This one kinda came out of nowhere and hit me up the side of my head.
I mean, you'd have thought I would have known all about the grand classics and anThis one kinda came out of nowhere and hit me up the side of my head.
I mean, you'd have thought I would have known all about the grand classics and any book THIS good has GOT to have about a million readers, RIGHT? At least, this is the grand assumption we (and I mean, me, sadly,) tend to make.
And yet, I've BARELY heard of this book and there's no sign of it ever becoming an audiobook and aside from a few brave glowing reviews that compare it favorably to Dune and La Morte Darthur, my skepticism remained high... UNTIL I read it.
And now, even though I've read something like 2.5k SF novels, I have to come right out and say it: I'm putting this book in my top 20 novels of all time. I'm both squeeing and deeply, deeply impressed.
This is a good thousand years in our future and the galaxy is populated with post-humans who have changed themselves into creatures both alien and familiar and often very, very strange. We begin with Pilots, a version of King Arthur's knights only with high esoteric maths, the need for immense courage because, as it is written in stone, "Pilots Die", and a somewhat simple story of a young journeyman pilot who, showing great bravery, explores a machine intelligence spanning a moon -- and more.
This interesting quest only raises a ton of new questions, and while it seems pretty straightforward, it really isn't. This is a story of the meaning of life. The search for immortality. Of friendship, of love, of parentage, of memory, and of everything from the deepest parts of our past as humans (living as cave-men takes up a great deal of the tale) all the way to immensely futuristic worldbuilding that includes folding space, speeding cognition, vast artificial intelligence, seas of godlike aquatic creatures, nanotech worlds, and... immortality.)
It sticks a pin in everything, and the characters are truly wonderful. They are so damn human. Belligerent, idiotic, sometimes wise, violent, lovers of poetry, funny, and lustful. And let's not forget that they are mathematical geniuses, prone to rage, and they're extraordinary skaters. :)
The worldbuilding is all kinds of amazing and it not only holds together as well as Dune, it feels nearly as vast, as creative, and as interesting as Dune. That's not to say it actually FEELS like Dune except in the ways that certain vast build-ups coalesce, but the comparison is still quite good.
I'm all aglow. I'm probably going to re-read this again in a few years, but first I'm going to be flying into the next book. :) Soon.
To sum up: READ THIS BOOK. It needs to be known. It needs to be talked about among all the SF fandom. If you LIKE SF at all, this ought to be a must-read. It's all kinds of amazing....more
This beats out almost every book that purports to be funny and I'm not particularly unfamiliar with funny boIs it tragic, absurd, or funny?
WHO CARES!
This beats out almost every book that purports to be funny and I'm not particularly unfamiliar with funny books.
Catch-22 grabs you by the skinny hairs and shocks you into the most wonderful and horrible bureaucratic nightmare ever devised. It's not even the clarity that strikes you. It's not the convoluted insanity of a huge cast of truly unforgettable and brilliant characters as they stumble from one mismatched contradiction after another or as they game the system to truly amazing proportions. (Milo.) :)
It's the timing, the clever buildups, the sheer insanity of one damnable event after another and the realization that the only clear solution, the only way out of this trap, is...
No. Wait. That IS the realization. There is no way out.
We can put the book down, but the absurdities live on. Not just the absurdities inside the book, but in our own lives as we deal with one more piece of nonsense after another. There is no escape. None.
And yet, I kept laughing throughout this novel. This brilliant, brilliant novel.
I'm going out on a limb here to say it's in the upper 20 books of all time. Maybe higher. There's absolutely nothing about this book I didn't love. I'm gonna have to read this 4-5 times just for the sheer perverse pleasure of it.
Sure, some Italian whore might come at me with a steak knife or other piece of cutlery, but that's the cost of doing business with the military.
I think I just found one of my most favorite books of all time.
Even if the novel didn't remind me of Cat Valente's best writing, with all its poetry I think I just found one of my most favorite books of all time.
Even if the novel didn't remind me of Cat Valente's best writing, with all its poetry couched in prose, the way the stories within stories kinda blows me away.
But you know what really speaks to me the most?
This novel is about awe. Hope. Regaining spirit, driving forward your dreams, fighting anxiety, and finding wonder.
Quite aside from that, the novel has a truly delicious and deep worldbuilding that is matched or perhaps overmatched with the depth of characterization. On the surface, it's a novel about a scholar putting his books away to fully experience the world no matter what anyone thinks and taking up with a fascinating traveler.
But that's like saying LoTR is about some short person taking out the trash.
As I was reading, I counted three times I was brought to tears. The first was probably the hardest hitting. The traveler's rules for our hapless scholar put him through a profound and genuine change, revealing his heart's innermost desires, smashing walls and unearthing all the buried dreams of a lifetime. The courage and the point of it and the execution floored me.
And that might have been more than enough for any novel, but this one forges forth and gives us some of the most engaging reveals I've ever read. Never mind that some themes might have been explored in older fantasy novels.
The author's take on these themes is superior. Courageous. Delightful.
Am I in full-on crush mode right now?
You better F***ing believe it.
I plan on reading this again. And again. At delighted leisure. There is nothing about this that isn't uplifting, even if it is often difficult. Or even more than difficult. You could call it an artist's journey, but it is as valid for self-discovery, self-actualization, or even just accepting yourself and falling in love with life and your own destiny. :)
Apart from just a few niggling quips I might have had with a few parts of this absolutely fantastic collection of essays, I think I've found one of myApart from just a few niggling quips I might have had with a few parts of this absolutely fantastic collection of essays, I think I've found one of my most absolute favorite books of all time.
I've read a ton of philosophy over the years and more psychology, thanks to my degree in psychology, but nothing QUITE prepared me for this. What we have here is not just a man in the process of designing, from the ground-up, a nice AI that won't turn around and rationally destroy us all because we're vermin, but a man who has gone ahead and taken the idea of real rationality and turned it not only on his work, his life, and himself, but has gone out of his way to give us the benefit of his experience.
Sound like a self-help book? It isn't. Or, at least, any of us could use it that way, but to me, it's probably the single-most-useful, courageous, funny, and excruciatingly smart book I've read in a very long time.
Does Eliezer have charm? Hell yeah. Does Eliezer champion Bayesian probability? HELL YEAH. Does Eliezer throw a perfectly understandable spotlight on our desperate need to reduce bias and seek truth no matter how painful? Yes. Very much so. And he sends a lot of great light on the whole field of AI research, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Quantum Physicists, and everyone who might be laboring under faulty models of thought and lazy thinking.
Above all, he's passionate as hell about Thinking Clearly. It also helps that he's fantastically devoted to rigorous standards, correct predictive models, and thorough ethical considerations. This isn't all about AIs although we know he is passionate about it. It's about EVERYTHING.
And he's right. We need rationality, and I mean, REAL RATIONALITY. I mean meticulously and carefully considered thought. Courageous exposing of our own faults. Our stubbornness, our ability to get up when we fail and learn from our mistakes and DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES AGAIN.
This isn't just a primer on logic. It's pretty much a beacon of shining light in the darkness. :) And Eliezer brings it all to us in such a charming and self-deprecating way that I wouldn't be surprised if he gains a cult following of aspiring Rationalists flocking to his cause.
Of course, he would question the HELL out of that. Jeeze... I feel like we have a modern Socrates in our midst. Only, this modern Socrates is building on ALL the myriad scientific foundations of those who have come before and is unwilling to take even a dram of Hemlock. :)
(He already tried that as Eliezer of '96.) :)
So. What am I trying to say here?
Oh, nothing much. I don't care who you are or what you're into. EVERYONE should read this monster of a book and see for themselves. This world is not hopeless. Not when we have such minds in it. Of course, that means we all need to step up to the plate and don't let bias, willful ignorance, or intellectual dishonesty win.
Everyone needs to step up. Even if you don't use Bayesian. :)...more
Or to put it in milder terms, "I just got ran over by a mac truck."
This novel is just too important to miss, whether or not you're int"Indestructible"
Or to put it in milder terms, "I just got ran over by a mac truck."
This novel is just too important to miss, whether or not you're into SF or Fantasy, because it is both. It's a long and delightful and REAL conversation between the two, a heartfelt exploration and a synthesis, a heartbreaking tale and a true wonderment of fiction.
I guess I kinda liked it.
It's a lot more than a magical realism novel, and it's no experiment. There's nothing unreadable about it and it doesn't have tons of clever word adornments. From the start we're thrown into a futuristic society and a world full of fairytale (or birdlike) magic, and we follow Laurence and Patricia in a long-entwined tale of equal proportions and dialogue, their uneasy alliance, their estrangement, and finally, their enduring love.
This is all about us, the readers, too. Science Fiction and Fantasy have gone through rough patches, denigrating each other, running from each other, saying spiteful things to each other, but in the end, we're so much more alike than anything else can be in the universe. So whether you're a cyborg or a wizard, know one thing: We Are All The Same, and We Are Loved.
Did I say this was a true book? It goes way beyond just this dialogue. I feel the heart of it pumping and changing the universe. It's my New Favorite Book, and it's not so much strange and powerful as it is deeply and profoundly hopeful, and by everything that's holy, I appreciate that.
I bawled tears of joy and horror, people. No joke. I sat in my chair and couldn't read from all the sobs.
From the very start, the first hook, I knew I was going to want to savour this novel, and I did. I'm likely going to re-read it many times and be filled with amazement and hope and joy, even as I cringe at the young years or feel the Fear coming for the adult years.
It's brilliant and if there's any justice in the universe, this novel needs to be one that Endures.
And by the way, this is already on my Hugo Picks for 2016. ...more
Where the hell can I begin? I'd like to say I'm speechless and drowning in a god-river of awe, but the fact is, I could write twenty-odd pages or moreWhere the hell can I begin? I'd like to say I'm speechless and drowning in a god-river of awe, but the fact is, I could write twenty-odd pages or more just to expound how much I love this book, and by natural extension of story, Heroes Die.
They're both of one piece, but what really blows my mind is the fact that it's not only as good as the first, but it absolutely refuses to back down and aims for something much, much greater. I'm very afraid that I can't come even remotely close to doing a review justice without revealing not only a dozen great plot turns and surprises from the first novel, and then it gets much worse because there are two dozen great reveals in the second.
With your permission, I will try to gently gloss over What Makes This Book So Great, but be forewarned: Here There Be Spoilers.
(view spoiler)[The first book was a self-contained masterpiece with equal parts Hard SF and High Fantasy, where the networks vie for ever higher ratings by sending real humans to a distant world where magic actually exists, where all the High Fantasy tropes are gritty reality, and the Actors (Actirs on the other side) cast their POV adventures back to an overcrowded and very advanced Earth who hail them as celebrities. Hari/Caine was the most popular. His ex-wife, also an Actor, had gone missing/unresponsive on this side and since he still holds a flame, goes over to save her. Of course she doesn't care to be saved, in fact, she's working to free the enslaved and downcast over there. Jump through tons of truly awesome and SMART adventures and overwhelming odds that ended with a huge machiavellian finale to take down a literal and actual god that ended with Hari/Caine's ex-wife dying and being reborn as the goddess of all the waters in the world and fighting the other god for supremacy, and you've got yourself 5-6 fantastic novels wrapped all into one.
When it ended, I wondered how the fuck this author could top it. I mean, Caine's lover is now a nearly all-powerful god, Hari has taken over the network and has built up a little empire of his own out of revenge for what the assholes on Earth had done to him, and Hari/Caine pulled-off one of the funniest and impressive god-takedowns I've ever read. He brought him back to earth, penniless and powerless, with only a fraction of a fraction of his mind left. How could it ever get any better?
Well, it did. He fucking did it. There's never a wasted word, never a wasted sub-plot, and never a wasted moment of character development. And it's 800 fucking pages long. :)
Up the stakes. Oh my god, he just upped the stakes something HUGE. Okay, so we open with a paraplegic Hari heading a losing-money network, his best friend is hugely diminished god from the other world that he defeated, and everyone's setting up some real hell for Caine as the incarnation of satan among all the churches and empires on the other side. After all, he only brings chaos wherever he shows up. Life is pretty bad, years have made him lose any edge (or legs) to stand on, and his relationship is back in the shitter. So how the hell do we get from there to the returned machiavellian re-ascension of the deposed god, learn that there's another that can roll him, and start throwing nuclear bombs, tanks and airplanes at the other world as it gets annihilated by a horrible plague that Earthlings made and almost killed us, AND have Caine win and throw out some really fun surprises on top?
That's the amazing shit, right there. Becoming a god doesn't mean you've landed yourself a story-stopper. This shit is AMAZING, and despite what I said about giving you spoilers, I've still left 90% out. (hide spoiler)]
Only a truly gifted writer could pull all this off, to keep it always entertaining, moving quickly, with ever-deepening character explorations that makes most SF OR Fantasy authors look like amateurs.
These books are multi-faceted and deeply layered stories that rely more on action and plot progression and revelation than anything else, and it does it so well that even intended themes sneak up on you and they're not just right, but they're necessary to me as a reader.
To say that I love these is to just laugh in my milk. I just spent an hour gushing over the novels to my wife while I was attempting to write this review, and my mind is still spinning from all the little things that happened to it while reading this oh so excellent novel. :)
They may be long novels, but they read quick. I can't honestly believe that people aren't gushing about these novels even now. They're very modern, with modern SF/F sensibilities, and much better than almost any Hard SF OR High Fantasy that I've read in decades, and each side stands with its head high in either. :)
This is no fly-by night operation. This is a SERIOUSLY well-planned, a well-developed, and a blood-sweat-and-tears masterpiece of fiction. It SHOULD be on everyone's must-read list, if you're at all interested in either SF or F. :)...more
Just in case you might think that a book like this might lose its flavor or lessen my enjoyment three years after the last reaRe-read October 11, 2019
Just in case you might think that a book like this might lose its flavor or lessen my enjoyment three years after the last read, or it being the third read with the third-read blues, check your expectations at the door.
I still freaking love this book.
It has everything I could ever want. A mastermind plan or three. Godlike powers. A mystery, a revenge story, a freaking humorous and heartbreaking debacle including lions, dogs, and a very special man in a tu-tu, and a library that is so much more than a library.
Where both rage and love can be the energy source of suns, and bitch-slapping lionesses is perfectly acceptable behavior. Or where standing up for yourself can usually mean several dozen suicides. Sequentially. For one man.
Damn, I love this book. It has not lost any of its flavor. I could keep reading this every single year and still love it. It's definitely one of my all-time favorites. :)
Re-read October 14, 2016
I read this one back in September of last year and loved it enough to drop it into my Top 100 list. I've been thinking about it off and on ever since then. And I just had to re-read it for the Halloween season, too. It just fits oh so well! :)
Did it hold up to my beefed-up expectations? Did it lose any of the fires of ultimate agony or any of its Asshole Buddhism? Hello, No. :) I still love it.
I've never loved lions as much as I have in this book. I've never been more surprised to discover a love story, either, or an actual loving Father in Adam Black, the man who by all rights should go down in all literature as the most fucked up villain of all time.
All the oddness of this book, its sheer creativity, blows me away. All its characters become real and archetypes and real all over again, wrenched from all those endlessly tired grounds to become something new and fantastic again.
You want to see the training of gods? You want to participate in a war of gods? From their point of view? Well, welcome yourself to this book, my friend. It's not for the weak of heart. The stakes are really high. Maybe higher than any but the strangest and strongest SF or Fantasy out there, and the wrap-up is frankly an even more awesome story than all the action that came before it.
Expect an evolving story of unsurpassed creativity and courage.
And even though the deaths, more deaths, and even more deaths, of world-eating plagues and starvation, of the snuffing out of the sun and the raising of a new one, it's kinda odd... that this is strangely one of the most up-beat and hopeful of Fantasies or Science Fiction or Horror that I've ever read. :)
I might just have to make this a tradition and read it every year just for the plain joy of it. :)
Old Review:
This one is going to be a difficult review because I love it so much.
I'm not going to have Steve warm my bones under his light, anymore. I'm not going to have the thunder out of the east to have my back. But in the end, it is in Carolyn I trust. I have faith in her, and I'll have to have faith in her for the rest of my life.
Confused? Read the book. You'll know what I mean afterward. :)
My word, I can't get over how much new mythology that Mr. Hawkins crammed into such a short book, or how much of it wormed its way into my brain. I haven't been this enthused about any book like this since American Gods, and I have to admit this is a BETTER EXPRESSION than even that.
Gods walking the earth is one thing, but to actually watch them perform an infinite regression of events to create their own successors in such a way that the poor sap doesn't even realize it until long after the big battle is a scale of craft that ought to be left to actual gods, and not some person named Scott Hawkins, who, out of the blue, blew my mind by actually pulling it off.
I cried after Carolyn succeeded in getting her revenge, and I cried again after I realized what she had become by doing so. I don't need a heart coal to see me through to the end, though. I just cried like a little baby when Steve finally succeeded.
This is an IMPORTANT work. It's going to stick in my mind for a damn long time, and even now the story is continuing in my hindbrain, either resurrected endlessly, or a victim of the Black Book. Or, maybe worse than any of that, it's going to stay with me because I Never want to let the story go.
I'm recommending this for the Hugos for next year. It's not quite fantasy. It's more SF, and even Carolyn laughs at the notion of magic, so there you go. This novel is officially replacing my current top pick of Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, too.
I am absolutely amazed by what I have just read, and I'm bumping this one up to one of my top ten novels of all time. It's just that good.
Oh yeah, and if I ever get a chance to bitch-slap a lioness, you know I'm going to be blaming this novel. Just saying....more
Re-read 2/23/18: As good as the first time, or perhaps better. And even when I know what's coming, I still shiver when all the implications are driven Re-read 2/23/18: As good as the first time, or perhaps better. And even when I know what's coming, I still shiver when all the implications are driven home. It doesn't matter how many times I've read this.
It still scares me shitless.
Original Review:
Oh my god that was a sharp one. I'm bowled over, not only because this was easily the best Bob Howard story I've read, including all of the novels, all of which I love, but because the tale was freaking sharp. There wasn't an ounce of fat on it, and it drove me into a shivering horror state even as I was expecting great hyperbole, great dry wit, and a character I love. What I didn't expect was the absolute chittering horror that I felt as I read it.
It wasn't HP Lovecraft's deathbed confession or purple prose, although that certainly got to me in the end. It wasn't the singularly nightmarish aspects of the unicorns, either, although it came DAMN CLOSE. It was the idea of all those little girls playing with all those little ponies in the boarding school. That got me. That got me to my core.
I had to put the novella down for a few minutes to fucking recover.
Now, I'm going to admit something. I have been a long time fanboy of Mr. Stross, and I devour all his works like they are candy and get super giddy over the idea of the Laundry Files and wish to the sweet heavens that the Eschaton series didn't have that fatal flaw that prevents him from writing more.
I'm predisposed to give him the benefit of lots of leeway because of the power of my never-ending fanboy powers.
Well, I'm telling you all, right now, that I'm forgoing all rights and status of being a fanboy and saying that this little gem of a story stands mightily and beautifully on its own without any kind of preamble, preconception, or good-will. More than that, I'm tempted to rank it up there with the very best novellas I've ever read. It has all the markings of the best. Tight story, great characters, and IMPACT. Oh god, the impact. I'm still scared shitless, and I'm an old hand at enjoying horror. What's more, this is great SF, too.
And what's more, it won last year's Hugo for best Novella.
I can't believe, with all my fanboy powers for both Hugos and Stross, I am JUST NOW getting around to reading this fantastic little gem. Maybe I ought to let one of those snails crawl onto my hand. I probably deserve it, now....more
Before I started reading this, I was struck by how much it appeared to be like Michael Underwood's Geekomancy, and after reading it, of course there wBefore I started reading this, I was struck by how much it appeared to be like Michael Underwood's Geekomancy, and after reading it, of course there were a few similarities, but where Geekomancy was all delightful snark and nostalgia wrapped into a wonderfully magical system, Flex was a lot more dark and serious, and...
Shall I say it? Yeah. I have to say this was the better novel of the two. Sorry, Michael! I love your stuff, but this was just too sharp!
We can scratch out most of the nostalgia and jump right into a well-crafted tale. The hero is a damn surprising hero, too. Just hearing about what he did, I honestly wanted to cringe and go... "How is that going to be fun?" And then after reading him in action, all my fears flittered away as I began to realize that this is the freaking Breaking Bad of urban fantasy. Just being a clever and unique magic system is fantastic, too, but my god, we jumped, wonderfully, from a guy who uses magic to do paperwork into a brilliant drug dealer. And not only does it work, but it's far from being the best aspect of the book.
Look. We've got an ex-cop who was branded a hero for accidentally killing a 'Mancer even as he respected what he saw, turned his badge in, as well as losing a foot, to become an insurance agent. If that sounds boring, then stuff it. Mr. Steinmetz makes it work well. The core of the book is about people who focus so much on what they love that they become travelling black holes of universe-changing power that comes with it's own built-in correction system.
For those of us who've played and loved the Mage storytelling system, you're right on target. Mr. Steinmetz acknowledges his debts here and to Mr. Underwood.
MC Paul's arch-enemy was fantastic. Paul was fantastic. Valentine was fantastic. And my heart-strings were so thoroughly manhandled by his poor burned daughter that I wasn't sure I was going to get out of this novel alive.
Sure, it might just be another novel set to destroy NYC, but on the other hand, I felt utter joy in the reading. I literally couldn't put this title down for the life of me. It was magical.
It's true I probably wouldn't have picked this novel up in the first place if I hadn't received an invitation to read its sequel in Netgalley, but that's my own damn problem. I'm leased to be proved an idiot. Never judge a book by either its cover or its blurb. Flex is no sophomore addition to a crappy UF collection. It's serious and it's brilliant.
All you peeps who want magic systems and UF and seriously excellent character progressions need to go out and pick up this title. It's pretty close to perfect....more
I finally convinced my buddy reader to read this trilogy, and while she's not an uber-fan like I am, I appreciate her willingness to tRe-Read 1/18/24:
I finally convinced my buddy reader to read this trilogy, and while she's not an uber-fan like I am, I appreciate her willingness to try.
As for me, I'm all for a bit of old anger and seismic activity. Father Earth is angry, after all, and people are shit. I guess things never really change.
I'm enjoying the slow reveals and journeys all over again. I'll move on to book two shortly.
Old Review:
Edit, 10:52 pm, tonight. :) N.K. Jemisin is the WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) Was there any doubt?
Old Review (from a few hours ago):
Re-Read 8/20/16, the day the Hugo Awards Ceremony is to take place for the novel I voted for. :) Coincidentally, I'll be reading the sequel tomorrow. :)
So was it as good as I remember? Actually, better. But that's mostly because I'm in on the trick and the secret of the MC is is laid bare and the whole novel then becomes a character exploration for me as well as a jaw-dropping mountain-load of quakeworthy World Building and awesome implications.
Since I first read this, I read her trilogy and loved it, but what can I say? I still loved this one even more. It speaks to me right down to the absolutely horrible revelations, the personal impacts, the hopes, the fears, the successes... oh, especially the successes... and of course, the question of WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON. :)
To say this book is full of questions is to say that a Jane Austen book is full of lace. It's kind of obvious. The question is: What the hell is the lace up to?
Jemisin is fantastic for mythology and mythology building, but what is best about this book is the sense of long history and cycles and the deep feeling like it is all headed somewhere huge. And it is. Just let me ask you... What DID happen to the moon? ;)
If you haven't read this yet, then you're a fool. :) It's deeply textured in all ways, and its not just the fact that the gods are chained or that we killed Father Earth's only child. It's pretty obvious that this is a deep time future Earth, too, and everything seems to seriously point toward a mind-blowing explanation beyond recurring extinction events. :) Which happen anyway, so yeah, let's get down to the real reasons, shall we?
WHY. :) Oh so yummy. :)
Looking forward to the awards ceremony tonight. Let's see if my top choice made it! :)
Original Review:
This is my first N. K. Jemisin, and I'm truly ashamed that I hadn't gotten around to her writing before now. I'm just putting that out right away, because this shame is all my own, and it is deep.
Secondly, this feels like an intensely personal novel, to me, and for me, although maybe nobody will ever know why, except me. The way she treats the volcanoes and the earthquakes make me seethe with jealousy and rage, because it is just so damn good.
And thirdly, I'm stuck straddling the line between how much I enjoyed the POV developments and how they eventually revealed something truly great by the end and how much I wish I had known the secret from the very start. It wouldn't have taken much. Just another line following each heading. There would have been no confusion, no mystery. But no, it is as it is, and I'm very likely going to have to reread the novel to pick up any possible failings of my inconsiderate attention span before I dive into the second novel that follows this.
So what am I trying to say, here? That I'm a miserable failure who is taking this novel way too seriously and admits that he may have missed too much on the first read because the novel was too dense for his little brain? Possibly.
But what I'm really saying is that this novel has skyrocketed to one of the topmost favorite novels that I've ever read, that I'm squeeing about it, and that I think I've just found my newest favorite author of all time.
I like to think that I'm fairly well read. I like to think I have a fairly discriminate palate that shows in my reviews, even if they don't always show in something as simple as a star on a bar. I like to think that I can pick out works of deeply fine quality and works that have obviously been borne quite bloodily from an author's head, like Athena, only with much more gore. This is one of those damn fine novels that just REEKS of imagination, forethought, CRAFT, and one hell of a fine setup, a fine conclusion, and finally, a fantastic and sharp new setup.
I remember the moon. I thought of it throughout this novel. Its having been missing throughout all these damn cataclysms caused me as much grief as the idea that the Fifth Seasons are actually huge diebacks on the Earth, recurring endlessly ever since we killed the moon in some mysterious and immense SF past. We have people with amazing powers, almost godlike in scope, having undergone so much social and historical upheavals, themselves, that no one even knows their history any longer, or why they chose to chain themselves.
We have our main character and her shadow, (view spoiler)[seen semi-confusedly through different names and time periods, from childhood to adulthood to middle age; the last being the present, shown to us through the POV of her shadow in second-person. (hide spoiler)] developing to a final convergence that is a truly wonderful reveal, while leaving us with even greater questions and a truly immense possible conflict. As if supervolcanoes and earthquakes and their control or release weren't enough conflict, right? We've the makings of one of the biggest revenge stories I've ever had the pleasure to read.
It's almost as if I'm reading a quality SF novel that has been allowed the freedom to go Super Sayan on me.
And so my jaw drops.
Am I utterly amazed after reading this? Yes. Hell yes. Do I have any reservations with the author's writing, timing, storytelling, subject, characters, or reveals? No. Hell no.
I do want so say one thing after reading the afterward, though. Thank you, Ms. Jemisin for not giving up on this amazing novel. All of your blood, sweat, and tears have brought forth something truly great. I am indebted to you, personally, for changing my life and my expectations about what can actually be pulled forth from a great novel. You did something Big. Thank you!
Update 4/27/16
And so now we learn that this novel has been nominated for both the 2016 Hugo and the Nebula! By my review above, I'm pretty certain I've expressed how much I love this book, and that has not changed one bit. If I was in a position to scream from my soapbox to say to the Nebulas that this is the clear winner, I would. As it *is*, I CAN scream from my soapbox to the Hugos and say it. :)
I mentioned in my review for The Aeronaut's Windlass, another book that also got the Hugo nomination for this year, that there really should be two separate categories for Standalone Novels and another for Novels in a Series, because most series novels have the luxury of taking things extremely slow and build character, setting, and plot in such long sweeping epics that when we look back on them, they fairly overwhelm us if they've done their job right.
Standalone novels can do the same thing, of course, but they have to do so economically and usually with a great deal of panache and brilliance and editing that probably makes it an entirely different kind of beast from the series novels. At this point in the SF/F genres, we have amazing examples of both and we're getting crowded in one single category that more often than not has to artificially balance series novels 3 out of 5 in 2016, crowding out a plethora of brilliant standalone novels.
I'm fairly naturally prejudiced to separate these two forms in my head, because I'm totally invested in the characters and settings in the series, while I'm learning everything new for the first time in the standalone.
When I think of the Hugos, I generally think of standalone novels, but I *know* it isn't true. I've recently finished reading all the Hugo winners and a very significant portion of the nominations all the way back to the start of the award. Still, I feel a bit prejudiced. I want excellent standalone novels to be recognized as such, uncontaminated by preconceptions.
BUT. I also have to make a decision based on just how F***ing Awesome a book is, too, and The Fifth Season, even if it is the first in a new series, is F***ing Awesome.
I'm sure a lot of people felt the same way about Ancillary Justice when it came out, and I can't say that was the wrong choice for that year, either. :) Good is Good is Good is Good.
So regardless of whether the category should be split up or not, out of all the choices we're presented, I think The Fifth Season should shake the whole ceremony up. :)...more
This is one hell of a nonlinear exploration of a repeated life, as can be deduced from the title, but it's also a lot more. It'I'm almost speechless.
This is one hell of a nonlinear exploration of a repeated life, as can be deduced from the title, but it's also a lot more. It's also a lot better, too.
I loved the premise from the get go. All Groundhog Day but stretched for a whole lifetime, and Harry isn't alone. There are others with effective immortality sharing info through repeated but changeable timelines, allowing for a linear continuation of a setting that can be changed with every single revision.
Claire North did an absolutely fantastic job exploring all the ramifications and rules of the existence, but more importantly, she spun a fantastic tale of exploration and intrigue, revenge, and implacable willpower.
Whatever might have begun as a rather humdrum initial character quickly became one of the most fascinating and deep character studies I've had the pleasure to read in quite some time. More importantly, I didn't even have to stew over it, because the writing was as clear as crystal despite the inherent risk of an inherently complex tale falling apart due to being told out of order.
Of course, this was an absolutely fantastic novel. It didn't fall apart at all. More importantly, it sucked me right in even as I wanted to be a part of the premise and the world and DO things there.
For a long while, there were no distractions that I had to focus on exclusively, and I liked that aspect.
Later on, this changed entirely, and it was smart and intense. The later development was very warm, with an extremely sympathetic and likeable villain. I was pretty amazed that it took several lifetimes to finally wrap up satisfactorily, and it truly did satisfy.
This was a serious piece of literature. I'm surprised and kinda shocked that it didn't make the Hugo list last year. If I had this lifetime to do over, I'd make sure everyone knew this was a serious contender and make sure people knew it was a shoe-in. As it is, I'm pretty sure this novel will stand the test of time, and if there is any justice in the world, people will still be mimicking or talking about it 20 years from now.
Yes. It is that good.
Truly excellent depth and exploration of both story and character, and a premise that is superior to almost any time travel tale I've ever read. I got done with the Lives of Tao series not too long ago, and I really wanted to compare the two because they were close in time and subject, but after reflection, I have to say that this novel is superior in style and seriousness. The other was just plain fun. This one made me believe.
As a novel of ideas, the novel is absolutely rich and fantastic.
But when it comes to the writing, I had to complain a bit about the choice of tropes.As a novel of ideas, the novel is absolutely rich and fantastic.
But when it comes to the writing, I had to complain a bit about the choice of tropes. I'm wasn't certain that a mystery was the absolute best medium to propel the main tale, but when the book is said and done, I can't fault how it was wrapped up. Everything made perfect sense. I found that I was caught up in my own prejudices even as I was reading it, and the journey had changed me in the end, which is strange enough, because we're not talking about great human quirks that plague us. It was just the fact that I was reading a truly superior fantasy that thought it was a murder mystery.
It turned out to be a sneaky novel that paraded about like a police procedural in the beginning but wind up being a god-slaying action adventure and political coup. What the hell? Seriously, I was pretty ambivalent during most of the first third of the novel. I really enjoyed the brilliant worldbuilding, but the operative angle and murder mystery was just okay. If it's intent was to slow me down and take the view, it did, but I didn't need it. I was already completely hooked by the world.
And then something happened. At first it was Sigurd. And then it was Shara and the conspiracy, the hints of killed gods coming back.
One thing anyone ought to know before reading this book is that it has a really fantastic magic system. As a mystery and eventually a political novel, it turns out pretty awesome, but as an epic fantasy that masquerades as a modern land of industry after the assassination of all the gods that could bend reality to their will, the novel's pretty freaking fantastic. The fantasy compels and twists and delights.
When the action starts, it ranks up there as a heroic legend full of all the classic signatures, outperforming so many of my own favorite fantasy classics that I actually put the book down to cheer for a while.
The two main characters made this novel shine, heavy mashups of tons of tropes, and yet it wasn't a mess. I felt their personalities eventually blow across the pages like a storm.
Sigurd was a Queequeg. He was an unkillable tortured hero pirate and sidekick, and lost prince and a godkiller.
Shara was the transforming naive government functionary detective historian setting reluctant foot into national politics and fighting injustice while also happening to be a god-killing great-granddaughter of a tortured godkiller that brought about the technological supremacy of Saypur so many years ago.
Truly, I loved how complicated these two were. Their mashups were delightful.
But the question is: How does anyone transform such humble mystery beginnings into a nearly hopeless epic battle against truly reality-warping gods?
I'm at a loss to explain. (It's that good.) Read it for yourself to experience the journey. ;)
Mr. Bennett has successfully built a set of stairs into the sky, one step at a time, but unlike Bulikov, these stairs actually GO somewhere. Bravo!
Seriously, I am looking forward to the next in the series with something approaching insanity. :)
I just realized that I haven't updated my top ten book list in my own mind for almost a decade. I certainly haven't modified my topI don't believe it.
I just realized that I haven't updated my top ten book list in my own mind for almost a decade. I certainly haven't modified my top three in over 25 years.
What I have just read has just supplanted number three. Perhaps even number two.
For the moment, I feel like it might have supplanted number one.
I cried like a baby when I closed the book, and even now I can't believe what I just read. It was lyrical and it unpacked with a density of a rushing locomotive. It was full of heart and soul, and it was smart, smart, smart in its choices.
It is a double tragedy. Raphael Carter, as far as I can tell, never wrote another novel. I will likely be a lifelong devotee to this novel, and I'll be rereading it soon. I'm already missing it and I just finished it.
Maybe it's a triple tragedy, because the book is out of print. I was lucky enough to find it used. As far as I can tell, the novel is the greatest unknown mystery of the world. So few people even know about it. Hell, I need to shout out its praises to the world and not let this beautiful work ever be forgotten. And yet, it is. I only picked it up because Jo Walton praised it from her mountaintop as a work that should not be forgotten, and I can't thank her enough.
What is the novel, you ask? It's the soul of humanity as sung from the soul of the last whale. It's the redemption and utter loss of ghost girls and cyborgs. It's the chains that we bind ourselves with, whether in our heart or our minds or everyone else. It's hope. It's horror.
It's recalling, for me, the most heartbreaking moments of V for Vendetta, a movie I've seen a dozen times so that it brings me to tears. It takes the best traditions of cyberpunk and pushes it through the meat grinder, showing us what despair can lie behind the eyes of telepresence ratings.
It's about same-sex true-love and mind rape.
Too much for a novel of 288 pages? Hell no. The writing carries it all and a lot more, effortlessly. This is what I want to make when I grow up.
And it hurts, almost unbearably, that so few people will ever have the chance to experience this novel. If there is justice in the world, then everyone would have the chance to cry over it.
I got my special hardcover out and took my sweet time reading this. It's a favorite, to be sure, and I knew it before I started it nowRe-read 1/30/24:
I got my special hardcover out and took my sweet time reading this. It's a favorite, to be sure, and I knew it before I started it now.
I mean, sure, I'm reading it because the Netflix adaptation is coming out rather soon, but MOSTLY, I just want to enjoy the OMG WHAT DID I JUST READ moments all over again.
Hard SF is absolutely my thing. Good or even great Hard SF is just too much for my poor heart. Good thing I know how to dehydrate just before I'm utterly dead. I'll be sure to come back during another Stable Season.
And yes, I'm muahahahahahaing about what I know will come in the full trilogy. No spoilers, but wow.
Original Review:
From the opening, I was struck by how much history I didn't know about China's Cultural Revolution. It might be obvious to anyone growing up in those parts, of course, but I was almost lost in that story long before I saw that there was anything sci-fi about the novel. This is a good thing. It speaks of good writing.
And then things changed. I became a frog in a pot. Small hints accumulate, surrounded by mathematical problems both fundamental and curious.
And then the MC's sanity is questioned. It's an open question that both the reader and the character must answer.
And then I got an idea. I could easily make the argument that all scientists in this novel are actually Main Characters, and indeed, that theory only becomes crystal clear later in the novel. It was a delight.
The novel is full of scientist suicides, damn odd hallucinations, all the way to a fantastic virtual reality game that draws intellectuals from around the world before devolving into a suggestive epic space opera featuring some of the most interesting aliens I've read about in a LONG time.
The worldbuilding is top-knotch-squared.
The clever uses of technology are the true highlights of the novel, and I'm upset. Why? Because the translations and publications for the next two novels are still in the future. Why am I still upset? Because I can hardly find the other works for this great author.
A grandmaster of Chinese sci-fi? I can't deny the fact. And just because I can't compare to other science fiction masters of Chinese literature is a null point. I am already a fanboy. I'll be revelling in every work I can get my hands on.
This is a fantastic example of how great science fiction can be. Truly inspiring.
Update.
This novel now a Hugo Nominee for 2015 because of the translation and introduction into the English-speaking market. It is a last minute replacement for Marco Kloos's Lines of Departure that was bravely self-removed due to the Sad Puppy 3 controversy. It wasn't his fault, and he got caught up in some seriously not-cool BS with this year's Hugo. He should be treated like any other Hugo Nominee. With respect and awe for the accomplishment it is, even though he withdrew.
On the other hand, after finding out that Three Body Problem took his place, I have to admit that it couldn't have happened to a better novel. I loved this one. It was really fantastic and it had everything I like to see in seriously good fiction.
This one might truly be my top pick for the year. It might be the one I cast my ballot on. But first, I need to read a few more Nominees. I take this very seriously. We bring our levels of joy and dedication to the ideas we thrive on. Awards are only as good as we make them. I refuse to let the Hugo become a quagmire.
This next novel is probably one of the most cogent and subtle of the stories, or at least it was probably one of the more profound. Loss took on a braThis next novel is probably one of the most cogent and subtle of the stories, or at least it was probably one of the more profound. Loss took on a brand new spin this time. Loss of identity, purpose, and even his alternate life. Simon's tale was as interesting and heartwarming as it was also full of loss. How both of them got back on their feet was the main impetus of the story, although it was hardly a straight line. In Miles's case, it was part happy accident, a realization that he needed to make up for his mistakes, and the need to do what was right. Fortunately, he could call in some major chips to speed him along the right path.
It was an enheartening novel, and infinitely less flashy than some of the previous ones, but probably one of the most satisfying....more
Post-singularity gods and a war in computational heaven. :)
As good on re-read, and so much better as the capstone of the full trilogy.
SRe-Read 5/8/24:
Post-singularity gods and a war in computational heaven. :)
As good on re-read, and so much better as the capstone of the full trilogy.
So much damn destruction. Just -- wow.
This is peak SF, right through each level. :)
Original Review:
I cannot recommend this trilogy enough. It's smart, has mind-blowing images, really fast pace, and ideas to absolutely kill for, and kill again, and even aim for a true death before causality does a flip and the spooky zoku decide that it's time to revoke my entanglements and I lose a few hundred gaming levels.
This novel really feels N-Complete. I'm satisfied in a way that I rarely get, and I have decided to plop these novels into my most favorite books of all time. Sure, there are flaws, but what is most brilliant about them are very, very brilliant, and I can't overlook the beauty of them. I'll definitely revisit all of these novels in the future. They all belong tightly entangled together, and it's so much more apparent now than it would have been by the end of the second novel, despite my faith in the series.
All I will say is, Prison, Prison, Prison, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom. What a gorgeous ride this has been....more
Well, apparently, the universe doesn't want me to write a review, so let's try this a third time. :)
I wanted to like this re-read a lotRe-Read 8/17/16
Well, apparently, the universe doesn't want me to write a review, so let's try this a third time. :)
I wanted to like this re-read a lot more than the first, but unfortunately, the things I thought were uninteresting the first time around, like the Egypt expedition, were still uninteresting, but I stuck around because all the run-ins with the egyptian magicians was still pretty damn wonderful.
As for the first half of the novel, I'd easily give it 5 stars. I mean, where else can you see some unknown poet scholar of Coleridge and an even more unknown poet by the name of Ashbless turn into a time-travelling, swashbuckling hero able to make mortal enemies of near-immortal Egyptian wizards, and do it all the while in 1810 London for 35 more years?
The details and the plot and the funny bits are absolutely great. I like Doyle before and after his transformation into an orange ape, too. :) Perhaps more after his transformation. I love Dog-Face Joe, the body-switching werewolf, all the dirty streets of London, and practically every single enemy in the book. So many of them had other sides to them and evil is not absolute. :)
I still regard this book very highly, especially for the ideas, the wonderful ideas, the surprising magic system, the awesome time travel problems and its clever solutions. Even the writing is clear and interesting well past the middle part, and there was nothing in it to really turn me off about it except, perhaps, that it was too light and too action-y? I don't know. I didn't feel very invested. It turned around again, of course, and the ending was very satisfying, but not enough to knock this book up to a 5 where my *mind* thinks it should be, but my *heart* refuses to budge.
Old Review:
I was surprised to find a novel that was much more complicated and rich than I might have otherwise expected. I knew this was a time travel book, and I knew there would be magic in it. I didn't expect it to be forerunner of the steampunk movement or to be so literary. Mr. Powers put a lot of consideration into the lives portrayed here, and while Doyle was hard to truly love, he grew on me as he grew as a character. I really liked him by the end. There are many twists and turns to the story, and the plot is both intricate and complex. The novel is in third-persion limited omniscience, which allows for a great deal of variety, while sacrificing the immediacy and the feeling of being in the character's skin. I almost wish it was written in first-person, because the sheer amount of detail and description in 1810 London was astounding and beautiful in the horrible way those grubby English types can be, and feeling what he felt would have been an extraordinary treat. This is no urban fantasy novel. The magic was strange and had some very curious aspects to it, and pitting a magical viewpoint with a time-traveler in a closed-loop system felt like a stroke a of genius.
I have to say that the novel, while sometimes slow, was well thought-out and complex. I think it succeeded as a traditional fantasy novel, a traditional science-fiction novel, and also as a traditional horror novel in equal parts. I may be jaded by modern fiction that throws together whichever genres you like to make a goulash that's tasty and strange, or even some science fiction or fantasy that simply draws from the tradition of horror. This novel balances all three and even spares a tithe to mystery, romance, action-adventure, social-commentary a-la Dickens, and poetry. The fact that Mr. Powers pulls it all off is a testament to skill as a writer....more
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this series has got to be one of my all time-favorite SFs ever.
If anything, the second book Re-Read 5/7/24:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this series has got to be one of my all time-favorite SFs ever.
If anything, the second book is better than the first. Or perhaps, I just LOVE story-within-story stories more than anything else.
But here's the real scoop: There's nothing about this novel that I don't love.
That's right. It feels like perfection. It has wild future tech and a post-singularity universe, but it feels like a glorious romance right out of The Arabian Nights while simultaneously being a continuation of a hardcore Arsene Lupin novel.
I love everything about the Earth here. The wild code, the stories, the great tragedies, the Wrath.
But the end? My god, it blew me away.
This is going to be one of those novels I will always treasure.
Original Review:
“On the day the Hunter comes for me, I am killing ghost cats from the Schrödinger Box.”
I luuuuurve this opening line. His craft is exquisite, so far.
Update: The imagery is almost better than anything I've read in either sci-fi or fantasy. If you took out the better and deeper images from all thee matrix movies, threw them up against the wall with jinn and fairies and the greatest heist mysteries, heavily spiced it with near-impossible mathematical concepts and theorems that really need some deep explanations you're not going to even remotely get in this text, (save S. cat, but he gives a quick explanation for this one, although its been done in sci-fiction a lot already), you stir in planetary intelligences, diamond cities that crashed to earth, slow and quicktime peoples, AND warring sisters, then maybe you've got the first gorgeous fifty pages of this book. And don't forget to keep a copy of your mind before you read, or you might just lose a copy of your prime iteration. I want to give this 6 stars. Have I been waiting for something like this all my life since Singularity Sky? Maybe. :)
A quote:
"So. Sightseeing instead. How about watching a transhuman mind have a Hawking orgasm? From afar." Mieli smiles. A warm rush of relief washes over her. "I bet you say that to all the girls," she says.
The entire novel is poetry and math and all told with brilliant imagery. I've decided to bone up on my quantum physics, too, just so I can appreciate the story more. I may be relatively unique in this respect, because I don't really believe that general readership of sci-fi novels just "decide" to understand quantum physics in order to more fully appreciate a novel they had just read. Well, to be fair, I've read popular accounts in the past and have enjoyed them immensely, even if I pick up on less than one-tenth of the math. Ok, maybe I'm not that odd after all in wanting a greater understanding. At least, in this case, I feel really justified and encouraged after reading this brilliant work of math/fiction.
So I finished it and I can only say: Wow.
Well, I can say a lot more, because wow doesn't do it a third of justice. Or even an irrational third of justice. What I will say is that these two books have now jumped to my top ten favorite books list. Together, because I don't want to cause other injustices to stories, and I have a very great feeling about the next book.
While I ought to recommend this book to everyone, I doubt it will be to everyone's taste. But then does everyone like Blake, Shakespeare, Manly P Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages? Of course they should... But they are all very very different than this piece which might need to be its own genre from now on. I'm tempted to just transcend here and put an end to my misery. Read em, peeps. Just read em, perhaps three times. You'll see.
Update, second read.
I laughed and I cried. I got more out of the whole story angle than I did the first time, all of the stories within stories, minds within stories, stories coming to life and eating your children, your children coming back from the dead to birth stories that would later eat the Earth and help the dead child become the God King of the Gogols? OH YES. Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes. He turned a fundamentally metafiction concept into a hypercube and spun it out with such verve and beauty as to kick my mind in its ass. I cannot say how much I loved this book. Again, much better the second time reading than the first, if possible, but I can't regret a single instant....more
Now on my fourth read, and I'll be honest: few novels truly GET me the way this does. High speed plotting enmeshed in post-Singularity Re-Read 5/6/24:
Now on my fourth read, and I'll be honest: few novels truly GET me the way this does. High speed plotting enmeshed in post-Singularity thievery that includes mind, time-theft, truly high-tech baubles, bodies, AI ships, and Game Theory.
Add that to truly erudite writing, clever confabulations of new words, and a truly fluid re-imagining of a society that not only can upload their minds, but can re-fashion a whole world and everyone's memories outside of their bodies -- and how it could so easily be used against them.
What I love most about it is the imagination. The exploration of themes that very well might come to pass for us if we're not careful. But most importantly, this is an exploration WELL beyond the technology we have today, done cleverly and terrifyingly.
But does this mean it's inaccessible? Hello no! It's full of Jean le Flameur, thief extraordinare, and his thief-taker always in tow. :) Funny, brilliant, and full of great truly high-tech mystery.
This late in the game, I'd kinda point fingers at Alastair Reynold's Prefect series and Bank's Culture series as similar titles... but truly, I love this best.
Original Review:
I am very surprised and delighted by this novel. I half-expected an idea or a theme from Stephen Baxter's Flux, but was thoroughly captivated by such a deeply thought-out world and a complex plot. I didn't find many issues with plot discontinuity, as such. There were quick scene changes that might have benefited by a more overt transition or two, but that is a minor issue compared to the tapestry of worlds within worlds that this author has written. Very enjoyable characters, and the twists are fully supported by the main premises. I found myself thinking of new twists that could be supported by his frame and was surprised by more that I hadn't thought deeply enough about. I think I'll enjoy reading this novel again, and not too far in the future. First, I shall read his second novel and see how much more craft he's crammed into his writing with such giddy fractal twirls.
I understand that this novel isn't for the general audience, but I'll tell you straight: IT SHOULD BE.
If you like this, then I recommend Charles Stross's Singularity Sky and Saturn's Children and especially Accellerando. Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash and Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon and Anathem. I would be remiss to leave out other cyberpunk masters, but let's face it: the good stuff is in the post-cyberpunk worlds, dealing with all of the complicated ideas and deeper developments.
The deeper exploration is where this novel really shines. From a strictly craft point of view, I loved the poetry in the techno-babble that verges on a simple techno-babel and almost teeters into complete cognizance. :) Actually, I lie. The quantum foam and Q-dots made me giggle. I loved every second of it.
Great book!
Second read was even better than the first, especially after getting to know all of the terms and players. I loved the poetry in the text, the visual imagery, the requirement for every reader to throw themselves and their souls into the story, only to come up, gasping for air, not quite realizing that the water was highly oxygenated and we could have been breathing it all along.
I laughed more times, this second read. I am almost to the opinion that everyone ought to read this book, or better yet, this trilogy, at least two times through before making a serious opinion of it. Only after thoughtful consideration have I finally come to the conclusion that this meta-tale, this monolith of story, this dire-light, this cutting of an epic gordian knot has got to be one of the classics of literature. It is dense. No doubt about it.
But it is ever so much more rewarding than I had ever expected it to be....more
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