Preaching to the Choir

"Preaching to the Choir", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2026, 128 pages, 38k words.

OK, a fairly common trope: middle-class (hispanic) girlfriend accompanies her rich, aristocratic British boyfriend to a family reunion. Oh boy, get to meet the family!

Oops, she wasn't invited! Oops, it's a special family meeting that only happens every 40 years! Oops, his family are the familiars of fairies!

The read here on fairies reminds me of that of John Shirley (recently in our zeitgeist for "City Come A-Walkin'") from his novel "In Darkness Waiting", 1988 (I think). Those were some really yucky fairies.

I have just purchased the eBook for "In Darkness Waiting" - I thought there might be a paperback on my basement shelfs, but, no luck. I think I will do a reread of that book - despite my current avoidance of horror. Then I will make a determination, whose fairies were the yuckiest, &, how much props does Tchaikovsky owe to Shirley?

This novella is almost more like a short story. No punches pulled. Short & sweet. A good read.

Note, I have no idea where this book's title came from?!?!? Anybody have any ideas?

City Come A-Walkin'

"City Come A-Walkin'", by John Shirley, 1980, 186 pages, 57k words. With a 1996 foreword by William Gibson.

Haha, a reminder that you don't need LLMs to create slop! Check out "forward" vs. "foreword" on the book cover!

Kobo lists this book with a release date of 2014. So I was somewhat gobsmacked when, in his foreword, William Gibson talks about this book being a great influence on his groundbreaking cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer", which came out in 1984?!?!?

Gibson helps us out, mentioning that this book was originally published in 1980.

Reading this novel after the Gibson foreword is somewhat surreal. Cities personified into entities as a early version of Gibson's voodoo god AIs. The 1st city persona showing up with mirrorshades built into its face - hello Molly Millions!

In 2020, I really liked N.K. Jemisen's "The City We Became". I had no idea that Shirley had created the "personified intelligence of a city" trope 40 years earlier! I don't recall anyone mentioning this earlier effort by Shirley in the many positive reviews of the Jemisen.

All that being said, this is an enjoyable story, very gritty, very noir, very proto-cyberpunk as Gibson says. The personified city (San Francisco) is really a pretty nasty entity. The Mafia is allied with Big Money to hamstring the city. It takes offense.

It is somewhat crazy that 1 of the plot points is universal surveillance devices going in place, 45 years before our current crusade to get rid of Flock cameras.

This is a short novel, under 200 pages. It is so ground-breaking, I think anyone who is a SFF fan should definitely check it out.

Earthquake Weather

"Earthquake Weather", by Tim Powers, 1997, 744 pages, 202k words. Book 3 of the Fault Lines trilogy.

We get some new characters, & a lot of the characters of the 1st 2 books also make an appearance. As usual, Powers plays fast & loose with mysticism, ghosts, gods, you name it.

I enjoyed my reread of this series.

Expiration Date

"Expiration Date", by Tim Powers, 1996, 568 pages, 176k words. Book 2 of the Fault Lines series.

I was going to power through & binge this series after I reread the 1st book, "Last Call", for maybe the 3rd or 4th time. Technical difficulties at Kobo prevented that. Those difficulties finally got resolved a few weeks ago. So I got to reread this book.

Quite a bit of new mythos is added to the 1st volume of the series. Ghosts exist, & can be captured & smoked. Smoking ghosts is, of course, addictive, but it is apparently a real rush; gives you new memories & experiences; & apparently increases lifespan.

An 11 YO boy whose cultist parents were grooming him to be a Holy Man winds up ingesting the powerful ghost of Thomas Alva Edison. But as he is pre-pubescent, he cannot digest Edison. They wind up cohabiting the body.

All of LAs most powerful ghost addicts are totally lusting for the Edison ghost. Drama & plot ensue.

I'm 2/3 of the way through Book 3, all these are longer than I remember. But, still good reads, a good series.

Stolen Skies

"Stolen Skies", by Tim Powers, 2021, 364 pages, 99k words. Book 3 - Vickery and Castine.

Our intrepid duo is back again. Castine now works for the Office of Naval Intelligence, creating fake UFO crash sites & crop circles, while also discrediting real sites of the same type.

Our GhostBusters save the world once again, this time from the ghosts of ETs. A wildly creative take on ETs, UFOs, & crop circles.

Another thing Powers is great at is introducing way weird FFTKAT (Fun Facts To Know And Tell). I had certainly never heard of "startle disorder" - a prominent & odd example of which is the "Jumping Frenchmen of Maine". Apparently these are genetic-based neurological disorders caused by the inhibitory neurotransmitter glycine getting screwed up. Who knew?

A little less stressful then the prior books in the series. The bad guy is more a bored Federal bureaucrat than a crazy genius mad scientist. It's still a page turner.

Forced Perspectives

"Forced Perspectives", by Tim Powers, 2020, 426 pages, 132k words. Kobo is normally big on identifying series, nothing here. Per Powers' Wikipedia page, this is the 2nd book of the "Vickery and Castine series".

Our heroes from the last book are back. Vickery is still driving ghost-avoidance vehicles. Castine has moved to DC, still working for the same government agency, which has toned down & cleaned up its act considerably.

The nemesis this time is a mad genius who wants to use ancient Egyptian mystical technology to create a group mind (egregore) which will eventually suck the whole human race into it - oops!

There are some recurring characters back from the 1st book, as well as new characters. I've realized, 1 thing that really defines the quality of Powers' work is the depth & personality of his supporting characters: the henchmen, allies, stooges, etc. They are usually recognizable characters who sometimes do things out of context, like real people.

Again, an enjoyable read. I would definitely recommend reading these in sequence.

Alternate Routes

"Alternate Routes", by Tim Powers, 2018, 359 pages, 97k words.

So, I originally tried to buy this ebook in the face of fierce opposition from Rakuten-Kobo's AIs. With usual AI brilliance, they fixed the ordering problem with this book by deleting it from their catalog! Problem solved! Apparently some humans got involved, this book, & the 2 "Last Call" sequels are available for purchase. So I purchased them.

After I did a reread of "Last Call", I was going to power through & binge the 2 sequels. Since Kobo thwarted that, I decided to read this book, the 1st of a new trilogy.

Powers has such a way of creating a new & original mythos. Here, it is that the free wills moving rapidly on freeways create a soul current. If you have had anyone close to you die near a freeway, you are more likely to be able to perceive & talk to ghosts. & never use complete sentences with ghosts, unless you want to be possesed.

Of course the action takes place in the Freeway Capitol of the Universe, Los Angeles!

Our heroes are a disgraced secret service agent, who got to listen to forbidden ghost-fu, & a federal agent who works for the agency who knows about the freeway effect & ghosts & tries to use ghosts for espionage purposes.

The nemesis in this book is a weirdo government agency head who basically has 0 personality, but who wants to merge the world of the ghosts with our world. Bad idea.

As always, a page turner. I was sorry when it ended. I immediately proceeded to start the 2nd book of this series. It is equally good.

1 nit to pick. His Wikipedia page says that Powers is a practicing Catholic. Both the characters in this book are Catholics, & catholic practices are mentioned. Given the supernatural topics of his work, frequently involving ceremonial magic, Catholicism fits right in. It has an extensive set of magical ceremonies.

I was raised Catholic & took it very seriously, up the point when I became an apostate at age 14. After studying religions & mysticism in general into my 20s, I have evolved into my current antitheistic stance. I don't think the book would have suffered if the catholic-fu wasn't there.

No Man's Land

"No Man's Land", by Richard K. Morgan, 2026, 496 pages. Hmmm, 2 books in a row of 496 pages?!?!?

I have greatly enjoyed Morgan's prior work, I just wish there had been more of it. But, he has also done gaming & screenplay things, so fewer novels.

I think I had already read the start of this novel before. It is after WWI. The depravity & destruction of this war destroyed faith in scientific rationalism. In it's place, the old forests spring back into being overnight, populated by various kinds of fae, including totally bad-ass immortals, led by 6000 YO Queen Mab.

Our hero is a WWI veteran who has become a Woodsman. He rescues human children kidnapped by the fae & replaced by changelings. Kind of a good cheap detective noir feel, as he becomes embroiled in intrigue involving the highest levels of the British government & the fae.

Very gritty, very cheap detective noirish. Definitely a page turner. I think this will be a series, there's lots more ways he can go with this.

A Song for a New Day ... & Last Call

"A Song for a New Day", by Sarah Pinkster, 2019, 384 pages, 117k words.

Wow, talk about an eerily prescient book. I thought this was new, I must have brought it for cheap on BookBub, it came out September, 2019. A female rock-n-roller is just breaking through, when terrorist attacks & a pandemic cause a shutdown of all public gatherings.

Fast forward a few years, another female becomes a talent scout for Big Music. She looks for talent in illegal underground live performance venues. Shocker, Big Music, who records 3d performances & restages them in virtualities, is not looking out for the best interests of anyone but themselves.

Not too tense, but, again, shockingly prescient of the COVID shutdowns. But interesting, defying the shutdowns in the book has a leftist feel, where during the real pandemic, it became a rightist shibboleth.

A fun & easy read, check it out. Hunh, I just noticed I flagged this book as Politics rather than Science Fiction.

---

On an impulse, I reread 1 of my fav books: "Last Call", by Tim Powers, 1992, 560 pages, 203k words.

A fisher king story, with tarot cards & weird theories of luck. What's not to like? It was longer than I expected.

I was going to power through & read books 2 & 3 of the trilogy, "Expiration Date" & "Earthquake Weather".

Kobo showed the books but wouldn't let me order them. I opened a ticket with support, a few days later, they told me it was fixed. Nope.

A few days after that, they told me it was a content problem, & they were turning it over to the content team.

A few days after that, the books were gone from Kobo. Sorry, they no longer exist.

During this whole experience, I am of course thinking, "Oh fuck, it's a goddam AI.". As the Bullshit Apocalypse proceeds, I fear we will increasingly be having to live with systems that work only statistically - they work a lot of the time, but for some other %age of the time, they fail miserably. We will live in a world of completely unreliable systems. Frustration upon frustration.

But, the techbros will get big $$$! &, all the glorious slop! I'm still saying, 2-3 years until the concensus is, "Can we get a do-over on this AI thing?"

Before I Forget

I think that's going to be my new catchphrase: "Before I Forget". 4 novels in danger of being forgotten - time for the exocortex to get to work.

1. "The All-Consuming World", by Cassandra Khaw, 2021, 268 pages, 72k words. I think this is Khaw's 1st novel? I had read some of her shorter stuff and liked it, but then decided it was too much horror, which I've kind of quit reading. This novel, tho, I think had a good recommendation as a hard sci-fi space opera. It was indeed all of that. Tons of action, building to a satisfying conclusion. Joe Bob sez, check it out.

2. "A Choice of Gods", by Clifford D. Simak, 1972, 187 pages, 58k words. This was probably $0.99 or $1.99 at BookBub. An interesting premise. Reading this old stuff, the characters are always so ... white. The topics covered are pretty cosmic, it was worth the reread.

3. "The Circumference of the World", by Lavie Tidhar, 2023, 170 pages, 52k words. Tidhar writes really well. This novel definitely has a meta feel to it. Does the fabled book exist or not? Plus we have its author introduce us to many golden age sci-fi authors. It has a bit of a Philip K. Dick feel about it. A good read.

4. "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town", by Cory Doctorow, 2006, 412 pages, 112k words. What an odd novel, totally unlike any other Doctorow I have read. Kind of meta, like the last one - the A brother, our protagonist, is writing a book. Meanwhile, his father is a mountain, his mother a washing machine, the B brother sees the future, the C brother is an island, the D brother is a malevolent zombie psychopath, brothers E, F, & G are Russian dolls, and his girlfriend has wings. Quite, what, postmodern? Definitely reminiscent of John Crowley, which is high praise from me. It's fairly long, LOL, I guess to make room for more weirdness. But somehow, it seems to be making a statement to the effect that there is no such thing as "normal". All the more reason for inclusivity.

The Unread shelf in the Kobo app on my iPad is at 135 books.

Lest I Forget

"Lest I Forget" should be my new motto - maybe even worth a tatoo! I continue to try to beef up my exocortex to supplement my ever fading memory.

I messed up my system by mentioning a book before its review. I finished the Stephenson weeks ago and am just getting around to blogging it.

---

So here is the delayed review: "Termination Shock", by Neal Stephenson, 2021, 890 pages, 242k words; subtitled "A Novel". Stephenson's tale of climate crisis and geoengineering. It really didn't seem like 890 pages. There were I think 4 disparate narrative threads that eventually were all brought together. This novel screamed "Movie!" at me.

My daughter Erica asked me how it compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's "Ministry for the Future". I think I told her that MFTF was a much more serious book, covered way more ground, and raised serious and weighty issues. It was also written to explore a scenario where we to escape the climate crisis. The Stephenson is much more of an action movie. She said that she heard an interview with him where he emphasized he was writing to entertain - at which he of course succeeds. This difference definitely shows in my reviews. The review of MFTF linked to above was much longer than these few paragraphs.

There was an odd turn about how the real heart of the MAGA US comes from the philosophy and outlook of the Commanches, who were not a Native American tribe but were instead a mix of many races and cultures. That's were we get the "freedumb" attitude that crippled the US response to the COVID pandemic.

I also liked the term for a new virtual nation of every place on earth threatened by climate change: the Netherworld. Nice!

Another bonus: trained eagles vs. drones, FTW!

Stephenson's novels usually have lots of LOL dialogue and prose. Not so much this one.

Hah, 1 thing he briefly touches on is a portrayal of the US as feckless:

“It’s an asset, you’re saying. The sheer incompetence of the United States.”

...

India had announced formal cessation of their Climate Peacekeeping action in the lawless, war-torn tribal region of West Texas.

China, India, and Europe are the main players. I'm guessing this novel was written when Agent Orange was in office, when US foreign policy was indeed a shambles.

A fun and enjoyable read that sure didn't feel like 890 pages. I was sorry when it was over.

---

I got offered an eBook for cheap featuring 2 Frank Herbert novels: "The Dosadi Experiment and The Eyes of Heisenberg", 508 pages, 138k words. I went for it.

"The Dosadi Experiment" was 1st published in 1977. I have read it several times. The Gowachin, one of the galactic civilization's dominant races, carries out a highly illegal experiment in social engineering. On a poisonous planet, they place Gowachin and humans in 1 megacity of astronomical population density. A Malthusian experiment in Social Darwinism to the nth degree. They breed a population of CEOs psychopaths - oops! What to do with it?

"The Eyes of Heisenberg" was 1st published in 1966. I'm guessing my 1st reread of the book since it 1st came out. It definitely reads as an earlier work. All humans (mostly sterile) are genetically engineered to try and add to the ruling group of Optimen - genetically optimized for potentially immortal lives. The Optimen are opposed by their old rivals, the cyborgs of course. The Optimen are autocrats, while the cyborgs are mostly assholes. It's an OK read, but dated.

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Finally, I read the annual free eBook short story collection, "Some of the Best of Tor.com 2021", 2021, 590 pages, 160k words, 22 stories. A very nice collection, many very good stories.

Here is a nice line from the Catherynne M. Valente story, a modern tale of Orpheus & Eurydice, with lots of interesting portrayals of figures from Greek mythology:

Music is just the sound of time blowing across the lip of their nothingness.

---

I have so many eBooks to read: Unread collection is at 105. Lots of good stuff. Guess I need to try to read more.

Meh, Nice, So Close!

2 fantasies and 1 mixed collection of short stories.

1st up, "The Raven Tower" by Ann Leckie, 2019, 402 pages, 109k words. I enjoyed Leckie's Ancillary sci-fi trilogy, I figured I'd give this a go. So this world has gods, which are potentially immortal beings who can make things happen by the force of their will if they have enough power from prayers and offerings stored up. They can also eat one another and acquire power that way. Interesting, I guess.

The narration of the book is odd. The main character of the book is a warrior aid of the heir to the throne. They present as a man but may or may not be a woman. This has nothing to do with the plot. The narrator is an apparently somewhat omniscient being who we later find out is a god who addresses itself to the main character??? There's a meandering plot, and a somewhat abrupt conclusion. So overall, meh.

Next up, "Sooner Or Later Everything Falls Into The Sea" by Sarah Pinsker, 2019, 357 pages, 97k words. A very enjoyable collection of 13 stories. Several have music themes, Pinsker is also a musician. A story about a generation ship dragged a little, which made me remember how the 1st date I went on with my wife of 44 years was in June 1968 to see "2001: A Space Odyssey", and we were so proud to have figured out that the trip to Jupiter dragged in the movie because a trip to Jupiter would be a boring, drug out journey. So 100x that for a generation ship.

The last story was particularly clever, a murder mystery at a convention of 1000 or so of the different multiverse versions of the inventor of the multiverse gate, a lot of whom are named Sarah Pinsker. Nice!

3rd and last, "The City We Became" by N.K. Jemison, 2020, 479 pages, 130k words, "The Great Cities Trilogy #1". I read 1 of her fantasy trilogies years ago, and recently gave a short story collection of hers 5 stars, which I almost never do.

I had read the prologue to this book I think on tor.com and like the premise: cities that reach a certain size and/or complexity and/or je ne sais quoi become sentient and exist on many planes in the multiverse. This is the story of New York's birth. But there is an Enemy who opposes the cities, whom it up to the cities' avatars to fight. Very fast paced, very hip characters, very New York, was going for another 5 star rating but then - Jemisin did something that just didn't seem right to me. If you want to know what, read past the spoiler alert. Still, very enjoyable, I went on and bought her other recent trilogy, each volume of which won the Hugo Award, 3 years in a row - unheard of. Fun new word: "broccoliesque". So close!

****************** SPOILER ALERT *****************

At one point, Jemisin brings H.P. Lovecraft into the mix, in a painting sent by the Enemy which portrays a scene from Lovecraft and outs his horrible racism and xenophobia. But then at the climax of the book, it is revealed that the Enemy is a city from a different dimension - it is fact Lovecraft's sunken city R'lyeh, trying to overlay New York and thus establish a bridgehead into our universe.

That just struck me as wrong. After rightfully and righteously calling out Lovecraft's racism and xenophobia, to then borrow one of his best known memes as a major plot element seemed totally incongruous.

Maybe it's just me. Still, a great read.

A New Heuristic?

I decided to try a new author. I went with "London Falling", by Paul Cornell, 2012, 432 pages. A team of London police detectives get The Sight and begin policing supernatural happenings in London. Then followed this with book 2 in the Shadow Police series, "The Severed Streets", 2014, 416 pages, and book 3, "Who Killed Sherlock Holmes", 2016, 368 pages. The 1st 2 had been on my iPad for a while.

Cornell is noted as having written several Dr. Who episodes for TV, and also having done comic books. He writes well. It is interesting that the books are written as British books - lots of British/London slang and cultural references. The "define" function in the Kobo eBook reader did pretty well with the slang.

The books are mostly well paced, but, in the middle of the 1st book, I was really reminded of comments by author Walter Jon Williams, all of whose stuff I have read, in a recent blog post titled "Padding". Basically it talks about how the many comic book series now on TV, as good as they are, still wind up padding episodes in the middle of the season to stretch the main story arc out. I 1st remember "X Files" as having a long story arc (the aliens) broken up by episodes of unrelated or minimally related investigations. That seems to be the model a lot of these shows follow now. Some of those unrelated episodes I think I agree can definitely be characterized as padding, particularly when they do a cutesie episode, or a Christmas episode, etc.

I think I went through "Jessica Jones" pretty quickly. "Luke Cage" I got bogged down but did finally finish. "Daredevil" I got bogged down in the 2nd season but finished it. "Arrow" I did maybe 3 seasons with many starts and stops. "The Flash" I think I am current at 2 seasons. "Agents of Shield" I got totally bogged down in the 3rd or 4th season, despite their doing The Inhumans, of whom I was a fan back when they were in Fantastic Four comics. "Supergirl" and "Legends of Tomorrow" I still have going for me - I have not started watching.

There are so many of these out. The scripts, acting, and production values are all surprisingly good. It's funny how that is true, when there are so many network shows, say all the "CSI" shows, that strike me as standard, formulaic, lame TV shows, that could have been made 30 years ago.

But as good as this new stuff is, there is just too much of it. All the years I have been a sci fi and a comic book fan, and now it is an embarrassment of riches - so much content, so little time.

So, how to filter? I think my new heuristic is: if a writer writes for TV as well as books, then don't read their books. Their writing reads like TV, and it will probably eventually wind up there.

Normally I watch TV in the (late) evenings when I am too tired to read. So the more "comic-booky" stuff is good then.

Getting back to the Cornell books, the 1st I thought dragged in the middle, but reached a satisfactory conclusion. The 2nd got into some metafictional stuff - Neil Gaimann is a character??? The 3rd is metafictional and multimedia. We're back to Sherlock Holmes again - whom I had just encountered in Dan Simmons' latest. Part of the plot of the 3rd Cornell is that weird Holmes stuff is being caused by the fact that all 3 Holmes TV series are simultaneously filming in London. Ha ha, no denying it, Sherlock Holmes is really way up there in the current zeitgeist.

This one really reads like a TV show episode. The 1st chapter is a teaser, of the team carrying out an operation not particularly related to the main plot of the book, and making Star Wars jokes. At the end of the 3rd one, the local action has been wrapped up, and we've learned a little more about the Real Bad Guy, but they are in no way close to resolution. So I have no idea how many more books this series is going to go for - just to get 1 bad guy.

I notice these are getting shorter: from 432 to 416 to 368 pages. When you really think about the content, I think these should be like 200 pages. Each of the "Amber" novels by Zelazny and comic book type stuff like Moorcock's "Elric" and other series were all about this length. I always thought these felt "comic-booky", which Cornell does not so much. Cornell noticeably spends a fair amount of time featuring the main characters' spouses or significant others - I think standard in modern writing. So is this "superior character development and improved production values" or "padding"? For this kind of content, I think I'll vote for the latter.

Still, I'll read a few more in the series. Hopefully he will wrap it up by then.

More Shamanism

I'm not sure how I wound up with shamanism as a minor theme here. A shamanistic convergence, I guess.

I read "Shaman", by Kim Stanley Robinson (2013). This book came out after the most excellent "2312". It is 530 pages. I'm not sure how I missed it. It is not science fiction or fantasy. It is the coming-of-age story of a (Cro-Magnon) human named Loon in southern Europe 40,000 years ago. The dating is pretty precise, because: a) he was an early cave painter; and b) there were still Neanderthal around.

Looking this up, it's amazing that humans and Neanderthals overlapped in southern Europe for only 5,000 years - from 45,000 years ago, when humans entered Europe, to 40,000 years ago, at which point the Neanderthals had all disappeared. The implication is, it only took us 5,000 years to wipe them out.

Robinson goes into great detail on hunter-gatherer life. In the very beginning there are several pages on how to light a fire in a storm.

Part of the shaman's training consists of being the keeper of the pack's oral tradition: he must memorize the 5 great tales and the 10 minor tales. We get excerpts of some of these tales as blank verse, nice.

1 small detail I liked - Loon is taught to name his injuries. Somehow, as an aging person, this seems like a reasonable thing to do.

Another thing I liked was a discussion of trail finding. I have always enjoyed following trails, and felt that it was one of our innate skills, developed by evolution over the last million years or so. I've often thought that the mathematics of trail-finding - minimizing the gradient function, I think - should be the basis of many search algorithms where you are trying to find a local minimum. Here are 2 passages that describe following trails:

I'm a straightwalker, Pippi said when Look asked about the trails. - I mean, I run a nice clean route. I don't go straight at the land if it doesn't make sense, but I don't like extravagance. Ups and downs are usually not bad enough to justify a divagation. Anyway I look for the best way. I'm always looking to see if there's a better way than the one I've used before, if I'm where I've gone before. And if I'm in new land, well, it's the best thing there is, finding a good way.

...

He put his mind to seeing the best way downcanyon. He could to this as well as any of them. In all canyons there was a ramp of easiest travel, inlaid into the jumble of rocks and trees in ways that could be hard to find. The best way might zigzag from sidewall to sidewall, or run as straight as a crack. Sometimes it was overgrown by trees or brush, especially if it was an alder canyon; still it would reveal itself to the eye if one took the trouble to look for it.

There is not a lot of conflict in the story. There is 1 long conflict that occupies maybe 1/3-1/2 of the book but generates a totally minimal body count. This vision of prehistoric times is somewhat at odds with that I would have expected, based on, say, Stephen Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature", where Pinker noted that, "Most of the "icemen" found preserved from 10s of 1000s of years ago have some kind of injury likely inflicted by another human." (paraphrased in my blog post).

Regardless, Robinson is truly one of our finest modern writers, and this is a great read.

Next I read "The Supreme Shaman", by Mark Heinz. Mark is my (3 years) younger brother. He has written 6 novels, this is his latest. it is 235 pages. I would classify it as urban fantasy. The protagonist is 1/2 Native American, and was pronounced the Supreme Shaman by the shaman (his grandfather) who trained him. The shamanistic powers are neat - they made me think of Dr. Strange. His strongest power is healing, which makes him the natural adversary for our oh-so-bad guy, who is a psychic assassin. The action moves from Big Sky country in the US to Brunei - the locales seem well researched.

The pacing of the book is excellent. The battle of good shaman vs very evil sorcerer is well done. Some of the background material is very good as well:

• a discussion of how primitive peoples did not believe in natural death except in the very old, but rather felt that unnatural non-accidental deaths were caused by sorcery, which has been noted in this blog before;
  
• a discussion of how after WW2, the US military was able to use operant conditioning to make soldiers much more effective killers.
  

This was a quick (2 sittings) and fun read, I recommend it.

Medusa's Web

Okay, I lied. I said I was going to read a worthwhile book. But, my concentration was off due to some medical-foo going on, so I decided on more escapism.

I read Tim Powers' latest "Medusa's Web". Powers has made a living with stories involving odd forms of magic and mysticism and famous historical figures. This time the magic is "spiders": 8-legged mandalas that cause odd effects, including time travel and body jumping. The famous historical figures are Hollywood silent movie figures, including Rudolph Valentino.

The main characters are flawed "normal" people. They kind of reminded of the characters in my favorite Powers: "Last Call", which is a Fisher King story with Bugsy Siegel and other figures from the the founding of Las Vegas.

I've always enjoyed these stories. They are page-turners. But it's starting to seem a little like he's got a machine cranking them out. Still, an enjoyable read.

I also read "The Vital Abyss", by James S. A. Corey. This is a novella that provides more backstory in the world of The Expanse. I've watched the 1st season of the The Expanse on SyFy and I think it has been very good. It's nice to watch something that has an intricate yet logical plot that takes its time developing.

Ancillary Detection

I read this year's Nebula Award winner for best novel: "Ancillary Justice", by Ann Leckie. It is a very good 1st novel, but I'm not sure it was the best of 2013. It is a space opera, with a human-based galactic empire. The 1st 2/3 of the book has 2 narrative threads, 1 in the present, and 1 doing backstory from 20 years before. The backstory thread then completes and we just finish out the present. There has been some discussion online of the oddly gendered characters in the book -- they mostly seem to be women, but there are "him" and "her" among them. It didn't seem to really affect the story much. It did make me think of "The Left Hand of Darkness", by Ursula K. LeGuin, from decades ago.

Everyone in the book was religious, with the empire's state religion being very open about enfolding other religions it encountered. I guess if you're doing a non-Culture space empire (non-utopian, non-socialist, non-anarchist), then your empire probably would embrace a state religion as a tool of control. Altho I did wonder if this was a side effect of the female empire -- women have always seemed to me on the average to be more ready to embrace religion than men.

The ending of the book is somewhat ambiguous, but we are clearly going to have at least a trilogy here. The blurbs for the next one suggest what may be an uninteresting direction. So I'll give it a try and keep my fingers crossed.

I reviewed this blog for "science fiction" for 2013. Nothing jumped out as being superior to this novel. Hannu's 2nd came out in 2012. The 2nd book of James S.A. Corey's Expanse series was nominated, but seems to me that giving awards to subsequent volumes in a series is bogus somehow.

The future I want to live in is, of course, Iain M. Banks's The Culture. He died this year of cancer, age 59, on June 9th. A new Culture novel was always a cause for rejoicing. I guess I will have to, every year or 2, go back and reread 1 of the 9 that exist.

When I finished "Ancillary Justice", I just had my iPad, which doesn't have my Kobo password memorized, so I could not buy the Piketty -- giving me an excuse to read another novel! So I read "The Manual of Detection", by Jebediah Berry. This is a retro urban fantasy, very Kafkaesque. The line between reality and dreaming is severely blurred. It reminded me some of John Crowley's early novels, where reality is blurred with fiction. It also reminded me strongly of the movie "Dark City", with the perpetual rain, and the citizens of the city being manipulated as they sleep.

This was also a 1st novel, and seemed to me a lot fresher and newer than "Ancillary Justice". It was also nice that it did not seem to be setting itself up for a sequel. To me it is one of those novels that paints a unique picture and is complete in itself.

OK, enough stalling, on to the Piketty!

Sandman Slim, 2-4

Well, as blogged last time, I thought that "Sandman Slim" by Richard Kadrey, was a decent supernatural noir comic book novel. The library had the other 3 in the series, so I went for it. I read them in 2 days, 4 days, and 2 days -- the OverDrive reader that the library uses shows you the number of days left on your (7) day subscription in its listing of books, so it's easy to notice. I got kind of tired of them. I think the main thing they have going for them is lots of smart-ass, cheap detective dialogue -- or should I say "patter". There are also a lot of pop culture references, which makes me afraid that these won't age well. Also, after a while, I found the christian mythology getting on my nerves. Of course, any christian would I'm sure find these books horribly blasphemous, but still, how about Brahmah creating the universe instead of Elohim? He does introduce lots of other species of magical creatures, which I think is fun, whether in stories like this, or in the trashy SyFy channel series that I enjoy (guiltily) like "Warehouse 13", or "Lost Girls".

The 2nd book, "Kill The Dead" introduces an interesting new character: a Czech female porn star zombie hunter -- nice!. The 3rd book "Aloha From Hell" takes place mostly in Hell, as does the 1st half of the 4th book, "Devil Said Bang". The pacing of these books is of course whiz-bang, and each one does come to enough of a conclusion that you are not left resenting being hung over a cliff too much.

So there will clearly be more of these, I guess I'll keep reading them. I have concluded tho that I did like the Harry Connolly Twenty Palaces series better -- too bad it's been discontinued.

Meanwhile, I have three more novels by new authors, most suggested by tweets or retweets of people I follow on twitter. So, should I read some economics or politics, or am I still on vacation? We'll see, I guess.

Yet Another Supernatural Noir Novel

I read, via eBook from the Lexington Free Public Library, "Sandman Slim", by Richard Kadrey, I think based on a recommendation by William Gibson. Very nicely done, christian and ceremonial magic mythology-based, very fast paced, huge body count. There are three more books in the series, I guess I'll go for them as well. Hard to go wrong with cheap (supernatural) detectives. I've also enjoyed Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces series of books, which was discontinued after 5, and the first of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher -- I think there's about a dozen of those. Apparently I'm still on vacation, yay!

eBooks at the LFPL

So I followed the instructions of the fine pamphlet I was given at the Beaumont branch of the Lexington Free Public Library. I went to www.lexpublib.org/elibrary and downloaded the OverDrive Media Console from the iTunes app store and put it on my iPhone and iPad. It has a Find Library function, and there was the Beaumont branch. Select it, all done!

They have a limited number of books per title to download. If one is available, you can add to your cart, otherwise you can put your name in the queue for a copy, or add it to your wish list. Most books seem to be available only for 7 day checkout.

They offer two flavors of downloads:

1. Kindle format books. When you pick one you are redirected to amazon to check-out. You must also go back to your Kindle page at amazon to return the book. So I think I will forgo this in favor of
   
2. Adobe EPUB format. These load directly into the OverDrive app, and you can return them from there. The app is pretty well integrated with the library when you want to look for more books. I did download a book and read it in this format. The reader is a little bit funky tho. When you swipe to the next page, rather than any kind of page turning animation, the new page just pops into place, but maybe looking like it is scrolling down a line. Odd that something like that is just a little annoying, but it is.
   

So the tech is decent, I would have to say the selection, not so much so. I searched for a few sci-fi authors I like, nothing. So in 10-at-a-time mode, I looked at the 451 titles they had listed in their top level browsing category "Science Fiction & Fantasy". It was pretty much completely fantasy. I don't remember a single sci-fi title. And the emphasis was on fantasy series I'd never heard of, most in 12 volumes or so. They had the whole Sookie Stackhouse series (Twilight). They did have "The Lord of the Rings" and "A Song of Fire and Ice" (A Game of Thrones) series. Interesting, 10 people waiting to read "A Game of Thrones", tails off pretty rapidly after the 1st one.

This kind of fits with what my friend Michael the bookstore owner told me: ebooks are being overwhelming adopted by genre (sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, western) readers who plow through far more titles than your average reader.

For my sample read, I chose "Side Jobs" by Jim Butcher, a collection of short stories set in The Dresden Files series. I had read the 1st of these "Storm Front" and liked it OK -- although there were some anti-science rants that seemed unnecessary to me -- but didn't follow up with the series. Stories were OK, I'm kind of digging urban fantasy as mindless reading -- but it looks like the series winds up getting into some serious christian mythology, with archangels and that murderous psychopath jehovah (god the father) getting involved.

I don't mind christian mythology, like in the movies "Constantine" or the "The Prophecy" series, but, man, I'm so tired of christians in general. We went to Campus Pub to see Ben Lacy Friday, got there 1 hour early, the trivia question is "Which is the only gospel that mentions the word "manger"?". KMN, fucking bible trivia in a bar? Where will it end?

More Reading

After my last post, I had that nagging feeling I had forgotten something. And I had: "Postsingular", by Rudy Rucker. I missed it because the paperback had been on my shelf for a while, and so didn't show up in my Kindle downloads listing. I really feel like, given his normal subject matter and background (computer science professor and Louisville native), I should like his stuff, but, he is just not a very good writer. "Postsingular" winds up being "Jack and the Beanstalk" anchored in quantum mechanics??? I really can't recommend it. I still have a reissue of his Ware tetralogy, of which I think I have read the first two, "Software" and "Wetware", on my to-read shelf. That will definitely be saved for a rainy day.

More recently, I read "Twenty Palaces: A Prequel", by Harry Connolly. This is apparently the last book in this series -- I think I read on Connolly's blog or twitter feed that his publisher was not going to publish any more of these. Too bad, I have enjoyed them. The protagonist, an ex-con who works as a thug for a mystical society that ruthlessly wipes out magic users, is a great noir character, a cheap detective of the old school.

Finally, I read "The Quantum Thief", the first novel of Hannu Rajaniemi. I tweeted: "80s: Neuromancer; 90s: Snow Crash; 00s: Accelerando; 10s: The Quantum Thief." I was really impressed. Just when you think that visions of future computing, cyberspace, and virtual reality are totally passe, here comes a new vision that blows you away. Rataniemi jumps on the privacy issues that are now coming to the forefront in social media with both feet. Highly recommended.

I also yesterday bought my first ebooks from a local bookstore: Carmichael's, Louisville's Oldest Independent Bookstore, owned by my old friend Michael Boggs and his wife Carol Bosse. I knew Michael from the Louisville computing scene in the mid-80s. Had a very pleasant lunch with him a few Sundays ago. Anyway, he told me I could buy Google eBooks from their website, same price as Amazon. You download them to the IndieBound Reader app on the iPad or iPhone. The books in this app look more like real books in their page layout than either the Apple or Kindle readers. The only downside so far is that I can't figure out how to get books from within the app, I have to go to the Carmichael's website, purchase and download. They have told me that I can designate Carmichael's as my store within the app, and then work from within the app, but I haven't figured out how yet.

Meanwhile tho, I would rather give business to local bookstores than to sweatshop master Amazon. The people who work in their warehouses (there is a large one in Lexington) are all hired as temps, minimal benefits, get sick and you're fired. Definitely a workforce that needs to unionize.

I have loved the convenience of buying from Amazon, but if the low prices come as a result of worker abuse, I will take my business elsewhere (whenever possible). Now I need a good alternative for buying music.