" (that is, the moment in the future that computers gain sentience, and thus usher in a new blazingly fast era for humanity where the mechanical and the biological blur into unrecognizable forms), the novel instead takes this Singularity moment as its historical start, and the fact that humans quickly figure out how to time-travel, at which point a mysterious alien force known as the Eschaton literally create a human diaspora to stop such development, by taking 90 percent of Earth's population and magically scattering them on various inhabitable worlds across the cosmos, these people now free to develop whatever kinds of societies they want but with "the big E" stepping in again whenever a "law of causality" is about to be broken, doing things like wiping out entire star systems to ensure that these stupid hairless apes don't accidentally erase the universe's existence.
Our actual tale, then, takes place hundreds of years after the events just described, when this scattered humanity have formed an endless series of different governments, tech capabilities, and even corporeal forms; to be specific, it's the story of a race of post-human creatures known as "The Festival" who exist mostly as forms of pure information as they travel the cosmos, who literally create new fantastical bodies whenever they stop at a new star system, then proceed to create a kind of benevolent chaos in that new system for awhile (the actual "Singularity Sky" of the book's title), swapping unheard-of technology for new info about the universe from that new system before finally getting their fill, dumping their temporary bodies, and taking off again for yet another century-long flight to the next habitable system, in this case the recipients being a militaristic quasi-fascist colonial dictatorship who shun technology and who clearly resemble the Bush administration that was in power when this novel was first published in the US.
As always with Stross, this is a lot of infodump to take in at once, with the above recap only scratching the surface of this expansive storyline, and with my promise that the whole thing becomes much clearer once you read the actual book; but like I said, the biggest surprise is that Stross plays all this mostly for laughs, a sort of ridiculous adventure tale about a backwards military that purposely builds outdated tech into their warships for the purpose of "tradition," and who then tries to fight a conventional war against a group that can barely fathom what the concept of "war" even is, and who are so technologically advanced over their opponents that they see the traditional battles as little more than you or I swatting at a pesky fly on a hot summer day. I know this all sounds a bit disjointed in a small write-up like this, but trust me when I say that the whole story when written out is a comic masterpiece; and it's easy to see why this made such a big splash when it first came out, after a 1990s that saw perhaps the lowest point of SF in its entire history. It comes highly recommended, and needless to say that I'm looking forward to the next book on the list, 2004's Iron Sunrise which just happens to be a direct sequel to this volume. ...more
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
It's extremely rare that I will bump up the score of a book here at CCLaP merely for its earnestness, the proverbial "A for effort" that I usually feel is just not deserved; but today is one of the few cases where I'm going to do exactly that, in that I found myself with a lot of respect for what author Paul West is trying to accomplish here, even if he mostly fails in these goals. A sprawling sci-fi epic that has a great New Agey conceit at its core -- that throughout history, a growing proportion of humanity has quietly come to realize the secrets to the next step of evolution, and that this group actually managed to invent space travel in the early 1900s, quietly shuttling off millions of believers to a nearby moon during the World Wars when they wouldn't be missed -- our tale takes place roughly a hundred years later, when some of the advanced quasi-humans decide to touch base again with their Earth relatives, with certain members of this group wanting to see if humans are enlightened enough yet to voluntarily join them, and certain others simply wanting to take the Earth over by force for their own purposes, the resulting chaos being a way to examine the current state of human morality Terence-Malick-style.
But that unfortunately turns out to be the biggest problem with First Cause, that West is not prepared to make the kinds of grandly fascinating statements about humanity that makes a story like this work; his conclusions are instead simply a series of easy cliches, delivered by a collection of sometimes badly cartoonishly cardboard characters, the melodrama so high at points that I kept waiting for a man in a top hat and long mustache to tie a blonde to some railroad tracks and then start singing about how she must pay the rent. Now combine this with way too much of a reliance on expository writing, so that it's more like reading a Wikipedia entry about the events that took place instead of just reading about the events taking place, and you're left with a book that I would normally give a thumbs-down to; but like I said, today I'm adding a bit to the score for sheer earnestness, with West currently having an ambition that's bigger than his writing skills, but with that certainly being better than the opposite situation. It takes quite a bit of forgiveness, but perhaps you'll enjoy First Cause as well for what it's aiming to be, maybe a little more than for what it actually is, and will encourage West to keep at it and turn in the better future work I'm sure he has in him.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Regular readers know that I do not usually review Young Adult novels here; but I made an exception this month with the new Planesrunner, not just because it was specifically sent to me by the publishing company but because it's the YA debut of sci-fi veteran Ian McDonald, and I'm a big slavish fan of Ian McDonald. But alas, Ian McDonald or not, this action-adventure tale about multiple universes and a teen whose kidnapped dad gives him the key to unlocking it all is absolutely a YA product through and through, both for better and for worse; and so while actual teen readers may find this enjoyable (or may not -- like I said, I don't usually review YA novels), for actual grown-ups it leaves a lot to be desired, from a clunky plot to overly explanatory exposition, snotty teen characters that will make adults roll their eyes just as badly as real teens make them do, a reliance on a Cockney-like slang that's much more annoying than clever, and a lot more. (Plus, I have to confess that I'm already tired of the "teenage libertarian" theme that seems to so completely dominate YA novels by science-fiction authors, which is definitely the case here too; and, for a main character who's supposed to be a nerdy British Indian, I have to say that I was quite dismayed to see him portrayed on the front cover an awful lot like a hunky white guy. The effect is subtle enough in this case to save Pyr a public shaming; but I confess that this is a huge pet peeve of mine, when marketing executives at publishing companies take main protagonists of color and then "whitewash" them on the cover for an American audience.) Decent enough for what it is, grown-ups should nonetheless stay far clear from this literal definition of juvenilia.
Out of 10: 7.2, or 8.2 for Young Adult fans ...more
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Although it's the second book in the series, this is my first experience with Mike Resnick's "Weird West" novels, in which the tropes of steampunk are exported to the cowboys and saloons of the American frontier; and I have to say, for being a deliberate B-level quickie genre tale, this was much better than the usual kind of books on this level I receive, and I find it no surprise now that Resnick will be the main Guest Of Honor at this coming summer's Worldcon in Chicago. (CCLaP will be there! Will you?) The story of a fictitious showdown between the real Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid, in a slightly fantastical America where Native Americans like Geronimo can perform literal magic, and Thomas Edison has been hired by the government to combat them using futuristic electrical devices, Resnick takes great joy in the genre practice of piling together famous coincidences, gleefully dropping a touring Oscar Wilde into a random scene and an indignant Susan B. Anthony in another, while using the famed tight-lipped wit of the real Holliday to great effect within a fast-paced, action-oriented storyline; and for steampunk fans craving gadgets, this book won't let you down either, an admittedly pretty silly story but that delivers in spades all the things we fanboys are looking for. It's no mindblower, but is at least a solidly crafted and always delightful Western take on a genre so usually steeped in the trappings of big cities like London or New York, and it comes strongly recommended specifically to all my fellow steampunk fans.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Regular readers will remember last year's Ghosts of Manhattan, from genre veteran and Doctor Who scriptwriter George Mann, and how I found it only so-so when originally reviewing it myself; and now its sequel is out, Ghosts of War, which I decided to go ahead and read as well, partly because a copy was nicely sent to me by our buddies at Pyr and partly because I've always suspected that I didn't give the first volume a fair shake. And indeed, the good news is that this "Art Deco Steampunk" actioner came off this time as much better than the original, I suspect partly because both Mann and myself have grown more into these characters and setting; for those who don't know, it's set in an alt-history 1920s New York, in which a Shadow/Batman-style crimefighter is assisted by lots of fanciful tech gear, while facing complications not from German spies but ones from a still-strong and now antagonistic British Empire, who has been locked into a cold war of sorts with the US for decades on end by now. Of course, in my defense, it's also clear that this sequel is simply better than the original as well, and very specifically addresses some of the problems that I mentioned about the first book; for example, while I found what Mann actually did with this milieu in the original to be rather uninspiring, this time he comes up with a real corker of a dilemma, one I'll let remain a surprise but let's say ties in nicely with the work of HP Lovecraft, who in real life was writing his best-known stories right in these same years. Essentially more of the same but now just a little sharper, a little brighter and a little smarter, it comes recommended to both traditional steampunk fans and aficionados of Early Modernist noir serials, a rousing thriller that stands strongly against the Victorian setting where most of these types of novels are usually placed.
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