Not a review, since I mostly lack the patience to go through anthologies story by story, but I thought I'd mention a few.
I've been reading some of the stories in Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow's latest anthology, The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, but while some of them are pretty good, I think their anthology The Faery Reel is still the one I enjoyed the most. (They also did The Green Man and some others that I haven't read.)
I've also been reading Gene Wolfe's Starwater Strains and Strange Travelers. I enjoyed many of the stories in Starwater Strains and almost all of them made at least some sense ("The Game in the Pope's Head" was the exception, but perhaps I just didn't want to understand it since Wolfe introduced it as a Jack the Ripper story). "Viewpoint" stands out as the first story and as an original, disturbing take on "reality TV"; "Empires of Foliage and Flower" is a fable nominally set on Wolfe's Urth, but which really could be anywhere; "Golden City Far" also stands out, as the first and last stories in such collections tend to do. In Strange Travelers, "The Haunted Boardinghouse" caught my attention, as well as the nifty idea of a traffic jam that has lasted for years, long enough for its occupants to begin developing their own unique freeway culture, which appears in the first and last stories in this collection.
Last night I started reading Vera Nazarian's collection Salt of the Air. The writing is pretty good, although I'm not sure what to make of the cover art. $29.95 also seems awfully expensive for such a small book (I checked it out of the library); sure, it's probably a small press, but for that price you would think they could have done a better job proofreading. (For example, the running titles at the top of the page are not always right, and there is a glaring typo in Gene Wolfe's three-page introduction.)
I can't remember what the "other things" I wanted to put in this post were (I knew last night, but alas...), so I'll stop here.
Showing posts with label Gene Wolfe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gene Wolfe. Show all posts
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Sunday, September 02, 2007
The Book of the Long Sun
By Gene Wolfe, in four volumes (Nightside the Long Sun, Lake of the Long Sun, Calde of the Long Sun, Exodus from the Long Sun) or two volumes (Litany of the Long Sun and Epiphany of the Long Sun) or maybe even one SFBC volume.
I actually disagree substantially with the Inchoatus review this time. I found this to be one of Gene Wolfe's most straightforward books, but perhaps I'm too simplistic and not sufficiently interested in what the "true" story really is. I do admit that their criticism about unsympathetic characters has some weight to it, though. In the sequel, The Book of the Short Sun, the characters I found most sympathetic were the aliens. (Note: You should read The Book of the Long Sun before The Book of the Short Sun to get the most out of it.) I also found the sequel to be much more byzantine and confusing.
This is a very Christian book in some ways. Patera Silk, the priest in charge of the most impoverished parish in his city, receives an epiphany from a god known as the Outsider. The Outsider is considered to be a minor god because he is not one of Pas's children, but Silk gradually comes to believe that the Outsider is the god of all gods. References to events Silk was shown, such as "a man riding a donkey entering a foreign city while people waved large, fan-like leaves", are extremely suggestive.
Although I found this fairly straightforward, especially compared to The Book of the Short Sun, it still requires a significant amount of concentration to get through. There are times when characters act on knowledge that they don't share, and some things that just aren't explained at all. The end declares that this book is a record put together by Horn, one of Silk's students, based on his own and other witness's testimony as well as conversations with Silk himself, which casts doubt on certain parts of the narrative. This may be why Inchoatus had so much trouble with it; I don't know. There are also various details upon which light is shed only in the following Book of the Short Sun.
In addition, while I enjoyed it as an adventure, as I said, the characters themselves were somewhat lacking in sympathetic qualities.
This is definitely science fiction, and requires a substantial amount of time to read. You will probably want to have all four books on hand, as the narrative proceeds directly from each book to the next without any obvious logical division in the plot (unlike The Book of the New Sun, which was segmented at least somewhat logically, and The Book of the Short Sun, written as a sort of memoir of past events while also recording the ongoing ones in the life of the (fictional) writer, which was logically divided by where he ran out of paper.) You will probably also want to read The Book of the Short Sun (On Blue's Waters, In Green's Jungles, and Return to the Whorl) soon afterward, while your memory of the events in this book is still fresh. For that reason, I can't really make an unconditional recommendation of this; it is an awful lot of pages to commit to, although they are aguably not wasted pages, as Wolfe rarely or never adds irrelevant details. Still, I enjoyed this quite a bit and parts of The Book of the Short Sun even more.
I actually disagree substantially with the Inchoatus review this time. I found this to be one of Gene Wolfe's most straightforward books, but perhaps I'm too simplistic and not sufficiently interested in what the "true" story really is. I do admit that their criticism about unsympathetic characters has some weight to it, though. In the sequel, The Book of the Short Sun, the characters I found most sympathetic were the aliens. (Note: You should read The Book of the Long Sun before The Book of the Short Sun to get the most out of it.) I also found the sequel to be much more byzantine and confusing.
This is a very Christian book in some ways. Patera Silk, the priest in charge of the most impoverished parish in his city, receives an epiphany from a god known as the Outsider. The Outsider is considered to be a minor god because he is not one of Pas's children, but Silk gradually comes to believe that the Outsider is the god of all gods. References to events Silk was shown, such as "a man riding a donkey entering a foreign city while people waved large, fan-like leaves", are extremely suggestive.
Although I found this fairly straightforward, especially compared to The Book of the Short Sun, it still requires a significant amount of concentration to get through. There are times when characters act on knowledge that they don't share, and some things that just aren't explained at all. The end declares that this book is a record put together by Horn, one of Silk's students, based on his own and other witness's testimony as well as conversations with Silk himself, which casts doubt on certain parts of the narrative. This may be why Inchoatus had so much trouble with it; I don't know. There are also various details upon which light is shed only in the following Book of the Short Sun.
In addition, while I enjoyed it as an adventure, as I said, the characters themselves were somewhat lacking in sympathetic qualities.
This is definitely science fiction, and requires a substantial amount of time to read. You will probably want to have all four books on hand, as the narrative proceeds directly from each book to the next without any obvious logical division in the plot (unlike The Book of the New Sun, which was segmented at least somewhat logically, and The Book of the Short Sun, written as a sort of memoir of past events while also recording the ongoing ones in the life of the (fictional) writer, which was logically divided by where he ran out of paper.) You will probably also want to read The Book of the Short Sun (On Blue's Waters, In Green's Jungles, and Return to the Whorl) soon afterward, while your memory of the events in this book is still fresh. For that reason, I can't really make an unconditional recommendation of this; it is an awful lot of pages to commit to, although they are aguably not wasted pages, as Wolfe rarely or never adds irrelevant details. Still, I enjoyed this quite a bit and parts of The Book of the Short Sun even more.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Latro in the Mist
By Gene Wolfe. (This is an omnibus of Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete.)
Zerothly: (Added) You know what? This is a really awful review. Here is a better one: Inchoatus review.
Zero and a halfly: (Update the Second) These books present parts of a journey more than they do a complete story. While Soldier in the Mist begins soon after Latro is injured, the others seem to begin, and all three end, at indefinite points in the story, with nothing really resolved. Soldier of Sidon, the third one, raised this thought in me: they are mere fragments. Will there be a fourth? I suspect that each one has had a narrative purpose, even if my critical organ is not sharp enough to discern it. (Other reviewers comment on the nature of innocence and memory that is revealed, obligations to society, to friends, to family...) Gene Wolfe has certainly left enough mysteries strewn in Latro's path to easily write more, but because of the number of years that passed between the second and third I doubt many of the ones from the first two books will be revisited. Here ends Update the Second.
Firstly: These are extremely difficult books to read, maybe harder than Faulkner. Latro loses his memory of events after about a day, and so must set down what happened in writing if he wishes to refer to it later. The result is that he has little understanding of what is actually happening to him most of the time. Forgetting names, he calls people many different things, and it is incumbent upon the reader to remember the people whom he refers to. There are also many names for the gods in the pantheon here and many archaic terms, such as peltast, kybernetes, and mantis.
Secondly: These are fundamentally sad books. Despite the frequent moments of happiness and the loyal friends Latro collects, I got the sense that ultimately he was being used as a pawn by the gods for their own games, careless of the hurt they did him. (His memory was lost, we are told, for an unknown offense to a certain goddess.)
I began Soldier of the Mist once before, but gave up when I concluded it was too difficult without a good knowledge of Greek antiquity. It is certainly very difficult and I am going to go look up what others thought it meant after I finish writing this, but this time I was pulled in by the story, wanting to find out what happened. Fast is probably the only way to read these; there are so many details only mentioned once or twice that you would have no hope of comprehension without taking notes, otherwise.
Recommended for someone who really likes a puzzle and enjoys Greek mythology. I can see how this book is great stylistically, but at the same time it's very taxing.
Zerothly: (Added) You know what? This is a really awful review. Here is a better one: Inchoatus review.
Zero and a halfly: (Update the Second) These books present parts of a journey more than they do a complete story. While Soldier in the Mist begins soon after Latro is injured, the others seem to begin, and all three end, at indefinite points in the story, with nothing really resolved. Soldier of Sidon, the third one, raised this thought in me: they are mere fragments. Will there be a fourth? I suspect that each one has had a narrative purpose, even if my critical organ is not sharp enough to discern it. (Other reviewers comment on the nature of innocence and memory that is revealed, obligations to society, to friends, to family...) Gene Wolfe has certainly left enough mysteries strewn in Latro's path to easily write more, but because of the number of years that passed between the second and third I doubt many of the ones from the first two books will be revisited. Here ends Update the Second.
Firstly: These are extremely difficult books to read, maybe harder than Faulkner. Latro loses his memory of events after about a day, and so must set down what happened in writing if he wishes to refer to it later. The result is that he has little understanding of what is actually happening to him most of the time. Forgetting names, he calls people many different things, and it is incumbent upon the reader to remember the people whom he refers to. There are also many names for the gods in the pantheon here and many archaic terms, such as peltast, kybernetes, and mantis.
Secondly: These are fundamentally sad books. Despite the frequent moments of happiness and the loyal friends Latro collects, I got the sense that ultimately he was being used as a pawn by the gods for their own games, careless of the hurt they did him. (His memory was lost, we are told, for an unknown offense to a certain goddess.)
I began Soldier of the Mist once before, but gave up when I concluded it was too difficult without a good knowledge of Greek antiquity. It is certainly very difficult and I am going to go look up what others thought it meant after I finish writing this, but this time I was pulled in by the story, wanting to find out what happened. Fast is probably the only way to read these; there are so many details only mentioned once or twice that you would have no hope of comprehension without taking notes, otherwise.
Recommended for someone who really likes a puzzle and enjoys Greek mythology. I can see how this book is great stylistically, but at the same time it's very taxing.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
There Are Doors
By Gene Wolfe.
Bizarre would be one word to describe this book. "Dream-like" seems to be one that's popular in the Amazon reviews.
This is the story of a pretty mediocre guy going after the girl of his dreams. He (whatever his name actually is; about two thirds of the way through, I suddenly realized that it had not been disclosed) is a rather good furniture salesman, but appears to have no private life at all. When he gets a girlfriend who dumps him after a few days, he becomes obsessed with finding her, and finds himself wandering through the "doors" mentioned in the incomprehensible note she left behind.
The problem is, the doors can be any door, and so he finds himself in another world without even realizing that he's there until he's placed in a mental institution for, uh, alcoholism. Which, from everything that's said, seems to be a non-issue for him. The world is different from the Earth we know in ways that are so obvious and well-known that nobody there bothers to clue him in; the differences are one of those shared cultural assumptions that no one talks about.
A fairly interesting book, I guess. It was certainly quite readable after I started it: there are lots of questions raised and, like some other books I can't be bothered to name at the moment, Wolfe manages to convince you that all the answers are there too, if only you think about it enough. Some are outright handed to you, but others are less obvious.
Bizarre would be one word to describe this book. "Dream-like" seems to be one that's popular in the Amazon reviews.
This is the story of a pretty mediocre guy going after the girl of his dreams. He (whatever his name actually is; about two thirds of the way through, I suddenly realized that it had not been disclosed) is a rather good furniture salesman, but appears to have no private life at all. When he gets a girlfriend who dumps him after a few days, he becomes obsessed with finding her, and finds himself wandering through the "doors" mentioned in the incomprehensible note she left behind.
The problem is, the doors can be any door, and so he finds himself in another world without even realizing that he's there until he's placed in a mental institution for, uh, alcoholism. Which, from everything that's said, seems to be a non-issue for him. The world is different from the Earth we know in ways that are so obvious and well-known that nobody there bothers to clue him in; the differences are one of those shared cultural assumptions that no one talks about.
A fairly interesting book, I guess. It was certainly quite readable after I started it: there are lots of questions raised and, like some other books I can't be bothered to name at the moment, Wolfe manages to convince you that all the answers are there too, if only you think about it enough. Some are outright handed to you, but others are less obvious.
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