Reading in February 2012

I finished The face of Another by Kobo Abe (Engl lang 2011, orig Japanese 1964) and while it is not really sfnal, it is very associational. I plan to have a full rv on FBc soon though I need a little time for the book to settle. below some quick thoughts

Its main idea is simple - a scientist gets burned by liquid nitrogen and his face becomes ruined so he starts trying to get an artificial one as close as possible to lifelike; in the process he splits his identity in two - the "original" and the "mask" and they start to compete for the affections of his wife.

However the novel is much more than that as a meditation on identity, on what it means to be human, on what visual impressions (including skin color for example) mean and how they ultimately shape our destiny.
 
Erfael said:
. I have no explanation for the wide divide in how I enjoy her works.

But those I like, I like quite a bit.
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I'm in the same boat. I really like how she is able to make people and other species seem alien. In that she's similar to Ursula K. LeGuin in works like The Left Hand of Darkness.
 
I got started on Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey last night, and it seemed alright. I liked what I read, but rolled my eyes a bit at... uh... how quickly the main character engaged in certain acts with another character.
 
Loerwyn said:
I got started on Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey last night, and it seemed alright. I liked what I read, but rolled my eyes a bit at... uh... how quickly the main character engaged in certain acts with another character.
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That happens a lot with McCaffrey, just to warn you. There's sex in every book just about.
 
NickeeCoco said:
I decided to finally give Cherryh's Foreigner a try. I've read her fantasy, and I liked it, but my previous SF foray of hers wasn't as stellar (pun intended). Hammerfall and its sequel were fairly boring, I thought. They had their points, but I felt they dragged.

Foreigner reminds me a bit of Hammerfall, but the mystery of who the assassin is is far more interesting. Not too far into it, but we'll see how it goes.
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I didn't like Hammerfall and couldn't get into Cherryh's fantasy. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the Foreigner and Faded Sun books. They're among my favorites.
 
beniowa said:
I didn't like Hammerfall and couldn't get into Cherryh's fantasy. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the Foreigner and Faded Sun books. They're among my favorites.
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I've been thinking I need to give Cherryh a third shot. I swung and missed with The Dreaming Tree duology and missed again when I read Downbelow Station.

Third time was a charm for Mr. Moorcock, so maybe...
 
Rob B said:
I've been thinking I need to give Cherryh a third shot. I swung and missed with The Dreaming Tree duology and missed again when I read Downbelow Station.

Third time was a charm for Mr. Moorcock, so maybe...
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She is very wordy. Her characters will have inner dialogues and thought processes that last for pages, upon pages. I've read about seven or eight of her books now and from that experience I've come to the conclusion that all of her books are wordy and will have stretches where you don't see any dialogue for four to maybe even ten pages.

That said, she has a remarkable ability to really create sound cultures and people. While I didn't like Hammerfall or Forge of Heaven (Thought I did like Forge better than Hammerfall.), I did like the people she created, the stories behind them and how everyone came to be. I find her very observant and insightful when it comes to people and their motives.

She can be very subtle, while at the same time she focuses on bigger mechanisms. Her stories, while they contain people, are more about how different cultures and people collide and react together and form ties, aversions, biases and allies. If you're looking more for a story about a hero Cherryh probably isn't going to float your boat. If you're interested in seeing a "what if" scenario, than Cherryh will be for you.

That's my take on her anyway.
 
Loerwyn said:
*whimper*

I'm okay with... The Deed, but not when it's just... random, if that makes sense?
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The Crystal Singer trilogy centres around Killashandra's relationships just as much as the crystal singing, maybe even more. I guess they could even be considered SF romances (both in the romantic relationship sense and the literary sense). McCaffrey's characters tend to be confident with their sexuality and live in a society where sex doesn't have all the taboos as it can here. Even in her Dragonriders of Pern books sex plays an important role. When dragon's mate, their riders get this uncontrollable urge to have wild, passionate sex with each other (as in a green dragon mates with a blue, so those two riders have to mate with each other too). If they don't mate with each other they could die. IT's funny, because McCaffrey is often thought of as good, wholesome reading, but she loved adding sex in there.

I personally love The Crystal Singer books. I own the entire trilogy and they're old and beaten up from many re-reads. I probably first read them fifteen years ago. I revisit them every couple of years. They're not greats works, but they're fun.
 
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I've got to admit sex puts me off a *lot* of books, or takes away from the experience for me. Take Back Plenty, Friday, Forever War, possibly Crystal Singer - as soon as the pants come off, I get fed up. Heck, it's even why I never got past the first page or so of the first Valor book by Tanya Huff.

I don't know why, though. Maybe I'm just a big prude :p
 
Loerwyn said:
I've got to admit sex puts me off a *lot* of books, or takes away from the experience for me. Take Back Plenty, Friday, Forever War, possibly Crystal Singer - as soon as the pants come off, I get fed up. Heck, it's even why I never got past the first page or so of the first Valor book by Tanya Huff.

I don't know why, though. Maybe I'm just a big prude :p
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Now see, I'm completely the opposite. To me it adds to the realism... because its what people do.
 
NickeeCoco said:
She is very wordy.

...
...
...

That's my take on her anyway.
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I would completely agree with you, except that Rimrunners didn't do that. There was some of that internal stuff going on, but it was much less than in other books (maybe due to the fact that there were no alien races here). It was definitely a lot different than any other Cherryh I've tried. So much so, in fact, that I went hunting release dates to see if it was much earlier or later than other works I've read. Nope. Right in the middle of them all. I have no explanation for it, but this one was just different.
 
Erfael said:
I would completely agree with you, except that Rimrunners didn't do that. There was some of that internal stuff going on, but it was much less than in other books (maybe due to the fact that there were no alien races here). It was definitely a lot different than any other Cherryh I've tried. So much so, in fact, that I went hunting release dates to see if it was much earlier or later than other works I've read. Nope. Right in the middle of them all. I have no explanation for it, but this one was just different.
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That's one I haven't read. I'm intrigued.


Loerwyn said:
If it's consistent with the characters, fine, but when it's in the first few chapters with a bloke she just met, it kinda gets me :p
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Maybe she just likes having sex? That's consistent. I'm sure there's a few of us members who've had adventures in that regard. I say that sort of thing happens all the time.
 
NickeeCoco said:
Maybe she just likes having sex? That's consistent. I'm sure there's a few of us members who've had adventures in that regard. I say that sort of thing happens all the time.
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Yeah, I understand that, I just don't particularly care for it in my fiction. Prudish or what, eh? :D
 
Loerwyn said:
Yeah, I understand that, I just don't particularly care for it in my fiction. Prudish or what, eh? :D
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With all due respect and while it's an interesting topic, I would suggest creating a thread to discuss it and talk here a little more about sf books rather than generalities.

So back on topic, as John Ringo had an announcement a few days ago that he completed (finally, after years of constant bugging) the synopsis for the 5th Prince Roger (Empire of Man) novel which goes now to D. Weber for tweaks/approval/etc and hopefully in 2-3 years we will have the book; so I reread the first 4 books (March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars, We Few) and I remembered again how much I love this series - the combination of interstellar intrigue and space battles (first 100 pages of March Upcountry, last 100 pages of March to the stars and all of We Few) and the action on the primitive planet of Marduk with the superb world building, fascinating cultures, crazy battles on land and on sea and dangerous fauna (March Upcountry from page 100 on till last 100 pages of March to the Stars)

memorable characters and wrenching moments - every book at least one "main" character dies and only a few survive from the almost 200 that are marooned on Marduk, while of course in We Few this continues, though also new characters are introduced in each book

While We Few ends on a great note and closes the arc of the first 4 novels decisively, as Mr. Ringo put it, our main hero Prince Roger "made some promises" in the previous books so it is time to fulfill them and of course there is the little matter of the civil war he inherits...

Anyway the first 4 books are free at the Baen CD place on any newer CD like the one for Mission of Honor and I am really looking forward to the next books whenever they will be out - I kind of doubted for a long time that there will be more and while I sure wanted that, the first 4 books have enough closure to keep me happy but now I am really excited as this series is on par with the best out there.

As Mr. Ringo puts it colorfully (see here):

"-I recently reread the series. When I got done I walked into the livingroom and growled at Miriam. 'These God Damned writers! How can they just LEAVE it that way! Roger has PROMISES TO KEEP! WHERE THE HELL IS THE SEQUEL!!!!?'"
 
Babel-17 by Samuel R Delany : I picked this up because it was mentioned positively in Jo Walton's Among Others, and I'm glad I gave it try.
The scientific part is concerned mostly with language and communication, interesting even if the theories have been discredited since the book was written. There's also a lot to like about some space opera elements of conflicting galactic empires, spaceship battles and seedy suburbs of a port city filled with oddball characters. And the poetry, human interaction parts are really beautiful written.
 
Return returning to Empire State by Adam Christopher which I sampled earlier in the year. It continues to get good reviews, including from one M. Yon esq., so I've been drawn back to it. I also like the fact that Christopher is a New Zealander -- I've never read any NZ sf and I'm holidaying there in April.
 
LOL: Thanks, Luke. Be interested in what you think at the end. It's not perfect IMO, but I thought Adam's take on film noir and superheroes was interesting. Does slow down a little in the middle, but keep going with it: it goes rather fast at the end.

Been reading a lot of that sort of thing lately myself, from the Paul Malmont to the noir-ish Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett. (His latest, The Troupe, is also very good in a Bradbury/Carnivale-ish way, btw, at least so far.)

Mark
 
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