Thursday, March 14, 2019

All Over The Place

Three more novels read, kind of all over the place.

1st, "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" by Susanna Clarke, 2004, 1024 pages. Somehow this got recommended to me; I thought it was more recent. It was a fun, amusing read. After I was done, I immediately watched the 7 episode BBC 2015 mini-series adaptation on Netflix. They did a good job compressing the narrative. This book could definitely use sequels, but I read that Clarke suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome.

2nd, "A Short Sharp Shock" by Kim Stanley Robinson, 1990, 154 pages. I think BookBub offered me a cheap version of this. As a big KSR fan, I was surprised I had never heard of it. It is an odd book, very surreal. Science fiction based, but far enough advanced that it feels more like fantasy. Actually more like post both, more like - shudder - literature. There were some images in the book that will stay with me for a while.

3rd, "The City in the Middle of the Night" by Charlie Jane Anders, 2019, 368 pages. I liked Anders' 1st award winning work, this one not very much. The plot is really meandering. Several plans are made which, when executed, result in the deaths of most of the participants - that gets old. The mostly female cast somehow reminded me of the female cast of "The Magicians" on SyFy, which I got tired of and quit watching. The emotional interactions seem so immature - but these characters are mostly college age, so maybe OK? Maybe just annoying to an old man? There was a development reminiscent of Octavia Butler that I liked.

This book reminded me of another recent book that I didn't like - "Autonomous", by Annalee Newitz. I think it was the same cavalier, flat affect attitude towards deaths and murders, and thuggish characters being presented sympathetically. This one is not as bad as the other. Then reading the acknowledgements, it states that Anders and Newitz are partners - so maybe their writing styles are affecting each other?

So, disappointing, I was glad when it was (somewhat abruptly) over. I will try Anders' next work tho.

No comments: