Liminal States

My introduction to Liminal States was having one of my friends tell me that they strongly disliked the ending but that I should read it because they would like to hear my opinion.  Oh, and it was a pretty good ride up until that ending.  Intrigued, I made some time in my reading schedule and gave it a try.

Zack Parsons wrote what is basically a trilogy in one book.  There are three clearly defined parts with the characters that do overlap having gone through significant emotional changes through the parts.  The first part is a western, and while it is a little unusual for the genre, it has a lot of the western tropes including a sheriff's posse and a train robbery.  The second part is a 1950's detective story, once again a little strange but with many of the appropriate cliches.  The final part is set in 2006 and is just basically an action thriller.

While I try not to discuss plot elements of the books I talk about on here, since the back cover gives away the following point and the book sounds very disjointed without it... One of the main characters in the book is an outlaw who discovers a secret way to be immortal.  Because he discovers this, and some of the other implications that this creates, lead to significant divergences from our timeline, so the book takes place in an alternate history, hence the science fiction label.

The book is extremely graphic in parts.  For example, in the aforementioned train robbery, the train gets derailed.  The book goes into detail describing how many on the train die.  In then goes on to talk about how the derailing upset a wasp nest and how those wasps go and sting the survivors.  The author just seems to enjoy writing about that sort of thing.  Though it makes certain sections seem like the literary equivalent to a Saw movie.

You are probably wondering how I liked the ending.  It was certainly unexpected. There is a point where, as the reader, you realize that there is no way that it can end up the way you had been expecting.  I do wish certain aspects of the end had been changed, but overall I was satisfied.  The real problem with it was that the third person limited narrative left a lot of things unexplained and beyond that, there seemed to be quite a few loose ends that were just dropped.  While this did make the book more unpredictable, it seems like there was a lot of narrative possibility that was just wasted. 

Overall, the book is certainly interesting and while it is definitely a lot more science fiction than it is horror, there are some horror themed aspects to it.  Honestly, there are parts of this that will appeal to fans of almost any genre.  However, as a whole, it would have benefited from a little more smoothing.  I would give this book a 84%.

NOTE: This book is part of a "alternate reality narrative" and there are a lot of multimedia things including a related short story (it takes place entirely before the book, but it does not matter at all to the plot until the third part) on liminalstates.com.

Time Enough For Love

I have said it before on this blog, and in the future I will probably say again, I like cohesive canons.  Time Enough for Love is (arguably) the final chapter in Hienlein's Future History series.  Most of the rest of which is collected in The Past Through Tomorrow which is an interesting read in its own right.  Most of the stories can be ignored, except for the last one which is basically a prologue to Time Enough for Love.

The main character of the book, Lazarus Long, is a very interesting man.  The basic premise is that he has been living for thousands of years and seen most of what humanity and the galaxy have to offer.  Basically, as sort of his last act before he gives up on life he tells some vignettes from his past.  In this way, the first half of the book is basically a collection of short stories.  It also contains excerpts from his "notebooks" which are insightful and humorous.

The book has a lot of sexual parts in it.  The main character practices polyamory quite a bit and (partially because he has lived so long he is related to most people) has incestuous relations as well.  This leads to a talk of "defectives" on multiple different occasions and Lazarus discusses his distaste for them and how he feels humanity should get rid of them.  That sort of talk makes me uncomfortable.  While I do think that eugenics has interesting possibilities, I would never have it enacted in such a way that people were killed to improve the gene pool (more of the Bene Gesserit style). 

If you can get past some of the less mainstream sexual bits and Lazarus' ocean of self-pity in the first part of the book.  This is a really fun read full of interesting quotes and tidbits.  It is almost unnecessarily referential to the story Methuselah's Children (which is the last story in the above mentioned collection) so it is probably a good idea to read that before you start in on this book.  I would give this book an 83%.

The Wind Through the Keyhole

When I was significantly younger, my uncle lent my mother a copy of Stephen King's The Gunslinger as an audiobook on the way back from New Jersey.  About 45 minutes in there was a sex scene and my mother shut it off (I cannot really blame her.  I am not sure that I would want to listen to a sex scene with my single digit age child).  However, the idea of a cowboy trekking across a desert stuck with me.  Then when I was in high school, I went through a phase where I would spend a lot of time at the local library reading whatever piqued my interest.  There I found The Gunslinger again and all the other books in the Dark Tower series.  I found the series greatly entertaining despite some of its flaws and the protagonist, Roland, was a hero I could get behind, especially in the fourth book Wizard and Glass which recounts an adventure from his younger days.  In addition, the way that the series ends in book seven was really, at the time, quite novel to me.

In March of last year, Stephen King, one of the most prolific authors, announced that he was going to be producing a book to come in between the 4th and 5th books in the time line entitled The Wind Through the Keyhole.  My initial reaction was excitement because I am a sucker for a continuing story.  My love of the Star Wars canon probably stems in a large part from the fact that it is one long continuing story.  However, that was overtaken by trepidation, was this just some publicity trick?  It has been a while since I read the series, but I don't remember much space between 4 and 5.  However, being the faithful fan, I preordered it and avoided most of the information about it.

When I finally read it, I realized that it had a very interesting format.  There is a frame story about the series' protagonists listening to Roland tell a story about his younger days.  However, as part of that story, he tells a story he heard as a child to someone else and the readers must dutifully follow him into a frame story within a frame story and then back out, one level at a time.  (kinda Inception-esque)  Not that this is bad, but I am not sure that I have ever read a book with (relatively long) stories three layers deep.

I thought that the story that was at the middle level was significantly better than the other two and wished that it had been fleshed out more.  On reading, it is pretty obvious that the deepest story is the one that he really wanted to tell but he wanted to tie it to characters that people would recognize from the other books.

If you are a fan of Stephen King in general and are picking this up to read something in his style, I would not recommend it.  It is more like his normal fare than the other Dark Tower books but it is certainly not horror or even suspense.  If you are hoping for a normal science fiction or fantasy story, however, this really isn't one of those either. There are a lot of things that go pretty much unexplained unless you have read the other books (and some that are weird even if you have).  However, if you liked the world of the Dark Tower, this a great reminder of what it was like.  Little things like the lexicon and the way that certain events happened were a great throwback to the last time that I read them and brought me many happy memories.

Perhaps this will get more people interested in the Dark Tower series but I cannot honestly believe that it will.  If someone was interested in reading the Dark Tower series, I would definitely hand them The Gunslinger first without even thinking about The Wind Through the Keyhole.  It is the difference between teaching someone to swim in a wading pool or in the deep end with weights on their legs.

In short, if you enjoyed the Dark Tower, you probably owe this a read.  If you are interested in the Dark Tower, read at least the first four books first, if not the seven who have come out before this.  I would give this book a 79%.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Around three years ago, I watched the movie Blade Runner.  I know that there are multiple different editions and I could not really tell you which one I watched.  I primarily watched it because it is a classic and stars Harrison Ford, one of my favorite actors.  I knew it was based on a book but I never really got around to picking it up until this summer.

This summer I was in an environment with a lot more used book stores than the town I currently live in and I went a little crazy.  I am unsure of exactly how many books I bought but shipping them home came to about 25 pounds.  I went in one bookstore that had more than 20 copies of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which is the book Blade Runner is based on.  I snatched it up because, well, why not?  (Also, it had an abnormal cover for the book which I always like)

I have to say that I didn't notice this was a sheep until I got the cover for this post.  I just thought it was random blobs of color.  Suddenly, it makes way more sense.



While it has been a while since I have seen the movie, I felt that this book made more sense than the movie overall.  They definitely bring up the question of the difference between humans and replicants in different ways than the movie.  In addition, there is this whole strange religion that the movie basically ignores that allows the author to bring in some other concepts like the battle between entertainment and religion. 

Overall, this book uses its post apocalyptic setting to fit a surprising amount of metaphor, symbolism, and debate into its relatively short story.  There are certainly some parts that are strange, but if the reader can take those in stride, this book will give them a lot to think about.  I would give it an 84%.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

I think that Charles Yu would have been a better choice to the sixth Hitchhiker's Guide book than Eoin Colfer.  I will admit that I have not read the latest edition to the series, but I have heard from others that it was not fantastic.  Unlike many series, I am perfectly happy to let that one rest as the trilogy in five parts that it was meant to be.

The reason that I think that Charles Yu would have done a better job is that this his book, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, is very similar to the later books in the series.  It has that same mixture of being humorous, meaningful, and slightly depressing.

The reason I picked up this book was the words "a novel" on the front.  At first glance I thought it was one of thise faux instruction books like the zombie survival guide.  Lured in by the promise of a real story and not lists of good things to remember if you travel back in time, I gave it a read.

The book is chock full of references to other science fiction works, some blatant some subtle, but all lovingly added.  There is a great section about when he was growing up how all the kids on his block wanted to be Han Solo.  Much of the book takes place in clearly science fictional locales but there is so much about his relationship with his father and his life growing up that I cannot help but wonder if it is at least a little autobiographical. 

This book has so many great quotes, I can almost flip through it and find one on every page.  There is an interesting discussion about the how there are many versions of who a person could be, but only one version of who a person ought to be (in relation to the many worlds theory of time travel).   Another really interesting part is when the author talks about how people, when given access to time travel, will travel back to the worst day of their lives.  I am not sure if I believe that everyone would do that, but I think a great many people would.

This book does have a fair amount of technobabble.  I think it is intended to be humorous, and in some places it is.  However, I feel that it might drive off some less tolerant readers.  Despite this it is overall a fun read.  If you like science fiction, philosophical musings, and humor, you will like this book.  I would give it a 81%.

Shane

My discovery of Shane was sparked by Wikipedia.  I was looking up information on the most recent Dark Tower book (which I will be reviewing soon) and I began wandering through Wikipedia as some people have a tendency to do.  I noticed that main character of the Dark Tower series, Roland, was partially based off of the titular character of the book Shane. I do so love origin stories and behind the scenes information, so I thought it would be worthwhile picking up.

When I did scoop it up at my local used book store, (it came out after 1923, so its copyright is still strong) I noticed that it was very short.  Like my the book I reviewed immediately before this one, it was probably 120 pages at the most.  I had noticed on Amazon that versions of the book had been edited to remove "words that might offend" and so I was a little hesitant to pick up a copy without knowing if it was the edited one or not but after a quick look at the copyright page I saw Bantam was kind enough to promise "It contains the complete text of the original hard-cover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED."  There were still times when characters said "By Godfrey" or something similar but I assume that that was in the original version.

What I read about this book would have me believe that it redefined the western genre; somewhat created the mysterious gunslinger archetype.  I would believe it, a lot of this book seems slightly cliche now but I can forgive that if it was creating those tropes.  This was Jack Schaefer's first book, and his most famous.  For a writer to come out of the gate with a book like this shows real skill.

The storytelling and pacing are excellent.  Living in this era, knowing that the mysterious gunfighter is the protagonist, most readers would be able to guess a lot of the plot just from that.  However, this story is told entirely from the view of an admiring kid, which does make it an interesting change from the norm.  The way that certain things are described, the book can really take you into the kid's head and show how he really looks up to Shane.

I am not a huge fan of the western genre, but I enjoyed this.  It was a fast, fun read with bona fide historical significance. Overall, I would give it an 87%.

The Uncommon Reader

When I was at the Connie Willis signing, one of the people in the audience asked her what books she would recommend to readers other than her own.  She suggested many books, several of them classics like Dickens, many of which went in one ear and out the other.  However, one lodged in my sulci and lingered in my thoughts.  She described The Uncommon Reader as a book for people who love books.  She summarized the basic plot as "The queen discovers a library at the kingdom's expense" and mentioned that there were many things in the book that would be almost in jokes to a regular reader.  This sounded like a book that I would like to read someday, so I made a mental note of it and told myself I would pick it up someday.

That very weekend, I saw it staring at me out of the shelves of my favorite new bookstore and, needing something that I would be able to finish in the few days before I was leaving town, scooped it up.  Not even a child would call this a long book, it is 120 pages at the outside, more of a novella than a novel but it delivers upon Ms. Willis' promise.

Anyone who is a voracious reader will easily emphasize with the queen as she reads her way across the kingdom, losing interest in some of the boring pomp and wanting only to talk about books.  Mr. Bennett manages to mention a great deal of writers, some directly and some indirectly, so this book has the quality of being more fleshed out the more you have read.

Near the end of the book, the queen says something really interesting: "Reading softens one while writing toughens one up".  I had never thought about reading and writing in those terms before.  I am not 100% sure I agree with the sentiment but it is certainly food for thought.

If you are someone who likes to read, you will enjoy this book.  If you fit into the preceding category and are well read too, then you will love this book.  Overall, I would give this book an 83% but if you can catch all of the references, which I know I didn't, it is probably more like an 87%.