ixoy's reading log

Finished "Quantine" by Greg Egan - a rare stand-alone novel for me!

This book started off as a relatively decent but unoriginal cyberpunk storyline with a wet-wired detective tracking down a retarded girl who escaped from a treatment centre. So far, so good but nothing spectacular... and then it takes a right-turn into quantum physics territory that's really quite mind bending. It's Schroedinger's Cat on acid as the book delves into the collapsing of eigenstates and other topics.
The story is told in first person and he seems quite cold (something that's explained quite well and ties in with the novel) but even concepts of identity become blurred once the quantum physics kicks in.

It was Greg Egan's first novel and it's not without its flaws - there's a bit too much repetition of his core concept and the ending is a little too neat (although in keeping with the premise). Still though it works grandly as a work of speculative science fiction and is fiercely imaginative - not in a "flurry of ideas" that Charles Stross excels in, but in a grand imagining of the potential of science fiction.

Incidentally, I wonder if the makers of the spellchecker here are fans since it recognised "eigenstate" which even the Chambers.co.uk site or Dictionary.com don't!

Finished "The Skinner" by Neal Asher, Book 1 in his Spatterjay sequence, set in the same Polity-universe as most of his other works.

Like the rest of his works, I enjoyed this one although it's quite a different beast to his Agent Cormac series. Indeed beast is a suitable description - the world of Spatterjay that he describes is as nasty and violent a world as any I've ever come across. It's a twisted ecology where nearly everyone is immortal due to a virus, meaning an almost endless cycle of predatory violence. Asher's fierce imagination for alien life is on top form here as he describes a sea life that's like Disney's Undersea Kingdom if it was plunged into Hell.

Of course there's a plot weaving through this world - vendettas, rogue AIs (an enjoyable staple of his work), other alien life (great to see more of the Prador that we only saw glimpses of before) and more. It's less epic than the Cormac series and for those who loved the high-tech nature of that series will find it missing here, replaced with other goodness. As always it moves at a crisp pace and even if characterisation isn't always strong, or the worlds aren't the most majestic or literary they could be, it doesn't matter because it's just damned enjoyable.

Finished 'Un Lun Dun' by China Miéville. It's one of those novels that's written for children but can be enjoyed by all ages.

It's an illustrated novel (the drawings by China himself) telling the tale of two girls - Zanna and Deeba - who are called to save UnLunDun, a bizarre version of modern London where houses can be built from old washing machines and drawers, ghosts roam about, and forests live inside four walls. Like much of his work, it's fiercely imaginative and, though for a younger audience, China is not afraid to tinge it with darkness as well. The characters are well drawn and unique, with the lead quite believable.
In many ways it reminded of Clive Barker's 'Abarat' sequence (indeed Barker gets an acknowledgement by Miéville). This is probably more tightly plotted, although perhaps lacking the ethereal beauty of Barker's lavishly illustrated book.

With short snappy chapters, plenty of humour, and that fecund creative prowess, I genuinely do believe it's a great book for anyone who wants a trip to the fantastical.

Finished "Axiomatic" by Greg Bear. It's a collection of short stories dealing with a number of themes: is a virtual copy of someone as worthy as the original? How can you truly deny solipsism unless you know the other person's mind on a fundamental level? Would you create a simulacra of a child if you couldn't have your own?

There's a few weak stories in here - "Chimera" for example - where the endings and concept are a bit flat. Others though not only have a fascinating concept explored through sci-fi, but touch a real emotional core: "Cutie" is an excellent example of this.
Egan favours the first person (they're nearly all written in this style) when writing. He doesn't lay on the science very heavily so it makes the collection quite approachable and each story borders on the same length of 19-22 pages which is a good digestible size.

There's more than enough fascinating insights here to mark it as one of the best short story sci-fi collections that I've had the good fortune to read. I'll be seeking more of the same.

Finished "Lyra's Oxford" by Philip Pullman.

This short story (novellete at best!) is set two years after "His Dark Material's" trilogy and tells a short story about Lyra in err... Oxford. It's a bit of a novelty piece - the story is naturally thin but it's accompanied by some beautiful extras in the form of a pull-out map, illustrations, a postcard and more. They're embellishments and nice ones at that.

This is a sort of the "cherry on top" to the trilogy and, despite its slim nature, I'd still recommend it to the series' fans.

Finished "Honoured Enemy" by Raymond E. Feist and William R. Forstchen - part of the "Tales of the Riftwar Series".

This novel was... perfunctory. It was decidedly average - the title almost gives the plot away because there's very little of it. Two opposing sides must join together for their survival - they're hated enemies each but can you guess what's going to happen as they travel together? Simple tales can be told effectively and make a really enjoyable read, but I was never drawn into this. The characters were no more nor less thinly sketched than an average Riftwar instalment and the writing was more detailed than Feist might do alone, but I still found it all quite dull and obvious. It had none of the intrigue that I read Feist for and perhaps, expecting something else, I was bound to be that bit disappointed. Neither bad, nor good - just forgettable.

Much quicker read this time - finished "The Voyage of the Sable Keech" by Neal Asher, the 2nd book in his Spatterjay sequence.

The world here is still interesting but I don't think Asher expanded on it much from the previous instalment. This meant that I was treated to some of the same descriptions of the world's flora and fauna that I read before albeit re-worded.
The cast is largely the same as before. I found the Old Captains blended a bit but that the more exotic characters - the alien Hive representative, the Prador - were unqiue enough to hold my interest.
The plot itself built upon a pivotal event of the first book. In fact it was an event that I wasn't too satisfied the first time around but that was satisfyingly dealt with here. The various other plot strands converged into a decent, action-packed ending which is typical of Asher. It's fair to see that he's able to wrap up an instalment quite well.

I enjoyed this one but just felt that it lacked some of the fevered originality I saw when I first visited this created world. Perhaps in the next book ("Orbus"), Asher will enrich the world a bit more (even though it is a fascinating ecology).

Finished "System of the World" by Neal Stephenson, the final volume in his Baroque cycle.

It's a bit of a doorstop - 887 pages of what could be considered only 1/3 of a 3k novel. It continues to describe the birth of the Industrial Revolution through the eyes of fictional characters who interact with real historical figures (such as Isaac Newton and the various royal factions of the time).

I thought this was perhaps the best instalment in the cycle (apparently it's not a trilogy) primarily because it featured Daniel Waterhouse (an ancestor of the protagonist of 'Cryptonomicon') and interactions with the scientific figures of the time. Waterhouse is a likeable character and Stephenson has done a freakishly good job with his research, recreating the London of the early 18th century. The sense of detail is astounding and quite an education. The downside is that he can get bogged down in it and the flowery prose that he uses - you could cut the novel's page count in half and lose no plot but you would lose some atmosphere and some damn fine writing.
There's also the fact that he puts aside the characters he spent the last two books on (a blessing when it comes to Eliza - a somewhat sore point for me in "The Confusion"). It's a bit of an oddity to cast them aside at this point.

Having said all this, historical novels are not my passion (although Stephenson insists that it's science fiction due to a plot on Alchemy and its treatment of the sciences). Too little happens at times and it can vary whether Stephenson's writing skill and research can always cover these deficits. It's certainly a very very impressive piece of writing but part of me is more at home with space operas and epic fantasy and wished for him to lean more towards "Snow Crash" again.
Highly recommended for readers of historical fiction interested in the change from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution and a guarded recommendation for all others.

Finished "Spirit Gate" by Kate Elliott, the first book in her "Crossroads" series.

I really enjoyed this one. It's a tale of a land that's under threat from a mysterious outside force, with the land's towns being eroded by this unknown force. Protecting them are reeves - peace-keepers on giant vicious eagles and we follow one of these. Thrown into the mix are strangers from a foreign land whose own story weaves into the mix.

Elliott has done some nice world building here. It's refreshing to see a fantasy world not formed from Medieval Europe (there's a definite Mid-East / Eastern vibe here). It makes for an interesting cultural backdrop and Elliott unfolds it well, without ever seeming to info dump.
The characters are quite well drawn. Unusually she only introduces some of them halfway through the book and, at times, she'll drop the story of some of them for over a hundred pages. It doesn't grate too much as, inevitably, their stories start drawing in but it may distract some. What she does do right though is get into the mindset of someone of that culture - something she did successfully in her "Crown of Stars" series. Too many books have their characters act with a 20th/21st century mindset.

The story does move rather slowly, but that's Elliott's style as she likes to enrich the world around her, and is quite a descriptive writer (reminding me of J.V. Jones who I read recently). The resolution seems a little rushed though, but contrasted against the quality before and it's not a big complaint. Hopefully the rest of the series (7 books in total!) will live up my expectations raised here.

Finished "Halting State" by Charles Stross.

In this novel (Scotland, c. 2018) there's a robbery within an MMORPG (think of it as a very-advanced VR form of "World of Warcraft"). A team of an auditor and programmer are called in to investigate how this occurred (it affecting the company's security credibility) and then uncover some much bigger plots.

The novel has an unusual style - it's split between three characters with each chapter switching to a different character and telling their story in the second person. Presumably this is a homage to old text adventures / adventure books (which the author played) but it's not really a great tactic when the characters aren't that well sketched.

The plot itself is quite interesting, although there was more of "reality" than I'd have hoped for and less of the virtual worlds. It's also an extremely techie book - that's fine for me, as I've a computer science background (like the author) but it might throw others off as, for all the side explanations, you'd still lose out without that knowledge.
The pace is quite good and, like with much of Stross' work, it's fiercely imaginative (although I don't believe the world will advance as quickly as he predicts and he sort of glossed over the finer points of interfacing into the VR world). The unravelling of all these plot points though is a bit uneven at times and - despite the stakes being raised - it never has the emotional impact or long-term game planning that I felt he accomplished so very well in "Glasshouse".

It's all still worth a read - especially (as was the author's intention) if you're a CS person looking for a sci-fi book based around the projected future of networks, databases, and IT infrastructure. It also has a great cover and an excellent interview at the end. It's just not as good as some of his other works and I could never, fully, get drawn into the story.

Finished "Under the Dome" by Stephen King.

This story has a great premise - a town cut off from the world suddenly, as if beneath a large glass dome. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out. And, in a sort of insane Big Brother, you watch as the people cope.

There's a large set of characters in this and they're fairly familiar to anyone who has read a few King books. They're generally well fleshed out, although some of the secondary characters are a bit flat. Also worth mentioning that King writes teenagers very poorly - the language that comes out of their mouth seems straight from an '80s movie and very forced. It's a little bit surprising as the rest of the conversations, among the adults, flow quite well.

The plot is interesting enough, although there's one particular strand which is highly contrived so as to deliver a big set piece. It's also a little hard to believe that the town devolves as quickly as it does or that people are so gullible - although that perhaps is one of King's points. After all the true horror here is what people do to one another, etc.

A lot of people express disappointment at the ending and, although I can see where they're coming from, I'd disagree. There's a suitably epic moment and the resolution (which is a little bit Koontz like, as others have pointed out), actually works as it fits with what we've seen before.

It's not quite up there with "IT" and "The Stand", but "Under the Dome" is a very enjoyable piece of work by King.

Finished "Cowl" by Neal Asher. It's a non-Polity time travel story. Essentially two future factions war it out over time, with one faction determined to permanently disrupt the timeline through their leader (and super villain) Cowl.

Time travel generally shows up in short story form, allowing for smart paradoxes. Fleshing into a novel requires a bit of thought and Asher achieves this quite well, taking into account paradoxes using the concept of a "probability slope" and organic tech.
The time frames jumped back to are primarily pre-civilization - that's an excuse for Asher to once more rev up with the big vicious beasts he loves so much, in this case it's the dinosaurs. The heroes he puts up against them are fairly thinly sketched, but as I've mentioned before, he only uses characters as an end to the story - Cowl, for example, is in the same mould as the Skinner of Skeller, a pumped up super villain and quite fun as a result.

While the premise is good and all, the writing at times feels a bit unpolished. I wondered if this was something he wrote prior to getting his Polity series published and then got released after his initial successes. The plot is fairly well contained but at times the pace of it is a bit "And suddenly...". It's still enjoyable though because, as abrupt as the pacing may seem, it never lags. You're never bored.

It's not up to his Agent Cormac series or the Spatterjay sequence, but it's a grand one-off time travel story.

Finished "Matter" by Iain M. Banks, a sci-fi novel set in his Culture universe.

This one is a little bit of a disappointment by the standards of other Culture novels. It's down a lot to the pacing, something that I noticed many other reviews picked up on. This in turn is down to the setup of the story - it starts off as a sort of fantasy novel, where a king is cruelly betrayed and the son must flee to avenge the death. The sci-fi comes in because this fantasy world is one of many nested worlds contained with a giant Shellworld, one which a variety of the galaxies big players are involved with (including the Culture and, as their agents, Special Circumstances).

The ShellWorld is an interesting idea but the problem is there isn't quite enough plot here for the novel's length. This means that there's a pacing issue in the middle, where one of the characters travels across the Galaxy, meeting different cultures in order to get to the point. It's good to see more of the galaxy fleshed out, and meet the Culture's peers from other races, but it doesn't always gel well. Other plot strands also slow down and some of the characters undergo more unwelcome changes.

Towards the end, for the last hundred pages or so, the pacing picks up a lot and the ideas flow much quicker. The finale is suitable adrenaline pumping and the epilogue is neatly done. I felt though that, if more prudently edited, the novel could have had a much tighter focus and been something that was very good rather than just decent.

Finished Raymond E. Feist's "Wrath of a Mad God", Book 3 in the Darkwar Saga.

Events from the saga come to a head here. For longer-term fans there's also a lot of references to different series over time with characters returning and their arcs finishing (along with some annoying factual errors). Without going into spoiler-territory, there are some very big events in this book - so much so that they're almost lost amidst each other towards the end.
Some of these events feel very "deus-ex machina" and there's a bit of ret-conning going on I think. It means that the plot is a mixture of exciting and frustrating, depending on how willing you are to believe Feist had a master plan or not.

As to the actual writing of the book... Firstly, like with the previous instalment, there are far too many typos. It's not just misspellings but words used incorrectly. I don't think there was much in the way of proof reading or, for that matter, editing. At times Feist re-uses the same phrases and descriptions mere sentences apart - something any editor would have zoned in on. I'm not sure if the deadlines are tight or not but it does detract from the story.
Thankfully there's a very good pace to it all and, with the events described above, I was never left bored and kept wanting to move on. After it all, it felt a bit like a dessert - nice, kind of bad for you and not ultimately that satisfying as a meal. Recommended for Feist fans but not his best work either.

Finished "The Blood Knight" by Greg Keyes, the third book in his "Kingdom of Thorn and Bone" series.

Like the other two instalments it moves along nicely, although the pacing is a little bit off here, starting a little bit slowly.
Characterisation is strong, particularly with Anne whose transition to her regal role is very well done.
Also good is the use of language as a plot - Keyes obviously spent a bit of time with linguistics and it adds a depth of history to the world.

There's enough left for a good final instalment which I hope will measure up to the first three.

Finished "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King.

Primarily this a novel about grief as Lisey Landon copes with working through the memories of her dead husband as well as coping with her troubled sister. A lot of this then involves flashbacks to her past (and indeed flashbacks within those) as she unlocks memories she had repressed.

The fantastical element comes from her husband's past and his family's dark secrets. It's an important element but, as with much of King's work, it's most important as to how it affects the characters.

The novel though is a little long in places. It could have been pruned more (something King even talks about in the afterword). Lisey can grate at times and her husband, Scott, actually (to me) seems kinda irritating at times. Other bits though are done very well - the grief, Scott's horrific childhood, etc. It's not his strongest work but it feels among his most personal.

Finished "Hilldiggers" by Neal Asher.

I was a little bit disappointed with this one. One of my favourite things about Asher is his crazy inventiveness with alien life, which was only really peripheral here. Instead it's primarily about a civil war conflict between manipulated siblings whose real motives are very obvious from early on. These characters are not very interesting - even if it's never Asher's strong point (as he admits), they generally get carried away in a fast plot, which is largely absent here. Even the Polity aspect is distant, making it feel disconnected from his other novels (and not in a good way).

It's not a bad novel, but it's never a good one either. Definitely weaker than his Agent Cormac and Spatterjay series.

Dohnny Jepp wrote: »

You seem to have a similar taste to msyelf! Not sure if you read it, but you should check out the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Its a lot of books and a lot of pages but well worth the read.

I've read the first and second chronicles and working on the final one Good fantasy, even if it doesn't move at as fast a pace as many modern series do.

Forgot that I recently finished "Fragile Things", a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman.

This is my first introduction to Gaiman in the written form (although I've read some of the Sandman series). There's quite an eclectic mix here - there's a number of poems, there's stories commissioned for album sleeves, as well as a number of award-winning pieces.
Gaiman has an good fantastical style - it's quite unique. His stories are primarily set in our world, but the underside of it - in the secret clubs and small country houses where strange things happen. Among the most inventive here was the excellent "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" and the smart "A Study in Emerald" (which is a great Holmes / Cthulu mashup). There's some there that are slight and weak as well and others are too brief to be of any substance. Nonetheless it did make me want to read more of his work (which is as well as I have "The Graveyard Book" on my bookshelf).

Finished "Once Upon a Time in the North" by Philip Pullman.

It's a short story relating a tale of Lee Scoresby, a character from "His Dark Materials". There's not much to the tale but it's told well. The book itself is beautifully illustrated and packaged, including fake news articles and a pullout board game. Top marks for presentation.

It's not substantial but a lovely treat for fans of the series.

Finished "The Judging Eye" by R. Scott Bakker, the first book in his Aspect-Emperor trilogy which is itself a sequel to his Prince of Nothing trilogy, set twenty years after the event.

Straight out - I enjoyed this a lot more than the mildly disappointing conclusion to the previous trilogy in "A Thousandfold Thought". Here we see the pay off to those events and Bakker skilfully creates the world where Kellhus has risen to a supreme power. We have a number of other returning characters, as well as some interesting new ones.
Like the previous novels, there's a lot of introspection with characters. There's not as much philosophy now (thankfully) but at times the prose does get a little bogged down as characters focus on the significance of any- and everything. Fortunately these characters are interesting, as are most of their musing, but it does mean that you can't get through it at the same pace as you would typically for a book this size.

There are some great moments in here (the last chapter, in particular, stands out for some vivid scenes and descriptions) and Bakker does a good job of keeping the pace in the various story lines by cleanly separating. Never bored, always interested, I definitely felt it was a return to the form of the first two books in the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy and I'll look forward to the sequel.

Finished "The Born Queen" by Greg Keyes, the fourth and final book in his Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series.

I'm not sure what to make of this. The first half continued on with the same characters that I had grown to enjoy. After an initial feeling of displacement (some months had passed in the character's lives from the last book) I got into the grip of it and was enjoying it.
And then, in the second half, it changed. A lot. Characters personalities started changing wildly. It felt as if the characters were being forced to serve the plot too much. It wasn't that there was a deus ex machina here - Keyes generally had established reasons for these shifts - but it was unsatisfying from a reader's perspective as it made it harder to care. Only Cazio came out unscathed and others, whom I liked, were given short thrift.

It's a shame that the ending was a let down because the previous three books were enjoyable and indeed a lot of this is too. It's just a poor farewell - the series deserved better.

Finished "The Engineer [Reconditioned]" a short story collection by Neal Asher (that I was reading in parallel to other books).

There's ten short stories in here and all, bar two, are drawn from two sources (and one of these is from his "Cowl" standalone world). The primary is Asher's Polity universe. We see the first Spatterjay story here and meet two of that story's cast in some of the other stories. Many of these again demonstrate his great ability to create alien life forms. Two of the Polity stories show how religion can grow up around xeno-biology.
The second set of stories (3 in total) are part of his Owner series. What makes them interesting is that Asher's next body of work is a trilogy in the Owner series. I like what I've seen here and my appetite is whetted.
Some of the stories are a little rough around the edges and do come across as early works.

There's one big problem with the book - and it's not really a fault of Asher. The editing is woeful. It's so bad that I started a thread on it. The contents list five stories (there's actually ten). Seven of these have clear cut introductions but three others begin in the next paragraph after the conclusion of an existing story. It's very confusing and very unprofessional (and there is of course numerous typos, etc). It's a shame that it's so very unpolished because there's some rough gems in here. I imagine his "Gabbleduck" collection is more polished but anyone who reads Asher should have a look here and just grit their teeth at the book's layout.

Finished "Morgawyr", Terry Brooks' third and final instalment in his "The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" series.

Good stuff: Characters were quite good and believable. They weren't omnipotent as you find in some fantasy, but quite frail at times yet had time to grow.
The pace was generally consistent and Brooks' writing style is generally crisp enough.

Bad stuff: It's all a trifle dull. It's not quite boring, but it's never exciting either. The world of Shannara just isn't that interesting compared to where authors like Abercrombie or Miéville are exploring today. It also doesn't have the interesting mix of high-tech and magic that the previous book had, making it just plain fantasy.

It is, in all, an inoffensive series that's just a little bit too forgettable.

Finished "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge. It's a techno-thriller set in the author's imagined evolution of the Internet where reality itself can be blanketed in a range of digital overlays. People view events through a worldwide distributed network and the whole concept of knowledge has been altered...
And it's a premise that, although interesting in a high brow sense, never really felt believable to me. Yes Vinge has an interesting idea but I didn't find it credible (e.g. how a system could be put in place and run in an economic sense, how it could be immersive if it was limited to two senses, etc). That made it hard for me to interact with the world - not a good thing.

The plot had some interesting ideas in there as well, including the ultimate mind control weapon. The book doesn't really deliver on them though and the different plot strands don't mesh well. The first two thirds focus primarily on character building, but that's ditched for a final third with the "thrill" moments. The espionage element would be good but it got side tracked by the introduction of new protaganists who were poorly written.

The characters in the book were done quite well I thought as we see definite character progression. What I didn't like was how, again in the final third, this was pushed aside and we barely returned to some of the characters we had been following. There was no sense of finality or closure in the characters and indeed in some of the major plot points.

It's not a bad book - it's just very flawed. Lots of ideas, but I just don't think they were well realised. It won a Hugo for some reason (even though it was up against Charles Stross' "Glasshouse" which was far better, even though Vinge is a major influence on Stross). His short story collection was better... this hasn't really left me wanting any more.