Neil Fein's Blog

Beyond This Horizon
by Robert A. Heinlein

Hamilton Felix is the ultimate in Heinlein protagonists: An uncaring, sharp, and perfect superman of a human being with a similarly intelligent, perceptive, and gorgeous woman who's been set up with him in a eugenics scheme. The background is a revolution that's misgguided but perhaps justified in intent. Not as absorbing as some books of this time, but an enjoyable volume on an excessively dark and rainy evening.

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Starman Jones
by Robert A. Heinlein

Typical Heinlein juvenile in many ways. A hillbilly gets a berth on a starship crew, mostly by trickery, and makes friends and enemies on the bridge and in the hold. More math- and testosterone-intensive than most. A dark but thoughtful book, Starman Jones has shadows of the upcoming Starship Troopers in tone.

Farmer in the Sky
by Robert A. Heinlein

More representative of RAH in his Boy's Life phase, a city boy and his father join the fledgling colony on Ganymede and find it's even harsher than they expected. The hours and days in the promised land are not just filled backbreaking work but also with politics, arguments over land and gumption, and fields of rock. Very strong characters and story.

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The Uncommon Reader

by Alan Bennett

The Queen of England discovers that the joys of reading highlight the sterility of her life. Fun, intimate, and very much a good read.

A Deepness in the Sky
by Vernor Vinge

A thoughtful, wide-screen epic with a smart story and memorable characters. A civilization (or entity) from the enthralled heights of the galaxy has gone bad, turning younger races into zombies. Seen from the point of view of the disinformation and speculation produced by galaxy-wide newsgroups. One of the best hard-SF novels I've read in some time, along with Fleet of Worlds.

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Fatal Revenant
by Stephen R. Donaldson

Picking up where the cliffhanger ending of The Runes of the Earth left off, Thomas Covenant leads Linden Avery on a quest to use the power of the Blood of the Earth. Linden finds quickly that she doesn't trust her old friend as much as she should, and refuses to surrender the power of Covenant's white gold ring to the rightful wielder.

If this makes no sense, it means you're seven books behind the story. There's no sense in pretending, "What has gone before" prologues aside, that these books are in any way standalone stories. Fatal Revenant in particular is opaque if the reader is not familiar with previous works, but very regarding if one has a good memory (or is quick to peek in the glossary).

Questions about the Ranhyn, the forestals, and Linden's son Jeremiah are all answered with more questions. The Land's history is explored like never before, and scenes of Linden healing through Earthpower while Berek Halfhand watches on in awe are among the most powerful that Donaldson has ever written.

Fatal Revenant flags in introspection and self-doubt in the middle of the book, but quickly picks up again. With the new expressions of lore that are turned over, this addition to the Thomas Covenant saga smacks of fan service a little, but I didn't mind. What I do mind is waiting until 2010 for the next volume.

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Labels: books

Time for the Stars
by Robert A. Heinlein

It seems odd I haven't read this one until now. I started this because I needed a book to take on tour, and didn't feel like carrying the heavy hardback I'm in the middle of reading.

The Long Range Foundation funds unlikely ventures, one of which is space travel to distant stars. One issue with this is communication with ships light-years away, and they scramble a project to find telepairs - mostly identical twins - after the discovery that telepathy is instantaneous breaks quietly.

Tom and Pat are one of several identical twins who have to decide who goes to the stars and who stays. Time for the Stars is in many ways a typical Heinlein "juvenile" novel - stock Heinlein characters, with many of the Heinleinesque tropes, such as red hair, twins, and an obsession with the long view. But stock Heinlein stuff is almost always damn good stuff.

The author follows the element of human beings functioning as communication devices to a fascinating end: People have lives apart from the noble exploration of the stars, particularly the telepath left behind on Earth and has to interrupt work or a date or class to take a message. And messages that may seem vital to those on a starship may not be as important to a child being called to the table.

I think I still have four or five Heinlein juvies I haven't read yet...

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Interworld
by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves

This first collaboration between fantasy author Neil Gaiman and hard-SF writer Michael Reaves is a solid young-adult SF adventure. Interworld keeps the hard science-fiction and fantasy strictly on their own sides of the plate, situations tending to be one or the other, with very little desegregation. I'm hardly the target audience, but I can't help but find this to be somewhat of a compromise book.

Joey Harker is someone able to navigate alternate dimensions, not someone who has, as he's thought all his life, a deficient sense of direction. (As someone who shares that ...ahem, feature... I can sympathize.) One recruitment later (by an interdimensional paramilitary group) and Joey is on his first mission against a rival organization.

The gist is that Joey has to save the universe from folks who want to keep all the dimensions under their thumbs (or equivalent appendages). It was a fun read, but it honestly didn't work for me. Interworld kept striking me as predictable. The writing, however, is quite good, and the characters excellent. (Even the ones that are other-dimensional iterations of Joey.) I hope that this team writes another book; there's much potential here.

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Eastern Standard Tribe
by Cory Doctorow

I gulped Eastern Standard Tribe down almost in one sitting, on a day I was tired from uploading family photos to the internet.

Art Berry is a user experience consultant, working for a firm in London. Actually, he's an agent for the Eastern Standard Tribe, a social network of east-coast net-connected folk who find each other work, help each other out, and they sabatoge companies so to make way for their own concepts in the market. Almost forgot... they all keep a sleep schedule that lets them stay in touch in real time with tribe ground zero. Got that? Sleep-deprived idea-folk who are disguised as businessmen. Sorta.

I enjoyed Cory Doctorow's second novel very much; I read it in a few hours, mostly on a train. It doesn't hold together nearly as much as his first book, though. Art bears more than a passing resemblance to Manfred Macx, main honcho of Charles Stross's Accelerando, Doctorow's sometimes collaborator.

But. The concept of people depriving themselves of sleep to keep up with the j0nz3s has been going on for years; when's the lat time you walked into work yawning because you'd stayed online until 1am? (Or is it just me that does that?) Of course, we used to stay up late to watch late night TV, and some of us even stay up late reading.

Tribe is very perceptive, easily read, and very thoughtful.

Most of Cory Doctorow's works are available for free under Creative Commons License at craphound.com.

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Fleet of Worlds
by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner

The first novel by this collaboration team and the first Known Space book since the plodding Ringworld's Children, Fleet of Worlds is a pleasant surprise. The two writing styles work well together, the characters are very good, and five worlds fleeing through space is a mind-expanding setting.

When the race of aliens known to Humans as the Puppeteers find that a wave of hard radiation from supernovae in the core of our galaxy will reach Known Space in the distant future, their natural caution (or cowardice) prompts them to flee the galaxy now. Bringing their planet and four attendant farming worlds provides the setting for a human colony that has been bred to serve the puppeteers as farmers and advance scouts, which the colonists defer to as "citizens".

The characters are a little pale for the first hundred pages or so, but this is the only fault of this wonderful novel. A prequel to Mr. Niven's Ringworld, Fleet of Worlds is the first of a projected two-book arc.

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Korea
by Simon Winchester

Korea documents the author's walk across South Korea that retraced the route of seventeenth-century explorer Hendrick Hamel. Hamel wrote a book of his travels in the land of "Corea" that brought this mysterious land to the attention of Europe.

The trick of detachment while remaining involved in the story is something that eluded the author at this point, but the stories in this book are of a more personal nature than the historical narratives in later volumes. Despite the fact that he doesn't flat-out say it, Mr. Winchester obviously loves Korea and found most of the Koreans he met fascinating.

Comparisons to other places Winchester has been are inevitable in a travel book. I was fascinated to see, however, that as the book Continues, the author is more likely to compare Korea with another facet of the country, rather than, say, Shanghai or Tokyo or Dublin.

Before writing the masterful volumes Krakatoa, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and The Professor and the Madman, geologist-writer Simon Winchester generated a series of travel books. I read this book out of a curiosity to see where one of my favorite authors started out, and was pleasantly surprised to find it quite well-written and educational.

Labels: books, notbike

Polaris
Jack McDevitt


The third book in a loose series featuring Mr. McDevitt's character Alex Benedict, Polaris is told from the viewpoint of Chase Kolpath, Alex's pilot and assistant. Chase doesn't quite Rainbow, Alex's two-person operation that sells archaeological finds, but she is certainly a well-known face to their wealthy clients, and very skilled at cutting through bureaucracy.

The setup behind this vaguely noir/mystery book involves the mysterious ship Polaris whose passengers and crew vanished mysteriously 60 years ago. The ship has captivated the public for years. While the Polaris was hardly the only ship to disappear, the way it's crew of celebrity scientists-- and young, pretty captain Madeline English-- vanished in impossible circumstances is an inexplicable, glittering mystery for the ages.

When Chase cuts a deal for Rainbow with Survey (a government exploration and artifact recovery agency) to have first crack at buying Polaris artifacts, the building is bombed by parties unknown, taking out most of the artifacts. The mystery behind the bombing-- and what did happen on the Polaris all those years ago, by the way-- is delightful reading, and difficult to put down. (I read most of the book on a plane, and managed to stay focused despite the bad movie and noisy passengers.)

The books seems to be headed towards a pretty pork-barreled nine-eleven analogy for the first few chapters, but it thankfully drops that quickly. The sense of a complete world is not as great as it could be, but the author does a very good job of painting a universe where human colonies are all-- almost all-- united. (The history of this world is much richer in A Talent for War, the first of the Alex Benedict books. yes, I'm reading them out of order.)

A fun book, with an unexpected ending. This is the first of Jack McDevitt's books that I've read, and I intend to keep reading them as long as they stay good.

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A Crack in the Edge of the World
America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
by Simon Winchester

The story of the earthquake that devastated the then-young city of San Francisco is particularly well-suited to the Simon Winchester "grand event" treatment. The earthquake -- and the vast fire that followed -- is an event of such scale, that a writer known to convey bewildering arrays of facts well is needed to merely outline it.

The haphazard rebuilding of the city is a story that directly follows not only the quake and fire, but the needs of businesses in the city and, in particular, the fear that the young city might not bounce back. In typical style, Mr. Winchester dissects not only the disaster, but the social atmosphere it took place in.

The author has demonstrated a passion for language, and this book is no exception. The passages on writing of the time are well-written, and particularly entertaining when discussing sub-par poetry of the time.

Aside from the geology that surrounds the story, one of the most captivating accounts is that of how insurance companies reacted. Some defaulted amid squabbling over whether damage was fire or quake related, and these companies reputations suffered (if they even survived). (Lloyd's of London enhanced its reputation considerably by instructing its agents to pay all claims.)

I need not detail the glittering explanations of plate tectonics and earthquake science, of seismic instrument technology. bringing out details inevitably lessens the sense of grandeur and sheer interconnectedness that Mr. Winchester's best sagas convey. A Crack in the Edge of the World is a typical Simon Winchester book - which is to say, fascinating, lots of digressions that turn out to be relevant, and very well written indeed. While not his absolute best work, this book sits closely behind Krakatoa and The Meaning of Everything.

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Over the Hills, by David Lamb

Wanting to travel across America on a bicycle could strike many as an incomprehensible desire. Over the Hills is a memoir of a middle-aged journalist's 3000-mile afternoon ride. The book is well-written, fun to read, and strikes an excellent balance between travelogue, personal memoir, and barely disguised worship of middle America's relaxed way of life.

The author is decidedly not part of bicycling culture. He wore ordinary-looking clothing on his trip, ate in ordinary diners and truck stops, and stayed in ordinary hotel rooms, with his bike standing by the side of the bed. Mr. Lamb is very much a character in his own story.

I'm not sure whether it's that the writing got better after the first few slower chapters, or that I grew to appreciate the style as I read. The latter slow acclimation would be particularly appropriate. Highly recommended to cyclists and considerate cagers alike.

Labels: america, bike, books, journalism, notbike

The Ministry of Special Cases, by Nathan Englander

The story of Kaddish Poznan, a Jew living in Argentina during the Peron years, Mr. Englander's first novel follows his wonderful debut, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. Uncertainty, dictatorship, and persecution are to be expected in such a setting, but the author chooses to focus further on the themes of class rivalry and government-sponsored kidnapping that none dare question or even acknowledge.

The Poznan family is, in typical Englander fashion, a complex of unshared obligation, interdependent rebellion, and guilty familial affection. Unlike previous Englander characters, the Poznans are not particularly observant. Another new theme for the author is the relentlessly useless bureaucracy of Peronista Argentina.


The Ministry of Special Cases is less focused than the short fiction that preceded it, but that's to be expected. It's not as easy of a read as his previous work, nor is it as thoughtful. But these comparisons diminish the achievement of this debut novel, since they're more of a comment on For the Relief of Unbearable Urges than on this book. Mr. Englander has produced a worthwhile and thoughtful addition to the body of literature that includes the Jewish narrative.

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Larry Niven
Crashlander

I first read Neutron Star when I was maybe 12, in a book called Where Do We Go From Here, an anthology of science-heavy SF stories by Isaac Asimov. There was a brief essay at the end of each story about the science.

Beowulf Schaeffer is a former pilot and perpetual tourist. A protagonist who is intelligent enough to think his way out of situations he really should have been smart enough to avoid makes for fun stories.

Larry Niven's "hard" science fiction is generally characterized as heavy on mind-blowing ideas with weak characters. Louis Wu, Beowulf Schaeffer, Richard Harvey-Schulz Mann, and Gil Hamilton could all be the same man. On the other hand, the ideas are good enough that it's hard to care.

These stories - with one exception - were all written when Mr. Niven was at the zenith of his ability. Even the new story, Procrustes, while hardly a mind-blowing tale, is only weak by comparison to the earlier stories, on it's own it's a fun tale. And, unlike much of his recent work, Procrustes has many fascinating ideas about how technology can change our lives - in this case, it's nanotechnological medicine. Showing it as a special case that hasn't yet become a part of mainstream society cheats the reader a little, though.

If you already have The collections Neutron Star and Tales of Known Space, you'd be buying the book for the one new story and a framing story that really adds nothing. But it's a fun way of stringing the stories together into a narrative. These stories are easily among Larry Niven's best writing.

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Lake of the Long Sun
by Gene Wolfe

If Nightside the Long Sun (here's my review) was about a moral dilemma, Lake of the Long Sun is a coming-of-age for Patera Silk. Or perhaps he's just getting better at matching the world in his head to that outside his skull.

Memory is on a par with religion and politics as a theme, as the politics of Viron are brought more to the forefront. "Silk for Calde" is the poem on the walls of the Whorl, and the good Patera is considered a bit of a rabble-rouser. While his mission to sane his manteion recedes to the background for a while (as survival takes precedence for a while), Silk's resolve is as strong as before.

What makes this more than just an adventure in church politics is the sophistication Silk is gaining with nearly every chapter. And what makes this admirable is that only a few days have passed in the first two books combined.

Better even than Nightside was, Lake of the Long Sun is possibly my favorite volume of the series so far. And I have two more to go!

Labels: books, notbike

Nightside the Long Sun
by Gene Wolfe

If what you hold dear is a thing that helps people by its nature, is it morally correct to steal and perhaps murder evil men to protect it? I'd think not, but it's a dilemma that Patera Silk, the protagonist of the first volume of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the Long Sun.

While many of the same themes that Mr. Wolfe explores in The Book of the New Sun are present here - transformation, religion, government - yet are given new twists. The author's trademarked unreliable narrator is here more self-deluding than a liar. Silk nearly always tells the truth, but it's tinted by his desire for happy endings. While he is a priest of sorts, he has a remarkable loss of remorse at descending into criminal acts, even to save his parish.

Religion is here portrayed as both noble and worthy or ridicule, depending on the point of view. Or perhaps both. The gods of the Whorl, the miles-long generation ship the story is set in, are kind, or perhaps cruel.

To summarize the plot is to do it a disservice. But here goes: To save his manteion, as a god has instructed him to do, Patera Silk must accomplish the impossible task or convincing a criminal to show charity. That's pretty trite, actually, and it leaves out the grand society that's grown up (or perhaps not) in the Whorl. It leaves out the characters of Auk, professional thief and Silk's mentor; the semi-respectable criminal Blood; Maytera Marble, 300 year old sibyl of the manteion.

Not to be missed. Nightside the Long Sun is a continuation to the New Sun books. But you can start here, I think, since the characters and events are very different. However, having read the earlier books will enrich the experience.

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The Big Time, by Fritz Lieber

The Change War has been going on for along time now, an eternal conflict of altering history on many planets between two groups called the Spiders and the Snakes. Greta is an "entertainer" for the Spiders, a hostess of sorts at an R&D station for change war soldiers. When the entire station is threatened with destruction... well, you'd think a lot of character would be revealed, but actually, you'd be wrong.

Perhaps this style of writing was revolutionary in the 60s (or the 50s), but Mr. Lieber's characters are cliches and not particularly sympathetic, if that's what they're meant to be. And attitudes towards women are very difficult to overlook.

It's never made clear what, exactly it is that Great does for the Spiders. Is she a warm fuzzy therapist/ friendly figure? A prostitute? One might argue that this ambiguity allows the character not to distract from the plot, but the plot isn't interesting enough to warrant this. The temporal war -- a radical concept in its day -- is kept distant, the plot revolving around the mystery of who planted a bomb in the station, and cut the station loose into the void outside of the universe. Making this dull is quite the accomplishment.

Fritz Lieber has a lot of fans, but based on this book, I'm not one of them. I finished The Big time because it was short and I did want to find out what happened -- parts of it are gripping, but the ending disappoints.

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The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil

[The singularity] is not a certainty but in my opinion is a plausibility in the working lifetimes of most people here, that there will be perhaps something superhuman come along. We will either create or become something superhuman, in various ways.
Vernor Vinge

Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
Alvin Toffler

You can't write this story. Neither can anyone else.
John W. Campbell

This is a difficult book to review. It's a futurist treatise on how ever-accelerating changes will change society. And it's a love letter to technology, Mr. Kurzweil is obviously enamored of computers. It's also very well written, particularly for such a dense topic. The Singularity is Near reads like a cross between an academic paper and an Isaac Asimov science popularization.

The basic premise is that technology is progressing at an ever-increasing rate, and at a certain point, change will continue so rapidly that it's difficult to predict anything beyond that point, the singularity. It's a fascinating concept, and one I've been introduced to in the fiction of Charles Stross. The future will not look like the present with better tech, it's going to be pretty unrecognizable. Possible technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotech manufacturing, and robotics and artificial intelligence (the author's "GNR" triumvirate), will transform not only how we live but what we think of as a human being. Artificial intelligences, critical to the theory of the singularity, are by definition capable of expanding their own capabilities, and will drive much change.

It's an ambitious work, and not the first book the author has written on this topic. It does have weak spots, namely the tendency to assume that technology will progress according to plan, not accounting for technological setbacks very well. All we've seen in the last few centuries is progress, so of course that's all we ever will see.

To the book's credit, it does include a chapter on the dangers of these technologies. The "grey goo" scenario, where out of control self-replicating nanobots consume our biosphere for raw materials, is particularly chilling, but there are other equally deadly ways for hostile "strong" AI or perhaps genetically engineered plague vectors to wipe out the human race. Responses to the critics of the arguments presented in the book tends to be dismissive, however.

The Singularity is Near is hardly a book to be read during a lazy afternoon on the beach, but it's very rewarding and thought-provoking if you stick with it.

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Numbers Don't Lie, by Terry Bisson

Math is apparently makes outlandish goings-on believable. Numbers Don't Lie, a collection of linked stories, Wilson Wu walks his friend Irv through a trip to a dumping ground on the moon, the universe rewinding, and the horror of not having to wait for New York City public transportation.

Irv is pretty much a foil character, but a strong one. A longtime Volvo driver, Irv loves city life but likes to slow down. He's certainly difficult to rattle, but the real fun in these stories is his best friend.

A veritable Buckaroo Banzai, Wu is a multi-talented man: A mathematician, entomological meteorologist, an engineer (on the side, mind you), and a phone phreaker who ends most conversations with an open-ended question. He also has a penchant for explaining things to Irv whether Irv's following along or not.

Mr. Bisson (is that Biss-on or Bye-son?) has crafter three wonderful, readable, stories in this volume. Recommended.

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Glasshouse, by Charles Stross

Where Accelerando was a study in Singularity futurist theory, Glasshouse, while taking place in the same society, concentrates more on getting you into the head of the protagonist, Robin, a veteran of the Censorship Wars. The reader gets to know Robin far more intimately than we did Manfred Maxc, even though Robin's memory has been severely redacted for much of for much of Glasshouse.

The themes of the universe as information and intellectual property are as strong as in the rest of Mr. Stross's work, but he works them into this novel with more subtlety. Although this isn't as gripping a story as The Atrocity Archives or Iron Sunrise, it's a worthwhile, enjoyable read and lives up to the author's deserved reputation.

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Quickie reviews of books by Spider Robinson (read from July through August 2006)

Short stories about Callahan's Place, a bar somewhere in Suffolk County, Long Island. In some ways, the series is another series of (mostly) science-fiction stories that take place (for the most part) in a bar.

The lead character, Jake, is at once a flimsily disguised pastiche of the author and a perfect viewpoint character.

The series (and indeed most of Mr. Robinson's writing) is summed up by the trademark phrase "Shared pain islessened, shared joy is increased". Much of the suthor's style is reminiscent of Robert Heinlein's work. The series ranges from good to excellent, and the earlier books in particular are amongst the best.

* * *

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

Excellent introduction to the Callahan series. Introduces all the characters, and has the excellent "Two Heads are Better than One" and "The Guy with the eyes" (the first Callahan's story, and Spider Robinson's first sale of any kind).

Time Travellers Strictly Cash

Includes some of the best stories heavy in SF elements, in particular "Mirror Mirror" and "Fivesight". Unique among the series, this book has a fw non-Callahan stories. "God is an Iron" is my favorite among these, and one of my all-time favorite of his stories.

Callahan's Secret

The last of the books in Callahan's Place, we finally learn who Callahan actually is. Important to the overall arc, but not the best in the series.

Callahan's Legacy

The first of the books in Mary's Place, Jake's bar.

Callahan's Lady

The first of two books about Mary's Place, a bordello of sorts in Brooklyn with much of the same tone as Callahan's place.

Lady Slings the Booze

Sequel to Callahan's Lady and in some ways the better of the two books, although the villian, Tony Donuts, is a dissappointing Big Stupid Gangster cliche of a character.

The Callahan Touch

Jake comes into his own. This is the first of the Callahan books that's a proper novel.

Antimony

Not part of Callahan's or Mary's place, this book of short stories is excellent, nearly as good as the later collection By Any Other Name.

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Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City, by Will Eisner

After the amazing collection The Contract With God Trilogy with the classic novel of the same name, more New York stories seemed like overkill. Little did I realize, New York was Will Eisner's home, and his muse.

While not connected to the Dropsie avenue stories per se (there's only one mention of it), this book collects many stories that just didn't fit anywhere else. Some are mediocre, but iffy Will Eisner is like bad sex: Even when it's bad, it's good.

And there are gems here! The Treasure of Avenue C shows the life of a grate. A would-be courter fumbles an engagement ring, a murder weapon is disposed of... all hidden treasure casually divided up by a pair of young boys. The Building features the prototypical Gilda Green, who falls for an unpublished poet.

Mostly vignettes a few pages long: Illicit sex; the illusion of privacy in city living; and above all, butterfly-effect-style stories, where one small event opens a chain of events ending in tragedy, litter these pages.

Easily the most disturbing story in the book, the slightly longer story Sanctum deserves special mention. Pincus Pleatnik stays away from others, leading a solitary life. When a newspaper mistakenly and stubbornly reports him dead, his life falls apart in disturbing ways.

Mr. Eisner's trademark casual visual style is at its most ecelectic and beautiful. A few of the stories are a little out of voice for the author, but these were obviously testing grounds for longer works. a few out-takes at the end reinforce this feeling.

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The Hemingway Hoax, by Joe Haldeman

I read A Farewell to Arms in high school, and quite hated it. Hemmingway's style never engaged my teenager's eye. But it's impossible to escape Papa's influence.

John Baird, a professor specializing in Hemmingway, in a conversation with shifty man named Castle, speculates that the "lost" Hemmingway writings could bring in a fortune if forged. Castle senses money, and the two of them hash out a way to legally forge a "found" Hemmingway novel. Never mind that some academics' reputations could be ruined.

The story takes a left turn with a shadowy figure who might or might not be the ghost of Ernest Hemmingway (never mind which one the author has said). John's world is rewritten over and over, in an attempt to stop the "Hemmingway pastiche", for no good reason I can find.

Hemmingway's spectre seems to have no good reason for interfering, despite doubletalk about how the novel could "profoundly affect the future". Possibly I'm missing something by not having worshipped the master.

Nevertheless, Joe Haldeman manages to pull this off. With a style not unlike a magician sawing a lady in half, then in half again, and so on into infinity -- for some reason I cared about the idiot professor, his nasty, self-centered lover, and the alternately pathetic, scary, then just plain dangerous Castle.

An excellent short novel, The Hemmingway Hoax is different from anything Mr. Haldeman has written, since or to date.


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My Secret, compiled by Frank Warren

Imagine the most crushing, disturbing secret you have about your life. Maybe something terrible you did in the past, it could be something someone did to you and you're now keeping secret.

Now imagine you could write your secret on a postcard, and send it anonymously to someone who'd put it on their website, their art exhibit, maybe in one of their books. That's exactly what Frank Warren has been doing with the PostSecret project.

My Secret is the second PostSecret, and like its predecessor, it's a gorgeous book that's disturbing and uplifting at the same time. The folks who sent these in were very brave.

Take a look at some of the postcards up on the website to get a taste for the project. Buy the book.

Third and fourth PS books, The Secret Lives of Men and Women and A Lifetime of Secrets, are due out next year.


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Steel Beach, by John Varley

When the terribly, terribly fashionable decide the old genitals are getting to be rather a bore, don't you know, they phone the chauffeur and have the old bones driven down to Change Alley.
John Varley, Steel Beach

Hildy Johnson, sometimes reporter for The News Nipple on Luna, may not be John Varley's first character to switch genders in the middle of a story, but he's certainly the most memorable. (In the film His Girl Friday, the character of Hildy was switched to a woman because the director loved the sound of the secretary filling in for the character during rehearsals.) Most of Mr. Varley's work to this point has indicated that gender is possibly one step deeper than a new coat. Hildy shows us that, at least from the inside, The Switch changes outlook and social and sexual dynamics.

The Eight Worlds, of which this book is a vague, out-of-continuity episode in, is a future in which The Invaders -- shadowy, never-seen aliens -- have taken over Earth. But rather than enslave or eat humanity, or abduct and torture us with turkey basters, Varley's aliens don't even notice humanity. The human race is evicted off of Earth like you might sweep ants off your porch.

And so the human race lives on the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, on Mars, Pluto -- pretty much anywhere else in the solar system with a solid surface. And these societies are kept alive and running smoothly by superintelligent machines. In the case of Luna it's the Central Computer, who is a friend to anyone -- on an individual level, in fact.

The CC directs the lives of the teeming multitudes on Luna. It keeps them happy, comfortable. One of the universal rights past basic survival is the right of a job. In an automated society run by a powerful, supposedly benign, CC, people must find their own purposes in life.

Steel Beach is unarguably Mr. Varley's greatest novel among a career of excellent -- and too few! -- books. The question of what is means to be human after the need to survive has been removed, after death has been virtually exterminated, is foremost in the plot, but this is not a preachy book. The characters -- the stubborn, staid Walter Editor; young cub reporter Brenda, Hildy's longtime rival and crush Cricket, Liz the drunken, British royalty -- these people are all cliches out of films and comics. But in the hands of John Varley, they are wonderful, horrible, fascinating people. Dissatisfied with being set pieces in the show run by the CC -- particularly Hildy.

No summary does this book justice, and any symposia of it sounds like a '40s serial. On a level with Dune, Perdido Street Station, and Hyperion, Mr. Varley's magnum opus should be read by anyone with an interest in science-fiction, any fiction, or just plain being a person.

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Variable Star, by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson

"If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait."
Robert A. Heinlein

"Finishing" a book left by a dead author almost never works out. While Variable Star was written by Spider Robinson from notes left by the science-fiction superstar, it comes across as more of an homage than a bastard novel.

Joel Johnston is a college student on Earth, hailing from the farms of Ganeymede. He finds himself running from the solar system, leaving behind a failed romance and everything he ever knew, aboard the starship Sheffield. Joel meets many new people, and has many lows and friends. The ship has crises aplenty, and I won't ruin any of the surprises. The Sheffield, and its destination Brasil Novo, are world-building at its grandest.

The stock Heinlein situations and societies have been deftly updated to reflect current technologies and cosmologies as we now understand them. The science fails to overwhelm, but is present in abundance when needed, with pleasant, helpful air. The reader almost doesn't notice that the author is more lost in the science than the page-turner.

Joel, the farmer Zog, Dr. Amy, Evelyn Conrad, Solomon Short, -- the folks inhabiting the world or Variable Star feel like they're a few years out of a concise Heinlein Juvie novel. Joel is a sympathetic man who makes mistakes. I was rooting for him and the 500 folks on the Sheffield all the way through.

Variable Star is great fun, a thoughtful novel, and while it doesn't feel like Mr. Heinlein was at the author's elbow, his influence is in the broad strokes. (Even the ending, maybe a touch predictable, wasn't on the original outline, but to Mr. Robinson's credit, feels like something from a Future History novel.)

A very good, page-turnin' stand-alone novel, drawing from a rich tapestry. Highly recommended.

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Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande

A surgeon's journal, Complications is riveting, frightening, and fascinating. Dr. Gawande is honest, more so than perhaps he should be, but it makes for fascinating reading.

The premise of the book is that medicine is far less the science patients suppose it to be. While surgeons are highly trained, a disturbing amount of intuition and guesswork is involved. And newbie cutters have to learn on someone, and those patients usually aren't informed of the fact they'll be a surgeon's first solo patient. And if this deception didn't occur, there would simply be no new surgeons trained.

The three sections of the book are titled Fallibility, Mystery, and Uncertainty. I'm hoping even more than before I read this that I never need to worry about any of this first-hand.

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Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

"Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what the books say..."
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

"You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."
Robert A. Heinlein, Logic of Empire

Guy is a fireman, glorying in his guild's mission of burning secreted books, whenever they get the call. The world -- or at least this particular media-hungry english-speaking head-up-it's-arse superpower -- wants to live in the world of its electronic living rooms, and not the irrelevant philosophical fantasies of long-dead subversives.

A parable of the dangers of censorship, Fahrenheit 451 is even better than when I was a kid. this is at once more subtle and more poetic than I remember, Ray Bradbury at the height off his form.

While there are a few places in which the parable breaks if you look at it too closely (social engineering has never been Mr. Bradbury's strongest area), the book has the aim of telling us let's not go here. Unfortunately, the world seems to have headed a bit more in this direction... 55 years after being written, Guy Montag's profession of burning inconvenient ideas seems more plausible.

Read a banned book today.

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Mammoth, by John Varley

John Varley has taken some time off from his Eight Worlds series of late. It's been rumored by Mr. Varley's fans that the wonderful Steel Beach and it's sequel The Golden Globe will have a sequel called Iron Town Blues. But this book will have to wait.

This time-travel tale brings a mammoth child into the 21st century. Due in part to the efforts of a physicist, Matt Wright, who is continually plagued by being unable to articulate his theories (conveniently for technobabble-worn readers), and an elephant trainer, Susan Morgan, Fuzzy ends up performing in the circus of wealthy businessman and collector, Howard Christian.

The scenes of theme park extravaganza are the most appealing and memorable in the book. Christian is the most interesting character, and the others, particularly Matt, are somewhat weak. The character of Fuzzy is a pleasant surprise, and there are plot twists in abundance. It's easy to forget that the story happens within the framework of a typical time-travel plot. When the mammoth is brought into the present... I'll not spoil that for you. But it's a delightful scene.

Even a very weak John Varley's novel (which this is not) would be quite good. Mammoth, while not Mr. Varley's masterful best, is a credible, thoughtful novel that does not disappoint.

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Homeward Bound, by Harry Turtledove

Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
Ambrose Bierce

The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.
Henry Kissinger

The alien Lizards have conquered about half of Earth, while much of it -- particularly the countries with nuclear weapons -- have stayed independent from the aliens. Lizard colonists have settled on an Earth they expected to be subjugated, but the rate of technological progress among 20th century, World-War II-era humans, has astounded them. At the end of the previous, and seventh, book, humanity was gaining a foothold in space, with the hope of visiting the Lizards' homeworld soon.

If the previous paragraph made little or no sense to you, you haven't been reading Harry Turtledove's Worldwar Saga, in which World War II is interrupted by alien invasion. He followed that with the Colonization series, and now with the standalone Homeward Bound, where the protagonist, Sam Yeager, is Humanity's ambassador to The Race.

While the book shares the faults of its predecessors -- too long, too many characters, and far too many recaps -- the characters are excellently drawn, the history (what there is that hasn't been sundered by this point) is impeccably researched. Many of the characters from previous books play key roles: Atvar, Fleetlord of the invasion fleet and now reluctant Ambassador to Humanity; Kasquit, a human raised as a Lizard in a disturbing "experiment" by Race scientist Ttomals.

But the biggest "character" is the populace of Home, the Lizards' planet. They are at once uncaring, enlightened, bigoted, imperial, self-centered, and fearfully intelligent. One can almost overlook that they are not all that alien.

The Race is really a plot device, bound by routine beyond all reason, considering their obvious intelligence, and far too weak for a force that can cross light-years to invade a planet.

However, Mr. Turtledove has a gift for making straw men seem like flesh and blood, and he succeeds here. And the historical -- and non-historical characters are a joy to read, even the minor characters such as pilots Flynn and Johnson, confined to zero-gravity for the rest of their lives, and the 37th Emperor Risson, the Emperor of the Race, is a thoughtful, intelligent being I wouldn't mind meeting. Even the Emperor's protocol flunky is a wonderful character, and only mostly a parody.

There are surprises at the end of he book, and I was looking for more pages to read when I finished the last. This is also the closest to a standalone novel in the entire series. Recommended.

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Counting Up, Counting Down, by Harry Turtledove

What it you could go back in time, and speak to your younger self? and maybe, just maybe, arrange things so things would work out with your girl -- the one you've been carrying a torch for all these nineteen years?

Well known for alternate history, and in particular for the amazing The Guns of the South, this volume is Mr. Turtledove's latest collection of alternate history, science-fiction, fantasy, and mixes of the genres. As in his other books, Mr. Turtledove is the Tom Petty of alternate history -- the man is incapable of writing badly. Even so, too many stories feel like filler, and I was wondering when the story would end.

Forty, Counting Down and Twenty-One, Counting Up bookend this latest collection of Mr. Turtledove's short stories. Perhaps the time-travel idea is not the most original, but it's well-executed, and the character(s) of Justin live on their respective pages. But stretching it throughout two stories is a little much.

There are gems here. An academic goes to work for a road crew of sorts in Deconstruction Gang, a story that struck a chord at a time when my wife is searching for work. Must and Shall, a civil war alternate history where the North won the war, but Reconstruction did not take place. The South that endures is a conquered possession, a true nightmare to live in. And there is an excellent parable, The Decoy Dock, a tale Mr. Turtledove's "Videssos" universe, that shows the collision of two religions, an analogy of Christian missionaries.

If you can read the few stories I've recommended elsewhere (and most are available as e-books from the author's website), I'd suggest that as the best choice.

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Nine Princes in Amber
The Guns of Avalon
Sign of the Unicorn
The Hand of Oberon
The Courts of Chaos
by Roger Zelazny

"I drove along it for awhile, and I saw a road which was much less kept up. I turned onto that one, and later on I hit a dirt road and I tried it, and pretty soon I came to a place that wasn't on the map. It was just a little settlement. There were log cabins there, and horses pulling carts, and it looked physically as if I'd driven back into the 19th century."
Roger Zelazny, from the interview "Forever Amber"

"You can comission assassins. Lay ambushes. Pull close relatives out of your sleeve like concealed weapons."
Mike Carey. "The House of Windowless Rooms", 2000

"Imitation, in a broad sense, is how memes can replicate."
Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene", 1976

As a teenager, I fell in live with the Amber books. Roger Zelazny's descriptions of the reality-bending royal family of Amber, peppered with his military and automotive obsessions, make for a nearly perfect prose saga of a superhero world.

To replace my battered, slim, paperback Amber books, I recently re-bought the Amber books, used, in book club hardcover editions. (One volume containing the first two books, one volume of the last three.) Of course, the series continues, and has been collected as The Great Book of Amber, an unweildy tome reprinting all ten books. But I never read the sequel series when I was young, maybe another five books seemed daunting. (There's a third series coming out now, "Roger Zelazny's Shadows of Amber" by John Betancourt, years after Mr. Zelazny's death.)

The series' first book is, as I remembered, the best. The introduction to Corwin and Random, two of the royal brothers, and Corwin's bid for the throne, is the most exciting story, and that with the most substance. The scene of Corwin walking the Pattern, the maze that confers superhuman powers to travel through the realities, is still tediously wonderful.

It's not until the later books that I remember that Corwin's brothers all have an air of royal, spoiled plywood. While there are of course differences between the siblings, only those needed to the story right now seem like human beings of note, and even then only when they're on-stage. But this is a minor quibble, as this is the story of Corwin, and Dworkin the court magician and family mystery.

Corwin's moments of philisophical thinking and tip-of-the-iceberg planning are welcome breaks in the often relentless pace. Ruminations in the nature of reality go with the territory; the royal family's dogma considers Amber to be the one, true reality, the other planes referred to as "shadows".

I had forgotten the ending, and was a little surprised by a few twists in the last two books. There's room for a sequel, but not an inevitable one. The Amber series makes for fine, fun, and quick reading. Maybe I will start the next series after all.

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Embroideries, by Marjane Satrapi

To speak behind others' backs is the ventilator of the heart. --Marjane Satrapi

I don't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs.
--Nancy Reagan

Hoping for Persepolis 3, I found Embroideries, to be both disappointing and more of the same. The stories of women living in Iran are powerful, and well crafted.

Unfortunately, this is not new territory for Ms. Satrapi. These one-up stories of gossip, sex, and reactionary American ways read lke the out-take scenes from the masterful Persepolis books.

A fun read, like reading a book of lighthearted short stories by an important author.

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The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
by Brian Greene

My belief is based on the fact that string theory is the first science in hundreds of years to be pursued in pre-Baconian fashion, without any adequate experimental guidance.
--Philip Warren Anderson

Since the middle of the 20th century, the fundamental problem of physics has been finding the Theory of Everything: A theory that would reconcile Relativity, Einstein's theory of the very large; to live alongside of Quantum Mechanics, the paradoxical theory of probabilities on the subatomic level. Both worldviews have been proved, insofar as any scientific theory is ever proved. And neither will allow for the other to be completely correct.

Professor Greene (who disdains the title of "Professor" or "Doctor", by omission) explains the two theories very well, even to someone who has read about them innumerable times. (In particular, his explanations of Relativity are extraordinary well done.)

This incredible clarity of purpose and prose continues when he continues into string theory, quantum gravity, and M-theory, although it is dimmed a bit. The book is not math-heavy by any means, relegating such diversions to the endnotes.

(Unfortunately, there are also many fascinating historical explanations relegated to these same notes. Turning to an endnote, the reader never knows if they'll find an historical illumination, or a block of equations.)

Apparently, the world is composed of scores of vibrating, undulating loops of string, looped through dimensions beyond our perception. These explanations are are deftly written, and hold the readers attention well. When the narrative moves along to the five competing string theories, and to M-theory, the One Ring of that will unite modern physics, the story becomes a little difficult to follow. But this is a minor quibble.

When the author details his own small contribution to the field, it is downplayed, giving much credit to his collaborators. A sense of barely contained pride is present in the text simultaneously, giving a wonderful tension to this chapter.

Since string theory is unproven, the book can't help but end on a tenuous note. The author is hopeful that technology will advance to the point where it is possible to prove that superstring theory is more than a blue-sky physicist's dream.

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