SF Fan Man

I haven't read anything by the two authors who comprise James S.A. Corey, but they can, collaboratively, spin a yarn. In particular, the SF elements of this book rank among the most engaging in recent years, with an escalating sense of wonder that is firmly rooted in "possible" science (as opposed to, say, pure fantasy). The vibe is part [b:Firefly|1472878|Firefly Lane|Kristin Hannah|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1362435448s/1472878.jpg|1463850], with an honorable schoolboy captain and his motley crew, and part high-adventure. They traverse the solar system that has established societies on Mars and the asteroid belt, in pursuit of (or being pursued by) an inscrutable and ancient alien. This is what space opera was meant to be. For the world building alone, this book is worth the read. However ...

Yes, there need be "howevers". For in the body and interstices of the narrative structure, the authors fill with: (a) Testosterone. Not just "fill in" but perhaps "lacquer with". Numerous brawny battle scenes and chase sequences. Two male POV characters, both of whom are chauvinistic, inordinately chivalrous and stubbornly self-righteous. The best character, in my opinion, does not have a POV of her own and for the bulk of the book is a ghost; Julie, the alien victim, I think would have had a compelling story to tell if only given the voice. The XO Naomi may also have given a meaningful feminine POV to the story and softened the implied masculinity in her character in the early going. (I peeked at the sequel and found the authors have fixed the T issue in the next book.) (b) Dialogue and character motivation. The main characters are Holden and Miller. Holden, who closely matches Captain Mal of the Firefly TV series is a straight-shooter imbued with an idealistic Wikileaks streak. Miller is a middle-aged cop detective pastiche who is presented in a noir haze like perhaps a Dashielle Hammett in space. Both Holden and Miller engage in prolonged existential arguments and soliloquies that lulled me to disorientation.

But despite the howevers, and in much the same way that the cult book [b:Revelation Space|89187|Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1)|Alastair Reynolds|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1306807253s/89187.jpg|219037] captures attention by its strong SF storyline (overshadowing any of the head-scratching acts of the characters), the authors present an endearing tale. A good first entry in this trilogy that promises more good things to come.

This is a more serious book than any of the later books in the series (at least, of the ones I've read). [a:Daniel Silva|29085|Daniel Silva|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1240154365p2/29085.jpg] is more evidently on a soapbox, linking more of the story's fiction to his version of history and reality. Unfortunately, this reminds me of efforts such as [b:The Da Vinci Code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] in which the author professes that the fiction is based on facts --- but which facts, and whose interpretation of facts? As with the scientific method, which eschews all aspects of bias in its blind test, any hint of tainting invalidates the results. And so I can only approach such books as [b:Prince Of Fire|93799|Prince Of Fire (Gabriel Allon, #5)|Daniel Silva|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309199471s/93799.jpg|1027588] as entertainment, discounting whatever the author claims to be truth.

Taken in this light, the novel is engaging, in the nature of a frivolous feel good action movie, where good prevails over evil, and the righteous are justified. Silva writes with a panache that is quite apt for spy thrillers. His is opposite the tongue-in-cheek machinations of [a:Ian Fleming|2565|Ian Fleming|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1364532740p2/2565.jpg], hewing more to [a:John le Carré|1411964|John le Carré|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1234571122p2/1411964.jpg] and filled with gravitas, quite sure of his message and purpose.

Here, the main protagonist, Gabriel Allon, an Israeli assassin who is also an expert art restorer, is set to end his career. His wife, the victim of a terrorist attack meant to kill him, is abducted, in a delightfully convoluted plot by master jihadist Khaled. With the skill of a trained killer, Allon escapes the trap set by Khaled, saves his wife, and kills some terrorists. Silva's writing is spare and hi-res clear, placing readers in the middle of the action. The rest of the book seems to be a setup for the retirement of Allon, with an offered promotion to operational administration of the Israeli spy service, the return of his wife's memory and the departure of his young lover, Keira, and his relocation to Jerusalem. But, of course, we know that retirement for Allon is far in the horizon as the number of follow up books featuring this popular hero attest. The book concludes with an uninspired (from the writing viewpoint) assassination by Allon of Khaled. This last seems a superfluous element but underlines the author's concept that the cause represented by his main character Allon is just with closure achieved only by a victorious Prince of Fire.

There's so much going on in this big honker of a book that, for sure, various readers and reviewers will find many aspects to like and dislike, be it with the style, content, implied politics or religion. For the first few chapters of [b:Reamde|10552338|Reamde|Neal Stephenson|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1305993115s/10552338.jpg|15458989], I leaned towards the dislike side. Then I realized this was because of a desire for this book to be something else, to be more like [b:Cryptonomicon|816|Cryptonomicon|Neal Stephenson|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327931476s/816.jpg|1166797], or the much earlier [b:Snow Crash|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320544000s/830.jpg|493634]. But then, somewhere midway through the book, I stopped resisting and sort of settled into Stephenson's gestalt --- one where he finds a need to explain every action and motivation, where no detail is too small not to spend at least a paragraph on, where there must be good and evil, heroes and villains, and that repeatedly finds an illegal means where there's a perfectly kosher way to do things --- and the preference counter shifted to the "like" side where it remained until the conclusion. Rather than treat the reading experience as root canal, it made more sense to learn to enjoy and make the most of it; much like life.

I had most fun googling the routes the various focal characters took along the 49th parallel. (I quickly discovered that Google Maps is not sufficient for the level of detail of the book, and had to find additional resources. But it was still a challenge to figure out which places are real and which a figment of Neal's fertile mind.)

[b:Reamde|10552338|Reamde|Neal Stephenson|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1305993115s/10552338.jpg|15458989] may not be [b:Snow Crash|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320544000s/830.jpg|493634] but it does have that book's snarky commentary of our contemporary mores and fixtures. It also starts out like the recently popular [b:Ready Player One|9969571|Ready Player One|Ernest Cline|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1333576871s/9969571.jpg|14863741], and sustains a punkish gloss for a bit, but then turns less virtual after the first half of the book. But mostly, it reminds me of a much earlier Stephenson effort, [b:The Cobweb|824|The Cobweb|Neal Stephenson|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320409244s/824.jpg|905465], a similarly border-crossing, terrorist-driven action thriller that has its characters traipsing through the Iowan byways. In many ways Reamde seems an update of that earlier book, benefiting from the author's years of toil on the keyboard but still at heart the same book.

"So what is the book really about?" - someone who hasn't actually read it may be wondering. Here's my take. The author presents a series of contrived locational coincidences starting in (a) Vancouver, BC - where the millionaire ex-smuggler, Richard Forthrast, inadvertently lends a virus-infected thumb drive to a friend of his niece, Zula, which then infects the confidential files of Ivanov, a Russian mobster, who then kidnaps Zula and her friend and takes them to (b)Xiamen, China ostensibly to punish the virus developer, named Marlon; Ivanov flies in more staff, including a seasoned assassin, Sokolov, and a Hungarian hacker, Changor; Zula misleads Ivanov to break into the wrong apartment, one which turns out to be the bomb-making facility of the infamous terrorist Abdullah Jones; a violent encounter ensues between the Russians and the terrorists in which all of Ivanov's gangsters, including Ivanov himself, are killed, except for Sokolov and Changor; to escape Chinese authorities, Sokolov enlists the help of Olivia, a British undercover agent who happens to have been watching Jones in a nearby building, Marlon joins up with Changor and Xusha, a pretty Chinese huckster, make their way to a remote town in (c) the Philippines, where they meet the American agent Shamus, at an internet cafe; meanwhile Jones heads for (d) the Pacific Northwest with hopes to conduct terrorist operations in the United States, and, with Zula still hostage, concocts a plan to enter the US via the smuggling route earlier used by Zula's uncle Richard; meanwhile Shamus, Marlon, Changor and Zusha land in Washington state via charter jet paid using Marlon's loot from hacking; Sokolov and Olivia arrive separately in Seattle and Vancouver and meet up accidentally as they both follow Jones' trail; then everyone meets up in (e) the Selkirk Mountains where the final tableau is set at the Forthrast family compound in northern Idaho. All this is, perhaps, just buildup to the set finale pitting a motley crew of computer jocks and survivalists against the "jihadists" in a running gun battle that takes the final fifth of the book. In Stephenson's idealized world, the "good" guys win and end up killing the terrorists. If only this were non-fiction. But the real world does not always work out this way; at times, perhaps more often than we would like, terror wins (this last note added on 4-16-2013, a day after the Boston Marathon bombing).

The book is certainly buoyed up by Stephenson's clear, uncomplicated prose though I would perhaps have enjoyed a significantly more spare approach. But as I said, I learned to enjoy the earnest effort to provide cogent reasons for its characters' actions and realistic backdrops for its various narrative threads. And so I give this 4 stars.

Ancient history is made up of bits of information from dated manuscripts and the plausible conjectures of historians. Reading this book, I would add that the personal biases of history writers fill in the information gaps which are especially large the farther back in time we go. The end result is a mix of fact and fiction, and like a scifi novel, the fiction needs to retain structural consistency with the rest of the facts.

With equal parts wonder and skepticism, this book takes one way back to the beginnings of the Imperial West. For what the Romans built was a military empire, funding their armies through taxation of provinces, and ruthlessly suppressing dissent. They set up client nations and installed friendly governors to support the structure of their Imperium. And thus, developed a template for future generations of imperialists, conquistadors and manifest destiny-ers.

The key character, Augustus, is depicted as an opportunistic politician whose skill was not in military matters but in identifying the compromises needed to advance himself. Ruthless and devious, the first Roman emperor defeated a succession of adversaries, including the ill-fated Mark Antony and his Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, to be the last man standing for the title Emperor.

In the backdrop we get glimpses of ancient lifestyles --- the Roman toga and sandals, short lifetimes under the constant threat of unknown and incurable diseases, children and family members exchanged with allies to seal pacts, opulence among the Romans, easy divorces, casual relationships, military battles sans gunpowder and motorized transport.

Quite a few minor characters, like one would find in a "sprawling" space opera, who come and go with no specific need. Too many, in fact, to be distracting. But of course, this is history, and persons and their names are needed for posterity.

I would recommend this book but only if you have or will read other histories of the same period such as
[b:The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire 3|1345610|The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire 3|Edward Gibbon|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337790892s/1345610.jpg|15895421] to provide a broader perspective.

If we were all unfeeling iRobots (floor cleaners) who respond to the random encounters in our lives by simply changing direction then the premise of this book is justified, for we would all follow our individual drunkard's walks to whatever probabilistic future awaits us. However taking this a step further, Leonard Mlodinow, et al. I would love for young readers to find this book and discover a delight for science and math. But not before they've found their essential humanity first, a steady balance from which such preoccupations may spur greater works and ideas.

The world was created in 6 days, and so was modern Israel. This paean to Jewish hardiness, perseverance, cunning and pragmatism is, at the blurb-level, about the shortest war during the Baby Boomer generation. But the heart and motivation of this book, by author Michael Oren, the sitting Israeli ambassador to the United States, is about existential rights; i.e., who is the rightful owner, landlord and tenant of the dry and weary land which holds Jerusalem at its center.

This is the tale of a week's worth of confused and bloody war, a war that embodied many other regional and worldwide events leading up to it, and influences Middle East and international geopolitics 46 years later. ... And on the 7th day, instead of resting, this new-but-ancient, small-but-ferocious nation lies uneasy, vigilant against enemies that surround it.

One would have to recognize of course that this is written from the point of view of Oren, quoting diplomatic dispatches, eyewitness accounts and historical records for credibility, but a view that is certainly not unbiased, notwithstanding the attempts at fairness. In so many words, he presents Israel's argument as a form of subdermal apologetics. And either you will accept it or reject it, but seldom will the response be blah. Such is the way of the world when it comes to anything Israel.

The title war is also called the 3rd Arab-Israeli war, and it behooves the reader to find out about the first two wars (1948-9 and 1956) for context. It would also help to have a detailed map on hand as the war is prosecuted on three different fronts, with references to many place names that may not be commonly known.

The impact this book had on me was to spur research (thank you Wikipedia even if people think you are inaccurate!) about Middle East history and events, to understand, from several viewpoints why things are the way they, or at least have a sense of some of the nationalistic and religious motivations. If it does the same to you, then the book has perhaps made its best possible impression. I do not recommend this book if one is looking for military tactics and strategy as the writing is more intellectual and philosophical than nitty-gritty warfare.

A YA dystopia with SF premise.

Quite a likable story. If this were a movie, it would be filled with close-up shots of the main protagonists with some glimpses of the world in the backdrop. [a:Hugh Howey|3064305|Hugh Howey|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1327581631p2/3064305.jpg] focuses on the human drama and does this quite well. His most compelling character is the perspicacious Juliet, headstrong, compassionate, and equipped with Lance Armstrong-like calves (sans PED). Her story is enough to keep many a reader reading on through to the end, including this reviewer. The character development of Lucas is also quite engaging, in particular, as he faces his personal crisis.

I personally wanted to see more of the broken world of the silos. The opening segment (Wool #1) describes the worn metal stairs in some detail, but does not address some immediate SF issues as the lack of elevators, the effects of sunlight deprivation (vit D deficiency, brittle bones, depression, sallow skin). But the humans of this strange underground world are seemingly the same as the "normal" ones of today, despite the apparent centuries of elapsed time. In my distracted way, I kept wondering where they get their meat, if any, or how they grow their food, and how much canned food was stored to last so long. But these are my pre-occupations and not the author's who clearly has a different focus in mind with this book. Wool is about the human story, their struggles for equality against the tyranny of the few, their spirit of perseverance and the will to keep living despite inimical conditions. It is a powerful story which is reflected in the popularity of this book among the GF readership.

As for me, I kept asking the SF questions straight through Wool #5. How much power did each silo need, where did they get the fuel to run the generators, how did they handle ventilation, when Juliet took a really deep dive and fast rise in the depths of Mechanical, did she not get the bends, how do radio signals propagate underground, and so on and so forth. If you are able to deal with the SF premise that is not expounded upon, then you can really love this book. This is a well-written human interest story that happens to have an SF-type premise. My rating of 3-stars is based purely on the difference in expectation when I purchased the book as an SF story and when I read it as a sort of Romeo and Juliet romance.

Read my share of technical papers, as part of the day job. Concise, spare expositions that have data, assumptions, analysis and conclusions, all within the 7 page length limit. And I'll admit, sometimes my mind has wandered, placing these in stories fleshed with human participants and human emotions. One way to find more meaning in the cool things that science makes.

I'm back in that place, listening to the audiobook version of [b:Blue Remembered Earth|9424053|Blue Remembered Earth (Poseidon's Children, #1)|Alastair Reynolds|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1318599915s/9424053.jpg|14308470]. Lots of cool stuff --- golem personalities, next generation 'internet', a puzzle that spreads pieces on the Moon, Mars, Mercury, the Kuiper belt. A well-developed backstory - Africa ascendant, elephants and whales, a truly inscrutable matriarch, a single-family solar system spanning conglomerate. And yet I am still adding my own elements to the story, sure sign that I am not entirely engaged --- such as: what if there were more to the cousins other than following the protagonists through the puzzle, they are business executives after all, and what if Geoffrey had a personal passion or love other than his scientific research of elephants, and his sister had a more complex relationship with Jitendra, and so on.

Granted this is the first of a series, and Reynolds will be building on these basic elements to expand into, hopefully, more interesting plot threads. But my expectations were based on the marvelous achievement of [b:House of Suns|1126719|House of Suns|Alastair Reynolds|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328058140s/1126719.jpg|2020929], and instead find a piece that hearkens back to the earlier [b:Revelation Space|89187|Revelation Space|Alastair Reynolds|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1306807253s/89187.jpg|219037].

Despite all of my reservations, this is still a cut above the typical SF fare that I'll probably still want to read the next book. There's enough here, a mustard seed perhaps, but a good next effort can certainly do wonders to re-engaging this series.

[a:Peter F. Hamilton|25375|Peter F. Hamilton|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1235123752p2/25375.jpg] writes large. He writes 1000 page behemoths of narrative. And he writes with ideas that are space and time spanning, far beyond the usual windows of ordinary lives. And his words are imbued with the power of ideas and concepts far above today's water cooler subjects. Yet, despite the immense dimensions of his imagination, he keeps it all within reach, grounded on human sensibilities, maintaining a keen sense of the grand human drama.

So in this decidedly large book, Hamilton mixes together inscrutable alien swarms, cloned megalomaniacs, monsters with bladed fingers, interworld portals, smart personal networks, sentient worlds, manufactured oil, medically-enabled longevity, with recognizable and easily accessible characters --- a persistent police investigator, a deeply religious military spook, a seemingly helpless woman wrongly imprisoned, three clones who pursue three separate ambitions of wealth, long-life and freedom --- and vast and sundry characters that a reader from the 21st century can easily relate to. He weaves a tale that could simultaneously be categorized as crime/mystery, political intrigue, spy/military, green environmental/survivalist, alien/first encounter, family drama/love story, action/SF ... all interlaced together in Hamilton's insistent style that impels and brooks no doubt that you, the reader, will hold your disbelief.

From my perspective, the most powerful aspect of this sprawling, decidedly Anglo-centric book, that which holds it together and fills it with passionate motivation and narrative impetus, is the story of Angela. Compared to her the rest of the characters seem quite mundane. Or, conversely, without her, this big, booming behemoth of a book may have failed to engage.

Hamilton has clearly improved with practice; from the Mandel detective stories, to the Nights Dawn series, onto the Void trilogy and now the amazing feat of [b:Great North Road|13573419|Great North Road|Peter F. Hamilton|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344371600s/13573419.jpg|19154394]. One thing I can say is read Hamilton now and savor his work while he is at his inventive and imaginative best, for a hundred years hence who knows how we would appreciate his writing in the light of different mores.

The audio equivalent of an 18-hour long event movie. Despite some apprehension, I enjoyed this book. The plotting and conniving are vintage Clancy (with perhaps a healthy dose of emotions from his collaborator Mark Greaney, does a commendably outstanding job bringing the story to life. There is an especially entertaining warplane battle that had me imagining Top Gun as the action unfolded.

After the promise of the first 3 books in this series (with Jack Ryan Jr.), Threat Vector next.

Vintage Connelly. After the disappointment of [b:Nine Dragons|6413193|Nine Dragons (Harry Bosch, #15)|Michael Connelly|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344268497s/6413193.jpg|6602180], he returns to his strength, an investigative story that is not built on happenstance but on the careful development of clues and characters. The author seems much more comfortable with the Los Angeles environs (compared to, say, Hongkong), whether this be in 1992 or 2012, and is reflected in the fluidity of his prose and flow of the narrative. The term "impellent writing" is quite applicable.

There are quite a few changes in the Bosch backstory as well, not least of which is the acknowledgement that the character is aging, and needs to act more his age. His daughter, for one, indicates that she wants to follow in his footsteps. Although, thankfully, he has not mellowed too much, and is still up to a few chapters of breathless action. Bosch is still ragging on his supervisor, but perhaps this is wearing thin over the course of several books.

Anyway, good job. I'll be looking at some of the other books I missed on the back list.

For a series that he has kept going for 20 years, one wonders when [a:Michael Connelly|12470|Michael Connelly|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1202588562p2/12470.jpg] would run out of ideas and steam. This may well be the book in which he has over-reached, going beyond his comfortable LA haunts, and there upon changed the formula that has made the series so popular.

In [b:Nine Dragons|6413193|Nine Dragons (Harry Bosch, #15)|Michael Connelly|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344268497s/6413193.jpg|6602180], Connelly brings in the LA Chinese connection via, of all things, the Hongkong triads. What bares the author's discomfort right at the outset is how sketchily he draws the Chinese characters as if from lack of familiarity or research or both. He clearly does not have a handle on the Chinese personality and resorts to incidental action to hold the reader's interest. This is a departure from the pensive, observant, slow boil atmosphere of the previous Bosch books that include stellar novels such as [b:The Last Coyote|49353|The Last Coyote (Harry Bosch, #4)|Michael Connelly|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170358620s/49353.jpg|449477] and [b:The Black Echo|32508|The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1)|Michael Connelly|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344265342s/32508.jpg|48262].

Like the movie version of action stories, often the flow is dependent on far-fetched connections to keep things going. Here, the relative speed with which Bosch finds his missing daughter is made possible by multiple coincidences, violating that sacred rule of novels (attributed to Roger Zelazny) to limit coincidences to one per book.

Perhaps not a fault of the author, but the narrator appears to mistake a Japanese accent as Chinese, going for the rolling R's that would be difficult for native Cantonese or Mandarin speakers.

Connelly tries to save this with some twists at the ending, but in doing so, may have muddled the story further. Overall, the feel is that of a transition or middle novel in a trilogy where all the author is aiming to do is to connect the bookends. But, of course, this is book 12 or 13 of a long-running series, so that is not a sufficient excuse. whatever the reason, this one flopped for me, though not enough to dissuade me from reading other Bosch books.

The word for world is ... Ocean (apologies to Ursula Leguin). This is Spatterjay, a waterworld populated by decidedly hostile fauna, backdrop for a richly imagined multi-threaded story that rivals the best SF books of the 2000s. Quite a tour-de-force worthy of multiple re-reads, and deserving of the lofty 4+ rating on Goodreads.

Here we meet Sable Keech, the most interesting of a long list of characters, a reification (resuscitated dead person), following the centuries old trail of a criminal. And here too is the Spatterjay virus, delivered by truly eek-inducing giant leeches, turning ordinary sea-faring humans into perpetual, self-repairing leech-meal. Asher casually drops in the imaginative quotient of the whole Foundation series to produce an entertaining space opera that has not paled over the years.

With this further expansion of his Polity universe, [a:Neal Asher|56353|Neal Asher|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1207862001p2/56353.jpg] convinces me that his is a more engaging vision, compared to say, [a:Iain Banks|7628|Iain Banks|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1304977070p2/7628.jpg]'s Culture, which now seems too perfect and intellectual. In [b:The Skinner|240297|The Skinner|Neal Asher|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316638195s/240297.jpg|1757149], staged on the boundary of the Polity, I find a grittier world populated with strange creatures. At the beginning of the book, it seemed I had walked into an alternate version of [b:Perdido Street Station|68494|Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, #1)|China Miéville|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327891688s/68494.jpg|3221410], with all the squishy, mushy beasts, all of whom seem to have an inimical nature. But the story quickly takes on a unique voice and brings the reader along on a truly wild ride.

The one nit is that it has no ending to speak of, but sort of fades to black to leave plot threads to be resolved in the sequel. Otherwise, highly recommended.