Review: Silent Pain

I grabbed this book on a bit of an impulse. I suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so a testimonial of somebody who has recovered completely from the condition is obviously going to be intriguing for me. That was the claim made, although a closer reading of the text made me realize that the author, Helen Germanos, had just barely recovered when she wrote the book and as I can tell her from bitter experience, relapses are all too common.

Silent Pain is short, only 81 pages, and some of that is just filler. Germanos gives a brief personal history, reviews the causes and symptoms of CFS (multiple, with a configuration that is different for each individual), and informs us, based on the reading of a single study, that the cause is damage to the vagus nerve, which connects the brain to virtually every system of the body. She then discusses treatment, with a very heavy emphasis on esoteric methods. I confess to a great deal of skepticism in this regard, but her point that among the multiple causes of CFS, emotional and spiritual problems could also play a significant role is well taken. I can't entirely dismiss her recommendations because she has made a remarkable recovery from a very severe case of CFS. I will mull the whole thing over. For what it's worth, I have also made a good partial recovery by discovering a couple of my root causes and dealing with them: a very severe iron deficiency and an undiagnosed intolerance to grains and legumes, especially wheat. I am still trying to pin down other causes, which explains my interest in this book.

Should you read it? Well, if you are relatively uninformed about CFS, it might be worth going over it so you can understand how diverse and multiple the causes can be and some of the channels worth exploring in seeking improvement. If talk of karma and chakras and subtle bodies turns you off, you had better not. That's where the bulk of the emphasis is. The book is not exhaustive, definitive, or authoritative, but as a summary of one person's experience, it is of some interest.

Disclaimer: I received a free temporary electronic copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.

Author's website

A last look at book trailers

Well, last until I find something genuinely new to say. As you may recall, I have come to the conclusion that book trailers are more likely to hinder sales than help them, unless the trailer itself is so brilliant that it goes viral. Since then I've seen a couple of decent ones that probably did not hurt sales, but I'm really not sure they will help much either.

But for anyone interested in more informed opinions, check out this post in which various publicists give their various opinions of book trailers.

Terminating textbooks

It looks like I'm not the only one who believes that digital books will find their first mass market penetration in the classroom. Arnold Schwarzenegger intends to give a legislative push to market evolution and obligate California schools to buy eBooks for texts, in an attempt to save the state money.

"It's nonsensical and expensive to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form," Schwarzenegger wrote. "Especially now, when our school districts are strapped for cash and our state budget deficit is forcing further cuts to classrooms, we must do everything we can to untie educators' hands and free up dollars so that schools can do more with fewer resources."

The devil is in the details, they say, and I'm sure many jurisdictions will be watching to see if the Governator actually saves the state money. If he does, you can be sure that there will be many imitators. It goes to show that hard times tend to stimulate innovation, as the status quo becomes too uncomfortable to maintain.

I am cautiously favourable. I've thought for some time that the textbook industry was abusive of students, both in terms of expense and of weight, and if there's a practical way to change that - and if publishers are farsighted enough to embrace change willingly - this could turn into a win-win situation. If I were a smaller publisher of textbooks, I would be rushing to see if I could jump in ahead of the big boys and gobble up a significant part of the market ahead of them.

What do you think? Is Schwarzenegger visionary or deluded? Will the peripheral costs erase the financial benefits?

Crafty author

I was twitting Patricia Wood over on her blog a while back, informing her that she was not allowed to die because she had not yet signed my copy of Lottery. No, I cannot remember the context for that particular piece of idiocy and I can't find it either. And yes, you should go buy her book, not just because she's a webfriend of mine, but because it's a fine piece of writing. Don't take my word for it; it was short-listed for the Orange Prize.

Anyway, back to the point. She immediately rectified that terrible oversight by offering to send me a bookplate. (For the uninitiated, a bookplate is basically an autographed sticker you can put in your book to instantly turn it into an autographed copy.) Through a series of confusions on my end, it took me a while to get it, but I finally got my hands on it yesterday. Except it was a them. She sent me one personalized bookplate and several others with generic greetings.

What is a girl supposed to do with extra bookplates? As it happened, I was in a bookstore that afternoon, and what should I spy but a stack of her books on a table of bestsellers near the door? (See, I told you it was good.) My natural brilliance asserted itself, and I said to myself, "There's a good place for those extra bookplates." The manager was equally struck by my brilliance. Okay, I'm assuming. He said that the bookplates would be welcome, or words to that effect.

Very pleased with myself, I emailed Pat to tell her of my brilliance. She was very impressed. Okay, so she told me that's why she sent them along. So she was brilliant before me. I am still brilliant, right? (Somehow this story isn't going quite the way I meant it to.)

Anyway, I am impressed with her brilliance too. She didn't ask me to do anything, but let me think of it on my own. Now those books will sell more quickly because most people are very pleased to get a signed copy of a book. And I have stowed away another gentle marketing technique for the future. And I have an autographed copy of Lottery. Thanks, Pat.

By the way, there is still no Wikipedia entry for Patricia. Any Wikipedians around who can do something about that?

Poll results on book trailers

There were 20 votes and this is the breakdown:

<0 They made me decide not to buy. 9 (45%)
1 and I regret it. 1 (5%)
1 and it was great. 4 (20%)
2 or more. I look for them. 1 (5%)
2 or more. It just happens. 0 (0%)
It's complicated. 5 (25%)

Now, this isn't a large enough sample to be scientific in any way at all, BUT did you notice that almost half the voters said that book trailers had prevented them from buying? This seems to tally pretty well with informal discussions I've seen elsewhere.

Elsewhere like on Alexander Field's blog (nice redesign, by the way), or on Jessica Faust's blog, and a couple of other places I don't remember.

What I am taking away from all this is that book trailers are risky, like book covers. They can alienate readers more easily than they can draw them in. Unlike book covers, trailers are not an essential part of the process. I personally am not going to attempt one unless I've got a killer idea that could go viral.

I do thing that a book trailer is probably wise to use a lot of words. After all, anyone allergic to reading text is not going to buy the book anyway. And many readers resent having a visual interpretation imposed on them. One of the reasons they enjoy reading is the freedom to imagine characters and settings on their own. How often have you been disappointed by the casting in the movie version of a favourite book? You see the danger.

However, if you hit the sweet spot, and manage to produce a really catchy trailer that people are scrambling to link to, you've got a winner.

As for me, I read one book because of a trailer. The trailer was better.

Anybody have trailer stories to share? Ones you loved? Ones you hated? The one you keep running in your head for the book you're writing?

The Espresso Book Machine has arrived

And the gadget geek in me is in awe. The machine is still hideously ugly and looks like a prototype, but if it catches on, I'm sure that will change. If it does become popular, it will change the way the whole book industry works, but I can't even begin to imagine how. If I were a bookstore owner, I would go have a quiet nervous breakdown in the corner, and then order me a couple.



Hat tip to the Harper Studio blog via Twitter and @MariaSchneider.

Book trailers

Have you seen them floating around YouTube? Little one- or two-minute clips, designed to make your mouth water for a particular book: book trailers.

It seems logical, doesn't it? Like movies, novels are a form of story-telling. A good hint at the story should make people want to buy the book, right?

But how many people you know browse YouTube looking for books? Do you?

How many people buy books as a result of viewing a trailer? Do you?

Is it worth the time and effort and financial outlay to create a book trailer? Will anybody see them who is not already a fan?

Please answer the poll at the top of the left-hand sidebar, and then tell me why I should or shouldn't make a book trailer when the time comes. Or if you've made one, tell me what you've learned.

Nothing happens when I double click

Students wrestle with unfamiliar technology.



In all seriousness, I think it's time we gave students eReaders instead of paper texts. The texts are obscenely expensive and student backpacks obscenely heavy. It doesn't help that the publishing industry has followed an aggressive bigger-is-better policy regarding textbooks for years.

From the Practical Theory blog. Hat tip to Christa Allen.

The Moonstone - a book review

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is a 19th century mystery that provided the template for mysteries for many, many years to come, with bumbling policemen, a master sleuth, and amateur detectives all making their appearance. Because it was written in 1868, I was expecting something a bit stuffy, but was thrilled to discover that it was a warm, entertaining book. This is due primarily to Collins' skill at narrating with engaging voices. One of the participants in the mystery decides to put together a written, first-person account of the events surrounding the disappearance of the Moonstone, a huge yellow diamond, and asks various people who were present at various stages of the events to record their eye-witness accounts. So we are treated to a variety of voices. It broke down a little with the testimony of Miss Clack, who is one of those purse-mouthed, religious zealots designed to give religion a bad name. Even so, it is entertaining to see how she tells it from her point of view, but we are capable of seeing through her delusions even though she is not.

Three reasons you might like this book,
1. As mentioned above, the character of Gabriel Betteredge in particular draws us right into the story with his down-to-earth charm and the misogyny that he professes but seems to be quite incapable of practising.

2. Every time we think the mystery is solved (and I was frankly wondering what the rest of the pages would be used for), a new wrinkle comes along and things get complicated once again.

3. Although it was a contemporary novel at the time of its writing, it now fits in nicely with historicals. Anybody enamoured of 19th century Britain will be well satisfied with the necessarily authentic atmosphere and details. And grateful you didn't live then and there...

Three reasons you might not like this book
This part is going to be hard again.
1. The afore-mentioned Miss Clack. I got so fed up with her, I almost stopped reading. Like I said, I decided to be entertained instead by her profound lack of self-knowledge and general cluelessness.

2. You don't like a book that has a succession of narrators. It would have been fun to stick with Betteredge, I admit, but obviously Collins preferred the freshness of the first person, eye-witness account, even if it meant shifting from one narrator to another. I have mixed feelings about it, myself.

3. There are some plausibility issues. I am very suspicious of the medical evidence, even for the times. And there are a couple of characters I don't quite buy, but it wasn't fatal to the enjoyment of the story.

Three sentences from page 33

"The wicked Colonel's will has left his Diamond as a birthday present to my cousin Rachel," says Mr. Franklin. "And my father, as the wicked Colonel's executor, has given it in charge to me to bring down here."

If the sea, then oozing in smoothly over the Shivering Sand, had been changed into dry land before my own eyes, I doubt if I could have been more surprised than I was when Mr. Franklin spoke those words.

Other reviews
A variety at Top Mystery
Victorian Challenge
The Sleepy Reader

This was on my list for the 1% Challenge, which I had more or less abandoned because of the difficulty of handling library books when you're shuttling back and forth across the border. But when I saw The Moonstone on Feedbooks, my problem was solved. I rather doubt I'll catch up in the challenge at this point, but at least I had a lot of fun with this book.


Technorati tags: The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

Feedbooks

Get thee to Feedbooks, forthwith!

Two words: free books. Works in the public domain, available as free pdf's, no strings attached. Enough to make a booklover weep for joy. You can read them on your computer, on your iPhone, on your Kindle, or your addiction of choice. And if you fall in love with the book you download, you can go out and buy it on paper, knowing ahead of time that you love it.

And if you self-publish, they will distribute your manuscript too. Doubt if there's a payment model involved, but if you just want to get read...

This is one of the cool things I discovered on Twitter.


Technorati tags: Feedbooks, Free books, Free downloads

The Restorer - The Sword of Lyric - a book review

The Restorer is a Christian fantasy by Sharon Hinck and represents a bit of a departure for the author, who had been better known for her women's fiction.

Susan Mitchell is a stay-at-home mother of four whose life is disappearing under a grey blanket of depression. Her husband builds her a private space in the attic where she can get away from family demands. It works too well, as she finds herself whisked away in the mother of all electrical storms to another world. She learns - to the horror of all concerned - that she is a Restorer to the People of the Verses. Neither she nor the People have much confidence in her, but the signs are unmistakable.

Three reasons you might like this book
1. A portal story that centers around a suburban housewife who must learn to be so much more. Yes, there are some cliched tropes here, but choosing such an unusual protagonist helped to refresh them. The skepticism on both sides was also an interesting twist. Susan's struggle to grow into the role and the mistakes she makes are really the center of this story and ring quite true to life.

2. Hinck likes twists. When you think you see where things are going, you get side-swiped.

3. There is a sweetness of spirit that pervades The Restorer which I suspect is typical of Hinck. (I haven't read any of her other books yet.) The authorial voice that shines through makes me think that the author would be a wonderful friend.

Three reasons you might not like this book
1. My biggest beef is the frequency of "telling" as opposed to "showing". In other words, Hinck is constantly explaining things to the reader, rather than letting us discover them for ourselves. A quick example: "For the first day or so I was comforted by their presence. After a while I felt claustrophobic." We don't get to participate in these emotions, we are just told about them. Or she will deliver her conclusions, without letting us see how she arrived at them. It could have been a much more powerful story if Hinck had trusted her readers to get it, instead of telling them what to get.

2. I wasn't always sold on the believability factor. One major twist left Susan stunned with disbelief. Me too. Unlike her, I never bought it.

3. It's explicitly Christian. If that is an automatic turn-off for you, you would be turned off. Mind you, it's not a book that tries to convert the reader, as it is written to a Christian audience and is more concerned with the walk of faith than it is with persuading non-believers. Of course, for the intended audience, this is a selling point rather than a turn-off.

Three sentences from page 33

A shudder ran through me. "Mark," I whispered, "where are you?" The thought of Mark - who always squashed the scary bugs in our house and defended me against relentless insurance agents or dishonest repairmen - did me in.

(It was a pleasure to watch her grow out of her wimpiness.)

Other reviews
Title Trakk
Novel Reviews
Grasping for the Wind

Oh boy, is the manure going to hit the fan

Frankie Schaeffer on the religious right and the Republican Party.



I have got to read that book. Have you read Crazy for God? What did you think?

Hat tip to This Changes Nothing.

Technorati tags: Frankie Schaeffer, D.L. Hughley, Crazy for God

His Majesty's Dragon - a book review

Everything I had read about Naomi Novik's Temeraire series sounded intriguing, so when I discovered that Del Rey was making a number of books available as free downloads, I jumped on the chance to check it out.

In the Temeraire series, we go back to the Napoleonic Wars, with one major difference. Significant parts of the war are being fought in the skies on dragonback, with captains and flight crews clambering on the rigging. Dragons are intelligent - depending on the species, sometimes more intelligent than people - and bond for life with their captains.

The story opens as Captain Will Laurence of the British Navy discovers with horror that the French warship he has just captured is carrying a dragon egg on the verge of hatching. There is no trained aviator on board to bond with the hatchling, something that has to be done before the first feeding. Lots are drawn, a young man is chosen, but the dragonet has different ideas and Laurence watches his career crumble around him. Whether he will or no, he is now an aviator.

Three reasons you might like this book
1. You like historical novels and/or historical fantasy. Other than the Dragon Corps, this is a carefully done bit of history, with the attitudes and social conditions mirroring the actual historical period.

2. The relationship between Temeraire the dragon and Will Laurence is the core of this story and it is very nicely drawn. Imagine a man and his dog story, when the "dog" is not only intensely loyal, but has a razor-sharp intelligence and can fly. That gives you a bit of an idea. But just a bit. It was enthralling. And I so envied Laurence.

3. Laurence is an interesting protagonist. He is conservative, but will think outside the box when the situation warrants. He makes mistakes, but recognizes them and makes the necessary changes. He's an honourable man, trying to do the honourable thing, even when the personal cost is very high.

Three reasons you might not like this book
1. You're like me and get bored by action scenes. Especially when they are in three dimensions. I read most of this book in a state of acute interest, in spite of the fact it was on a computer screen, but my interest started to flag in the final chapters and the big battle scene. Action tends to bore me, especially when it requires a lot of visualization. Of course, if you're an action fan, you'd have an entirely different take on this matter.

2. You don't like anything that smacks of fantasy or alternate history. You have my deepest sympathies. I personally loved the sense of wonder that pervaded this book - oh wait! I was supposed to be giving reasons for NOT liking the book. Can you tell I am having problems with this side of the argument?

3. Ummm, there's got to be something else. You think that dragons are diabolical, despite the fact that dragons don't really exist and are therefore whatever the storyteller makes them to be. But set your mind at rest. These dragons are not diabolical, but a part of the natural world. There is even a dragon expert, publishing his scholarly works on the particularities of each species. A charming appendix offers excerpts and illustrations from his book. No demons here, sorry.

Three lines from page 33

Thunder did not frighten him, nor lightning; “What makes it?” he only asked, and was disappointed when Laurence could offer him no answer. “We could go and see,” he suggested, partly unfolding his wings again, and taking a step towards the stern railing. Laurence started with alarm; Temeraire had made no further attempts to fly since the first day, being more preoccupied with eating, and though they had enlarged the harness three times, they had never exchanged the chain for a heavier one.

And might I add in passing, that I think this is brilliant marketing on the part of Del Rey. If I understand correctly, all the books make available for download (just for one month, so rush over if you want your free copy) are the first volume of a series. Great way to get a reader hooked and make them want to buy the rest of the series. I am a great believer in free samples as the most honest form of advertising, so I'm all in favour. Nothing will persuade me to buy an unknown author faster than a good excerpt.


Technorati tags: His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik

What do you think of self-publishing?

As you may or may not know, the publishing industry is in convulsions. A business model forged in the fires of the Great Depression is now hopelessly out-of-date, but is so entrenched that it will take dynamite to move it.

And dynamite is what it's getting. The digital revolution combined with the economic situation is a pretty formidable double-whammy. While the music industry got blasted into the air a number of years ago (the dust is still falling from the skies and its new shape is starting to be visible), the book industry managed to duck most of the impact, primarily because very few people wanted to read book-length text on a computer screen. It's hard on the eyes and there are too many distractions. Amazon and mega-bookstores did change the rules a bit, but mainly for retailers and publishers.

But the recent successes of the Kindle and the Sony Reader are starting to shake things up for readers as well. And if they follow the well-worn path of electronic innovations and drop their prices significantly over the next few years, the impact will be seismic.

So what has this got to do with self-publishing?

Simple. The rules are changing. Self-publishing is looking ever more attractive. The traditional advantages of traditional publishers are eroding.

The first advantage was distribution. The publisher - not the author - did the hard work of trying to get the book into actual stores. This is still true. But the advent of new technologies makes it a less wonderful advantage. Print-on-demand technology and digital distribution are making a physical presence in a physical store less necessary than it has been in the past. And if present trends continue, this advantage will continue to shrink.

The second advantage was marketing. A publisher would - in theory - take on the publicity responsibilities and do everything in its power to make sure the book sold. (Is that the sound of cynical laughter I hear?) In actual fact, that is now rarely true. Blogs and social networks have become the most effective way of marketing books and authors are generally expected to work these angles on their own. They are often exhorted to plow their advances back into their own publicity: publishers are too busy with the spaghetti strategy: throw a whole bunch of books at the wall and see what sticks. More and more writers are wondering what the point of signing with a publishing house is if so much of the hard work is left to the writer anyway. If you're not one of your publisher's A-list authors, this advantage has pretty much ceased to exist. (Some of the agents I am querying want to know my marketing vision right in the query letter. What does that tell you?)

The third advantage is editing. This one really matters too. But so many editors have been laid off, the survivors are dizzy with fatigue, trying to handle the workload of two or three people. How much time and energy are they really able to put into a book nowadays? A self-published author can also hire a free-lance editor to do the work, although that obviously means a financial outlay.

The fourth advantage is credibility. This one is a doozy. What if every kid that auditioned for American Idol set up a page on iTunes and released their basement-recorded singles? That's pretty much what you're facing as a reader in the self-published world. How much dreck do you want to wade through to find the rare voice worth listening to? How many dreadful books do you want to read before you find a good one?

Yet even that is not an insurmountable problem. A savvy author who knows how to generate word-of-mouth publicity and who posts an excerpt or two online might be able to do an end-run around the credibility issue. And with a good-looking website selling digital downloads, it could be done without the financial risks of publishing hardcopy books.

I'm still thinking finding a publisher is preferable, but to be honest, I'm going to be looking very hard at what they're offering in terms of editing and publicity. Because if they don't offer much in that department, it's hard to see the advantage to me of signing up with them.

What do you think? If you're a writer, under what circumstances would you self-publish? If you're a reader, under what circumstances would you buy a self-published book? If you're an industry insider, is there something important I'm missing here?

Technorati tags: Self-publishing

Is Amazon killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?

Binky Urban, perhaps the world's most successful literary agent, has some hard words for Amazon.

Another issue that concerns her is book pricing: Amazon is breaking the market, she says.

"Amazon prices books at $9.99. Books in hardback cost $30.00, and the stores give a discount and the price goes down to $15.00. Amazon is not regulated the way retail outlets are, so they can do whatever they want."

So they might wipe out the publishers. Are you fighting them?

"They can definitely wipe out the publishers. The problem is that the publishers need them. Amazon isn't an easy company to do business with. It's a very secretive company; they will not share any of their sales data."

Technorati tags: Binky Urban, Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Late to the launch party

But at least it's not over.

Karen Dionne, aunt to Melanie, an on-line friend of mine, is doing something unusual. Her debut thriller, Freezing Point, was released this week and to celebrate, she's having an online party. There are blurbs from other writers (including Lee Child), an audio excerpt, a video trailer, and plenty more.

While she hasn't figured out how to serve drinks over the Internet, there is plenty of party swag, including iceberg water, penguins from Penguin, and the BBC's great Planet Earth series on DVD. You have to leave a comment to enter the draw, which is not too high a hoop to jump through. And if you buy the book from her website, you'll get a signed copy.

I haven't read the book, at least not yet, but I thought the online party was intriguing enough it deserved a shout-out. You have until tomorrow to hustle over and leave your email address.

And to whet your appetite, here's a brief description of the book from Dionne's permanent website:

As he faces the frozen behemoth of a giant iceberg, environmental activist Ben Maki sees Earth’s future. Clean drinking water for millions, waiting to be tapped from the polar ice. The Soldyne Corporation backs Ben’s grand philanthropic vision for a better today—while making its own plans for a very profitable tomorrow.

Rebecca Sweet lives for the cause—an eco-terrorist who will do whatever she must to protect the earth. And Ben Maki’s ideas have set her on the path to war…

All of them will be drawn into a battle between hope and helplessness, power and pride. But they are about to discover that deep within the ice waits an enemy more deadly than any could imagine—an apocalyptic horror mankind may not survive.

This online launch is probably the wave of the future: cheaper, easier, more targeted than cost-ineffective book tours. What do you think? As a reader, do you go to launch parties? Would you want to? Or do you prefer this virtual format? If you're a writer, do you think you'll be following in Dionne's footsteps? Why or why not?


Technorati tags: Karen Dionne, Freezing Point, Thrillers

The Golden Notebook - a book non-review

I give up. I'm sorry, I just can't take any more. I've made it all the way to page 345, but that's only a few pages past the half-way mark and I'm starting to cringe every time I see the cover of The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.

I know. It's a classic. Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature, largely on the strength of The Golden Notebook but I am bored to tears by mid-century angst. If you like Samuel Beckett and would like to see him stretched out in really long paragraphs over really long scenes in really long chapters with interminable ruminations on the spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy of communism (hardly a hot topic anymore or anything of a surprise), and on the similar void at the heart of Western culture (ditto), and on what it means to be a woman, complete with scenes of washing between the legs, and - well, you get the idea. If this kind of stuff is your cup of tea, go for it. Maybe when this stuff was fresh and cutting edge the audacity of it might have made for exciting reading. But fifty years later, the ideas are stale and worked to death, and acknowledging the fact that women have periods and brains - both at the same time - is not likely to trigger a reaction beyond ho-hum.

In short, this is an Idea Novel that has not aged well. If you don't have any inherent enthusiasm for the ideas, the story is not going to carry the weight. For those who like to mock literary fiction, this will provide you with a lot of ammunition.

Kudos to Anna, the protagonist, for having the intellectual courage to face the reality of her life. It's unfortunate that a better vehicle couldn't be found for it. A compelling read this ain't.

The structure, which was hailed for its innovation, actually contributes to the book's failings, in my opinion. The story proper is interleaved with readings from Anna's four notebooks, corporately the golden notebook. This means that any time the story starts to achieve any momentum, it's cut short by a shift to a different notebook. You have to be a determined reader indeed to continue despite the deliberate alienation. I'm not determined enough. And this is as good an illustration as any of the fact that innovation in and of itself is not necessarily a plus.

I am, of course, a dissenting opinion. You won't have to google very hard to find many different people telling you why The Golden Notebook is a masterpiece. I'm not as old and crotchety as Lessing (there are probably still videoclips all over the Internet of her swearing in disgust when she found out she'd won the Nobel) but I'm too old and crotchety to waste my time on a book I'm not enjoying, neither for the ideas, nor for the art.

For the purposes of the 1% Challenge, I still intend to count this. I mean, I read an ordinary novel's worth... Graham Greene never needed 600+ pages to portray angst and disillusionment.


Technorati tags: The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - a book review

Hemingway on acid. That's what this book felt like to me. And after I read Philip K. Dick's Wikipedia entry, I started to understand why.

The spare, clipped prose, the protagonist who is at once emotional and detached, the macho worldview, all these smack of Hemingway. The way Dick messes with your assumptions is pure Dick. The way the bottom falls out of reality altogether by the end of the book, that is pure acid.

For the first part of the book, Dick plays with very similar themes as Katerina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone, those of marginality, defining human-ness, the way we deal with those perceived as "other." Dick takes it a step further, and challenges the new assumptions we have made by following along with his story, which I found delightful. And then he challenged so many assumptions, I was no longer sure which direction was up, leaving me both confused and intrigued.

It's this last word that is important. Usually books that confuse me that badly irritate me enough that I put the author on my "don't bother with" list. But I am almost certain to pick up another Philip K. Dick book, wondering if I won't be able to get it this time.

Having said all that, there are clumsy moments in this book. He is particularly fond of doing infodumps disguised as dialogue, which really should have been dealt with before the book went to print. Characters expounding to each other on things they all know, receptionists suddenly spouting the detailed technical specs on the latest model of android - I don't think so.

So the final word for me is that I will read Philip K. Dick again, not expecting to be awestruck, but challenged and intrigued.


Technorati tags: Philip K. Dick, Science fiction, Book review

The Alchemy of Stone - a book review

The Alchemy of Stone was my introduction to steampunk and a very enjoyable introduction it was too. Ekaterina Sedia writes beautifully and there is a kind of wistful sadness to this book that did not at all fit my preconceived notion of what steampunk was. But then again, it is probably unique to this particular novel.

The Alchemy of Stone is the story of Mattie, a liberated sentient automaton (with built-in hoop skirts!) who earns her living as an alchemist, a calling that is a weird blend of magician and scientist. She feels her non-humanness acutely, not like Pinocchio longing to be a "real" boy, but wanting to be accepted for what she is. It is a lyrical, haunting story of what it means to be marginal, especially in a time of social upheaval. For revolution is brewing...

As befits steampunk, the world in which Mattie lives is roughly reminiscent of Victorian society, but it does not correspond to any identifiable time or place that actually exists. Living gargoyles, sentient automatons, slave labour, and mistreated orphans all rub elbows in this strange place. One of Mattie's strengths, and therefore one of the book's strengths, is her willingness to consider things from all points of view, and her almost total lack of prejudice. This is not to say that she is entirely objective, for she has emotions, knows pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. She does commit to a side, both in her personal life and in the revolution and must pay the price.

I recommend The Alchemy of Stone highly. Ekaterina Sedia is an author to watch, and I will be checking out her other books.

Thanks to Larry of the OF Blog, who hosted a giveaway of a signed ARC of the book, and of course, to Ekaterina herself, who graciously sent it.)


Technorati tags: The Alchemy of Stone, Ekaterina Sedia, Steampunk

City of God: A Novel - a review

City of God is a fragmented, dissonant, self-absorbed, and self-referential piece of post-modernist twaddle. Written by someone with real talent. It was only the fact that I had publicly committed to reading the book as part of the 1% Well-Read Challenge that kept me from abandoning it fairly early on in the game, despite the talent and the beautiful language.

The book is essentially a modern cry of despair, the logical conclusion of a worldview essentially wrapped up in self. Everett, the author whose words we are supposedly reading, has this to say about himself. (Or was it his fictitious alter-ego? I forget. It's very hard to keep track of who is speaking sometimes.)

So he is lean, fit, he takes very good care of himself in that way of someone profoundly faithless. He runs, works out almost religiously, for the self-maintenance that is his due.

The main object of his attention is Tom Pemberton, a maverick Episcopal priest who is supposedly seeking to find out who God really is, but who is equally self-absorbed. Witness his take on prayer:

You should try it. As an act of self-dramatization, it can't be beat. You get a hum, a reverberant hum of the possibility of your own consequential voice.

He calls his skull his cathedral, appropriate imagery for several reasons.

The plot, if you can call it that, is highly fragmented, told from various viewpoints, all presumably written by the fictitious author, and is really a series of different stories and metaphysical ramblings, interspersed with an adult version of teen angst poetry, riffing off of some of the classic songs of the early 20th century. A few little ornithological observations are thrown in for a reason which would probably become clear if I reread the book and spent a few hours meditating on its symbolism. (And please, Mr. Doctorow, it's not Canadian geese, it's Canada geese.)

The voice is well-done. Doctorow has a deft way with the language and occasionally throws out a flash of insight that delights. But there are a large number of viewpoint characters, most speaking in the first person, and almost all of them sound alike. This is sloppy characterization and makes it even harder to fit together the shards of story that make up City of God.

All in all, I found this a highly irritating book. From the pretentious arrogance of much of the metaphysical ramblings (I get very annoyed when affirmations of opinion are presented as logical necessities, when they are anything but), to the disjointed "story-telling", to the essentially unsympathetic characters, too much of this book was designed to grate on my nerves, so that its virtues just weren't enough to win me over.

Doctorow has won plenty of awards for his work, so obviously plenty of people disagree with me. I do note, however, that City of God appears to be one of his least popular books as rated by Amazon reviewers.

Technorati tags: E.L. Doctorow, City of God