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(Tor, ISBN 076534825X )
Spin seems to have attracted a fair bit of praise for skillfully combining a mainstream character-driven novel with big SF. Knowing that before I read the book, perhaps I set my expectations a little too high - this isn't quite a super-hybrid of Annie Proulx and Greg Egan. Nonetheless, it's a really impressive SF story with real characters. It's not the first, but perhaps it's a sign that the DMZ between the genres has softened a little.
Spin is narrated by Tyler Dupree, a young teenager when the book starts. He is out one night watching the stars with his friends Jason and Diane Lawton, when the stars disappear, hidden by a membrane that encircles the Earth. The world gradually learns that beyond the membrane, time is moving faster, leaving only 50 years or so on Earth before the sun expands to the point where the planet will be uninhabitable.
The story of what happens in that time is the subject of the novel. Jason becomes a powerful figure in the aerospace industry, struggling to understand the nature of the Spin membrane. Diane turns to religion, and Jason becomes a doctor, bound into the orbit of Jason through friendship, and suffering from a mostly unrequited love for Diane. Saying almost anything about the plot would reveal marvellous surprises and inventions by Wilson - suffice it to say that the Earth's response is to use the time distortion effects of the Spin to their advantage, and that the ending does make sense of the strange times through which the characters live.
While the immediate cast of the novel is quite small, Wilson also manages to consider the response of the wider world in a fairly realistic way. Civilization does not collapse when the Spin descends, but the changes that come as people reconsider their place in the universe, and the fact that they may personally see the end of the world, creates a quite stark parable about the way we currently use the resources of Earth. That this doesn't make the novel into a diatribe (*cough* Forty Signs of Rain *cough*) is another mark to Wilson's credit.
So overall I really enjoyed this book. I wanted to know what happened next, and I found it hard to put down once I'd started. Does the world end with a bang or a whimper? Read Spin and you'll be pleasantly surprised. I was.
There's a good discussion of the book and related topics on Making Light.
(Currency, ISBN 0385512058)
I bought this book because I'd been reading Keith's blog for a while, and I thought some of what he was saying seemed interesting and original. This is a book about networking, or rather, it's a book about how to work with other people - both in terms of what you can do for them and what they can do for you - rather than on your specific skills.
I think the main benefit for me was simply to get the perspective of someone who lives 100% like that. To me it's quite alien, although I thought it was something I could learn from. I feel that although I'm not going to turn into an extravert, I can connect with more people and achieve things with them that will be fun and creative, rather than thinking only about how I should hone my "internal" skills - technical or managerial or whatever.
There are sections on many aspects of networking - some (eg on conferences) are quite arcane unless you are in specific areas of business like sales - but many have quite wide application, although it's fair to say that the book is written from a very US-cultural perspective. Some of the things Keith recommends would just get you a funny look in this country.
To me the best things are the sections on learning to build and maintain a personal network - he's very keen to stress the importance of giving as much as you can to the communities and people you want to reach out to, without counting the cost. The tips for just maintaining contact with people without doing idiotic things like mass email are also useful. Another thing that struck me was the "build it before you need it" quote. Having been made redundant once, I now fully appreciate the wisdom of this statement.
(Hutchinson, ISBN 0-09-179661-X)
As someone who occasionally writes poems I was intrigued by this book when I saw it in Waterstones, so I grabbed a copy to skim while I was having coffee. I was immediately hooked, and dropped very unsubtle hints about what I'd like for Christmas.
You can almost hear Stephen Fry talking as you read, and his explanations of the various aspects of poetics are never less than interesting. It's like getting private lessons from a well-read and witty teacher.
For me, the most interesting section was the first, on metre. I've wanted to know more about how it works for some time, but I've never found a textbook on it that I actually want to study. There are also sections on rhyme, form and "Diction and Poetry Today".
There are lots of good example verses - both Fry's and others. There are also exercises which Fry strongly encourages you to have a go at. There's an only half-joking "user licence" for the book, where you agree not to read any further until you complete the exercises up to that point.
It's a fine book, and I will do the exercises eventually (honest). It also confirms your notion that Stephen Fry really does know everything, and is annoyingly good at it.
I put off starting this book for several weeks after I bought it. I love Wolfe, but something about the look of it perhaps - Knights in armour, high fantasy - it just looked a bit lame. Anyway, I'm pleased to report it's one of the most enjoyable books by Wolfe I've ever read.
It's interesting to note the themes which Wolfe has used repeatedly, and which are employed here once again. In no particular order, we have:
There are also stylistic elements that have been used repeatedly:
I enjoyed the lighter tone of this book compared to the Short and Long Sun books. I don't mean the material isn't quite dark in places, or that the book has no substance. It's just that Wolfe seems to be having more fun with the material, and the characters show it. The pace is fast too, and Wolfe obviously enjoys taking fantasy cliches - wicked giants, bold knights, sexy elves and showing us his own perspective on them. The finale (I won't spoil it) is so over the top that I think few writers would be able to bring it off in a way that wouldn't seem ridiculous. Wolfe manages (just about). Now I really want to read The Wizard.
I thought the long tail of the author distribution would be of some interest (to me if nobody else), so here it is. These are all the authors who I've read 5 or more times (including re-readings):
I just looked at my reading list and I noticed that at the end of 2006 I shall have been logging books I've read for 20 years. Since the rate has dropped off to almost nothing I thought I'd pre-empt the anniversary and see what interesting stats I can derive from it.
The numbers are that I've read about 700 books - that's about 35 a year average, but the numbers are skewed as my reading habit has dropped right off in the last couple of years (partly having children, partly not commuting to London). There are about 630 distinct titles, but only 240 distinct authors - so I don't re-read that much, but I do read more by the same person if I like something.
Top re-reads by Title:
I've read both of these 4 times it seems, and funnily enough I was just talking about both these authors recently. I'm not sure they have much in common, apart from both evoking very fully realised characters in a world that seems just a little richer than the one we inhabit day to day.
3 readings:
The strange thing about the lists above is that they omit my favourite author - Gene Wolfe. I don't seem to have re-read any of his stuff more than once - I'm not sure why, maybe they seemed too daunting. Also, Wolfe is a lot more prolific than Crowley. If you look at the list of most-read authors though, you get a more accurate view of who I read the most:
The author distribution has a more interesting long tail than the books, so I might post about that later.
I've really not managed to read very much at all so far this year, but while I was on holiday I re-read two of the Tales of the City books that I didn't re-read before: Babycakes and Significant Others. I enjoyed them both a lot - there's something about the atmosphere that the books conjure that I just want to be there in San Francisco.
Then two things I discovered on the web - Charles Stross's Accelerando is available for free download. I read the first part - Lobsters - when it was in Asimov's but the rest is new to me and I'm really enjoying it.
The other is kind of the apex of literary anticipation for me - John Crowley's new book is out. It's called Lord Byron's Novel - The Evening Land. I've ordered from Amazon already. There's a good review by John Clute available. I've read pretty much everything by Crowley and I'm really looking forward to this.
Clute suggests that the fourth AEgypt novel may also be done soon (although that's a bit of a relative term for Crowley) and will be called Endless Things. True Crowley fiends may also be interested in the Little, Big 25th Anniversary Edition - check it out, it will be a tremendous edition if the subscription succeeds.
(Verso, ISBN 0860916707)
Okay, it's not really a review, but this is so far the only book I've read lately, and that only because I heard it was available online for free (via a thread on Crooked Timber). I enjoyed After the New Economy and I thought this was also good.
It's partly a primer on what the markets are all about, what they're for and how they work. Since it's by Henwood, it's from a left perspective, which in a book about high finance, is kind of a unique perspective. For that reason, even if you know about the markets, you're likely to learn some new things, or at least have your ideas challenged in an intelligent way.
I thought the chapters on company financing and debt were very interesting - the relative unimportance of raising money in the markets is quite striking, and makes me think twice about getting back into equities.
(Mandarin 0-7493-0692-0)
This is a fantastic book. I've been meaning to read it for quite a while, but I just had a course in London so I've been reading it on the trains in and out.
Armstrong considers the responses of Christians, Jews, and Muslims to the concept of God by looking at their beliefs through the ages. Personally, I found the first chapters looking at early Jewish belief the most fascinating. Abraham's encounters with his God are almost those of peers, and Armstrong notes that when Moses meets God, He is at pains to point out that he is the god of Abraham, though He now seems much more angry and unapproachable.
The book traces this history forward through to the theology of the present day, giving a clear guide to the ideas that shaped belief in different ages. Along the way, Armstrong brings out the tensions inherent in the idea of god: the philosophical god who is so remote that he cannot be considered personal or perform actions in time. The mystical god who can only be apprehended by our own acts of creativity - an interesting parallel to the atheists view of god as purely an imaginary friend, or projection of our qualities. The personal god who at his best can be a source of inspiration and a link from humans to the transcendant, but who too easily becomes a idol, lacking mystery.
My personal beliefs are mainly atheist/Buddhist, but I found this book very useful in locating my non-belief in its historical context. I'm sure the same would be true for any thoughtful person whether believer or not.
(Penguin, ISBN 0-141-01203-X)
I have to admit to being a little bit disappointed with this book. I think I probably expected too much of it. To be fair, it's a perfectly good introduction to some of the ideas in modern financial theory - portfolios, valuations, risk and the like. It has plenty of anecdotes - mainly about Paulos himself losing money on Worldcom, despite his mathematical knowledge - and the coverage is aimed at the intelligent layperson. There are one or two equations, but the maths is generally treated at the conceptual level.
I think my problem was that I thought the coverage would be deeper - more on the specifics of valuing different kinds of instruments, or on types of risk, or that there would be more mathematical speculation of the kind that say, Tom Koerner does in his "Pleasures of Counting" (Koerner on finance - that's a book I'd like to read). Instead, I found the book paddled through the shallows that I was pretty familiar with already.
So, good fun, and if you are new to this topic, you can learn quite a lot, but it's not for you if you are looking for any deeper treatment. Back to Bodie, Kane and Marcus for me - if only there was something in between.
I first read this series in 1993 after seeing a BBC documentary about them. I thought they were fantastic then (I was 21 to put things in context) although I'd never been to SF at that time, and I've re-read them on several occasions since. Most recently I just re-read the first and last books in the series.
The things that struck me most this time around are firstly how modern the books still seem - even the first one, which dates from the mid seventies, doesn't seem particularly dated. Perhaps SF is just ahead of the curve, or perhaps its Maupin's ability to write universal characters, but many of the situations, particularly the relations between the gay and straight characters, could have been written yesterday.
On the other hand, both books have a definite flavour of their time - the 70s and the 80s respectively. The last book (Sure of You) is much more sour than its ancestor, and the effects of AIDS on the gay community are clearly on the mind of the author and his characters.
I do wonder a little in the last book whether Maupin hasn't let a kind of "all guys together" sexism creep in. It's hard to say - Mary Anne's character has become quite dislikeable, and she's the only straight woman in the books (to a first approximation) so it's perhaps unfair to make her bear the weight of Maupin's attitude towards women. I prefer to think that what happens is just the working out of themes that had been present from the start.
Anyway, an excellent series. Do read them if you haven't already. I always get nostalgic for SF when I do. I feel I don't want to leave the world Maupin creates. When you feel that, you know you're reading the work of a master.
(Phoenix, ISBN 0-75381-752-7)
This is a fairly short guide to the relationship of Islamic and Western civilization, with a focus on trying to explain the current situation in terms of the historical context.
I'm not an expert on history, but Lewis seems to be quite even-handed in his criticism and praise, and he stresses the faults on both sides in terms of the breakdown of trust between the Islamic countries and the West, particularly the USA.
Put in it's most basic form: he accuses many of the Islamic states of lacking respect for human rights, and the West of supporting these dictators at the expense of their people in the name of political expediency.
Overall, it's a worthwhile read (even if you disagree with it) because it makes you see the conflicts of today as part of the historical story.
(CSLI Publications, ISBN 1-57586-326-X)
I bought this on something of a whim - I wanted to read something by Knuth, he being the greatest living practitioner of computer science and all, and I thought it would be interesting to hear his views on the subject of religion.
Unfortunately, I didn't really check carefully enough before buying, as Knuth has also written a book called 3:16 in which he examines the meaning of chapter 3, verse 16 of all the books of the bible, and TACSSTA is largely a "making of" for that book.
While 3:16 sounds really interesting, and there is therefore some interest in (for example) the way that the calligraphic samples that Knuth commissioned of each verse were prepared, that wasn't really what I wanted out of the book.
There are some interesting insights into religion in here - and into Knuth's attitude towards his Christian beliefs. I thought the idea of randomly sampling the bible was very clever, and Knuth is able to follow through with the intelligence to analyse the verses for many levels of meaning.
Overall though, I was disappointed, although I do want to read 3:16.
(New Press, ISBN 1-56584-770-9)
This is a fairly compact study of the US economy that takes a sceptical look at the claims for a "new economy" that took off in the late 90's with the dotcom boom. Henwood puts things into historical context, and also manages to explain (to a layman such as myself at any rate) the meanings behind the statistics on wealth, productivity, profits.
The chapters on Income and Finance are probably worth the price of the book on their own, but there are also chapters on Novelty, Work and Globalisation that bring a fresh look at those subjects too. Henwood is writing from a left perspective, but it's an intelligent, hard-headed, original viewpoint. Even if you disagree with him, by taking a different look at topics that are worn smooth on the news, it makes you think again.
Okay, I'm too tired to write a proper review: I enjoyed the book and I learned a lot from it. I read it because the Crooked Timber people were talking about it, so if you want learned analysis that's probably the place to go.
(MIT Press, ISBN 0262112272)
Gary Klein's book is more accurately described by its subtitle, How People Make Decisions. It's a description of his investigations into that topic which he developed through interviews with firefighters, paramedics, nurses, and other experts who have to make important decisions under pressure.
On one level, the findings are what common sense would suggest - experts intuitively know what to do when presented with situations. The interest of the book stems from two things - one is that the naturalistic decision making model that Klein presents is strongly at variance with theories of how we "ought" ideally to make decisions - ie by weighing all the options and finding reasons why our actual course of action is the best possible. This suggests that perhaps something is wrong with the rationalistic model, at least in cases where experts are dealing with their domain of expertise. Secondly, Klein is able to analyse the components of expertise into factors that we can all learn from and possibly thereby learn to make better decisions.
The book is full of interesting, real-life examples of decision making - what happens when things go wrong, how people sometimes can intuit the right thing to do even in adverse circumstances. There's a lot here to think about, and it's definitely a book I'll be coming back to for another browse.
(Perennial, ISBN 0060937939)
John Crowley has gone on to perhaps greater things since writing Little, Big in the shape of the AEgypt series, but here is perhaps the most complete statement of his fictional vision that can be fitted into a single volume (though only just - my edition of the book is 538 pages of small print).
Little, Big is a multi-generational story about a family and their relationship with the fairies. Not twee, pretty fairies you understand, but powers with strange plans and desires of their own that shape the history of the family into a tale.
This shaping, and its various effects on those within the family, is the theme of the story. Whether life is a tale, and who is shaping it, is the theme to which Crowley has returned again and again. Although in that respect it is a post-modern novel, Crowley is not interested here in blurring the boundary between the fiction on the page and the one we inhabit, but only in looking at the reaction of his characters to finding themselves part of a Tale that is greater than they are.
The plot is much harder to describe. The main story focusses on Smoky Barnable, a young man who joins the Drinkwater family by marriage to Daily Alice. The book follows the couple through their lives, and into the lives of their children, as they live in a strangely protected bubble in the house called Edgewood, somewhere outside New York City. Meanwhile, civilization gradually crumbles, and a host of strange characters play through the book - from Ariel Hawksquill - a modern day wizard and practitioner of the Art of Memory, to Grandfather Trout - a fish with a sad story to tell.
To me, the book seems suffused with a sense of sadness. Everyone is burdened by the tale - at Smoky's wedding, the guests all thank him for taking on the weight of it. Although protected, the family is constantly injured by the powers that protect it. The ending represents the culmination of the fairies plans, and provides an explanation of why the Tale is as it is, but it is hard not to feel sorry for the characters who have had to suffer through it, although they were always Somehow marked out for their fates from the start.
Written in 1983, The Arabian Nightmare is a story containing many layers of stories and dreams within it. Set in fifteenth century Cairo, it is, on the surface at least, the story of Balian, an Englishman on a pilgrimage who falls prey to a disease of sleep which causes him to wake up with blood pouring out of his mouth and nose.
Balian becomes involved in a complex plot centred on the sinister sleep teacher known as the Father of Cats. As the book progresses, he finds it increasingly difficult to tell when he is asleep and dreaming and when he is awake. He comes to suspect that he may have the Arabian Nightmare, a condition in which the sufferer is tormented nightly in his dreams, but awakes remembering nothing.
The book uses many of the devices of post-modernism - an unreliable narrator, confusion of levels of reality, and a blurring of what is within the book and outside it. The techniques are skillfully applied however, and provide a real sense of a vicious infinity of stories within the book that will suck in the unwary. The atmosphere of medieval Cairo is also well evoked, and helped (in my Penguin edition at least) by illustrations by David Roberts, a nineteenth century artist who painted a Cairo that still looked much as it had in the fifteenth century.
(Sceptre, £7.99, ISBN 0-340-79499-2)
I deliberately didn't read this book for quite some time simply because I saw too many adverts for it. I'm sure this isn't a good method for judging the quality of books, but I just tend to get a bit contrary when I'm told something is good too many times (similar thing happened when I saw Trainspotting in the shops - I put it down when I read a blurb that said "the best book ever written by a man or a woman").
In the end though, I read too many positive things about it, and I was in the mood for something light but with some depth to it. Carter beats the Devil is about the magician Charles Carter (a real stage magician of the 20s). Carter is suspected of murdering US President Harding, who dies shortly after seeing Carter perform. The resolution of this mystery is the McGuffin for this tale, but it forms only the skeleton on which is hung a fictionalised biography of Carter's life.
In some ways my favourite section is that dealing with Carter's youth, which reminds me somewhat of Robertson Davies' book World of Wonders -- not only because it deals with the early career of a stage magician, but also in the way that, like Davies, Gold manages to combine a light tone with occasional profundity.
Other parts of the book are perhaps not quite so successful -- while a book of this kind needs tension in the form of mystery, it sometimes seems that there are too many unrelated events going on at once, so that as the pieces are put together it's hard to remember what the original shape was meant to be.
Still, this is an entertaining and interesting book, and a remarkable achievement for a first novel. I read it with great enjoyment, and I think it would stand re-reading.
One quick one: the other site I helped develop, Concatentation, is still there, and still has my old reviews up, so here's a set of consolidated links. Now I can go to bed in peace, plus I don't have to put all these up on this site!