Consider Phlebas

Consider Phlebas – Iain M. Banks; Orbit 2008

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks was first published in 1987 and is the author’s first science fiction novel.  It’s title comes from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.  It has, since then, been generally accepted as being “space opera.”  It is also the first in Banks’ Culture series of novels. I read the 2008 Orbit edition.

I really liked much of this book, but I also didn’t like some things about it.  First of all, I felt the first three chapters were interesting and I was a little unsure of who was doing what why – but it was full of action.  I, therefore, expected the novel to be more of the same.  But then it seemed that whole chunk was over suddenly and now we were reading a new, but similar, story. (The chapters introducing the Clean Air Turbulence.)  I felt that we had left the first storyline a little behind, but that was okay because this new “story” aboard the Clean Air Turbulence was interesting.  The main character gets to stay aboard this “Free Mercenary/Trade” ship if he wins a fight.  Okay, I’m invested in the main character – go Horza! Win the fight!

Then there are chapters wherein the pirate ship attempts a mission.  They are severely under-geared for this event and the mission fails. I actually did not really like this section because I was not sure what we were supposed to glean from it besides meeting characters.  Nevertheless, the pirates try again – the captain has a new mission for his crew.  They are going to the Orbital Vavatch – a ringworld.  And having read Niven’s Ringworld, I was all good with this sort of construct.  This was actually interesting for awhile, but ends poorly for many characters.

Insert new storyline:  Horza survives and ends up on island of crazy cannibal weirdos.  This is the part of the book that lots of reviewers like to comment on.  It has a lot of graphic imagery, but it is definitely creative and well, I hate to say it again, but it was interesting.  Next section:  the Damage game.  This part is a good example of something I disliked about this novel. There is a lot of build up to certain things.  However, the events seem to fall flat a bit.  The Damage game was probably my favorite section of the book.  Banks explains it well, gives us motives and concepts, and makes the whole thing seem really exciting.  And there’s a lot of elements here that make it unique and creative.  But overall, there’s something missing from it.  There’s something missing that would take it from good to great.  The trippy-LSD parts with Horza and his experience as a “changer” is different – especially the vague connection between him and Kraiklyn.

Horza’s adventures continue. We’re headed back to Schar’s World to capture the Mind.  I am not entirely sure why we are after the Mind – except in the very general sense of the war between the Idirans and the Culture.  Throughout the novel, we are given little interludes wherein we meet the Mind.  These interludes are somewhat tedious and somewhat interesting.  Sometimes they seem rambling and at other times, they seem to be really good at showing us the Mind.  I’m rather torn on whether these are well written or not.  Anyway, this last chunk of the novel is very action-oriented, except, really the last sixty pages, or so, is all build up for a very speedy ending.

The ending comes quickly, I guess I cared about the characters sufficiently, but I was not really upset or affected by anything that happened. There were several elements that were kind of just thrown in there to make it seem like small detailed twists. For example, Yalson’s pregnancy – I don’t really see how that’s anything other than the author trying to force a little plot twist.  The Idiran Xoxarle is a decent enemy, I suppose, but I really feel that he is there (this late in the novel) to finally give us some sense of the other major group in the war – the Idirans.  Up until meeting him, the Idirans are introduced via Horza’s thoughts about them.  But my biggest complaint was that for the whole last chunk of the book – the Mind – which was this amorphous entity with deep thoughts – now is reduced to a non-entity object.  It is incongruous.  I wanted another “interlude” regarding the Mind.

I really didn’t care for most of the chapters with Fal ‘Ngeestra.  I think they are there to get us to understand The Culture.  Which they did.  But also, the chapters seemed rambling and somewhat tangential.  I don’t know.  They served their purpose, but I guess I just didn’t really care for them.  Nevertheless, I really liked the drone. All readers seem to like the drone. (Personally, I think we all think of C3-PO from Star Wars and Marvin from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.)

I liked this novel – though I seem to be complaining a bit about it.  I really did enjoy it, even if it isn’t the greatest science fiction novel ever.  I liked a lot of what Banks did.  I liked the Culture concepts, the Idiran concepts, the Mind, etc.  I enjoyed a lot of the action scenes and the galaxy they are in.  The characters grow on the reader – but when Banks kills them off, it’s quick and to the point and we move on quickly.  I wanted to get to know more about several characters, but it didn’t happen, which was a little disappointing.  Fans of space opera will enjoy this novel.  I want to give it 3.5 stars, but I think I’m going to go with 3 stars.  Honestly, if you twist my arm on days that start with S or T, maybe I’ll give it 4 stars. If I tilt my head left, 3 stars, but if I tilt it right, then I give the novel 4 stars. This is a tough book for me to rate.  There’s a lot of good and some not-so-good.  Nevertheless, I definitely want to read more of Banks’ Culture series.

3 stars

Rynn’s World

Rynn’s World – Steve Parker; Black Library; 2010

I am a Warhammer 40k addict. I don’t expect you to be.  But I love me some space marine vs. ork battles, ships lost in the warp, xenos screams of hate, and prayers to the Emperor.  Of the Warhammer 40k novels, the Space Marine Battles seem to be a little lower on the “literature” scale than, say, the Horus Heresy stuff.  But none of it, really, is high-class stuff. And I am perfectly okay with that.

Rynn’s World is pure fluff.  It’s full of action scenes, space marines lumbering around in their armor, the rather one-track-mindedness of characters, the repetitive storytelling style that reminds you orks are bad and space marines are good, etc.  And I love it. It’s like brain candy.  All you have to do is turn the page and you do not need to analyze, discuss the levels of meta-fiction, or worry about the symbolic meaning of anything. You just read while the space marines just shoot. It’s glorious science fiction pulp.

This is the first Space Marines Battles novel released by Black Library. Rynn’s World was written by Steve Parker and released in 2010.  Parker is actually a pretty cool dude – he lives in Japan and is a beefy bodybuilder.  He is into environmental concerns and he isn’t just an iron head.  He has not yet written dozens of books, but this one was a decent read for the genre.  I hope he writes more.

Rynn’s world is about the homeworld of the Space Marines chapter, the Crimson Fists.  If you have no idea what I am talking about, let me oversimplify:  there are dozens of “chapters” of space marines.  Each chapter has their “thing.”  This particular chapter wears power armor where their gauntlets are mechanized and “powered” – and crimson red in color.  There you have the basics.  It was fun to read about this chapter because they are one of the more famous ones.  However, they certainly take a real hit in this novel – their homeworld is attacked by a gigantic warforce of Orks. Orks are green and brown skinned monsters who like to slay and who also have a fondness for motor bikes.

Pedro Kantor is the chapter master of the Crimson Fists.  This means, basically, he’s the general in charge.  We follow, more or less, him through the battle.  Therefore, we are privy to his hopes, worries, fears, and decision-making.  Not only does he have to deal with ork invaders, but the welfare of the human citizens of the planet also weighs heavily on his shoulders.  This sets up a sort of moral dilemma – his official protocols dictate that he serves the Emperor first, particularly in battle by destroying xenos bad guys.  So, how does Kantor deal with also having to play something of the rescue/protector role regarding humans?

And then, there is the whole drama with his friend, the lower-ranked captain Alessio Cortez. Cortez is a fiery, aggressive character who is an excellent space marine, but who gets impatient a lot.  Cortez rarely sees the bigger picture, so to speak. Kantor has to balance being Cortez’ friend and being his chapter master.  Some of this storyline is also developed early on when a scout endangers space marines by failing to strictly obey protocol.  Discipline and obedience are the buzzwords here.  Anyway, the good part of all of this is that the novel does actually have some subplots and does touch, however briefly, onto some interesting moral questions.

Nevertheless, this novel is about space marines going to battle against orks.  It may seem juvenile or pedestrian to some readers – but I wasn’t expecting anything more than some good old bolt gun explosions, ork war cries, and descriptions of azure power armor.  The joy of reading anything WH40k is that orks get smashed. Ork smashing is good and good for you.  I’m giving this novel three stars – because it is exactly what it purports to be and met all expectations.  Granted, we won’t be reading this in English Lit – but on the other hand – we don’t want to be. We’d actually rather be donning our power armor and firing up the lasguns!

3 stars

Boneshaker

Boneshaker – Cherie Priest; TOR; 2009

I finally finished Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker.  It seems like everyone on the planet has already read the novel.  It’s the first in the Clockwork Century series by Priest; the series is already on it’s fifth novel.  Anyway, Boneshaker was published in 2009 by TOR.  It won a lot of acclaim. Specifically:  a Locus Award and was nominated for a Hugo (2010).  A lot of people really liked the cover art as well, which was done by Jon Foster.

This book has a lot going for it.  First of all, it has some very strong female characters. By “strong,” I mean the typical sense:  not wilting flowers, pro-active, heroines.  The entire novel is built around two things:  (1.) the act of Leviticus Blue in building a “bone-shaking drill” by which he commits a robbery; and (2.) the relationship between a mother and her teenaged son (i.e. Briar and Ezekiel Wilkes).    It works well as a first book in a series – but also works completely well as a standalone novel.  There really is no necessity to read beyond this book – in terms of storyline closure.

This is steampunk, I am told.  Probably because there is toxic gas and gas masks.  Also, because they utilize airships and rifles.  However, there is also a smattering of neat inventions, the background of a gold rush, and the American Civil War.  Granted, this is still an alternate reality – things may have the same names (Civil War, Klondike), but they are not the exact same as in our history books.

I like the concept of an artificial walled-city built to keep the toxins in. I like the added bonus of people using the toxins as a type of addictive drug – doesn’t that just seem exactly how people would do it?  One thing I am undecided about is the zombies.  Did there have to be zombies? Did zombies add to or take away from the story? Rotters, if you will.  I am not sure. I am really not fond of the zombie-craze of the last few years. Sure, I’ve seen some Walking Dead episodes. And I don’t hide from stuff with zombies in it, but I do not really go seeking out zombie-stories or whatever.  So, I am not sure about this aspect of the novel.

One thing I had a difficult time with was the movement and description within the walled city. I don’t know if Priest is not good at describing complex, multi-leveled things or if I was just not paying attention, but I could never really grasp in my imagination what was going on with the setting.  Up, down, in the dark, old elevators, stairways, tunnels – this is all reasonable for the storyline, but I could not really picture any of it.

Finally, as a last complaint, well. . . . I found the book a little boring in parts. There were parts where I felt it was dragging and I lost interest. Maybe it was the zombies – or the toxic gas.  The book starts off excitingly and ends semi-predictably, but the middle did not hold my focus.  This is not to say that the writing style was bad.  Somehow, I just got bored in the middle. All in all, though, it is a fairly fast read and Priest does have a different “voice” as opposed to what I have read recently.  In other words, she has a unique voice that comes through her writing.

I’ll probably eventually read the next novel in the series.

3 stars

Big Planet

Big Planet by Jack Vance; Ace & TOR

I finished Big Planet by Jack Vance tonight.  January is Vintage Science Fiction month – as sponsored and encouraged by Little Red Reviewer on her blog.  This is the second Vance novel I have read.  Big Planet was first published in 1957 by Avalon/Ace.   The novel had some revisions and whatnot and was re-released in 1978.  The copy that I read was the TOR 1989 edition.  I took an actual photo (with my phone) of my two copies – the Ace 1967 and the TOR 1989.  I owned the Ace and then found the TOR for only $2 so decided to use that as my “reading copy.”  The cover art for the Ace is by Ed Emshwiller (very famous) and the TOR art is by David Hardy.  Since it’s Vintage Science Fiction month, I thought I’d read this novel because it’s quite vintage and well known.

Overall, this is a rather ridiculous novel.  It does show it’s age.  There are a couple of interesting moments, but overall it’s nothing fantastic.  I say this having read the novel in 2013.  I don’t know how this read to someone in 1960, let’s say.   The main complaints are as follows:  characters are flat and empty, viewpoint regarding women is decidedly not feminist, and the story reads like an extended Star Trek “away team mission.”

Big Planet – a horribly heavy-handed name which states the obvious – is a planet that absorbed the diaspora of cultures from Earth; cultures that were exiled or unwilling to accept Government Rule.  After hundreds of years, the original “culture groups” that arrived on Big Planet spread out, intermingled, and developed.  Thus, the inhabitants are earth-like cultures, but yet they are scattered and have no singular ruling body governing them.  Instead, there is an Earth Enclave, which is presumably a base of some sort where Earth periodically sends commissions to interact with Big Planet and its cultures.  An embassy of sorts, I suppose.

The novel begins with a commission en route to Big Planet.  We meet the characters rapidly and without any finesse.  The ship is attacked (from within) and brought down far from its destination at Earth Enclave.  The survivors find themselves stranded in a village.  It is estimated that they are at least 40,000 miles from Earth Enclave.  Big Planet has many resources, but metal (ore) is not one of them.  Therefore, at least to start, the survivors are relatively wealthy.  However, without much further ado, they all agree to trek off to Earth Enclave.  This is obviously just to get the story moving forth – but let’s consider this further.  Stranded (after a crash landing) in a primitive culture 40,000 miles away from base, with very little in the way of supplies or implements, this group of eight fellas decides that it is a good idea to head out. And, interestingly, the main character, Claude Glystra just assumes command.  He suddenly becomes the leader of the band and not one of the others really even questions this.  We aren’t even given any background on Glystra to help with this.  Perhaps he is ex-military or something – but we get nothing to assist with the suddenness of his command-taking.

So the group sets off. And right away there is this tag-a-long girl who seems really naive and helpless.  Make that a count of nine.  But then not too long after, adventures begin because this group is attacked. Basically, its all a big plot to take down this commission by some dude named Charley Lysidder.  Lysidder employs armies, spies, and religious-types to help him recapture Glystra.  I highly doubt Glystra is really that big of a threat.  Why go to all this trouble? Even if this guy makes it 40,000 battling the natural and exotic perils, what can he possibly do then besides complain to Earth about Big Planet? Ultimately, Big Planet is really beyond the scope of Earth’s rule, anyway. And what does Glystra care?  A moral code is about the only reason he has to stop Lysidder, at first. Finally, a sense of revenge or personal justice plays in.  Basically, the whole premiss of the novel is a bit forced and stretched.

There is one interesting culture that we meet in the novel.  The Kirstendale city is maintained by an interesting populace.  They keep their wherewithal a secret and it takes Glystra awhile to piece it altogether. Nevertheless, it’s an opulent city full of manufactured intrigue and facade.  Ultimately, it would be interesting to investigate this city and expand this into a series of stories or something.  It’s about the only thing creative in the novel, to be honest.

Anyway, Glystra’s group’s numbers dwindle as they deal with threats and peril. Most of the time they are riding on six-legged beasts called zipangotes.  These are like dinosaur, horse, panther things.  They can be used to ride or as pack-animals.  Generally, the “nomadic” races use them to ride around on and raid and terrorize everyone else on the planet.  The other way the group travels is by monoline.  One of the things Vance does in this novel is periodically give us rather intense descriptions of mechanical things.  He uses fairly technical terms and describes them just as if one were seeing them with one’s own sight. Unfortunately, I was unable to really get a picture of any of these things in my mind. I don’t know if I wasn’t focused or if I just could not get the words sorted out. Anyway, Vance clearly had something in mind and tried to get us to understand these mechanical things, too. The monoline is like a trolley that ports people by sail and gravity by “air” across a huge stretch of land. Traders use it, too, and knowing this, the monoline gets attacked a lot by hostiles.

The ending was predictable and the villain was obnoxious and yucky.  I am glad I read the novel, because I love reading and I love science fiction.  However, there is not a whole lot in here that can be recommended to readers in 2013.  It’s a short read. Not very sweet.

3 stars

Renegade

Renegade – J. A. Souders; TOR

I was sent an uncorrected advance reading copy by TOR of Renegade by J. (Jessica) A. Souders.  It’s to be published November/December 2012 in the USA.  It is a young adult science fiction/fantasy novel that is the debut of the author.

I do not know who the cover artist is.  The cover is not something that normally would have me pick up the book. Nevertheless, the back of the book blurb was interesting enough.  I do not read a whole lot of young adult fiction.  I don’t ever know how to rate young adult fiction. I suspect this one is pretty good. I do think there was a bit too much romance/sex. It’s kind of icky to read about teenagers and their hots for one another…. Overall, though, I think while not a completely original scenario, it’s solid and interesting for a young adult novel.  It was a one-night read that didn’t require too much effort from me.  Also, I believe this may be something of a series.  Ultimately, one is not overly compelled to read the next in the series.  Not because this novel was ungood (yeah, I went Orwell on you there), but because the story does not end on a cliffhanger. There are some relatively vague questions about the world, but I am fine with this as a standalone – or as expanded into a series.

The dystopia is a fairly standard theme here, nevertheless it is still interesting. It reminded me, in some of the setting, of Atlantis and Namor and Imperius Rex. Anything that does that is a good thing. I also thought the mind-conditioning, amnesia, and brainwashing were written really well. So, good setting and good plot device.

The bad:  there were some chapters toward the end of the novel that seemed a little circular. The characters are being hunted, they are lost, etc. I feel like they were really going in circles. Not terrible, but something else needed to happen there.

The villain, Mother, was sufficiently creepy and deranged. “My life is just about perfect.”  Again, while somewhat predictable, she was unrelenting throughout and was not wishy-washy. I really do not like villains who vacillate or who are weak.  If you’re gonna be a baddie, be bad to the bone!  Of course, though the villain was obvious, the reader understands the loyalty the main character, Evelyn Winters, still has toward her.  In fact, one can almost sympathize with the reasons, if not the method, for the pseudo-utopia underwater that Mother controls.

I appreciate the mix of tech and non-tech in this one. There is a really subtle balance between science and simplicity that I was surprised to find in a young adult novel.  I do not know how many young adults will actually pick up on this, but I found it to be a good thing. Overall, there was nothing surprising to the plot.  I think the author has some good ideas and is a decent writer.  I don’t think she’s ever shot a handgun or done any hand-to-hand combat, but I do not think this lack of realism in the novel damaged it in any way.  I admit that I am not a big young adult fiction reader so my rating is not expert-level, but I am giving it three stars – it probably deserves three and a half, to be honest.  Three stars is not a bad rating – it’s a solid novel and given that it’s the author’s first, I expect much more goodness from Souders.

3 stars

H. P. Lovecraft – Part One

I finally got around, prior to Thanksgiving, to picking up a Complete Fiction Works of H. P. Lovecraft.  And I am slowly working my way through the book.  The book comes in at around 1100 pages, so after reading to page 222, I decided I had better break the review(s) up into parts.  I don’t want to review in detail each and every piece in the book, but I think that there’s a lot that can be said and it needs to be partitioned like this.

My cat reading HPL

So far I have read (and the rating I gave each work):

• The Tomb – 4
• The Call of Cthulhu – 5
• Dagon – 3
• The White Ship -4
• The Doom that Came to Sarnath – 3
• The Statement of Randolph Carter – 3
• The Terrible Old Man – 4
• The Tree -2
• The Cats of Ulthar – 4
• The Temple – 3
• Celephais – 2
• From Beyond – 2
• Nyarlathotep – 3
• The Picture in the House – 3
• The Nameless City – 3
• Polaris – 3
• The Quest of Iranon – 4
• The Moon-Bog – 3
• The Outsider – 5
• The Other Gods – 3
• The Music of Erich Zann – 4
• Hypnos – 3
• What the Moon Brings – 1
• Azathoth – 1
• The Hound – 2

That equals 25 pieces from the book.  I skipped a few that I just was not interested in and did not have any desire to read whatsoever. I am not thrilled about skipping, but I just didn’t want to read some of the pieces – for whatever reason. Now, before reading any of these I was only familiar with H. P. Lovecraft in a very basic sense. I don’t really think I had read anything by him before, but this isn’t really something I would bet on. I’ve read a lot and who knows what I read in school?  Further, I haven’t read any secondary texts on HPL; so any conclusions or discoveries I came to were my own and not something I was looking for because I read it first in a critical analysis.

After reading a few of the stories, the themes that HPL works with become rather obvious.  Dreams and sleep, the dead and tombs, water and sky (derivatively, fish and birds), and sound.  You would have to be a blind nincompoop not to figure out that HPL wrote much of his work from his dreams and that he is terrified of water – particularly large bodies of water.  Knowing just this much, it should be easy to see the challenge in putting HPL’s works into a specific genre.  I don’t really think it qualifies as science fiction (under my as-yet-unwritten definition).  It probably does qualify as fantasy, but perhaps it does have elements of horror.  The reason I placed fantasy ahead of horror is because the stories are not gore and vampires and such.  The whole edge of HPL’s “horror” is the concept of the unknown. And this is usually beyond reality – therefore, fantasy.  The term “weird” has been bandied around and I suppose that works as well as anything I could come up with.  All of this is to say that none of these works fit perfectly into some genre and anyone interested in science fiction, fantasy, or “weird” tales would enjoy some of HPL.

When I got the book, I could not help myself – I opened directly to The Call of Cthulhu and read it through – and loved it, naturally. And I came to the text without any preconceived notions or biases. I just read and enjoyed. However, enough has been said about that text the world over, so I do not really want to focus on it.  I want to actually select (of those 25 works) the ones I think that strong readers should read. In other words, the must-read HPL list that those who do not wish to read the whole of 1100 pages can look for and read. The second text I read was The Tomb – after I read it all I could say was “wow”.  I do not recommend The Tomb for everybody.  It is truly twisted and horror and scary. So, if you are really more into the fantasy and less into the horror – skip The Tomb. I still have lingering creepies from it. . . .

The key texts, I feel, are Dagon, The White Ship, and Polaris.  If you need to get the basics of HPL, these three works should be read because I think they contain in an obvious way the method HPL uses when dealing with his preferred concepts/topics.  Dagon is short but I think it is the genesis of the Cthulhu concept.  Like many of HPL’s works, the story is really a written narration in the first person of an adventure/experience. The story is “hastily scrawled pages” written under “appreciable mental strain.”  And this is all in the first paragraph.  Generally, this gets to be a familiar paradigm within HPL.

The second paragraph directly presents one of the main themes in HPL:  “It was in one of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad Pacific. . . “   Immediately, we are thrown into the story that the narrator is writing.  That’s actually one of the nice things about HPL; he does not waste time with telling us how we got wherever or showing us each little step.  Paragraph four starts: “The change happened whilst I slept.”   And this phrase (or something like it) frequently appears in HPL stories.  It presents the method by which HPL’s stories access the fantasy/weird concepts.  HPL often mentions some “change” or catalyst and it is frequently connected to sleep and/or dreams.

Anyway, the story itself is not really scary or horrific – especially not in 2012.  But it was written in 1917 and we knew a little less science back then. Now we have Wikipedia and I daresay humans have cataloged the globe.  In 1917, the unknown of the ocean was probably a fascinating and terrifying thing.  Anyway, the “thing” that happens to the narrator is not exactly horrific. A sea-creature rises to the surface and, basically, hugs and howls at an altar/statue. It’s kind of funny, actually. But the horror of the story is not the point – it’s that the reader can feel/touch/empathize with the narrator’s feeling of horror.  It’s not so much that readers should judge whether or not the scene was horrific in an attempt to validate the narrator’s madness, but rather the reader can understand the ordeal that the narrator is explaining.

Polaris is another key text of HPL’s.  There are three main themes that make this story important. HPL’s narrator accesses another reality – very much akin to something PKD would have done/written.  The narrator enters into the alternate reality via sleep/dreams, as one expects.  However, this little story is neat because after reading it, one can really see how the blurring of the line of demarcation between reality and supra-reality drives the story.  And this is the “weird” part of the work, which is done really well in Polaris.  Another theme HPL uses here is that of the sky. The title is, obviously, of the star Polaris. But throughout the text are peppered names of constellations etc. that demonstrates HPL’s interest in astronomy.

The last theme in Polaris is that of a frustrated, impotent helplessness.  This occurs in several ways, one of which is the narrator unable to accomplish his tasks in his dream and experiencing shame and sorrow for his inability to function as a watchman in his social group.  The second is that of the star Polaris itself, which the narrator tells us has been struggling to convey a message, but yet is only able to know that it had a message and nothing more.  This weird anthropomorphization of the star is trippy and the fact that the star struggles to give a message is a truly weird and paradigm-shifting concept.  Ultimately, the narrator (and therefore the reader) are left questioning – which is the dream world and which is the “real” world; very much like some of the efforts of PKD.  And once again, the horror is not graphic or ghastly, but it’s in the very unknown and weirdness that the narrator’s feelings of horror are presented.  This is actually a really good story- judging it on a conceptual scheme.

The last text that I want to mention briefly is The White Ship. Finally, we are given a story in which the main character (narrator) has a name:  Basil Elton.  He is the keeper of a lighthouse like his father and grandfather before him.  Straightaway in paragraph one HPL is telling us about majestic seas.  There are “far shores” and “deep waters of the sea” in the following paragraphs.  And at this point the reader should be familiar with HPL’s method.  Weird stuff happens under, at, on, near the sea.  Anyway, when there is a full moon, the White Ship glides up near the lighthouse. And it does this for a long time, until one night Basil notices there is a bearded and robed man on the deck of the ship.  And thus begins the weird. . . .

Basil walks out to the ship from the lighthouse via a bridge of moonbeams (who didn’t think of Thor and the Rainbow Bridge at this?).  The man welcomes him and they set sail. The ship goes to a variety of different places and the robed man is Basil’s guide (Cp. Virgil in Dante).  I think this story is HPL’s attempt at world-building; that is, cartography in a fantasy realm.  The story gets a little dull, but the descriptions and imagery are worth reading. Sometimes it seems a bit overwritten, but if you actually try to picture what HPL is describing, it’s quite vivid and a worthwhile read. I would love for some enterprising fantasy author (e.g. Brandon Sanderson or Steven Erikson) to flesh out and develop this world. It’s interesting and has a lot of potential. I want to spend more time exploring and so forth.

Anyway, the ending is another appearance of the familiar dream theme that HPL uses.  Basil says: “…I went within the tower, I saw on the wall a calendar which still remained as when I had left it at the hour I sailed away.”  In other words, all these marvelous places the ship went and all the time Basil spent exploring was outside of time or he was dreaming – or both.  HPL’s usage of the dream/reality concept is really prevalent in the stories I read and I think by reading Dagon, The White Ship, and Polaris one can really get a grip on the tools HPL uses and how to navigate his writing.

Now, you may have noticed that I chose to comment on the texts that I felt were important key works and not on the ones that I liked the best.  The Terrible Old Man, The Cats of Ulthar, and The Quest of Iranon are actually my favorites in this batch of 25 stories.  I felt they were unique and heartfelt and resonated more with me than some of the other stories.  However, I recognize this is personal preference.  I still think these are great stories – but I think students of HPL need to be familiar with the stories I talked about, readers who want a good story should read both the three I mentioned and my favorites.

3 stars (the average for these 25 works)

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick; Mariner Books

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said was first published in 1974 and is the fifth PKD novel that I have read.  Once again, it’s difficult to rate a PKD novel – I want to give it either two or four stars:  so I am giving it three.  This novel was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1974, a Hugo in 1975, and it won the John W. Campbell award in 1975.  Although it was published in 1974, I think that PKD wrote it in 1970.  Regardless, this is one of PKD’s later works.   Based on the five books that I have now read, I think that I prefer PKD’s earlier material.

Like all PKD novels, there is not a lot of background or information on the setting.  It’s the future and the main character is a “six.”   A six is a category of genetically-bred, advanced human.  Why or how is not really relevant to the story and I feel like PKD, as an author, was leaving this option open for himself.  If the other aspects of the novel did not work out so well, he could always find a way to work in the “six” aspect.   Anyway, the main character is Jason Taverner and he is a famous talk-show/variety show host.

Taverner leaves the studio one night alongside his sometimes-squeeze and fellow “six,”  Heather Hart.  As they banter about how old they feel, what the mass public is like, and where they should go, Taverner gets a phone call from a demanding former lover. Taverner detours his vehicle to visit the girl.  They argue and the girl attacks Taverner using some sort of poisonous, parasitic life-form.

The next day, Taverner gains consciousness and finds himself in a seedy hotel in a dreary, low-income part of town. Through some trial and error he discovers, to his horror, that nobody knows who he is, he has disappeared from the TV listings as a celebrity, and his preliminary attempt to obtain any official identification fails.

I am typically against giving away spoilers or surprises and in PKD novels it seems like one really never knows what will happen next. So, I do not want to tell much more of the storyline itself.  The first thing I would like to complain about, however, is that Jason Taverner is not a loveable character.  I really do not know if PKD does this on purpose or not, but I rarely (never?) find his characters to be even likeable. Taverner is pompous, abrupt, and he treats women poorly. Frankly, I have begun to suspect that PKD himself was some degree of a misogynist.

But then, I consider the women that Taverner associates with and I do wonder if maybe they are just not very nice people at all. Heather Hart is probably the best of the bunch and there are a bunch in the novel.  First there is Kathy Nelson – totally insane and unchaste and often creepy.  This is one of the first people that meets the newly-forgotten Jason Taverner. Then he runs off to Ruth Rae’s apartment.  Ruth Rae is an “old friend” and lover that he knew might remember him. Rae lives in a Vegas apartment and she has been married over fifty times. They spend the night and day having sex and getting high.  Rae reminisces about the past, which irritates Taverner.  Taverner at several points is verbally cruel to her, and eventually his presence there allows the police to raid the building and gets them both arrested and dragged to LA.

There are two other women that Taverner meets and uses and is mean toward.  One of these woman is Alys Buckman, the hypersexual and drug-addicted sister of the Police General Felix Buckman.  Felix is monitoring Taverner’s case with the police department.  Felix is another character that I really do not like at all.  After Taverner is hauled in to the precinct and released, Alys finds him and brings him to her house.

Now, if you cannot tell from what I have already written here, I’ll say it explicitly:  this novel is the most “adult” of the novels that I have read by PKD.  When I say adult, I do not mean that it’s porn or that there are graphic descriptions. I am just saying that there are drugs galore, everyone seems hypersexual, and no one in the novel is a particularly good person. These are not nice people and they do some not-nice things.  Hence, I cannot recommend this book to everyone.  Or, actually, the audience is more limited than usual. I do not think that there are many books that everyone can read. But this one is the most limited of all the PKD books I have read.

The ending of the book was good and bad. I am impressed that there was one – an epilogue, in fact, where PKD bothers to write a page or two about how it all turns out.  I often feel the ending of PKD novels are not really his best writing. I think he likes to leave a lot of questions and make the reader feel creeped out.  However, this one has an ending and an epilogue – except I dislike the ending. The whole novel was explained away quickly through the mouth of the coroner to the police general.  And I am not sure that the explanation is not a quick cop-out ending by PKD.

The first half of the book spun its wheels a lot and did not really go anywhere. I kept waiting for the action and thrill of UBIK or Eye in the Sky, but got none of that. I was waiting for something, instead the book spun its wheels with the main character moving from girl to girl to girl.  The second half was shocking at points (the relationship between Felix and Alys), but I do think PKD has done and could do better.  So, there are no likeable characters, there are some icky and shocking elements in the story, and the beginning is slow while the ending is a letdown. Overall, I cannot give this more than three stars. Maybe it’s actually 2.5……

Finally, in 1978 PKD supposedly wrote this article/speech titled “How To Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later.”  It’s actually quite lengthy. At points it is witty and insightful, at other times, I swear I want to call bullshit! on PKD.  Is PKD lying? Is he crazy?  I think that’s sort of the point of what he was doing:  making us ask those questions.  However, after reading this novel, I recommend readers to look at that essay because it really has a lot of explanation about PKD’s novel topics. And some good quotes:

I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. George Orwell made this clear in his novel 1984. But another way to control the minds of people is to control their perceptions.

In the writing of Flow My Tears, back in 1970, there was one unusual event which I realized at the time was not ordinary, was not a part of the regular writing process. I had a dream one night, an especially vivid dream. And when I awoke I found myself under the compulsion—the absolute necessity—of getting the dream into the text of the novel precisely as I had dreamed it. In getting the dream exactly right, I had to do eleven drafts of the final part of the manuscript, until I was satisfied.

3 stars

To Live Forever

To Live Forever by Jack Vance; Ballantine 1976

To Live Forever by Jack Vance was first published in 1956.  I think it can be considered Vance’s first “real” novel.  I found my copy for $1 at a comic book store, of all places.  My copy is the second edition 1976 by Ballantine Books.  The cover art was by Dean Ellis.  It is also the first Vance novel that I have read.

This novel is another dystopian story.  Altogether, I found the book a good, average read.  And this is pretty good, because I was concerned that the first novel of this author might not be great and also that the story would be dated and tedious.  However, it really does not seem dated at all and as a early novel by the author, it’s a solid entry.  There are problems, though. For one thing, there just was not “enough” science in the science fiction.  There seemed like there might be – particularly in the first half of the novel when the main character finds a way to manipulate his memories, but then the science disappears.  Another reason that I only give this novel three stars is because the relict/clone/surrogate scheme is never really fully explained – or, I suppose, I was too dense to figure it out.

In this dystopian future society, the highest class of citizens have clones.  How many, by what real means, etc. was a little confusing and a bit sketchy.  Maybe other readers will have a better time of it than I did.  I get the general concept and I shrug my shoulders at any attempt to figure it out further. So there’s clones. Okay – moving on. The whole point of the novel is that a stratified society of classes has been developed.  This is not an organic development, but an artificial one that is the society’s official policy.  It was instituted presumably to avoid Malthusian catastrophe; specifically the problems arising from overpopulation.

The classes of the society are a form of meritocracy wherein the “slope” of one’s life is measured and ranked.  There are several strata – and each individual can progress, via striving, to a higher level.  The goal is to reach the highest level:  Amaranth.  As one progresses upward through the strata, one’s life is extended by medical procedures.  Instead of making the procedures to extend life available to all – it is granted based on the striving/slope merit of the individual.  The top level, Amaranth, is reached by the fewest members of society and one is awarded immortality (life through a number of clones, etc.).

Although this meritocracy of classes was instituted in order to save the population from a lack of resources and to provide order, it is really a sham.  The ratio that governs the population and promotion is hindering.  Also, it is not entirely “fair” because those in power have more say in the matter than they ought to.  Finally, this ordered policy was to reduce stress and misery in society, however it has had the opposite effect.  A very high percentage of the population suffers from mental breakdowns due to the stress of their striving/slope efforts.

The main character is Grayven Warlock/Gavin Waylock.  I think on the back of the book it even reads Garven Waylock.  So, basically, it gets a bit unsteady.  The main character is a “glark” – which is a person who is not participating in the official Fair-Play policy.  This amounts to about a fifth of the population.  Glarks do not strive and are much like the Other-Outsider class of the system.  The individual Grayven Warlock, however, had reached Amaranth and was involved in a criminal situation and therefore was forced to escape by becoming part of the glark segment of population.

Glarks live in Carnevalle – an almost lawless eudaemonia wherein the citizens of Clarges come to play, act-out, and otherwise blow off the stresses of their striving.  Waylock begins his quest to once again reach Amaranth after running into an Amaranth named Jacynth Martin while in Carnevalle.   Needless to say, Waylock ends up causing a revolution.  The latent frustration at the official system that runs deep in the lower classes of the society is expressed in certain groups like the Witherers, but Waylock does not align himself with any group.  He is self-centered and seems almost completely amoral.

As you can see, Vance really developed an interesting dystopian society.  The novel itself is heavy on presenting the difficulties of striving/slope/fairness.  It indirectly calls into question the fairness and ethics of characters individually and as a whole.  In the end, it even suggests that such a system is full of artificial and meaningless striving, which has stifled any real creativity and striving that is inherent in humans.  Throughout we meet various characters that represent different views of the society.

This is a very good novel to be read in a political philosophy class, a comparative literature class, and even as representative of the anti-hero archetype.  However, as a science fiction novel, I can only give it three stars.  I feel the overall pacing of the novel was slow, fast, slow, fast, slow fast…. in other words, it had moments where things picked up and were very intense, but then things always fell down and plodded along again.  The characters are not really developed much. Jacynth Martin seems really bizarre, but Vance does attempt to explain her motivations.  Waylock, overall, did not strike me as any more amoral or monstrous than other characters, he just seemed to be a lot more luckier than he should be.  I would have liked a little more about the cloning-situation.

3 stars

Ubik

Ubik by Philip K. Dick; Mariner Books

Ubik, another of Philip K. Dick’s novels, was published in 1969.  The edition I read was the 2012 Mariner Books edition.  I much prefer the Vintage edition from 1991.  Mariner Books is a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and was founded in 1997.  It seems to be the case that in 2012, Mariner Books reprinted all of Philip K. Dick’s novels.  I don’t really like their covers as much as the psychedelic covers Vintage used for PKD’s novels.

Ubik – Vintage edition

This is now the third novel by PKD that I have read and I am going to give it three stars – just like I gave the other two novels.  PKD’s writing is once again amazing for its fluidity and ease.  The pages turn so easily – it’s really easy to devour PKD novels.  It makes me a little sad, because the novels tend to end so much more quickly because the writing is so fluid.  I started the novel and was on page 70. Then I was on page 150 and suddenly, it was all over.

One of my friends (Robyn) on Goodreads wrote this in their review of Ubik:  “No time to gawk at all this odd stuff, we have IMPORTANT THINGS to do”  — and I feel this is exactly how to describe how PKD writes.  The novels are mostly in media res, the reader is not given lots of fine detail, we do not know the complete personal histories of every character, and there are truckloads of bizarre or weird scenes and objects.  Never mind! We have important things to do – meaning, the storyline is rolling onward and the characters are busy!  And this is how PKD writes; he just drops the reader into a world, throws a problem at the characters, and off we go!  No time to fret about the logistics or the background or the details.

I cannot tell you what this novel is about, per se.  To do so would involve plenty of spoilers and color your experience of reading PKD.  As with all PKD, the novel moves into the surreal, anti-real, dream-like settings that the author is known for.  This book, in particular, would make an awesome movie – and as I read along, I kept imagining this as a movie (something I rarely do when reading).  However, I think it would also be a very difficult movie to make.  What kind of movie?  Well, I was going to suggest a movie like Inception.  But I hated Inception.  In fact, several movies have been attempted of this novel – to include a variety of screenplays (one being written by the author himself).  Anyway, remember eleven PKD novels have been made into movies including the ultra-famous Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly.

Most of the time I dislike pinning PKD novels down into the science fiction category.  I tend to have stricter requirements for what qualifies as science fiction.  For example, space, aliens, and futuristic science always are integral to science fiction.  But what about PKD novels?  Ubik has scenes off-planet. Ubik takes place in the future (1992, which is the future for 1969).  Ubik has alternate life-forms (those identities in “half-life” cryonic suspension).   So, to say Ubik is not science fiction is incorrect.  But it would be improper to mislead potential readers into thinking this is the typical science fiction novel.  It’s not – but it is the typical PKD novel. Be prepared for surreal madness at breakneck speed.

The best (and worst) part of PKD novels, I’ve learned, is that they leave you wanting more.  More novels and ideas from PKD for sure, but also more of each story – tell me what happens, explain this, how did that play in?  As you read you wonder “is this bizarre object/person relevant or just a false trail?”   So I have read three PKD novels now, I gave them each three stars, but I am practically salivating to get my hands on another of his novels.  The obvious question is why do I give them such a low rating if I am addicted to them?  Well, the honest answer is that I have read five star novels and PKD has not shown me one of those yet.  Three stars is roughly average for all aspects of the novel. And I realize that these novels are not for everyone and sometimes the storylines are not great – but the experience of reading about them is unique and odd.

Having read three PKD novels, A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Trial, Invitation to a Beheading, and two Stanislaw Lem novels this year – I am starting to feel reality is getting a bit shifty. It may seriously be time to read some hard-boiled detective fiction.

3 stars

Invitation to a Beheading

Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov; Vintage

This is the third, and best, novel by Vladimir Nabokov that I have read.  It was finally published in English in 1959.  My edition is the Vintage International 1989 edition.  I have to mention the cover . . . .  before reading and through most of my reading, I thought the pink stuff on the cover was just some flower petals.  I never looked too closely at it.  However, I looked at it today and was creeped out – it’s a blurry photograph pinked out of people screaming or whatever. Distorted faces. It’s disturbing and I don’t like it at all.  I think it is supposed to represent the people who visit the main character in jail.

I do not really like Nabokov. I find that he is an arrogant writer.  I tend to think he was a scoundrel.  Also, I tend to like realism more than surrealism or existentialism.  So, Kafka and Nabokov et al. never appeal to me.  Nevertheless, for some ridiculous reason, I keep reading Nabokov hoping to find a novel I will like. I abhor Lolita and I found Despair to be miserable.  Invitation to a Beheading is actually quite good comparatively.

One of the things that I dislike about Nabokov’s novels is that there are chapters where nothing happens or it gets too obtuse for me to care about what happens.  There are chapters in the middle of this novel that plod along and reality seems to drip away like some Dali painting or something.  The existential questions that hang around in Despair are a little more articulated and contextual here in this novel, though.

I really like the name of the main character; I give Nabokov credit for using an unusual name.  But the fact that Nabokov uses first name and then last initial makes it really seem like he’s copying Kafka or something. I don’t know – my distaste for Nabokov tends to color even the times I praise him.  Anyway, Cincinnatus C. is the main character in this novel and he’s actually the only character in any Nabokov that I even liked a small bit.

The novel takes place in the three weeks Cincinnatus spends in jail between his sentencing and his execution.  His crime(s) are not stated directly, much like Kafka novels.  Sure there are some suggestions, but generally, I interpreted his crime as his being an authentic (existentialist) person.  Throughout the novel, there are sections where Cincinnatus describes his past or the present in terms of his difference from those around him.  Not in detail and specific, but as if he is fundamentally more real than they are.  The other characters (named and unnamed) are parodies and inauthentic.

Overall, Cincinnatus has had a rather miserable life.  Apparently, for most of it he hid his “real-ness” and pretended to be just like the society that he lives in. But, there were times they caught glimpses of him and recognized he was different.  For example, his wife Marthe was really only a slut and cheated on Cincinnatus constantly – and this is even how she manages to visit him in jail.  Now that he has been sentenced to death, he no longer pretends and almost fully welcomes his difference.  He struggles to work with other people on their level – within their false system – but he only meets with frustration.  Most of the people torment him psychologically. For example, his executioner is a real bastard toward Cincinnatus – but the prison director approves and praises the executioner.  They toy with Cincinnatus’ hope and his requests.  The only person that seems to have any genuine care for Cincinnatus is the director’s daughter, Emmie, who is just a young child. What is Nabokov’s obsession with little girls?

I really liked the parts of the writing where Cincinnatus is divided into two Cincinnatus.  What I mean is, the actual Cincinnatus, who is in jail and who interacts with those around him and then the other Cincinnatus, who represents (in imagination) the “real” Cincinnatus.  All of this is like riding a subway or a bus and gritting your teeth when teenagers are being obnoxious, all the while you are imagining yourself standing up and punching them in the head.  Or when you are in a business meeting and it’s very droll and tedious and you act fascinated, but in your imagination you are pretending a giant alien insect is devouring your fellow businessmen.  I think Nabokov could have played these parts out a little bit more, because he does a good job with this.  And then, of course, this ends up being the key to the novel – the ending of how Cincinnatus is executed – or not.

There is all the typical Nabokov symbolism in the novel. Colors, butterflies/moths, and tattoos.  But even with all of this, I only give this novel three stars. I think people who like existentialism would enjoy this novel.  Also, people who really adore Kafka’s works will like this one.  For me, it’s the best of the three I read, but it’s just not that great. Worth a read, if you’ve nothing else to read.

3 stars