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| 1368075088
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| 1368075088
| 4.27
| 444
| Apr 09, 2024
| Apr 09, 2024
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really liked it
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Here we are! The story that began in
In Every Generation
and continued in
One Girl in All the World
concludes here with Against the Darkness.
Here we are! The story that began in
In Every Generation
and continued in
One Girl in All the World
concludes here with Against the Darkness. Full disclosure: I received a copy of this book from Kendare Blake, who will also return as a guest on my Buffy rewatch podcast,
Prophecy Girls
a couple of weeks after this review is published. I’d like to think I’m still providing a fair review of these books, however—and while Blake has perhaps tempered my general aversion towards media tie-in novels, I still remain skeptical on the whole. As usual, spoilers for the first two books in the trilogy but not for this one. Frankie Rosenberg is a slayer-witch living in New Sunnydale with her mom, Willow. Together with the next generation of Scoobies and her watcher, Spike, Frankie has uncovered the nefarious plan of this season’s—I mean trilogy’s—Big Bad, the Darkness. It’s connected to the disappearance of all the remaining slayers, including Frankie’s Aunt Buffy. Now, Frankie and the Scoobies need to find a way to defeat the Darkness and bring Buffy and the other slayers home, or else serious badness could descend upon Sunnydale. Again. When I started the book, I had briefly forgotten how One Girl in All the World ended, as I am wont to do a year later. So I was a little confused by Frankie and Hailey being enemies and Hailey hanging out with Aspen. Thankfully, Blake catches the reader up pretty quick—that being said, I would have loved a little “previously…” synopsis at the start of the book. Those seem to be coming back into vogue. Are you listening, Disney? In addition to the main conflict, Against the Darkness focuses on numerous conflicts and plots that have run through the series since book one: Frankie settling into her role as the slayer; Hailey grappling with her role as a non-superpowered Scooby; Jake learning to control his inner wolf, with Oz’s help; and Willow’s addiction to magic and power. Most of my criticisms of the first two books involved the details around characterization, especially of the legacy characters like Willow and Oz. Now that we are comfortably into book three, I’m admiring of how Blake has managed to make these characters her own (as much as one can make intellectual property owned by The Mouse one’s own). Willow’s arc is probably the most salient and satisfying in this regard. Against the Darkness sees Willow embrace and work the “magicks with a K” (as we call them over on Prophecy Girls) in bigger ways than ever before, to her psychic detriment. She faces temptation and relapse, and the comparisons to other types of addiction are manifest. There’s a moment leading up to the climax where Willow hits a nadir, and for a moment I sat there and thought, “It has been sixteen years since she tried to destroy the world.” And then it hit me that this is must be what addicts experience. Sixteen years or sixteen hours—addiction is one day at a time, and relapse can happen after decades of sobriety. So my hats off to Blake for capturing the harsh truth of addiction. Jake and Hailey’s arcs were less interesting to me. Jake’s swings towards morally dubious territory, something that Blake acknowledges but doesn’t fully unpack or appropriately address, in my opinion. (Without spoilers, Jake unwittingly causes a fair amount of harm to people he cares about, and the Scoobies basically shrug it off. Then again, that happened in the show on the regular, so who I am to judge?) Hailey’s story has a couple of layers: her romance with Sigmund and her evolution as a fighter. There’s also her relationship with Vi to consider, though that understandably receives less time in this book. All in all, I think Blake faced a challenge trying to squeeze in as much characterization as she could in the word count she had to work with: I get the impression that Hailey deserves, and would have received, more pages if possible. Frankie and Grimloch’s hot-and-heavy romance, emphasis on the heavy rather than the hot (or is it on the hot rather than the heavy?—why would I expect myself to know this?), has its ups and downs here as well. I was really fascinated by the outcome to this one. Their initial attraction was always a nod towards Buffy/Angel, particularly the latter half of Buffy season 1. So I’m reading in the developments here a commentary, but I’m not sure if it’s a commentary on Buffy/Angel circa season 1 or just on how our society’s tolerance for age-gap relationships might have changed in a quarter century. But Kara, you ask, what of the, you know, actual plot? What of the Big Bad, the missing slayers, the Darkness? (It’s still a silly name for an evil organization, but then again, Blake’s competition on that one was the Trio, so I guess she wins this round.) Hailey’s credulity in the face of Aspen’s obvious iniquity annoyed me. That being said, I have the benefit of the limited third-person omniscient narrator backing me up. I wonder if I would be so critical had the book kept Aspen’s cards closer to its chest instead of letting the reader peek. As it is, I enjoyed Aspen as an antagonist, and her motivations make a lot of sense as a Buffy villain. If anything, as Frankie and the others observe, Aspen actually has a legitimate beef with Buffy and the slayers—her origin story has a kind of tragedy that echoes back to Adam, albeit with less gruesome … parts (pun intended). However, as Frankie and others observe, while this makes her sympathetic, it does not excuse her nefarious and violent actions. Aspen’s true value, though, is only apparent towards the end of the book when Frankie ends up in direct conflict with her. In this respect she again echoes the Big Bads of the series, who were always ultimately reflections of Buffy’s own obstacles as she grew up. Aspen is a foil for Frankie, who probably has more power than a typical slayer (owing to her witchy ways) yet also harbours many more doubts. When Aspen and Frankie finally face off, it’s a worthy spectacle, one that Blake carefully sets up over several chapters before the final payoff. Along the way, we receive the usual nods and allusions to the original series. Other fan-favourite characters (including a big one!) make an appearance or receive a mention. The ultimate fate of Miss Kitty Fantastico is revealed. Frankie borrows a lie from Dawn’s book of excuses for why Buffy was sick back in the day (though Dawn told it better). Spike and Buffy have a scene, and I won’t say more other than that I really liked how awkward it was and how carefully Blake walked that line. Like any legacy media tie-in, this trilogy has a lot of heavy lifting to satisfy new and old fans at the same time. While I can only really speak for the latter group, I would hope that Blake’s style and voice appeals to the former as well. Against the Darkness, like the first two books, is a worthy homage and continuation to one of the most memorable television series ever made. At the same time, this series introduces a new generation of slayer, Scoobies, and story. Each volume in this trilogy has been better than the last. I dearly hope Disney continues with this expansion of the Buffy universe, and I hope Kendare gets to write it. Frankie has more stories to tell, as do Hailey, Sigmund, Jake, and all the others I’ve come to adore. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 16, 2024
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Apr 19, 2024
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Apr 23, 2024
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Hardcover
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| B07D1MMDJG
| 4.75
| 51
| unknown
| May 11, 2018
|
really liked it
|
This really hit the spot. I’ve been craving some good, old-fashioned fantasy—the kind of stuff I mainlined as a kid, you know, the high fantasy stuff
This really hit the spot. I’ve been craving some good, old-fashioned fantasy—the kind of stuff I mainlined as a kid, you know, the high fantasy stuff with dragons and wizards. But I find that when I go back and try to revisit the fantasy from my youth, when I read it with the more critical eyes of a modern feminist adult, there’s just too much problematic stuff in there for me to enjoy it as much. Or, as was the case when I tried re-reading L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s Recluce saga, I found that the writing that had captivated me as a younger reader was too tedious for me these days. Enter Erinsmore, portal fantasy with an Arthurian twist but with more modern, enjoyable protagonists in the form of Ruby and Cassie Markson. It’s a little more self-aware, but not so much that it breaks the fourth wall or gets silly. Full disclosure: Julia Blake was my landlady when I lived in England a few years ago. At that time, Erinsmore was a novel she had written years before that and filed away. It has been a pleasure to watch Julia launch herself as an indie author and publish many of her books, including this one. I previously reviewed her SF novella Lifesong . I purchased a copy of Erinsmore for Kindle, but Julia did end up sending me a paperback version as a gift. Erinsmore is another world with your perhaps stereotypical medieval European level of development, though it’s a little more magical than our own. Darkness is stirring, of course (doesn’t darkness always do that?), in the form of Lorcan, an evil wizard who is bent on conquering not just Erinsmore but, if possible, all worlds (at least he thinks big). Travel between Erinsmore and our world used to be more common, but Ruby and Cassie are the first to cross over in generations. They have a role to play in a prophecy. As they soon discover, however, prophecies seldom work out the way one would expect. There’s more to Erinsmore than fighting evil. Erinsmore in a few ways reminded me of The Fionavar Tapestry , a book that I could not abide—and which Erinsmore is utterly superior to in every respect, for it avoids so many of the problems that The Fionavar Tapestry has. I was really annoyed by how that book’s characters, upon arriving in Fionavar, suddenly seem to “know” whatever they are required to know to attain their roles in this new world. Not so with Erinsmore. Although Ruby and Cassie’s bloodline privileges them with certain innate feelings of connection and power, Blake has them work at it—especially Cassie. Nothing was more welcome, and believable, than a months-long training montage for Cassie in sword-fighting. I remember sighing with a kind of pent-up relief when that transpired. Similarly, I’m not all that big on books heavy in prophecy, because I find myself increasingly uninterested in “chosen ones” as my chronological age catches up to my clothing style age. The more it seems like characters are fated/destined/prophesied to do certain things, the less I enjoy a story, because at that point it feels like all sense of agency is gone. Ruby and Cassie are definitely prophecy girls here, and in a way they do fulfill the prophecy (no spoilers!), but it’s clear throughout that they are making their own choices. Blake constructs the narrative around a loose quest structure, although the quest itself is flexible and really only in the foreground for a few parts of the book. There’s something quite enjoyable about watching these two characters figure out, from the clues left by their author, what they need to do to stymie Lorcan. As far as Big Bads go, Lorcan is all right. I’ve seen worse, more clichéd Dark Lords. He has a believable enough—read, tragic—backstory, the whole corrupted by power schtick going on, etc. The third person narration gives us enough time with him to get a sense of his character and just how mad he seems to have become as a result of his time spent asleep/in captivity. Even some of his dark minions are like, “Uh, dude, you’re being a little bit extra right now” and he just shrugs his shoulders. It’s just shy of being camp, in the best possible way. Indeed, I was actually kind of disappointed with the climax and resolution around Lorcan. OK, well, not exactly the manner in which he goes—the whole scene feels rather fitting and well done. More specifically, I guess I was just surprised when it happened. The whole climax kind of came upon us very suddenly, and I wasn’t ready! I. Wasn’t. Ready. I just kind of stared at the page going, “Wait, you mean it’s happening now??” But it was! It did! So many good characters in here. The difference between Ruby and Cassie, in terms of their age and how they acted, of course, makes for some good tension and character development. And the way everyone around him tries to defuse and challenge Colwyn’s sexism is funny (though puzzling how he developed such attitudes, since his dad didn’t seem to share them?). But I’m talking about even the minor characters, like Garth. Garth is awesome. He’s this loyal dude who never asked for what happens to him, yet he makes the best of it. The time that Ruby and Cassie spend on Earth between their visits to Erinsmore might actually be my favourite part of this book, to be honest, and Garth is a big part of that. In general, though, it’s just so moving to watch the way that their brief first trip to Erinsmore has already altered the two girls so much. The way they take it upon themselves to take on more responsibility in their family, which is going through some tough times. You can tell that both Ruby and Cassie have genuinely grown and started to mature into young women, and that of course continues when they return to Erinsmore. This book does get dark at times, too. I mean, we’re talking entire villages slain and their souls consumed by hell-beasts. So, yeah. Not for the faint of heart. And, to Blake’s credit, the characters treat this issue with the sombreness it requires, which is another area that fantasy novels sometimes neglect. It’s always a little jarring when your villain is engaging in literal genocide and none of the good guys seem all that broken up about another whole town being massacred. I’ve mentioned before how I don’t visualize when I read, so it isn’t often I talk about a book being “cinematic.” But that’s how I feel about Erinsmore. This is a book that I’d enjoy watching as a movie (properly adapted, of course, and not terribly butchered and transformed into generic fantasy movie of the month because screenwriters think no one cares about Arthurian legend or some such). It has the structure, the pacing, the characterization that would work well in such a form, and the right balance between epic adventure and close-knit tale of two sisters. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 08, 2018
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Dec 10, 2018
|
Dec 08, 2018
|
Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1487005733
| 9781487005733
| 1487005733
| 4.45
| 2,399
| Oct 16, 2018
| Oct 16, 2018
|
really liked it
|
One year ago I read Tanya Talaga’s
Seven Fallen Feathers
, in which she remembers the seven Indigenous youths who died far from home while attendin
One year ago I read Tanya Talaga’s
Seven Fallen Feathers
, in which she remembers the seven Indigenous youths who died far from home while attending Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School here in Thunder Bay. In that heartbreaking and essential work, she links these deaths to a structure of colonialism and white supremacy and an ongoing form of cultural genocide in which the government and the rest of us remain complicit. Now Talaga is back with this year’s CBC Massey Lectures; All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward widens the scope of this discussion to look at the high rate of Indigenous suicides all over the world. Beyond talking just about suicide, though, Talaga wants us to consider how colonialism interferes with Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and how this is ultimately the root cause of the suicides and other issues in Indigenous communities. As its subtitle implies, Talaga is not without hope. This book is an outstretched arm, asking everyone—white settler, Indigenous person, person of colour, etc.—to ask difficult questions of ourselves and our institutions and to create real change so we can save real lives. I love the chapter titles: “We Were Always Here”, “Big Brother’s Hunger”, “The Third Space”, “'I Breathe for Them'”, and “We Are Not Going Anywhere” (yesssss!). These titles alone communicate the arc of Talaga’s talks: first she grounds herself in the history, then she examines the effects of colonialism, before she discusses what so many people within these communities are doing already to try to improve conditions. Finally, Talaga asserts that there is hope, and there are so many viable possibilities out there to prevent youth suicide. What’s really needed is actual commitment to change rather than empty words and promises. As she quotes Mushkegowuk Grand Council Chief Jonathan Solomon saying, “We don’t need another study or inquiry. Everything has been studied and these studies are just collecting dust on a shelf”. The government is very good at promising change; it is much worse at actually delivering change for the better. Talaga does in this book what a journalist does best: she amplifies the voices of so many people across time and space from these communities, uniting their stories into a bigger picture. We hear the palpable frustration, anger, and sadness from so many individuals; we hear the strident confidence, hope, and determination from some of those same individuals who are even now fighting for change and for lives. Alongside these often personal tales, Talaga grounds us in the history of Canada, Norway, Brazil, and Australia. The conditions that create suicidal thoughts in these communities came from somewhere, and this is where All Our Relations shines. Talaga demolishes, directly and forcefully, the idea that traumas inflicted upon Indigenous peoples by settler governments should be located and left in the past. She makes it clear that the physical, biological, and cultural genocides of Indigenous peoples have left a lasting, inter-generational mark on these peoples: “Generations of Indigenous children have grown up largely in communities without access to the basic determinants of health…. Children are not in control of their determinants of health. They are born into them.” I mean, this is not hard to grasp, yet it seems like a lot of people in this country are willing to lay the blame for this on the communities themselves rather than the structures in place that prevent them from having the funding, infrastructure, and independence—the security and sovereignty—to guarantee these determinants themselves. It’s not just a lack of safe drinking water or inadequate access to healthcare, though, that’s at issue. As the title of the book indicates, this is a spiritual issue as well. Suicide rates among Indigenous people are so high because colonialism has harmed not only their physical wellbeing but also their spiritual and emotional connections to the land, to their histories, and to their cultures. Talaga makes this point throughout each and every lecture. In the first chapter she says, “Indigenous people have been trapped in these identity constructions in part because of their near-complete absence from the written narratives of the colonist nations”, arguing that it’s essential Indigenous voices can tell their stories (in their own language as well as that of the colonizers) to pass on Indigenous knowledge and culture. At the end of the last chapter, she says, “All children … need to know who their ancestors are, who their heroes and villains are; they need to know about their family’s traditions and cultures and the community they are a part of”. I mean, when you put it that way … it’s simple, really. This is what we settlers need to realize: Indigenous people have always only ever been asking for the same dignity and respect that we accord each other, the opportunity to live in their ways, pass on their ways, raise their children in their ways. And we have responded, over these past centuries, with the most intense failure mode of empathy a society can experience. It’s past time we change that. I had the privilege of taking my class of adult high school students to a book talk with Talaga ahead of her Massey Lecture here in Thunder Bay tonight. I loved listening to her speak, in response to questions from an interviewer as well as audience questions, about the issues around her books and how they relate to her life, to this land, and to these communities. Her voice as I heard it on stage comes through in these books. Read both of them, and you’ll learn so much history while also understand the vital importance of taking action to change these systems. Throughout her talk to us today, Talaga emphasized that this is an issue of equity. Talaga asks us to examine who we are and where we come from. She reminds us that this is an important exercise, regardless of our race or background. She reminds us that Indigenous people around the world are looking only for what so many people already have: dignity, respect, the ability to retain their culture and beliefs. These are not difficult things to achieve, if we stop standing in the way. All Our Relations makes a case that shouldn’t need to be made, but Talaga makes it with eloquence and empathy. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 13, 2018
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Oct 13, 2018
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Oct 13, 2018
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1487002262
| 9781487002268
| 1487002262
| 4.52
| 13,074
| Sep 30, 2017
| Sep 30, 2017
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it was amazing
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Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City is one of those books I wish didn’t exist but am so grateful it does. Over th
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City is one of those books I wish didn’t exist but am so grateful it does. Over the past few years, I’ve seen my city come up in the national media from time to time—and often related to Indigenous issues, such as the deaths or inquests of the students in this book. But after the interest in those stories dies down, and the spotlight of the press turns away, life in this city goes on. Nothing really changes. Tanya Talaga, by investigating and piecing together the stories of these seven deaths, and by putting them in the larger context of our colonial history, has created an enduring record that—I hope—is more difficult to ignore. I’m going to review this book first for a general audience, then I’m going to get into my reaction to it as a settler from Thunder Bay. Trigger warnings, obvs, in this book and review for discussions of suicide, violence (particularly against women and youth), binge drinking, and racial slurs. Seven Fallen Feathers is not about blame; it is about responsibility. We all have a responsibility towards children, as our future. The government has a responsibility towards Indigenous peoples—it acknowledges this, even if it doesn’t always act on it. Settlers have a responsibility to understand how the actions of our ancestors have resulted in a broken and hostile system of multiple genocides. Talaga pulls no punches in these respects; she has a quotation about cultural genocide right up front from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report. That’s why this book is so important beyond the boundaries of the city in which it’s set. This is a story of seven deaths in Thunder Bay, yes, but it goes wider than that. It’s a story about the complacency of an entire country, of a whole population, to the plight of Indigenous peoples caused and continued by a settler government that doesn’t care. Seven students attending Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School died between 2000 and 2011, and the police and city did the utter minimum that they could do to investigate or prevent further tragedies. The jury roll shenanigans, the inquest recommendations—all signs point to a deadly spectrum from apathy to outright racism within our judicial and political system. Talaga puts the pieces together so clearly and decisively that no matter where you live in Canada, no matter how little you’ve tuned into these stories, you’re going to understand the situation. Context is so important, and that’s what Seven Fallen Feathers provides. Yes, it retells, as best Talaga can piece together, the night of each student’s disappearance or death and the days that followed. More importantly, however, Talaga connects these students’ deaths to the history of this city and this country. DFC, albeit run by an Indigenous education authority, is a response to and inheritor of the colonial system of residential schools that broke apart so many families over the past century. These students were only attending high school in Thunder Bay because their own communities don’t have high schools, for various reasons, all of which are ultimately attributable to the provincial and federal governments refusing to do anything about it. The governments have, through decades of inaction, proved that Indigenous lives (by which I mean their livelihoods, lands, education, culture, language, as well as their bodies) matter less than settler lives. No amount of Trudeau-style speechmaking or name-changing is going to ameliorate this single, sad legacy. We did this. We meaning not just settlers but entire generations of anyone who calls themselves Canadians. And we are still doing it. When we ignore Indigenous people who are telling us about communities with unsafe drinking water, without proper housing or flushing toilets, when we don’t care about the state of education in these communities—we are complicit. This isn’t about guilt for something that happened twenty, fifty, a hundred years in the past; this is about complicity in what’s happening right now, every single day. It’s happening all across Canada—it’s just more obvious, more brutally explicit, here in Thunder Bay. Talaga opens the book with a prologue that introduces readers to Thunder Bay. Having grown up here and lived here for almost my entire life, it is strange to see my city described to those who might have no context. But of course, this isn’t Toronto or Vancouver. Talaga needs to give the “average reader” context for what they are going to learn: Thunder Bay has always been a city of two faces. The Port Arthur side is the white face and the Fort William side is the red face. Port Arthur lies on the north shore. It is built up on the gentle, sloping Canadian Shield. Two-storey brick houses line streets that run up and down the Shield, each with a beautiful view of Lake Superior as far as the Sibley Peninsula, where the stone-cold Sleeping Giant Nanabijou sleeps. She’s correct, of course. It’s a little strange to see my city described so clinically, to hear her discuss the layout of streets I know so well, to hear Intercity referred to as “the demilitarized zone” or Victoriaville as a “poorly planned shopping mall with a 1970s vibe” (entirely too true), just because it’s the normal backdrop for me. But Thunder Bay really is divided this way, even if some of us residents don’t like to think about it. I sit here, typing this review in a two-storey (albeit non-brick) house that I bought in Port Arthur, and I won’t lie: I principally looked at houses on this side of town because it’s “nicer”. Such are the divisions of class and race made even deeper by colonialism. Similarly, despite this being my hometown, I have been ignorant of a lot of the ways racism manifests here. In part this is my youth—I was barely 11 in 2000, when DFC opened and the first of the seven students discussed here, Jethro Anderson, went missing and was found dead. And although there were a few Indigenous kids in my classes at school, the truth was that when I was younger, my world was very stratified. I never really interacted a lot with Indigenous people until I started working at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in high school. I didn’t go to powwows or other cultural events (more so because I just … didn’t … go … anywhere, but still). Now a large proportion of the adults I teach are Indigenous, and I am much more directly connected to what’s happening in this city and in Northern Ontario. The crises affecting these communities reach right into my classroom. I knew about these deaths, about the inquest and its recommendations, about the myriad other issues. I bought Seven Fallen Feathers because I wanted to learn more and then to amplify it. Yet that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that my privilege insulates me from understanding how truly hostile Thunder Bay is to Indigenous people. It insulates me from ever having heard certain slurs tossed around in my company, though I totally believe Talaga when she says it’s commonly heard on our streets. I can read and listen all I like … but I’m never really going to know. Because at the end of the day, I’m safe on these streets. Indigenous people are not. And it’s shameful that it took me working with a large proportion of Indigenous people for me to finally start learning about these issues. Of course, this isn’t about me. I don’t mean to centre myself here and make this all about how I feel. I just want to share why it’s so important for fellow settlers of Thunder Bay to read Seven Fallen Feathers and keep an open mind. There is so much defensiveness in this city, on the part of the settler population, to any hint that we might have a problem. It’s gross. But speaking settler-to-settler, I get where that’s coming from, even if the people being defensive don’t: deep down, in your gut, you’re starting to wake up to the fact you’ve been duped. You’ve been able to live in wilful ignorance for so long that the idea you’ve been so blind makes you feel almost comically buffoonish—how could you have missed this? In such moments, often it is easier to succumb to the siren calls of cognitive dissonance and dismiss what’s right in front of your eyes: no, there’s no problem here; these are just tragic accidents, the result of too much drinking, of an education authority that can’t keep its kids under control, why don’t they just all relocate…. It’s easier to believe in the lies of colonialism than in what’s right. It’s uncomfortable, yeah. But what’s worse—some minor personal discomfort, or more people losing their lives? Thunder Bay has a racism problem, and it’s one that no amount of “Respect” campaigning is going to fix. Such campaigns are ultimately doomed to failure because they locate racism in individuals’ actions rather than in the systems that surround and support them. Yes, it was a single individual—Brayden Bushby—who threw a trailer hitch at Barbara Kentner, who would ultimately die from those injuries, while reportedly yelling “I got one!” But it was a system of justice long practised at ignoring violence against Indigenous people that resulted in police investigating “if” it was a hate crime and ultimately never upgrading the charges beyond assault. “Respect” campaigning won’t work if the costs of showing disrespect are zero. Canadians need to read this book. If you live in Thunder Bay, you need to read this and confront the hard truths of our northern city. If you don’t live here, you need to read this and understand what is happening here. I challenge you to read Seven Fallen Feathers, to hear the testimony of the families and teachers and Elders, and not feel your heart break seven times over. But what really matters is what you do after you read this. Will it be just another tragic tale? Or will it be time to act and demand change? If you read this and it changes nothing about your perspectives or actions, you are participating in the colonization of Indigenous tragedy; it becomes a spectacle, something for settlers to consume the way we’ve consumed the land and … well … everything else. You must read this, and then you must act: use your privilege to demand change from your governments, your schools, your organizations, and yourselves. Also posted at Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my digest newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 03, 2017
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Oct 07, 2017
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Aug 23, 2017
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Paperback
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| 0771037937
| 9780771037931
| 0771037937
| 3.20
| 640
| Sep 02, 2003
| Sep 07, 2004
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it was ok
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Oh, man, when I fall into the CanLit tree, sometimes I manage to hit every branch on the way down. I say I like character-driven stories, but Garbo La
Oh, man, when I fall into the CanLit tree, sometimes I manage to hit every branch on the way down. I say I like character-driven stories, but Garbo Laughs is a harsh reminder of how important plot is even when your character drives things. Because in this case, Elizabeth Hay’s characters aren’t driving the story, so much as sitting around while a narrative just kind of tumbles desultorily around them, tugging at them occasionally in vain attempts to get their attention. They steadfastly refuse to engage with it, however, so it eventually passes them by (but not before raining revengeful death upon some of them!). As the title and cover copy promise, this book is inextricably tied up in “old” movies and Harriet’s love, bordering on obsession, for them. I don’t know enough about early cinema to understand all the allusions or the ins-and-outs of these conversations. I’m aware of the names Sinatra, Astaire, Kelly, Brando, etc. I’ve seen The Godfather (which I don’t actually consider an “old” movie). The oldest movie I’ve probably watched is the restored Metropolis, but that doesn’t really intersect with American cinema. I don’t know what the oldest American movie I’ve watched is—maybe Casablanca. Anyway, while I don’t share Harriet’s fascination, I do understand her passion. Thanks to the way Hay describes it, I can liken it to my own love for books. Where Harriet loves snuggling up with an old movie, I love snuggling up with an old book. There is nothing like it and nothing better. Surrounding Harriet are a panoply of characters who together might form an ensemble cast, if this book needed a cast. What it really needs is more conflict than the nebulous antipathy between Harriet and Leah or Harriet’s own internal struggle with her inability to write comedy. Hay even throws in the spectre of a possible affair, whether it’s Harriet’s unwanted attraction to Jack or Lew’s easygoing friendship with Dinah. These are strong beginnings, great characters. But Hay doesn’t give them quite enough leeway, doesn’t spool out quite enough leash, and so their conflicts don’t actually go anywhere. In particular, Harriet’s children are important characters in relation to her, but their development is stunted. Kenny is adorable and precocious, and he does get a subplot about being bullied for his oddball movie passions inherited from mom. Jane, while happy enough to respond to inquiries, is a less known quantity, and I wish that we heard more from her. Unfortunately, the narration sticks pretty tightly to Harriet, so your mileage with this book is greatly influenced by your tolerance for her particular neuroses. I say that glibly but don’t mean to make light of them. For some people I can see this being an excellent work. I’m sure Harriet will strike a chord with many. Hay’s choice to portray a marriage that is not broken or dysfunctional yet still abjectly unsatisfying is a good one. Harriet and Lew love each other in a way, but neither seems to have the key to making the other one happy. They just kind of putter along, except they aren’t quite old enough for that old married couple stereotype to kick in. It’s interesting the few times that Hay shows them having sex, because it tends to happen out of the blue and Harriet seems to indicate she enjoys it—but I guess her emotional needs aren’t being met. She wants someone who is a little more combative, hence the attraction to Jack, or even the little thrill she gets from being so annoyed by Leah’s manipulations. So I’d be lying if I claimed nothing happens in this book. There are many interesting character dynamics. Hay has that easygoing, classically CanLit style of narration with smooth dialogue full of names of people I don’t recognize because I was born after the Turner years. The point being: there is an audience for this book, and I’m not quite it, but I’m probably next door to the people who are it. Garbo Laughs is sincere in its attempt to blend humour, hubris, and humility into a kind of sharp and pointed look at modern married life through the lens of the golden oldies. It reminds me a bit of Georgian novels, but Hay’s writing doesn’t quite sing to me the way Austen’s or Brontë’s does. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 15, 2016
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Jul 16, 2016
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Jul 15, 2016
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Paperback
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| 1927400376
| 9781927400371
| 1927400376
| 4.18
| 11
| Nov 01, 2013
| Nov 01, 2013
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liked it
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So you’re fourteen years old, and you’re on a vision quest. It’ll be another hundred years or so before Europeans show up and tell your people that, a
So you’re fourteen years old, and you’re on a vision quest. It’ll be another hundred years or so before Europeans show up and tell your people that, actually, Turtle Island is going to be called “North America” and was empty before they showed up. But I digress. You want to get a vision so you can become a man, but this stupid turtle just won’t shut up … ohhhhh. Meanwhile, you’re fourteen years old, and you’re walking along the train tracks, even though your dad told you not to, because who listens to their dad? He’s just a police officer with a totally rational fear of his kid getting hit by a train. You’re just minding your own business, avoiding a bully and saving a train from derailing because one of the tracks is out. You didn’t ask to meet Gathering Cloud and help him fight off a wendigo. It’s always a pleasure to receive as a gift a good book that you would otherwise probably not know about. My friend Carly gave me Out of Time because she was intrigued by the promise of a time travel novel set on the shores of Lake Superior and including Anishinabe mythology. The lives of two fourteen-year-old boys from very different times and places collide, allowing them to work together to vanquish a monster and learn more about themselves in the process. It’s an adventure combined with an after-school special in that most Canadian of storytelling traditions. Out of Time succeeds largely because David Laderoute keeps it simple. There’s a contained cast of characters, a clear enemy, and a clear goal. The plot is simple too, the arc almost predictable—but that doesn’t mean it’s unfulfilling. The way Laderoute allows the boys to defeat the wendigo temporarily, only for it to come back stronger and with a vengeance, is pretty clever. While the moments of moral clarity, as I want to call them, are a little heavy-handed, I think this is a common problem in YA (and maybe I’m wrong to call them a problem—maybe they should be this way, and it’s only my overexposure to Star Trek: The Next Generation that makes all this moral stuff look obvious to me). Time travel gimmicks and cultural allusions aside, this is a novel about courage in the face of selfishness. It’s about being prepared to sacrifice, and about knowing when you need to stand up for others even if you’re going to get hurt in the process. It’s about choosing your battles, knowing when to wait instead of rushing forward, and always respecting and listening to the counsel of others. There is plenty of “message” here, but it’s paired with a fairly slick action-adventure. Moreover, the book generally avoids falling into any of the sundry sub-genres that seem to have sprung up in YA in the past decade: it’s not dystopian, or about gangs, or overly-concerned with high school and dating. There are no vampires, werewolves, angels, or ghosts here. Well maybe ghosts. And I’m not trying to disparage those sub-genres or tropes if they are your thing—but if they aren’t, then you’ll find Out of Time that refreshment you want. And of course, as a Thunder Bay resident, there’s always the thrill of seeing one’s home turf portrayed in a book. In this case it’s the smaller, fictional community of Stone Harbour. But it feels very Thunder Bay at some moments, and that’s what matters. Gathering Cloud and Riley are both viable, vivid protagonists. They are similar in a lot of ways, as energetic and inquisitive fourteen-year-old boys are wont to be. Laderoute points out their differences across time and culture but doesn’t belabour the point. Handwaving the magic of the time travel and the language barriers aside, there’s the right amount of confusion when the two first meet, and of course the hilarity of Cloud trying to navigate a world of telephones and trains. I sincerely hope that he didn’t catch any diseases while in our time. It would suck if he went back to the past only to communicate something to his entire tribe. We’re going to be optimistic here and say that didn’t happen…. Similarly, Laderoute doesn’t give us much perspective on whether Riley uses this as an opportunity to continue learning about First Nations beliefs and culture. Again, let’s be optimistic. Although Out of Time features a creature of aboriginal myth as its antagonist, not to mention several other prominent spirits, it actually doesn’t portray any contemporary indigenous people. Riley attempts to pass Cloud off as “an aboriginal kid, you know, from the reserve up the highway,” a dubious proposition at best. And look, it’s great to increase the visibility of aboriginal culture, beliefs, and ideas in this way, and to show someone like Riley interacting positively with an indigenous person from any time. However, I just want to use this opportunity to point out that what we really need in our contemporary Canadian YA market are more books that feature relationships between white and indigenous youth. Moreover, with this approach Laderoute inadvertently perpetuates a common trope: Indigenous peoples are figures of the past and erased or invisible in our present. Moreover, I think it’s worthwhile to question whether a story like this Laderoute’s to tell at all. From what I can gather from the biography at the end of the book, he does not identify as Indigenous. He mentions the work of Basil Johnston, noted Anishnaabe author and scholar, as a big influence and source of his knowledge. Stories about Indigenous people and their culture should be told by Indigenous people. That’s not to say you can’t include an Indigenous character in your work if you’re settler—but to take aspects of Indigenous culture, as Laderoute does here, and use it for the central plot, can easily become appropriative and irreverent. As a settler myself, however, it is not my call to make. I just want to raise the issue, since it is important to be mindful of these facts any time one reads works by settlers that feature a lot of Indigenous characters/concepts. I could have done without the smaller-than-normal font size and the spacing between paragraphs. Conventions exist for a reason; break them at your peril. ’Nuff said! Out of Time has a good plot and great pacing. Other than the protagonists, the rest of the cast isn’t very remarkable. I enjoyed that Jonah was more than a two-dimensional bully. However, your enjoyment of this book is largely going to come from whether you manage to care about Riley and/or Cloud and their battle against an evil spirit. I’ll end off by saying that I am always a little more than sceptical when approaching books from small presses and by local authors. This probably isn’t fair of me, but I am only human. I’m trying really hard though to convey the fact that I enjoyed Out of Time. Neither the characters nor the subject matter happens to be what I typically read in YA (or elsewhere), despite the inclusion of stuff like time travel, so it’s hard to say this book excited me or left me tingling. All other things considered, though, it’s pretty good, and I’d recommend it if it sounds like something your speed. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 06, 2015
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Nov 08, 2015
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Nov 06, 2015
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Paperback
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| 1596067306
| 9781596067301
| 1596067306
| 4.29
| 10,843
| Jan 01, 2014
| Jun 30, 2015
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liked it
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Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files universe has a very rich mythology, something I greatly admire about the series. From werewolves to vampires to faerie, Bu
Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files universe has a very rich mythology, something I greatly admire about the series. From werewolves to vampires to faerie, Butcher doesn’t just take one or two types of supernatural creatures and run with it—he takes all-comers. He continues this trend with these three novelettes that involve Bigfoot. Working For Bigfoot is a short but nice little collection that takes the edge off waiting for the next novel in the series. I liked each story for slightly different reasons. “B is for Bigfoot” is interesting because it lacks much in the way of magic on Harry’s part. He mostly acts as a guide for young Irwin, giving him advice on how to deal with bullies. “I Was a Teenage Bigfoot” puts Harry in a slightly more active role—but there, too, he’s more protector and guardian, putting on his Warden cap, and the antagonist backs down pretty quickly. “Bigfoot on Campus” involves the most action and peril—and even then, it’s ultimately not Harry who intervenes to save the day (and that is rather the point). None of the stories would impress me on their own. Collected here, though, they form a nice progression. They remove Harry from his element—none of them take place in familiar haunts, and none involve any characters we are familiar with—and, as I mentioned above, Harry doesn’t actually use much magic. Nevertheless, these still feel in all respects like quintessential Dresden Files stories—just proving that it isn’t the way Butcher writes magic that keeps me coming back. It’s Harry Dresden, and his inability to keep his nose out of other people’s business, especially when he’s trying to be a do-gooder. If I had to pick a favourite, it would be the last one. Firstly, Irwin has a much stronger presence now that he’s a young adult. (In the middle story, being sick, he basically lay around and was far too passive.) Secondly, Butcher brings the theme of fatherhood to the forefront here. In the earlier books there are hints of it, and Harry acts rather like a proxy for River Shoulders. However, Butcher has us come full circle, with Irwin finally meeting his father (and acting extremely cool and mature about it, by the way). Finally, I also liked Connie. I love how Butcher deals with the idea that she doesn’t know she’s a White Court Vampire, and how she might actually be “saved” if they handle the situation properly. Again, Harry is all about having compassion in the strangest of circumstances. (There’s a curious continuity error in my book—in “Bigfoot on Campus” Harry calls Irwin’s mother “Carol Pounder” even though she is “Helena Pounder” in “B is for Bigfoot.” I don’t know if this error was caught and fixed in other editions, but I just thought I’d point it out for posterity here.) Otherwise, as always this boutique Subterranean Press edition is lovely. From the paper to the artwork by Vincent Chong, it’s totally worth the added price, even for something as short and quick as Working for Bigfoot. Not what I would recommend for Dresden newbies, of course. But for fans it’s a really cool way to celebrate your enjoyment of the books. Working for Bigfoot is nothing special or extraordinary, but it was never supposed to be. It hits the spot, does what it’s supposed to do, delivers a little more Dresden to the bloodstream. In those respects, it’s fun but forgettable—until I want to come back and read it again. My reviews of the Dresden Files: ← Skin Game [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 11, 2015
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Sep 11, 2015
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Sep 11, 2015
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Hardcover
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| 1406347701
| 9781406347708
| 1406347701
| 3.61
| 1,063
| unknown
| Jun 04, 2015
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it was amazing
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It's 2016; can we stop pretending we don't judge books by their cover? Remix has amazing cover art—in particular, the way the back cover copy is arran
It's 2016; can we stop pretending we don't judge books by their cover? Remix has amazing cover art—in particular, the way the back cover copy is arranged is a thing of beauty. Just look at it. If I hadn’t already wanted to read Remix after reading Non Pratt’s debut,
Trouble
, that back cover would change my mind. I love that Remix is, at its core, about the best friendship between two girls. Yes, there is sex and romance and relationship drama. At the end of the day, though, this is about Kaz and Ruby. They are such distinctive people who nevertheless care deeply about each other, and even though one weekend at a music festival seems to drive them apart, their friendship is a resilient one. And I'm probably going to spend the rest of this review unpacking that last sentence, because that’s this novel in a nutshell. Like Trouble, Remix features two narrators. This time the book also changes up the typeface with each narrator: Kaz is your standard serif; Ruby is a smooth, stream-of-consciousness sans-serif. I love this little extra degree of differentiation—regrettably, the fact that almost all books are ordinary serif means that Kaz’s typeface looks “normal” while Ruby’s is more extraordinary. In actuality, Pratt manages to portray both girls as interesting but individual voices. So really, when you read this book, you get two great protagonists for the price of one. I could go into stereotypes to summarize their differences. Kaz is the sensible, no-nonsense, down-to-earth girl who doesn't see the boys flirting with her and has eyes only for the one guy she loves. Ruby is the wild child who doesn’t do great in school, likes having sex, and knows what she wants. Yet this type of classification is reductive, because each girl has elements of the other in her—Kaz has desires and yearnings she explores here, and Ruby must confront some of her emotional denial. Although Remix emphasizes friendship, it’s not to the detriment of other important relationships. For example, Pratt illustrates how our interactions with parents influence us: Kaz’s mother is an encouraging, progressive role model when it comes to activities like sex, but she’s hopeless with cooking or home maintenance, forcing Kaz to step up and be more responsible than your average 16-year-old. In contrast, Ruby’s parents have high academic expectations for her that she never seems to meet; they are deliberately unseen and, aside from notes, unheard here, to emphasize their distance from their daughter. And then, of course, there’s sex and dating. Or “going out with” as Ruby might put it, since she thinks dating is an icky word. She has a point: dating has two connotations, one far more juvenile than what’s happening here (like you’re in Grade 7 and you have a “girlfriend”) and one far more adult. Another thing I love about Remix is that it holds no illusions about what teens are up to. Kaz and Ruby are 16, and they and their similarly-aged friends are drinking, sexing, and rock-n-rolling. They talk like teenagers, and they have the same flimsy but oh-so-confident worldviews that teenagers have. The fun, if you will, in this book is watching Kaz and Ruby’s desires and decisions conflict and lead them to make bad choices. There’s an “oh no she didn’t” vibe to much of the story, with one or the other doing something in the heat of the moment that seems to propel the other one further away. Both realize it’s happening and realize it’s stupid, and Pratt perfectly captures that strong-headed teenage attitude that often prevents people (even well into adulthood) from simply stopping and saying, “We're being dumb.” I wanted things to work so badly for Kaz and Ruby, but it’s easy to see why it keeps going wrong. As I mentioned in my review of Trouble, my disinclination towards relationships and sex meant I didn’t experience this type of drama first-hand as a teenager—but I can definitely identify with making stupid decisions and arguments that just spiral further and further out of control. As far as the sex goes, I just want to highlight a great, frank moment when Ruby recalls having bad sex. It’s awesome to see a YA book not just portraying teenagers having causal sex (like they do) but also acknowledge that it will often be bad sex (or at least, so I am given to understand) instead of fictionalizing sex into some kind of perfect expression of romantic compatibility. On a similar note, Ruby’s sexual attraction to Stu despite her complicated emotional feelings validates the idea that you can be attracted to someone physically but not emotionally, or vice versa. As far as the relationships go, I want to highlight Lauren, Kaz’s ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Pratt could easily have made Lauren a haughty bitch. Much to Ruby’s disappointment, Kaz actually likes Lauren. And while I found myself sympathizing quite a bit with Ruby’s disgust over the way Lauren acts, I have to agree with Kaz that Lauren is a good person—and that she deserves better than Tom! I appreciate this sympathetic portrayal of the “replacement” significant other. The back of the book promises “zero chance of everything working out.” It delivers. It’s not a downer ending, though—quite the contrary. I loved the ending. But it reminds us that you can’t please everyone. Life is messy and is full of mistakes, and things we say or do in the heat of the moment are impossible to take back and difficult to remedy. I also like how Remix feels very quotidian; it doesn’t pivot on a single, capital-I-Issue, like teenage pregnancy or rape or body shaming, etc. Don’t get me wrong: books that pivot on such issues are essential—but books that don’t are just as necessary. And Remix still has some heavy stuff in it, but it’s part of a larger, overall narrative. Did I make a mistake reading Remix and Trouble only six months apart, with no idea when Pratt’s next novel is coming out? I don’t think so. We like to badger our favourite authors to finish their next work, because we are eager to read it, of course—but, you know, I actually have a ton of books to read. I’d rather Pratt takes her time polishing her next novel, even if it takes longer, and I will distract myself with other reads while I wait. Looking forward to whatever comes next, however, because so far it has been delightful. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 28, 2016
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Jan 29, 2016
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Jul 26, 2015
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Paperback
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| 9781846147647
| 1846147646
| 4.17
| 3,040
| Oct 07, 2014
| Oct 30, 2014
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it was amazing
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I first heard about this on Quirks & Quarks from CBC Radio. Then Josie, one of my Canadian friends still teaching in England, was filling me in on how
I first heard about this on Quirks & Quarks from CBC Radio. Then Josie, one of my Canadian friends still teaching in England, was filling me in on how she went to one of Matt Parker’s stand-up events and how awesome it was. When I informed her I had purchased a signed copy of Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension on the Internets, she was suitably envious. Not, however, as envious as I was for her singular stand-up experience—I don’t like stand-up, but I’d probably watch math stand-up. Here’s my secret when reviewing math books: don’t focus on the math. Because, you know, anyone with a math degree can write about math. Writing about math is not hard. It’s making math accessible that’s hard. Now, that’s not because math is somehow more difficult for the average person to comprehend than any other highly-specialized field. We only have this perception as an unfortunate side-effect of our industrialized education system, which has traditionally insisted that we should learn math through rote memorization of rules. Matt Parker rightly embraces a much more flexible idea about how we can learn math. Specifically, he champions recreational mathematics. That’s right, people: doing math for fun! If you’re sceptical, I don’t blame you—see my point above about school systems. It’s really unfortunate we break people and squash their love of math so early like this. If I were better with young children I might consider becoming a primary school teacher to rectify this. As it is, my head stuck up here in the calculus clouds, I can only evangelize recreational math from afar. See, we mathematicians know what people with a warped idea of math do not: mathematics is a creative discipline. Someone had to find the Fibonacci sequence, and they didn’t do it by looking at nature. Someone had to devise and name different dimensions of shapes. And mathematicians do this by investigating, by looking at what we already know and finding the gaps. Yes, they do this is a systematic way, and they have to do it rigorously before other mathematicians will agree with them. But a lot of mathematical discoveries have literally come about because of mathematicians just playing with numbers and shapes and ideas. This idea pervades Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, which is organized in such a way to progress from basic ideas about numbers to very abstract ideas about functions, dimensions, and infinity. You’re not going to understand all of it, and that’s OK. Understanding everything is not the goal of reading a popular math or popular science book—getting a glimpse behind the curtain, understanding why it’s important, piquing your interest to learn more; these are the goals. (I’m trying to pump you up and help you be more resilient here, because I won’t lie to you and pretend it’s easy to follow everything, either in this book or in others like it.) Don’t worry though, because the author will always be around to help you out. Parker writes with a sense of humour that’s only to be expected considering his comedic career. (Britain really does seem to have cornered the market on funny mathematicians….) There are also lots of practical exercises too. And I don’t mean questions you need to calculate and answer. I mean activities, templates for you to cut out and puzzles for you to consider. Parker is very proactive in demonstrating some of the practical ramifications of even the most esoteric ideas, from calculating digital roots to knitting 3D projections of 4D shapes. I could easily see some of this stuff working in a classroom setting if, you know, you’re not the kind of math teacher that thinks we should just memorize it all. Really, when it gets down to it, this is how we need to be teaching and learning math. Reading a book about math is all well and good—I love doing it. But you need to learn by doing math. You need to try these things yourself, to investigate a problem until you hit upon interesting and sometimes unexpected results. This is one of the greatest things about mathematics: you can, in theory, verify every math result ever discovered by someone else. And you don’t even need specialized equipment: most of the time you just need a ruler, some scissors, and some paper. (And maybe a calculator or a computer for the recent discoveries!) This is DIY math at its finest. I learned some neat things in the chapters that Parker devotes to higher-dimensional shapes. This is not an area of math I’ve studied in much detail, and conceptualizing higher-dimensional shapes is, of course, very difficult! Yet he explains it clearly. I also appreciate how much he uses computer programs to help him investigate relationships and ideas. As someone who also enjoys writing Python scripts, I’m always happy to see my interest in math and computers come together. On the flip side, I know a lot about graph theory and enjoyed his section on that. He doesn’t really do anything new when it comes to talking about old chestnuts like the Four Colour Theorem and its infamous proof. Nevertheless, this is one of those areas of math that people never hear about unless they go into university, despite it being so interesting and widely applicable. Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension is a lovely and informative book. It’s a great example of how to write well about doing math for fun. Parker is ever-encouraging, ever-understanding, ready to make fun of math, mathematicians, school, and himself—and yes, my dear reader, you as well. This is a safe book in that sense: you’re not going to be judged for not liking math or not having much luck, so far, with it. But thanks to Matt Parker, you can roll your own math and enjoy doing it. We need more books like this! Until then, read this one. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 26, 2015
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Nov 04, 2015
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Dec 30, 2014
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 1596066830
| 9781596066830
| 1596066830
| 3.96
| 9,405
| May 07, 2014
| Sep 30, 2014
|
liked it
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For the three and a half of you who don’t know already, Unlocked is the companion novella to
Lock In
, John Scalzi’s thriller set in a future where
For the three and a half of you who don’t know already, Unlocked is the companion novella to
Lock In
, John Scalzi’s thriller set in a future where Haden’s syndrome leaves millions locked in their bodies, conscious but incapable of voluntary movement. Where as Lock In was a mystery set within this world, Unlocked explains how Haden’s developed and how the technology and culture around Hadens sprang up. This is billed as an “oral history” and comes across that way. It’s snippets of transcribed interviews. Imagine a documentary featuring mostly expert interviews, minus any connecting narration from a host (which would have been cool). Each part covers a specific aspect of how the world has changed, from the time-course and effects of the disease’s spread to the response of world governments. There are “characters” in the sense that many people get interviewed more than once, and they come across as having somewhat distinct personalities. But I wouldn’t say there are protagonists or antagonists. This is not so much a story as it is a collection of related anecdotes. Unlocked is more an exercise in glorified worldbuilding than an expansion, prequel, or what-have-you to Lock In. It’s as if Scalzi made a wiki for the Lock In universe and then compressed it into a series of in-character articles. Don’t get me wrong: I love delving into the wikis for favourite series; I’ll spend hours reading TVTropes and Memory Alpha and the Mass Effect wiki. But it’s a different type of reading than reading a novel. For that reason, I wouldn’t herald Unlocked as an essential companion to Lock In. It’s nice. I bought the Subterranean Press edition, mostly because I like Subterranean Press. Molly Crabapple’s cover is gorgeous, but I’m sad there aren’t any illustrations within the text. Anyway, this book provides more depth into the origins of Haden’s. It gives Scalzi an outlet for showing he Did the Research without infodumping too much in Lock In, and if anything we should just all be grateful for that. I wish more authors took this approach. If you approach Unlocked with the idea that it’s a companion and an infodump, albeit a cleverly-disguised one, then you’re going to enjoy it. Not on the level that you would enjoy a novel. Similarly, I think you need to retain some interest in the world of Lock In—if you didn’t enjoy the novel, then this isn’t going to change your mind. But. There is one thing that makes this stand out from some of its less impressive peers: I got a little teary-eyed. As they were recounting the way that President Haden was grief-stricken for his wife, the way he stayed by her bedside and asked her what he should do, I teared up while reading this at lunchtime at work. I didn’t expect this book to get to me in that way. So make of that what you will. Unlocked is fun and interesting in its own way. It’s not required reading to enjoy Lock In, but it’s a companion in the same way a fan-wiki might be to other books. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 05, 2015
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Nov 05, 2015
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Oct 03, 2014
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| B00IHCBE1C
| 3.91
| 68,135
| Aug 26, 2014
| Aug 26, 2014
|
liked it
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This summer saw the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge splash onto social media. ALS terrifies me. A deadly disease that slowly robs you of your ability to move
This summer saw the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge splash onto social media. ALS terrifies me. A deadly disease that slowly robs you of your ability to move but doesn’t affect your reasoning? I’m not particularly fond of physical activities, but I like embodiment; I like being able to engage with the world actively. The idea of being unable to do that but remaining sound of mind sounds like a terrible way to go. Lock In is a thriller set in a world ravaged by a disease superficially similar to ALS. Haden’s syndrome lays waste to the voluntary nervous system, and worse, it isn’t genetic but instead infectious! It’s like a deadly flu that paralyzes some people. The incident rate is high enough to spur research into brain-computer interfaces and cybernetics, resulting in Hadens (people who have become “locked in” as a result of Haden’s syndrome) being able to interact online with each other and in person through personal transports colloquially known as “threeps”. In even rarer cases, someone who contracts Haden’s doesn’t get locked in but instead becomes an Integrator, someone who can host a Haden consciousness for a limited time in their body. Several other reviews have likened Lock In to Philip K. Dick. I didn’t make that connection myself, but in hindsight it’s apt. Much like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (aka Blade Runner), Lock In is a science-fiction novel that foregrounds a mystery thriller plot. You can’t quite ignore the science-fictional elements; they are essential to the plot. However, this novel exemplifies the idea that science fiction, rather than being a genre, is in fact a setting. There’s a lot to like about this book, both from a science fiction and a mystery perspective. Haden’s syndrome provides an interesting point of divergence from which Scalzi creates this entire future. One of the major background issues is who foots the bill for Haden care in the United States; a new law has just passed that essentially shuts down government funding for Haden care. (Does this sound at all familiar or topical?) Tensions between the Hadens and non-Hadens are running high. And, of course, various corporations stand to lose or benefit from this new law…. The viewpoint protagonist is Chris Shane, an FBI agent and a famous Haden. Scalzi uses Shane’s “locked in” nature to good effect. Shane is embodied only by a threep, and as such can travel across the country very quickly if there is a threep waiting on the other end to act as host. While Shane’s partner is following up a local lead, Shane often ends up chasing connections in Arizona or LA. One thing I hate about science-fiction thrillers is when the author doesn’t take into account the new capabilities or consequences of a change they have made. Scalzi definitely does this. In general, Lock In once again demonstrates Scalzi’s versatility. He is comfortable writing so-called military science-fiction adventures for his Old Man’s War universe. But he can also do the near-future thrillers, like The Android’s Dream and now this. And Redshirts was a fun departure as well. I always enjoy seeing a different facet of a writer. For all these reasons, I want to love Lock In. Alas, I only like it. In the end, it was a bit of a disappointment, as far as the plot goes. Shane is a great protagonist. I love Vann as well. There is plenty of humour between them; the dialogue is definitely Scalzi’s. But the plot … the villain of the piece is obvious almost from the moment they appear. There is no subtlety, no ingenuity to this mystery. The details of its implementation, sure, that’s clever. But the motives, the human element of the mystery? Predictable. Bland. Uninteresting. For the entire time I was reading it, I enjoyed Lock In. It’s a good ride, and that includes the conclusion. I think Scalzi is one of the best writers of “unadorned, unapologetic crowning moments of awesome”. But there comes a point where so many such moments together start to feel like overindulging on candy. And just like binging on candy, you’re left feeling both sick and wired. And that’s not a great feeling. So Lock In is a fun novel. I liked it. I recommend it. But for all the murder and intrigue it contains, it lacks the chewy centre that would make it worth more than an afternoon’s read. The mystery was not all that complex, and the thoughts it provoked were transitory. I don’t find myself ruminating on it much. By all means, pick it up, but it does not quite measure up to what I want to see from Scalzi. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 30, 2014
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Oct 2014
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Sep 30, 2014
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Kindle Edition
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| 1596066644
| 9781596066649
| 1596066644
| 3.96
| 5,055
| Sep 24, 2013
| Jul 31, 2014
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liked it
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Mmm, it’s good to dip back into the Laundry Files universe for a little while. Charles Stross is in fine form with Equoid, a delightfully creepy take
Mmm, it’s good to dip back into the Laundry Files universe for a little while. Charles Stross is in fine form with Equoid, a delightfully creepy take on unicorn mythology guest starring a young H.P. Lovecraft. Bob Howard is itching to get out of the office, and in a classic case of careful-what-you-wish-for, he gets sent to a country farm with a unicorn infestation. Zombies and tactical teams and chaos and destruction ensues. The Laundry Files is a great series because Stross attempts to tell a monster story where the government knows about the supernatural and has an agency tasked to deal with supernatural threats. But unlike so many other fictional government organizations devoted to fighting the supernatural, the Laundry is not magically exempt from bureaucracy and incompetence. Not only does Bob have to deal with unicorn infestations, but he also has layers of management breathing down his neck as well. This side of the Laundry doesn’t take the foreground here, but Stross still manages some bureaucratic humour in the form of excerpts of requisition orders for unicorn-like shock troops. With each requisition, the refusal and cancellation by the Cabinet Office becomes terser and more irate. No, Bob spends most of his time in the field here. His only intel comes from an outdated file with bits of H.P. Lovecraft’s private correspondence, in which he relates his encounter with an equoid brood queen during his adolescence. This is enough to give Bob an idea of the magnitude of the equoid threat. In typical Stross fashion, the situation is described in clinical, scientific terms. The Laundry might be fantasy, but it is hard fantasy, if such a thing exists. Bob’s brief trip into rural England allows Stross to poke fun at some of the stereotypes of the country as well. Bob’s partner for this mission is Greg, a local Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs inspector with a Land Rover and an over-animated beard. He’s chummy with the people who own the farm under investigation, and from there Stross extrapolates all sorts of interesting country and village dynamics involving the owners of the farm and the local police. In some ways the village seems a little underpopulated—this being a novella, most of the action focuses on Bob at the cost of failing to flesh out many of the minor characters. But you get the sense that this is a close-knit community, which makes the horror in its midst all the more devastating. The best and worst part of Equoid, however, is its pace. “Nonstop” does not accurately describe how fast this story goes. This makes for an exciting read. However, there is also a lot here, and while Stross is a dab hand at the exposition, sometimes it goes over my head simply from how fast it goes. This could have been a novel in another life—it works great as a novella, especially because the story stands alone and requires no knowledge of the Laundry Files. But even for a novella it is quite densely packed. It’s exactly what one might want from a novella on occasion: an immersive, powerful story with a sympathetic protagonist and a quirky supporting cast. Stross fans will recognize his usual, analytical style, and newcomers will find the setting accessible. Equoid is an equitable novella of Lovecraftian horror and unicorn nightmare. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Jul 21, 2014
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Jul 28, 2014
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Hardcover
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| 1907062181
| 9781907062186
| 1907062181
| 3.57
| 7
| Apr 10, 2013
| Apr 10, 2013
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it was ok
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My roommate, Julie, got this for me as a birthday gift. (She also gave me a rather nifty silicone baking pan with Doctor Who–themed moulds in each of
My roommate, Julie, got this for me as a birthday gift. (She also gave me a rather nifty silicone baking pan with Doctor Who–themed moulds in each of the cups.) We share an affinity for Doctor Who; I feel particularly lucky to be living in England during the 50th anniversary year. I’ll get to go watch the anniversary special in theatres on the night it premieres (in Canada, because my city is not particularly blessed, I’d have to wait until Monday to see it in theatres, and then what’s the point?). More generally, living in England has given me a different perspective on Doctor Who by exposing me to elements of culture that have helped shaped the show. Of course, it goes the other way too—elements of Doctor Who have seeped into British life, and arguably the success of the show affected the lifestyles of families in Britain. So I was quite excited to read Fifty Years in Time and Space: A Short History of Doctor Who. It’s from an independent publisher out of the way and is, in fact, signed by the author. And this provenance shows in some aspects of its production: the typesetting is very minimalist, with no running headers or footers aside from page numbers, and a few typos here and there that more careful copy-editing might have spotted; I am sceptical that much editing of any sort happened, which I’ll address shortly. However, Frank Danes delivers exactly what he promises on the cover: it is a history of the show, and it is relatively short. Indeed, he goes somewhat beyond that, delivering a very detailed history despite its brevity. Danes takes the show mostly in chronological order. He expresses his hope in the introduction that readers will "forgive me for jumping around and pursuing the bits I’m most interested in", adding that his analysis "coloured by my own critical preferences". And, fair enough. So are my reviews. So Danes starts with the origins of Doctor Who, the First Doctor, the concept of regeneration, and each Doctor thereafter. He points out some of the most significant episodes, explains why certain companions or Doctors chose to stay or go, and gives interesting behind-the-scenes information on costume and prop designs, production and script development, and the show’s reception in the eyes of fans and the BBC itself. This chronological order makes a lot of sense at face value, but it also leads to problems. Danes claims his secondary objective is to chart the way Doctor Who’s attitudes towards politics and the presentation of current events changes. One would think that a chronological approach would be the most conducive to such a survey. Yet the staggering amount of history to Doctor Who belies such a simplistic method. It results in much repetition from Danes, and what he doesn’t end up repeating, the reader needs to retain and recall when it becomes important again, fifty pages on. A more ambitious yet more effective approach would involve a more deliberate organization based on themes, characters, and issues that recur throughout the fifty years of the show. Instead of a chapter, roughly, for each Doctor, Danes could have tracked the evolution of humour, of the monsters, of the role of the companion, etc., within each chapter. He could have spent a chapter talking about regeneration and the various ways the Doctors have been cast, and a chapter devoted solely to the series’ tumultuous relationship with its parent company. There would inevitably be some overlap and repetition, but with some careful authorial choices, it would be manageable. And the result would likely be a more coherent book than this. For, regardless of its considerably informational value, Fifty Years in Time and Space is pages upon pages of a wall of text. Open the book to any page, and you are confronted with truly massive, back-breaking paragraphs. Danes wrings every detail out of his discussions, carefully noting story titles, dates, actor names, etc. I commend his commitment to such fidelity, but it comes at the cost of readability. It took me several days to read this book, and while I’m used to non-fiction taking longer, I felt noticeably slowed down by slogging through the writing here. Having finished all 272 pages of this, I rather feel like I’ve spent several hours trapped in an elevator with a Doctor Who fan with encyclopedic knowledge of the show. He knows a lot about the show, so much so that he can’t resist sharing it with you in a long, rambling, unbroken series of lectures that you just can’t stop. You learn lots of interesting things along the way, but once you escape from the elevator and the fan (who follows you once you leave the elevator, because you regained your freedom in the middle of his dissertation on the production problems of Colin Baker’s last season, so you have to lose him by doubling-back and hiding in a nearby restaurant) you realize that you will probably forget most of it, and that you really want to watch some Doctor Who. No regrets whatsoever about swallowing this walrus, but it’s left me interested in seeing what someone can do with a little more consideration and more careful editing. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 02, 2013
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Nov 05, 2013
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Nov 02, 2013
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Paperback
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| 1441115536
| 9781441115539
| 1441115536
| 2.00
| 4
| Dec 27, 2012
| Mar 28, 2013
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liked it
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I really need to stop going into bookstores. With a title like Why Rousseau Was Wrong, how could I not buy it? It didn’t help that the author, is the
I really need to stop going into bookstores. With a title like Why Rousseau Was Wrong, how could I not buy it? It didn’t help that the author, is the dean of the local cathedral, was sitting behind the table with the last two or three copies, and engaged me in a nice conversation before offering to sign the book for me. I didn’t quite mention that I was an atheist. Perhaps she suspected from my tone or body language—at least, probably, she suspected I was irreligious or agnostic. So, I was a little sceptical that a book about the importance of the Church to modern day Britain would be for me. But I do make a point of reading books that challenge my preconceived notions and engage me, and I suspected this book would do so. The title of the book, as well as its subtitle, Christianity and the Secular Soul, hints at Ward’s thesis. She is arguing against the received notions of individuality handed down from Enlightenment thinkers (she targets mainly the long line of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau but spares some time for a sideline exploration of Hegel, Nietszche, and Foucault later in the book) and taken as an integral part of the secular soul. Ward argues that this emphasis on individuality, coupled with an intense devotion to utilitarian ends rather means, has made a significant contribution to a sense of cultural and spiritual impoverishment that fuels events like the 2011 London riots. Ward believes the Christian faith—and, to be specific, the type of community predicated upon a Christian Church, like the Church of England—holds the solution to this spiritual impoverishment. I hate books that point out flaws in society but don’t actually offer any solutions, so I’m quite happy to read about how Ward thinks the Church can succeed where she believes secular humanism has failed. In Part One, Ward takes care of some definitions—what exactly she means by the secular soul, secular humanism, etc.—and takes aim at liberal egalitarianism. In her view, this approach to thinking is too simplistic in its definition of equality: In Western culture individuals are led to believe that each “has the right” to consider herself equal to everyone else. However, she soon learns that she is not equal: there are people who are greater and lesser than her—in all sorts of ways: more beautiful, less intelligent, poorer, more friendly, healthier, less patient. Bauman argues that in a society where worth is measured primarily in materialist terms, then that sense of “equality” can quickly turn sour, fostering resentment against those who have more material goods. Secular humanism ditches the concept of faith in a deity, leaving a void—spiritual impoverishment. We fill this void with physical goods—materialism. But because wealth is not equally distributed, not to mention all sorts of other attributes, we can’t be equal on a materialist level, causing the sort of resentment that can result in rioting. Hence, Ward argues that Britain has become “brittle” as a consequence of this impoverishment. She wants to re-focus the notion of equality by grounding it in the Church: we are all equal under God. I think Ward makes several valid observations about the dangers of materialism and the somewhat nihilistic obsession with wealth, fame, and status that permeates a lot of Western culture. The “American dream” of riches resulting from simple hard work and perseverance largely a myth fed to the masses. Media help to keep us caught in a constant negative feedback loop of self-image: buy this to look like that; eat like this to feel like that; do this to be regarded like that. I can understand the appeal of the simple, spiritually-based egalitarianism that Ward is proposing. While Ward makes the case, then, that the Church might be a sufficient vector for egalitarianism (and there are all sorts of deeper issues with the inherent discrimination of the institutional ideological praxis that I’m just ignoring right now), I don’t agree that it is a necessary vector. I think it’s possible to have a secular soul that is still rich in spirit, in a moral if not religious sense. I don’t agree that morality is informed only by religion, and I think it’s possible to arrive a state of society where we are secular, moral, and spiritually rich. (That state of spiritual richness, though, requires an awareness and appreciation of our religious—and predominantly Christian, in the Western world—heritage that some secular humanists don’t always acknowledge.) In Part Two, Ward seizes upon Edmund Burke as her heroic sceptic of Rousseau and his Enlightenment buddies. She examines the Enlightenment’s gradual departure from the Christian philosophy that dominated prior to the seventeenth century, and she links the Enlightenment’s well-meaning conclusions and endorsement of democracy to the terrors of the Terror, the Jacobins, and later, communist dictatorships. She links the secular soul that emerged from the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on the individualist fulfilment of “forced” liberty at the expense of social cohesion, to the dangers of a direct and unchecked democracy. As far as I can tell, her argument is that we need a certain configuration of bodies of authority within our governance structure—and in her view, the Church is an essential such body. It’s hard to argue with some of these conclusions, in the sense that, yeah, the Enlightenment did cause lots of people in France to go off the rails for a little bit. It seems a little equivocal to focus on these failings of the movement, however, while acknowledging but dismissing the comparable failings of Christianity as an institution. Ward is happy to admit that numerous bloody actions have been commmitted in the name of the Christian faith, but she doesn’t draw the same conclusion that she does from her critique of the Enlightenment thinkers. In both cases, political activists have seized upon a conveniently popular philosophy for their own ends. The Enlightenment and the Terror are both products of a larger dissatisfaction with the corrupt state of absolute monarchy in Europe at the time. Ward also succumbs, briefly, to a somewhat romantic view of other cultures—primarily “Eastern”, Asian ones—and their notions of family and society. She lauds the corporate nature of such families, with more than two generations living under one roof, and a healthy respect and veneration of one’s elders. Fair enough—Western society could make it easier for elderly people to maintain their dignity as they age, and this is a problem we will confront in the next few decades as the Boomers start to retire. I would agree that our emphasis on individualism bears some of the blame. That being said, Ward employs a stereotype of the wise, serene Asian culture when she implies that the vast network of diverse traditions and corporate philosophies that seem to permeate Asia is as holistic or beneficent as it would appear to the outsider. China v. Tibet anyone? Part Three of Why Rousseau Was Wrong focuses mainly on the Anglian Church as Ward’s metre-stick for what a Church community can offer. And I get it. I really do. I understand what makes the Church awesome. I recognize that, regardless of what one actually believes, church congregations are an excellent source of community and friendship. They provide a reassuring sense of stability and understanding. And the Church offers what we all need at some point or another: forgiveness. So, if Ward’s premise that society needs to become more corporate to be less brittle is true, I agree that the Church could a sufficient source of that spirit, albeit not a necessary one. This is the central point of my resistance to Ward’s attack on secular humanism: it’s not done yet. Christianity took thousands of years to become what it is today—it is still in flux, still evolving and adapting to the changing needs of its flocks. Why can’t we extend the same tolerance towards secular humanism? By this I mean that it’s unrealistic to expect people to develop new philosophies that somehow spring fully formed from the head of Zeus without so much as a flaw. Ward is very quick to argue that religion is an essential component of being human. I’d argue we’re still trying to figure that one out, and these centuries are just growing pains in that larger experiment. It’s backward to assume that just because certain applications or derivations of secular humanism haven’t produced the best results that the only or best course of action is to retreat back into religion. We are bound to stumble and make more mistakes in our search for alternative social paradigms. I’m less resistant to Ward’s overarching argument regarding corporatism versus individualism. I think she makes some good points about our obsession with utilitarian thinking and ends versus means. Part Four of Why Rousseau Was Wrong is all about education and how Ward thinks it should change. I’m very ambivalent about this part of the book. On one hand, I have now been exposed to two different types of education systems. In my home province of Ontario, we shuffle students along until high school, at which point they need pass a certain number of courses to earn a diploma and graduate. The marks they get in those courses are less important, relevant really for scholarships and post-secondary applications than they are for job opportunities. Here in England, education is much more standardized and test-driven. Students get shuffled along with their year group, regardless of their achivement each year, then sit standardized tests. Consequently, unless there is any kind of coursework involved in the subject, the teacher has no determination in the student’s grade: the teacher exists merely to prepare the student to sit the examination. And the tests are so dry, so boring, that such preparation and revision often seems like a thankless and dull task—it’s no wonder students check out and become uninterested in school! So I’m sick and tired of telling my students they need to learn something or do something because “it will be on your test” (and there is plenty on those tests that they learn because it is on the test, and only because it is on the test). I try, when possible, to provide other, extrinsic explanations of the value of their knowledge. But in the end, it’s the same: an instrumental approach to education instead of an attempt to foster an intrinsic love for learning. Le sigh. On the other hand, the way Ward describes her discontent with the education system makes me somewhat leery. I think she is approprating the term child-centred education to criticize particular facets of the education system that I don’t view as essential to its child-centredness. To me, child-centred education begins with the basic notion that children are different—and this does not have to be associated with ideas of individuality. To facilitate learning, teachers must be aware of these differences and employ different strategies that make sense for different groups of children. Finally, child-centred education is usually constructivist, in that it prefers to allow children to experiment and discover knowledge instead of simply wrapping it up and presenting it to them as a gift. In my view, this better fulfils Ward’s desire for an intrinsic love of learning anyway. I’m also uncomfortable with Ward’s emphasis on education’s role in teaching character and moral values. In particular, she naturally advocates for Church-run schools or schools that provide English students with a grounding in Christian traditions. While England does have an established church, unlike many other Western democracies, I don’t think this should mean that students need a “church education”. I’m still not sure to what extent educators should be shaping youth in terms of moral values and character. By all means, teach citizenship and an appreciation for religions, including Christianity and its historical impact on English society. However, I worry about distinguishing between teaching an appreciation for Christianity and teaching that it is some kind of authority. As for the overall philosophical argument of corporatism versus individualism and the Church’s ability to foster the former, I think Ward has highlighted several pressing problems with British society, and while I am not fully on board with her solutions, I appreciate her attempts to provide them. Why Rousseau Was Wrong is a very detailled and high-level analysis of these issues. It contains the type of balanced and considered argument I would expect from an academic, and for that reason I’d happily recommend it to people who share my lack of faith (Darth Vader finds this disturbing). However, her arguments often seem over-broad compared to conclusions that are somewhat narrow; in her attempts to pitch the Church as the best solution to this problem, she chooses to approach secular humanism from a very specific epistemological starting point. It seems to me that there are more alternatives, that Rousseau was certainly wrong about many things, but that the secular soul still has some life left in it. P.S. This book is inexplicably on a list of “Awful Authors”, which seems upon further investigation merely to be a list of books critical of rationalism or humanism. At the time of this writing, I am the only one who has reviewed or even rated this book on Goodreads. I contacted the person who added this book to the list, imploring them to remove it from the list or at least read the book and rate it before judging it prematurely. To date, I have not received a response. I’m disappointed that someone committed to secular humanism would take such a dogmatic approach rather than keep an open mind. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 28, 2013
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May 02, 2013
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Apr 28, 2013
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Paperback
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| 1472200314
| 9781472200310
| 1472200314
| 4.02
| 634,212
| Jun 18, 2013
| Jun 18, 2013
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it was amazing
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I admit there was a bit of a high-pitched shriek on Twitter the day I found out Neil Gaiman had a new novel coming out. Mind you, this is about on sch
I admit there was a bit of a high-pitched shriek on Twitter the day I found out Neil Gaiman had a new novel coming out. Mind you, this is about on schedule for him—he seems to have one steeped and ready every four or five years. Gaiman is a prolific author but has never confined himself to any one genre or form. Indeed, as I glanced over his bibliography page on Wikipedia, I was surprised to see that he has written much more in the way of juvenile fiction than adult novels. I guess, since I became more aware of Gaiman as an adult, I’ve always thought of him as a writer of adult novels that happen to also have an audience in children. The Ocean at the End of the Lane carries on in this tradition, though there are some additional nuances to this idea that I’d like to explore later on. My original plan had been to buy this book right away (because I couldn’t wait) but save it for my flight home at the end of July—I like to take a book I’m confident of enjoying and savouring, and this seemed like just the thing. I severely underestimated my willpower. I rationalize my decision after the fact by pointing out that at this edition’s 248 pages, it would not last very long on my eight-hour flight. In any event, I dug into The Ocean at the End of the Lane over the weekend and enjoyed almost every minute of it. The narrator is a middle-aged man who “makes art” and has returned to the village of his childhood for a funeral. This awakens memories probably best left forgotten, memories of a time when he was seven years old. A misadventure with Lettie Hempstock, an ostensible 11-year-old living with her mother and ancient grandmother at the end of the lane, results in them letting something loose into the world, something that isn’t meant to be here. The narrator (whose name we never learn) is the door; he is integral to getting the creature to return from where it came, and the creature doesn’t want to go back. I just love how Gaiman explains things in the seven-year-old’s voice: I wished I had never let go of Lettie’s hand. Ursula Monkton was my fault, I was certain of it, and I would not be able to get rid of her by flushing her down a plughole, or putting frogs in her bed. Having gone on an adventure, the children fail to follow the golden rule—whether it’s to stay on the path, or not to look back, or not to let go—and this results in something very bad happening indeed. In this case, as is often the case it isn’t really the narrator’s fault; he’s just a scared little kid who is too far out of his depth. Sometimes, these problems are inevitable. The creature takes on the form of Ursula Monkton and insinuates herself into the narrator’s household as a housekeeper, ingratiating herself with everyone else except the narrator. He sees through her thin disguise right away, which causes the creature to panic and think up new and inventive ways to make his life miserable. They engage in the classical arena between monster and child: a battle of wits and will. No one except the child recognizes the monster for what it is, and the monster promises that nothing can ever save the child. Ursula slowly twists the child’s family members, turning them away from him. The mother is out all the time, working a second job or raising money for a charity; the sister loves Ursula and is all-too-ready to side with her against her brother; the father becomes smitten with Ursula, and we get to watch that progress through a child’s eyes. Gaiman refers to this as “a novel about survival” (the back cover of this edition gives him space for a brief statement), and I can see why. This is not a typical childhood adventure; there is no quest or journey here. It’s a raw, primal fight against an external force that amplifies the mundane concerns of childhood: the loss of attention/affection from one’s parents, the loss of hope against seemingly impossible odds, the vague sense that actually attaining the future seems to be more difficult with each passing year. Children, as the Maurice Sendak epigraph reminds us at the beginning of the book, experience some impressive nadirs of fear and uncertainty that adults, in our quest to idealize the supposed innocence of the past, are so eager to forget or marginalize. Gaiman takes these experiences and puts them front and centre. The sense of dread builds palpably during Ursula’s reign of terror. The fact that the narrator obviously survives into adulthood doesn’t undercut the tension; we don’t know how, or what price he pays. We don’t know if he vanquishes Ursula or if he has merely run away, only to have to face her now, as an adult. Gaiman demonstrates the power that flashback has to frame and provide context for a story, even while it keeps the ultimate resolution ambiguous right until the end. It’s a very well-plotted, exquisitely crafted endeavour. I think it would be a mistake to call this a children’s novel, or a young adult novel, just because of the age of the narrator. It’s no such thing. It is, perhaps, a novel that could appeal to a certain age and attitude of young adult. Simply put, though, The Ocean at the End of the Lane isn’t about childhood; it’s about the relationship we, as adults, have with our childhoods. That’s why the story is told as a flashback, bookended by the narrator’s contemporary presence at the Hempstocks’ farm. That’s why the emphasis is on memory. The complex, ever-changing solution to the unbalanced equation of identity, of what it means to be “a child” or “an adult”, is at the centre of this book. It’s there in the very first sentence. The adult narrator describes his presence at the funeral: “I wore a black suite and a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes, all polished and shiny: clothes that normally would make me feel uncomfortable, as if I were in a stolen uniform, or pretending to be an adult.” Despite being grown and having kids of his own, he still feels like wearing such adult clothing marks him as an imposter. This theme, that we never really “grow up”, continues throughout the book. It’s the reason the narrator can’t seek help from any adults (aside from the Hempstocks, who are exempt): Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world. The idea that you “grow up” and somehow life gets easier is a lie. Childhood has its pitfalls, and I quite like being able to eat as much candy as I want and stay up as late as I want. But getting older doesn’t mean I’m any more sure of what I’m doing than I was when I was seven. If anything, I’m even less sure: the awesome reality of the obstacles in my way is now a solid, dense wall instead of the diaphanous, hardly remarkable fence that it was back in the day. We all have dreams, but those dreams are far less tangible—and therefore much easier to entertain—when you haven’t paid for years of schooling to make them happen. When the narrator says, at one point, that “Adults follow paths. Children explore”, he means more than just walking. There is a sense of playfulness that most of us have as children, and that playfulness tends to atrophy as we get older. I think some of the happiest, most well-adjusted adults are those who manage to hold on to that playfulness even as they nurture the maturity and self-control that age hopefully conveys. So, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is decidedly an adult novel about childhood. Gaiman plays with the conceits of having a child narrator. His prose, although always packed with interesting turns of phrase and dazzling description, has the spare, lean quality of someone recounting a fuzzy, faded memory. It meanders slightly and is sparse in some areas. I really enjoyed the act of reading this book for these reasons—a lot of books about childhood have an intrusive, adult narrator who tends to inject so much of their own hindsight into proceedings. And then there’s the Hempstocks: Old Mrs., Ginnie, and Lettie, in order of generations. It’s significant that the Hempstocks are named while the narrator and his parents are not. They are that important, not just to the story but to this entire world. They seem to be, at least as far as we know, unique entities—not quite gods, but something more than human. Hence the clipped references to world-walking and reality-shaping, the all-too-on-the-nose “wormholes” and, of course, Lettie’s deceptive, eponymous ocean. Lettie appears to be a child but is also implied to be very old, once again emphasizing the notion that childhood and adulthood are more closely related and far less binary notions than we might believe. If Ursula is the Big Bad Monster of the story, then the Hempstocks are definitely the Forces for Good. They are just comforting in the way that only a knowledgeable grandmother like Old Mrs. Hempstock can be. When the narrator finally makes it to them for help, you just want to run into their embrace with him, relieved in the knowledge that you are, at least for the moment, safe. They bear much resemblance to many of Gaiman’s similar supernatural creations, such as certain gods from American Gods, or some of the beings who populate the world of the Sandman series. (For all we know, the Hempstocks are somewhere, out there, and have run into the Endless once or twice.) I don’t want to get too far into spoiler territory discussing the climax of the book. I am very intrigued by the relative responsibility that the narrator and Lettie have for the narrator’s survival. In this battle, the narrator is hopelessly outmatched: he has none of the knowledge, none of the power that the Hempstocks can bring to bear against these other beings. The only thing he can trade on is himself—his life, his soul. And perhaps the willingness to sacrifice that is the proof that he is worthy of being saved…. Anyway, I suppose you should take all this with a grain of salt, since I can’t deny being an avid fan of Neil Gaiman’s work. I love all of his books and stories that I’ve read, even those I didn’t feel that I could give five stars to. In this case, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is worth those five stars. I should mention, I suppose, that the short length doesn’t bother me. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed when I found out it wasn’t four- or five-hundred pages. But it’s just the right length for the story that Gaiman tells, and with any book, such serendipity of writing and editing is a gift. The Ocean at the End of the Lane fulfils all my expectations, but in utterly surprising ways. Gaiman fills a comfortable niche in the intersection between modern-day fantasy and literary fiction, providing a story that is enchanting and deep but also very familiar. The fantastic, here, is simply a dimension to our lives that is particularly prominent in childhood. Exposing it in effect exposes the changes that we undergo during that tenuous transition into the adult world. Uncovering it helps uncover those memories we have lost, or chosen to forget, simply because it’s easier. The best thing that a book can do for me is make me think. The Ocean at the End of the Lane has given me a lot to think about when it comes to childhood, memories, and our own uncertain past. [image] ...more |
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Full disclosure: I received this book as a gift from the author. Yes, authors, you heard that right: you can send me your book, and I will read and re
Full disclosure: I received this book as a gift from the author. Yes, authors, you heard that right: you can send me your book, and I will read and review it. Hey, I’ll make it even easier for you: it doesn’t even have to be your book. You can send me any book! I have just a few suggestions if you aren’t sure what I would like. This message brought to you be the Organization for Ben Likes to Read Books. So here we are again. The Epic series had kind of fallen off my radar for a while. I read the previous book, Hero way back in 2009! So it has been quite some time since I last hung out with Scott Remington and the Fourteenth of Novosibirsk. That’s a shame; I don’t exactly have time to re-read Hero, so I had to rely on any kind of recap available in Glorious Becoming to remember what was going on. Some of it came back easily, while other parts are probably still missing. The tight arc for this series’ plot and characters means that you are better off starting with the first book. Four books in and Scott and his comrades are fighting a war that doesnt make sense. Aliens—the Bakma, Ceratopians, and Ithini—attack Earth intermittently, and the Earth Defense Network (EDEN) repels them. Why would aliens send down ground troops when they can just wipe us out with some carefully-placed tactical nukes? Or devastate our communications by detonating nuclear devices in the upper atmosphere? Or sneeze on us with their alien germs? Ground invasions make no sense. But Lee Stephen knows this. It’s part of the plan. The war is a facade, a means to an end, and in Glorious Becoming, that end starts becoming clearer. (It is not, at least from the human perspective, all that glorious.) Up until now we’ve only had the fuzziest notion that what Judge Benjamin Archer and his co-conspirators are doing is not above board. Now the specifics of the situation are coming into focus, and it’s not good. The Bakma and Ithini are pawns; the Ceratopians might be good guys; there’s another alien species out there that holds one sex of each species hostage to ensure their obedience … I won’t go into spoiler territory here, but suffice it to say that if the previous books left you frustrated by the vagueness of the conspiracy angle, Glorious Becoming delivers some much-needed information. I’m loving the conspiracy, not so much the uncovering of it. At times, Scott and the Fourteenth resemble the kids from Scooby-Doo, though they don’t so much split up and look for clues as they do sit around carefully honing their theories. Except that, from a few disparate pieces of information and some suspicions, they manage to close in on the truth rather easily. To be fair, Stephen lampshades this, with Svetlana pointing out that one can’t just jump to conclusions … but they kind of do. Moreover, the entire scene struck me as a clumsy way to advance the plot and move our protagonists from ignorance to enlightenment. Four books in, I’m glad we’re starting to get traction on this, but I could have gone for something more subtle, something as stylish and cleverly executed as the devious plot against Novosibirsk orchestrated by Archer. That was cool. So Archer, Blake, and the other conspiring judges are bad guys, right? Yes. Maybe. I don’t know … they’re lying, certainly, but it also seems like they genuinely believe what they are do is in humanity’s best interests. It’s a fine line, and maybe they’ve crossed it—but we don’t have all the information yet. This moral ambiguity is what keeps Glorious Becoming’s antagonists from slipping down the steep slope of nefarious villainery right down to the moustache-twirling bottom. They are probably doing the wrong thing—but maybe they are doing it for the right reasons? Isn’t that, after all, what Scott and his crew spend most of their time doing? Glorious Becoming really kicks off after Scott, Esther, Jay, Auric, and Boris are sent to Cairo on a clandestine operation. That’s right: EDEN operations being sent to spy on another EDEN base. That General Thoor is one messed up dude. The trouble is, Scott, despite all the things he has done during his fall into the Nightmen, is still a nice guy. He likes (maybe more than likes) his new commanding officer, Captain Natalie Rockwell. She likes (probably more than likes) him. So he wrestles with the ethics of lying to her, pretending to be the genuine article when in fact he is planning to betray her and orchestrate a Ceratopian jailbreak before returning to Novosibirsk. At the same time, he has to deal with the fractures within his squad as a result of conflict between him and Esther and Varvara’s cuckolding of Jay from the previous book. Oh, and Thoor keeps holding Svetlana over Scott’s head like a … well, like a hostage. The acronym for the situation is “FUBAR”. Or, in this case, “VUBAR”, since Stephen insists on using made-up profanity. But it is messed up: ethically, politically, and personally. War is hell. While we’re on the matter of personal problems and Scott and Esther and Scott and Natalie (and Scott and Svetlana, for that matter) … can we please stop having all these women fall for Scott? I know he’s rugged and handsome and has that Midwestern All-American Heart-of-Gold Good-Soldier Award grafted to his chest … but it’s just awkward. It’s not that Scott’s a Mary Sue—he certainly has his flaws—but he can’t go for a walk without stumbling over a chick who’s hot for him. Glorious Becoming also adds an unconventional cast member: Tauthin the Bakma has an expanded role. Scott makes some progress communicating/interrogating him, and Svetlana does even better. Not only does his alien perspective provide a valuable source of exposition, but I always enjoy when we get to know “the enemy” better. Svetlana’s compassion, and Tauthin’s decision towards the end of the book despite everything else he does, provide an intriguing set up for things to come even as they demonstrate that not all is black and white. Some enemies are enemies, some could be allies, and some are probably a fair way in between. It’s difficult for me to compare this book to its predecessors because of the large gap—but I’ll try. Whereas the previous books have focused a lot on action and chronicling Scott’s rise through the ranks to a position of leadership, Glorious Becoming puts on the brakes in that respect. There are a few action scenes—particularly the harrowing sequence after Scott’s team’s cover is blown in Cairo—but the bulk of this book consists of suspense and the gradual unspooling of mystery. Thanks to the clandestine operation at Cairo, Archer’s plot against Novosibirsk, and yes, the romantic shenanigans, Glorious Becoming is a solid story in its own right. On the other hand, in many ways it also feels like a bridge into the next book, where I presume the new political reality in which Scott finds himself will require dramatic changes in tactics and priorities. Military science fiction, particularly near-future stuff, isn’t always my cup of tea. I’m more about the technology and its implications, and aside from some cool fighter jets and an alien spaceship, that’s largely absent from the Epic series. Fighting a war against extraterrestrials has led to a few advances, but from what we get to see, life outside the military is pretty much like it is in the present day. What the series lacks in gadgets, though, it makes up for in story—intriguing ideas about wars that aren’t really wars and alien chess games in which Earth, and humanity, are just a tiny corner of a galactic gambit. My reviews of the Epic series: ← Hero [image] ...more |
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Aug 07, 2012
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| 3.77
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| Apr 28, 2011
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The Last Colony was the triumphant conclusion to the trilogy of John Perry and Jane Sagan vs. the Universe. Reluctant leaders of the new Roanoke colon
The Last Colony was the triumphant conclusion to the trilogy of John Perry and Jane Sagan vs. the Universe. Reluctant leaders of the new Roanoke colony, John and Jane manage to stave off a couple of deadly attacks and do an end-run around the Colonial Union brinksmanship that would otherwise have proved deadly for the colony in the long term. And they do this all while being the adoptive parents of a sixteen-year-old who is also beloved of a terrifying efficient alien species. Zoë is one of the best things about The Last Colony, so she is a good choice for a spin-off/tie-in book. Scalzi also hints that she has significant adventures of her own—and that’s even before John sends her off on an Obin ship to pay a visit to General Gau and somehow she returns with a Consu sapper field generator. Zoe’s Tale is more than just a retelling, then; it adds new, “deleted scenes” that were not in the original. I highly recommend Zoe’s Tale if you’ve read The Last Colony. I suspect which one you like better will largely be a matter of taste (as in, if you have taste, you will agree with me that this one is better). However, I don’t think this book will be as satisfying if you haven’t already experienced The Last Colony. I left a nearly ideal gap in between reading that book and this one: long enough that my memories of the events had begun to fade, but not so long that I was a little lost when Scalzi didn’t spell things out explicitly. As he mentions in his afterword, writing a “retelling” book is more difficult than it might seem. I like to think of it as breaking the fifth wall, like when I try to poke around into the houses and lives of NPCs in video games. In the good ol’ days of PC gaming Star Trek: Elite Force and whatnot, I’d use the console commands to turn off clipping and explore the map for hidden areas, discovering enemies just waiting until they were transported onto the map. Breaking this fifth wall reminds you that storytelling is a perspective-dependent illusion: shift the perspective a little, and suddenly things start to break down. The secondary characters are not independent beings; they don’t have lives and timelines separate from whatever the requirements of the narrative demand. So when you try to turn things around and explore their lives, you run into interesting conundrums of continuity and motivation that you have to address. For the most part, Scalzi does pretty well here. Zoë is an interesting departure from the previous characters of the Old Man’s War series. Unlike John and Jane, she has never served as a soldier in the Colonial Defense Force. She is, at heart, a teenage girl. This makes for a radically different narrator (or it should—once again, Scalzi seems unable to keep a minimum level of sardonic smugness out of his characters) with very different priorities. Having spent several years living on Huckleberry with John and Jane, now, Zoë has of course acquired certain traits from them. But Zoe’s Tale allows us to get a much better idea of how much she has become her own person. In particular, Scalzi has more time to explore Zoë’s complex relationship with the Obin and what this signifies for her and for them. Though this relationship is a huge plot point in The Last Colony, it’s always mediated through John’s limited understanding of the situation. Now we see it through the eyes of its object: Zoë is a kind of idol for the Obin, as well as a role model. It’s something she is never comfortable with, yet events force her to adjust to this status and learn how to wield it, when necessary. This culminates with Zoë’s trip to Gau, which involves a sideline where she agrees to let Obin fight Consu convicts to the death. (Don’t ask.) Up until this point, I was enjoying the book, but reading it was mostly the sensation of coasting through a comfortable story. The moral dilemmas inherent in Zoë’s use of the Obin here, however, got my attention. I love the way she agonizes over what’s happening, then makes her decision and manipulates the Consu. And then when the Obin demonstrate what I can only describe as loyalty to Zoë, I was nearly in tears. It’s touching, and wonderful, and I love that Scalzi manages to pull it off with making Zoë like a Mary Sue—she beats the Consu, yes, but only in a limited arena. Indisputably a companion novel in this series, Zoe’s Tale nevertheless has plenty to offer on its own. If you’re still reading these novels, there’s no reason to skip over this one. And there’s so much potential here for more stories about Zoë: what does she do as a young adult? How does her relationship with the Obin involve? I’d be happy to read another book told from her perspective. My reviews of the Old Man’s War series: ← The Last Colony | The Human Division → [image] ...more |
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Full disclosure: I received this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway. Loves me the free books. In Wikinomics, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams Full disclosure: I received this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway. Loves me the free books. In Wikinomics, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams argue that the Internet has irrevocably altered the way corporations and businesses will interact and develop new products and services. The proprietary, closed models of research and design are obsolete and must be replaced by mass collaboration with outside talent. Companies that do not embrace this new ethic of economics, the eponymous wikinomics, will be left behind, their innovation too glacial for a world where news moves at the speed of the trending topics on Twitter. As I said in my review of Wikinomics, I am biased because of my generation. A lot of what Tapscott and Williams argue just feels right to me because this is how I have grown up using technology; I don't really understand any other model. My criticisms of Wikinomics were mostly directed toward the authors' style and rhetoric, and the same is true for Macrowikinomics. The books share the same effusive tone that makes me wince for how it must sound to the truly sceptical. However, this sequel has managed to win me over in a way the business-oriented Wikinomics did not. One thing I noticed with Wikinomics was how dated it felt, even though it was written only in 2006. In contrast, Macrowikinomics is a lot more topical and much more embedded within the current events of 2008-2010, yet it paradoxically feels like it will age more slowly. It owes this success to its expanded scope and more ambitious premises. By applying wikinomics in a more general setting, Tapscott and Williams make a more convincing case for its relevance. Macrowikinomics covers several topics of contemporary importance. The CBC Spark interview covers some of them with Tapscott. After introducing their concept and bringing those who did not read the first book up to speed, Tapscott and Williams briefly cover how they think wikinomics will help to avoid any repeats of the 2008 financial crisis (more open data means more watchdogs). However, the book really hits its stride in part III: "Reindustrializing the Planet." Here, Macrowikinomics does what Wikinomics didn't: it makes me angry. Oh, not angry at the book! No, Tapscott and Williams blithely discuss how wikinomics is beneficial for the transition away from fossil fuels, and although their conclusions and futuristic scenarios often err on the side of optimism, much of their analysis is valid. And so, the normally level-headed and mellow Ben feels the first signs of rage simmering beneath his placid surface. It's those darn global warming deniers! We know the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the atmosphere. I am convinced by the evidence that humans are a significant contributor to global warming—however, even if one is not, doesn't it make sense to curb our emissions anyway? At some point, whether or not one agrees that we have already passed it, we'll be emitting too much carbon dioxide, and the Earth will not be a happy place to live. The same goes for our dependence on fossil fuels. Maybe the opponents of the transition to clean energy are right, and there are vast, untapped reserves of oil. That does not change the fact that oil is a finite, non-renewable resource; we are using it faster than it can be replenished by several oils of magnitude. Eventually we're going to have to kick our oil habit—isn't it better to do it now, while we can phase out oil gradually? Of course, the people who deny human culpability in global warming and the danger of our dependence on fossil fuels often do so out of a particularly insidious version of myopia. We humans are notoriously bad at our long-range planning, preferring to jump from crisis to crisis as our evolution has conditioned us to do. The result is a sort of "not in my lifetime" deferral of the problems of global warming, fossil fuel dependency, etc.—and this, of course, is where my generational bias rears its head. My generation rather worries we're the ones who will ultimately have to deal with these problems (or else)! Yet we are only just beginning to come of age and exert an influence on the conventional halls of power—corporations, governments, NGOs, etc. So understand that for us, the distributed approach to solving these problems that wikinomics champions feels natural and effective because it's largely all we have. Our governments mumble about "emissions targets" and "carbon taxes" even as our world leaders fly off on expensive jets to international summits where they talk about treaties that, if ever signed, are never really honoured. Our poor politicians are trapped between the rock of the powerful, well-funded corporate lobbyists and the increasingly-vocal youth calling out for change. Change, however, is slow in coming. And if our governments are slow in implementing clean energy, designing intelligent electrical grids, and subsidizing automobile innovation, then we are going to do it ourselves. Our methods are as various and diverse as our demographic: we might generate our own electricity and sell it back to the grid, we might help design vehicles that are more efficient, or maybe we'll develop and contribute to apps that track our carbon footprints. One of the more reassuring points that Tapscott and Williams make is that, contrary to how I sometimes feel, one does not have to be an expert in everything. Sometimes, with all of the issues that seem to be clamouring for my attention, I am just overwhelmed by the amount of information available to me. It's impossible to become an expert in everything, so I must rely on other experts to tell me what I should think, and that always opens me up to the danger of being misled—one Andrew Wakefield, and suddenly I'm running around, not vaccinating my children! Tapscott and Williams have a suggestion to help mitigate such problems: openness and participation. Just as they believe that being open about the methods for calculating derivatives and risks will prevent repeats of the 2008 financial crisis, they are very adamant about opening up R&D for transportation and encouraging innovation in the clean energy sector. I don't need to be an expert in car design, because there are plenty of other car design experts out there who can focus on helping to build better cars. Meanwhile, I can contribute where I feel most comfortable. And that brings me to Macrowikinomics' take on education. I am almost finished my undergraduate education. This was the last year of my honours bachelors degree in mathematics; next year I take "professional year" education courses and complete two sessions of student-teaching in schools. If all goes well, I'll be certified to teach grades 7-12 in Ontario, specifically in math and English. I've always wanted to be a teacher, even when I was a child. As I approach the attainment of that goal, I ruminate often on how I will teach. I have so many new options available to me, new technology and new strategies. As a new teacher, it threatens to be a little overwhelming, since I still have no experience. I'm sure I will find my way and develop strategies that work for me, as well as for my students. For now, I think about how I can bring my comfort and familiarity with current technology into the classroom and apply it to my teachables. If Macrowikinomics made me angry about global warming, it made me excited about education. Tapscott and Williams tackle mostly the "ivory tower" of universities in the first chapter of part VI: "Learning, Discovery, and Well-Being", but they also mention projects in elementary and secondary schools of which they approve. Many of their proposals are controversial, and many of them seem obvious, and there is plenty of overlap between these two categories. It should come as no surprise that they want pedagogy to shift away from one-to-many delivery methods, such as the traditional professorial lecture, toward collaborative learning environments where teachers guide students toward making discoveries. They quote Seymour Papert: "The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery." This resonates with me. As a student, I have always loved learning, and that has made it easier for me than many of my peers. I know that I can't make every student love learning, but I can do my best. I can recognize that everyone learns differently and try to foster that difference rather than ignore it as I deliver the same lesson in the same style to the same bored faces. Mostly, Macrowikinomics calls for a flexibility in the education system that would be as awesome as it is, at present, unattainable. Oh, I think components of their vision are very achievable—for example, I certainly hope to see open textbooks and additional platforms modelled after MIT's OpenCourseWare become more common. The success of OpenCourseWare and Khan Academy suggest that there is a niche traditional textbook and lecture-style learning is not satisfying. Some of Tapscott and Williams' suggestions are less likely to pass, at least in the near future: I think as long as universities are competing for government grants and corporate investments, it will be more difficult to collect credits from disparate institutions (through distance learning) and cobble them into a degree. Of course, Tapscott and Williams would like to see those institutions become collaborative at every level, not just when it comes to accreditation, and that would solve the problem—but the problem is a deep one, embedded with the very system itself. And I'm not going to tackle it myself … I'll be in high school, preparing the minds who probably will. In the last two parts of the book prior to the conclusion, Macrowikinomics turns first to the dying newspaper industry and then to the effect of wikinomics on freedom and democracy. The former contains little that will be new if one has been paying any sort of attention to the news in the past five years: newspapers are dying, free is killing them, bits are cheaper than atoms, etc. It is a solid enough analysis, but it is not the strongest part of the book. I am pleased by the inclusion of the latter part, because it addresses some of the concerns I voiced in my review of Wikinomics about the absence of any perspectives from less developed nations. Again, it's not perfect, and sometimes I had to flip to the end notes to find the caveats about how the Internet can be used to the advantage of authoritarian regimes as well as a tool to fight against them. I'm still pleased by the inclusion of these topics, however, and for readers less familiar with how social networking has interacted with political activism, this part will hopefully be enlightening. And yes, I get it: BMWs run Linux. The repetitive style that sometimes irked me in Wikinomics returns in all its glory. Also, if you have read Wikinomics, and especially if you read these in quick succession, some sections of this book will feel very familiar—in fact, some are reproduced verbatim from the first book. While I understand the need to familiarize newcomers with these ideas, and while it might be economical to save some time and effort by reusing older material, I found my attention wandering during these parts, because I had heard it all before. Tapscott and Williams are at their best when they are discussing the new and amazing opportunities for innovation that the Internet and mass collaboration offer. They are, in a sense, charting the new techniques made possible by our new technology, both by interviewing the people who are setting trends and blazing trails and by making their own diagnoses and suggestions for how we can innovate using wikinomics. As with the previous books, they run into more trouble when they attempt to wax philosophical—their enthusiasm undermines their frequent reminders that wikinomics, the Internet, etc., are not panaceas. Similarly, their attempts to refute criticism of wikinomics and macrowikinomics are noble but unimpressive. Macrowikinomics is thorough, well-researched, and very much a manifesto. Whether you consider this a good thing I will leave up to you. I, for one, plan to recommend this to people who I think will find it interesting, even if they might not agree with Tapscott and Williams' views. Unless you are an entrepreneur, investor, or corporate executive, I would advise you just to skip Wikinomics and go right to this book: it's everything Wikinomics is and more, and it's definitely worth reading. Macrowikinomics is neither the most insightful nor the most persuasive book about technology I've read, but it is provocative. It made me angry, and it made me inspired. [image] ...more |
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Jun 04, 2011
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Jun 05, 2011
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Feb 28, 2011
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| Aug 31, 2010
| Aug 31, 2010
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Jay Lake has been hovering around the edge of my observable SF/fantasy universe for a while now, finally entering that universe when I read his Clockw
Jay Lake has been hovering around the edge of my observable SF/fantasy universe for a while now, finally entering that universe when I read his Clockwork Earth series. Unfortunately,
Mainspring
disappointed me, and while the other two books in the trilogy were a big improvement on it, I was not much impressed. Sometime between acquiring Mainspring and reading it, however, I decided to buy this anthology from Subterranean Press. I like novels more than I like short stories. Odd, I know: a bad short story takes much less time to read than a bad novel, so it should be less of a waste of time. But a great novel is a proportionally greater reward—what can I say? I’m a gambler! Single-author anthologies excel, however, in exposing the reader to a wide range of that author’s work. The Sky That Wraps is an excellent survey of Jay Lake, from the familiar surrounds of his fantasy milieux—including a story from his Clockwork Earth universe, and I confess I skimmed that one—to the exotic locales of a far-future, posthuman universe. Even though I still can’t quite bring myself to love his voice the way I do some of his contemporary luminaries, I don’t begrudge Lake his standing in the field: his is a singular, creative mind. That’s obvious in all of the stories in this collection. Lake seems to thrive in an ambiguity that suits the short story form well: he doesn’t establish more of the world than he needs to. And he frustratingly sets up boxes we never get to open. So in the eponymous “The Sky That Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black”, we learn that the narrator destroyed a piece of alien technology that could have revealed the purpose of alien artifacts he now paints to sell as trinkets. It’s a lugubrious tale. And as much as I’d like to know what the artifact was, what those trinkets do, Lake never tells us. He chortles explicitly about this in his preface to “Journal of an Inmate”, telling us how the writer’s circle to whom he first showed the story demanded to know what was in the letter that the narrator destroys, unopened, at the conclusion of the tale. Lake is comfortable not taking the reader into his confidence in a way that few authors seem to be—I suspect this is one of the reasons Mainspring grated on me, because it always seemed like elements of the story were coming out of nowhere. For his short stories, however, this sleight of authorial hand is quite effective. The two stories I mentioned above are both told from the perspective of a narrator who is a prisoner—or, in so many words, an exile. In fact, many of the characters in The Sky That Wraps are exiles in one form or another: in “Coming for Green” Samma is an exile in all but name as she traces Green’s footsteps; the Befores in Lake’s two Sunspin stories are very old, very special types of psychological exiles. Most of the protagonists in these stories are unique and usually lonely individuals walking through a world that doesn’t quite fit them. These stories of exile were, for the most part, really interesting. I really liked “To Raise a Mutiny Betwixt Yourselves”, and I would love to see Lake’s planned space opera novels come to fruition. It tapped into some of my favourite posthuman tropes, like shipminds, in a stylized, high-stakes setting. I’m very interested in seeing that universe developed as a novel. Then there are the weird stories, ones that verge on what I might call experimental. This includes “Achilles Sulking in His Buick”, the sort of one-off joke that begins as a title and doesn’t get much better than that. There’s also “Skinhorse Goes to Mars”, which has an excellent but confusing plot. I’d also include “Little Pig, Berry Brown and the Hard Moon” as well, even though that one isn’t so bad if you follow it carefully. I guess I’m just lazy; I prefer my stories to be more linear and easy to parse, and Lake doesn’t always let me off with such fare. These are the stories that will please the connoisseur of short SF and fantasy fiction. Finally, like Stephen King or some of Orson Scott Card’s work, Lake also enjoys writing about weird stuff happening in small American towns. So “Dogs in the Moonlight” and “Fat Man” will please those of you who do. And while Portland isn’t quite a small town, I’d probably throw the Portland wizard series in here—intriguing urban fantasy though it is. These stories were no less creative than others in the collection, just less to my liking. And that’s the key to this anthology: it has breadth. It was good for me, as someone who wanted to read something by Lake that I could enjoy. I suspect that fans of Lake will probably have seen most of these stories already (although there are two brand new ones), but this is still a lovely collection to own. There were no stories that really blew my mind, alas, but neither were there any that made me groan. It’s a solid anthology where your enjoyment will vary with your tastes. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 24, 2011
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Dec 25, 2011
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Oct 25, 2010
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Hardcover
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| 4.05
| 38
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| Aug 31, 2010
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liked it
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As I write this review, there is a single, lonely rating on this book and no other reviews. I apologize, but I can't resist … FIRST! All right, I ha As I write this review, there is a single, lonely rating on this book and no other reviews. I apologize, but I can't resist … FIRST! All right, I have recovered from my temporary insanity and am now ready to get down to business. I have never before read anything by Ian R. MacLeod. I have a terrible and impoverishing addiction to purchasing titles from specialty publisher Subterranean Press, and during an all-too-common binge (this time it was Charles Stross titles), I saw this on offer, shrugged, said, "What the hell?" and added it to my cart. I don't recall hearing much about Ian R. MacLeod either. His name is almost criminally similar to Ian McDonald, however, whose The Dervish House is my pick for this year's Hugo Award for Best Novel. Indeed, their names are so similar that I am afraid I will confuse these two authors. I assume that with a name like MacLeod, Ian R. must be immortal, and therefore I shall refer to him as "the Highlander" for the rest of this review. Wikipedia tells me that he was actually born in Birmingham and not the Scottish highlands, but I am too smart to fall for that small bit of trickery, Highlander. Journeys is an anthology but not a slapdash one. At nine stories it feels short, but the stories themselves are quite long for short stories. And, for the most part, the stories are good. As someone who much prefers novel-length stories, I took a risk in introducing myself to the Highlander through an anthology. I would do it again though, because Journeys was an enjoyable, even magical experience. Wikipedia also mentions that another of the Highlander's series is an alternate universe affair where the use of aether has preserved the trade guild structure in England and "has retarded technological progress". In hindsight, then, the common theme running through Journeys makes a lot of sense. Several of these stories are set in a similar (if not the same) universe, an alternate England where magic is much more in evidence. The first story, "The Master Miller's Tale", seems to take place near the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Nathan watches steam-driven mills slowly supersede his traditional mill, which is held together by song spells. He gets mixed up in a group of Luddite-like terrorists who go around sabotaging steam-driven installations. For Nathan, there is also a personal component: the woman he had an adolescent crush on is now a champion of steam technology. Another story, "Elementals", is set a bit later, toward the Victorian end of the century. Its narrator is acquainted with an amateur scientist who is convinced he can harness elemental beings as an alternative energy source. The truth turns out to be much more complicated—and much more metaphysical. Most of the stories in Journeys also involve the narrators losing themselves, physically or psychologically, and the above two stories are good examples. Nathan is so attached to his mill that it becomes difficult for him to realize his business is dying. Eventually he becomes obsessed with finding the windseller, a merchant who used to come by and sell bagged winds for him to release and use at his mill. Nathan's own obsessions offer a kind of opening for magic to enter him and consume him, and it's a similar story in "Elementals". The narrator learns that elementals are not tied to one element, that they are not the Other; rather, everything and everyone are elementals in a sense. Everything is powered by belief, his example being that it is more difficult to notice people who are down on their luck when you are at the same parties as them—they sort of fade into the background. Not all of the stories in this collection fit comfortably into my framework. Two in particular—"The Camping Wainwrights" and "On the Sighting of Other Islands"—are quite different, and another, "Taking Care of Myself", is science fiction rather than fantasy but also deals with questions of identities. That being said, those first two stories certainly fit in with the title: the former is, surprisingly enough, about camping and family tribulations; the latter is told in a collective voice by the inhabitants of one island on a sea of moving islands. All of the stories in Journeys are weird in the sense that they are not quite grokkable the first time around—there are certain twists in the Highlander's narrative style that make the stories feel very original—but those two stories in particular among the weirdest. I guess what I'm trying to say is that two of the intertwined motifs that seem most prevalent in Journeys—alternative worlds where magic has replaced or remains a rival to technological progress, as well as stories where the use of magic leads to a personal crisis of identity—appeal very much to me. So if the rest of the Highlander's work is like this, I look forward to reading more of it. Looks like this edition is sold out on the Subterranean Press website, so unless they print more or you can pick up a copy used, you'll have to be content with finding these stories elsewhere as you can. Alone, none of them really stand out, but together they form a very unified corpus of works. For a new reader like me, Journeys was a good introduction. Although I obviously can't say for sure, I suspect fans of the Highlander will find it familiar and comfortable. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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Aug 12, 2011
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Oct 25, 2010
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really liked it
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Apr 19, 2024
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Apr 23, 2024
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| 4.75
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really liked it
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Dec 10, 2018
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Dec 08, 2018
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| 4.45
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really liked it
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Oct 13, 2018
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Oct 13, 2018
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| 4.52
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it was amazing
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Oct 07, 2017
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Aug 23, 2017
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| 3.20
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it was ok
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Jul 16, 2016
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Jul 15, 2016
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liked it
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Nov 08, 2015
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Nov 06, 2015
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| 4.29
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Sep 11, 2015
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Sep 11, 2015
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| 3.61
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it was amazing
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Jan 29, 2016
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Jul 26, 2015
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| 4.17
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it was amazing
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Nov 04, 2015
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Dec 30, 2014
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| 3.96
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liked it
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Nov 05, 2015
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Oct 03, 2014
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| 3.91
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liked it
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Oct 2014
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Sep 30, 2014
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| 3.96
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Jul 21, 2014
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Jul 28, 2014
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| 3.57
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it was ok
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Nov 05, 2013
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Nov 02, 2013
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| 2.00
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liked it
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May 02, 2013
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Apr 28, 2013
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| 4.02
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it was amazing
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Jun 22, 2013
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Jan 17, 2013
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Aug 07, 2012
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Aug 01, 2012
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| 3.77
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liked it
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Mar 27, 2015
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May 21, 2011
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| 3.71
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really liked it
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Jun 05, 2011
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Feb 28, 2011
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| 3.74
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liked it
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Dec 25, 2011
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Oct 25, 2010
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| 4.05
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liked it
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Aug 14, 2011
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Oct 25, 2010
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