Review – Lock In

Posted February 4, 2015 by in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of Lock In by John ScalziLock In, John Scalzi

I generally find Scalzi’s work fun, very readable, but maybe not too thought provoking, not too serious. This managed to combine that sci-fi fun feel with serious issues of disability politics, racial politics, gender — well, all kinds of identity politics, really. It helps to read Unlocked if you’re not very good at picking up context quickly, though I don’t think it’s necessary; it gives you a lot of background, and even a starting point for imagining the characters.

I would actually be interested in listening to the audiobook for this, because Scalzi avoided stating a gender for Chris Shane. Thus, there are alternate readers — Will Wheaton and Amber Benson. The existence of the two versions meaning that I don’t really consider this a spoiler! Particularly as it’s not germane to the plot: it’s a thing outside the plot that will affect your reading, because you’re almost inevitably going to choose which gender you assign to the narrator in your head unless you’re used to queer communities. Personally, I chose to read Chris Shane as female if I could. I ended up reading them as something more nebulous: if you grow up spending most of your time outside your physical body (in the Agora or in a threep, it doesn’t matter which), are you going to think of gender in the same way as embodied people do? I don’t think we can answer that with modern technology, but I think the answer might be no, and that’s how I read Chris.

In a way, this fits right into a tradition with Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel, which is a mystery as much as it’s a sci-fi story, and which relies intimately on both elements to make the full story (rather than being a mystery story that happens to be in a science fiction world, or vice versa). And because one character is walking around in an artificial body and the other isn’t, and with some of the political issues. (Ask me another day how I react when Hawking says a robot uprising might destroy humanity, everyone reports it as news, and nobody wants to listen to the sci-fi fan in the corner yelling “Isaac Asimov got there first!”)

Ahem. Anyway, Scalzi keeps his lightness of touch here, despite all the issues that he explores; it remains intensely readable, a page turner, and something that can suck you in enough that you forget about your surroundings. And I love that it’s based on all sorts of real situations: some people are ‘locked in’, we are finding solutions like the ones here for them (my New Scientist this week has a cover story: “Out of the Twilight Zone: Portable mind-reader gives voice to the locked in”), there were epidemics like this before (the closest analogue being the flu epidemic closely followed by the sleeping sickness epidemic)… These are not concerns only relevant in a hypothetical science fictional world.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Ghost King

Posted February 3, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Ghost King by David GemmellGhost King, David Gemmell

Okay, generally I find Gemmell’s books to be fairly fun; standard fantasy, with enough interesting characters, twists or references to keep me interested. And you’d think this one would be especially so, since it’s basically about King Arthur (albeit as a young boy). Maybe it’s the fact that this was one of the earliest of Gemmell’s books (as far as I can tell from publication dates), but it really, really didn’t work for me. There was that same moreishness about it in some ways, but I kept getting distracted by the tone, which bounced all over the place. Serious teenage crushes to slightly ridiculed slave/master relationships in a single bound… It’s great that there’s a disabled protagonist. It’s great that in that sex scene between him and the slave, she feels that she has control over the situation.

It’s less great that one encounter with the maimed comic relief hero is enough to cure her of her fears and trauma about rape, but that’s a personal bugbear of mine. One good experience doesn’t cancel out one bad experience, people! It’s something like a one-to-five ratio, more like!

Anyway, maybe it was that irreverent tone that got to me. The liberal mixing of mythologies (a guy was a proto-Arthur figure, he was also Ares, there might be a link intended with Cú Chulainn, throw in some Babylonian mythology too, and a dollop of Gemmell’s own mythology as well…) really didn’t work: it’s not that I’m fundamentally opposed to it (hell, if you dig into it, that’s exactly what J.R.R. Tolkien did), but it didn’t work. It felt thrown together.

I’m not gonna read the sequel; it’s due back at the library anyway, and may the next borrower have more joy of it.

Rating: 1/5

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted February 3, 2015 by in General / 8 Comments

This week’s theme is ‘Top Ten Books I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read From X Genre’. I’m going to go for a bit of a twist and give you the top ten books my mother can’t believe I haven’t read from the classics, particularly because I’ve got English lit degrees… It’s also my mother’s birthday today! (She does read this blog, so stick your head in and say hi.)

  1. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Laurie Lee. 
  2. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad.
  3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain.
  4. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.
  5. Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Thomas Hardy.
  6. The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde.
  7. The History of the Decline Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon.
  8. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill.
  9. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift.
  10. Ulysses, James Joyce.

So if you’re feeling bad about not reading the classics, neither have I… (I’m also missing out on The Count of Monte Cristo and other such classics!)

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Review – When Life Nearly Died

Posted February 2, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of When Life Nearly Died by Michael J. BentonWhen Life Nearly Died, Michael J. Benton

For all that this purports to be about the end-Permian extinction — the greatest of the extinction events, where maybe 90% of living organisms were wiped out — this actually contains a lot more information about the end-Cretaceous. This makes some sense, because we have a much better understanding of what caused the end-Cretaceous extinction, and it helps that it’s also the most widely known and understood. People don’t really want to hear about the extinctions in the Permian, however much more disastrous, because the image of the extinction of the dinosaurs is so entrenched in our minds.

But I kind of did want to know about the end-Permian extinction, and I wasn’t so interested in chapters and chapters of set up, particularly when it came to the history of catastrophism. It’s enough that I grasp the concepts, and that they haven’t always been agreed upon or understood the way they are now — I don’t really want to know the personal details of loads of scientists’ lives. (Some are interesting characters in themselves. Some are not. Either way, I’m actually here for the end-Permian, not upheavals in Earth sciences.)

I was a bit staggered by a couple of assertions — “all organisms have DNA”, for example, including “the simplest virus”. But no: a virus contains RNA. It’s quite an important distinction, and shouldn’t have slipped past editors, particularly when the book does touch on heredity and descent. And then there was the rather bizarre idea that the Marie Celeste’s crew were struck by a burp of gas which killed them, made their bodies disappear, and left the ship itself untouched. Hm.

Mostly it seems reasonably solid, but bits like that made me raise my eyebrows a bit.

Rating: 2/5

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I Mustache You Some Questions

Posted February 1, 2015 by in General / 8 Comments

mustache-questions

Since Kaja from Of Dragons and Hearts tagged me!

Four names that people call me:

  1. Nikki — obviously! This is what most people call me, these days.
  2. Nicole — my family tend to still call me this. My real name!
  3. Nicci — shut up, it’s totally different somehow. But only my childhood friend is allowed to call me this.
  4. Squeak — well, actually, Dad’s stopped calling me this because I’m an adult now. But I have a very high soprano voice, and my dad has tinnitis, so, voila. It was “Croak” when I had a cold, “Squeakley” when he was being affectionate, “Princess Squeakerella” when I was being a brat…

Four jobs that I have had:

  1. Medical secretary. This mostly involved a lot of filing, some pestering people for money, and a lot of typing.
  2. Transcriptionist. People send me audio recordings of their meetings, interviews, etc, and I type out everything they say. Or sometimes most of what they say, only more grammatically. I’ve transcribed all sorts of stuff: David Cameron’s speeches, Nick Clegg’s excuses, conferences, financial results, NHS board meetings, court cases… It can be kind of interesting.
  3. Copy writer. You need someone to advertise coffee they’ve never tasted? Someone who doesn’t even like coffee? Sure! I’ll do it! And various other things, like providing content for blogs, writing web pages, etc, etc.
  4. Volunteer. Yeah, kind of cheating, but I haven’t had any other paying job. But my volunteer roles could populate this list again and then some…

Four movies that I have watched more than once: 

  1. Apollo 13. Shut up it doesn’t make me cry.
  2. Howl’s Moving Castle. <33
  3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers is my bb.
  4. Sherlock Holmes. With Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.

Four books I’d recommend:

  1. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. I don’t think this needs saying, does it?
  2. Bloodshot, by Cherie Priest. I have a craving to reread this, so here it goes in the list. I love the vampire law here, love Raylene’s OCD tendencies and how she’s kickass anyway, and the found family that grows through Bloodshot and Hellbent.
  3. The Fifth Head of Cerberus, by Gene Wolfe. Want your brain twisted round and round? Yep. Gene Wolfe.
  4. Strong Poison, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Because Lord Peter is the best detective. Shut up. Yes. The best.

Wait, there isn’t room for Seaward? The Dark is Rising? Among Others?

Four places I have lived: 

  1. Yorkshire. I grew up there.
  2. Gordon Hall, Cardiff. I was in a hall of residence in my first year of university, naturally; this was my first home away from my parents.
  3. Flat 3, Cardiff. Second year of university. There were mice. Let’s not go there.
  4. Hardy Place, Cardiff. Maybe my favourite of my homes so far, lived here with some of my university friends.

Four places I have been:

  1. Brittany, France. I’ve blanked out most of it because it was awful — it was a school trip, and my classmates wanted me to be unhappy. I was.
  2. Various parts of Belgium. My partner lives in Belgium!
  3. Rome, Italy. Went to Rome with my mother after finishing my degree. Favourite place: Pompeii. Definitely.
  4. Cornwall, UK. We went for the total solar eclipse. It turned out to be cloudy there; there was a better view back home. But Dad did teach us to swim.

Four places I’d rather be right now:

  1. Belgium. I want my bunnyyyyy.
  2. Yorkshire. I love Wales, but right now I’d rather not be here.
  3. Venice. I’ll settle for turning my PS3 on and running around Rome on Assassin’s Creed, though.
  4. Bed.

Four things I don’t eat:

  1. Spaghetti bolognese. My mother once forcefed me some because she didn’t believe I felt sick. There was projectile vomiting.
  2. Haggis. Whyyy.
  3. Turkish delight. Ughughugh.
  4. Christmas pudding. Gaaah.

Four of my favourite foods:

  1. The sausage thing with onions that my partner gets from the chip shop down the road. Oh god I could eat it right now.
  2. Cauliflower cheese. I like cheese. Nommy cheese.
  3. Crispy duck in pancakes. Mmmmm.
  4. Dad’s chilli. Or other chilli, if necessary, but Dad does it best.

Four TV shows that I’ve watched:

  1. Firefly. I’ve watched this far too many times, really. I can quote most of it. “I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you.”
  2. Pushing Daisies. I need to rewatch this! So cute.
  3. Due South. I’m not kidding you when I say Fraser was my first squish.
  4. NCIS. Okay, so I can’t watch it without crying still because I used to watch it with my grandad and I can still ‘hear’ his commentary on it. But I do love it.

Four things I’m looking forward to this year:

  1. Going to Canada!
  2. Visits to Belgium.
  3. The Wales vs England game on Friday.
  4. Visit from my ex-housemate.

Four things I’m always saying:

  1. “Daaaaaaadddyyyyyyy…” Yes, 25 and I still call him ‘Daddy’. Especially when I want something.
  2. “How much is my library fine now?” Wince.
  3. “Books books books!” The hunting cry of the wild Nikki.
  4. “I hate math…” This science course involves far too much math and not enough DNA.

Runners up: “ugh David Cameron, you [expletive]!”; “Muuuuuuuuuuuuum”; “EZIO STOP FALLING OFF BUILDINGS YOU’RE MEANT TO BE AN ASSASSIN”.

Four people I tag:

  1. You.
  2. The other you.
  3. Yes, you.
  4. My imaginary friend.

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Review – Soulless

Posted February 1, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Soulless by Gail CarrigerSoulless, Gail Carriger

I originally read Soulless a while ago, and I didn’t know much about it — just that people found it a lot of fun. And I think I was still being snobby about overt romance in fiction, before embracing my love of Georgette Heyer and Mary Stewart (not that this is solely romantic fiction in that way, though it does share some of the features, like a plucky single heroine who is a spinster, etc, etc). Anyway, I thought it was kind of fun, but I wasn’t really prepared to enjoy it for what it was.

This time, I knew it was often ridiculous, would make me laugh, included a rather shocking amount of bodice ripping detail, etc. And I was prepared to enjoy it for that — and somehow that made it easier to focus on the bits of world-building around that: hive politics, pack politics, human politics, the changes Carriger’s made to history to fit in vampires and other supernatural creatures. I guess in a way it stays disturbingly imperialistic and so on — Victoria is queen, it’s a golden age, silly America is kind of backwards, etc. But really we don’t see much of the rest of the empire; it stays pretty parochial. Maybe the word should be territorial?

The mystery is terribly easy, though, especially the second time around. That’s not so much any actual clues as the fact that the author slaps a certain element into every couple of scenes. It’s not exactly subtle as a Chekhov’s gun.

Still, I’m happy to read this as light fun; as a friend said before, it’s a cream puff of a book. And that’s fine. And hey, the positivity of the sexuality between Conall and Alexia is actually pretty positive, and it’s nice that Carriger doesn’t milk angst out of it with too much obsessing over Alexia’s reputation, etc.

Rating: 3/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted January 31, 2015 by in General / 18 Comments

Once again, a quiet week! Which is good, since that’s what I’m aiming for. I did get two new books — rewards for finishing books two and three of my Open University course!

Bought

Cover of Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier Cover of Prickle Moon by Juliet Marillier

I’ve read (and reviewed) Prickle Moon already; it’s lovely. And I’d been wanting Dreamer’s Pool for a while!

Library

Cover of The Gabriel Hounds by Mary Stewart

Just one, a bit of self indulgence — I’ve read all of Mary Stewart’s romances, but this was the first one I read, and I’m looking forward to going back to it. Frothy comfort reading for the win! Though right now, I’m digging into Soulless (Gail Carriger) for that!

Oh, and the latest issue of Thor came out, too.

Comics

Thor #4

How’s everyone else doing? Broken your resolutions yet?

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Review – The Broken Sword

Posted January 30, 2015 by in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of The Broken Sword by Poul AndersonThe Broken Sword, Poul Anderson
Review from 18th June, 2011

I was really excited about reading The Broken Sword, because when I first toyed with the idea of buying a book by Poul Anderson — this was actually the first I bought, it’s just took me longer to read — I realised how closely it was based on the style of the Norse sagas I’ve studied. It draws on the mythology, of course, and the path of curses and thwarted love and raiding echoes that of the sagas, but it also echoes their form: the narration, especially to begin with, is very much like a saga, and the verses all comply with the Old Norse metres. In many ways, The Broken Sword is a (relatively) modern example of one of the Skáldasögur — a saga about a skald, or poet, like Kormáks saga. The tale of lost love, and the verses of first love and desire and then lament fit that pattern, albeit not like a glove.

The verses really, really impressed me. They’re written in dróttkvætt metre, which is extremely difficult. A verse is made up of eight lines, divided into equal halves (‘helmingr’). There are six syllables per line, and two syllables in each even line must alliterate with one in the following odd numbered line. Even lines must have a full rhyme within the line with the penultimate syllable; odd lines must have half-rhyme within the line with the penultimate syllable. Each line must end with a trochee.

Add to that the poetic words that would only be used in verse, heiti and kennings, which Anderson imitates to some degree, and… Well, I’m very impressed. It might seem less compelling to someone who hasn’t read verses in Icelandic — translations tend to make it a bit more flowery.

The story itself is perhaps less fresh to me, but I still enjoyed it: basically, it melds British/Irish and Norse mythology, with both the Sidhe and Æsir present, along with the coming of Christianity. Skafloc is stolen by the elves and replaced by a doppelganger, Valgard; the two eventually, and inevitably, come into conflict. In the course of this, Skafloc and his sister Freda, not knowing their relationship, fall in love…

It’s fun — adventure and love and doom and a tragic end, quite fitting for a skald.

Rating: 4/5

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Tough Travels – Law Enforcement

Posted January 29, 2015 by in General / 8 Comments

The prompt this week for Tough Travels is this:

Seems odd to think that in fantasy cities in which entire economies revolve around crime there is room for the men in blue (or crimson, or whatever). But the law does the best it can, even when faced with magic, mystical creatures, or rogue deities.

So I thought about this and for some reason my mind was totally blank. I mean, there’s various forces of law and order in fantasy, of course, but I couldn’t think of specific ones. In a lot of what I read, they’re just in the background — the king’s guardsmen, the city watch, whatever. Anyway, I’ve done my best to think of some of the forces of law and order that we don’t normally associate with the men in blue, as such. Like…

  • The Avengers (Marvel comics). You’ve never met a more law-abiding, law-enforcing person than Steve Rogers! And, admittedly, he does wear a mostly blue uniform.
  • The wizards on Roke (A Wizard of Earthsea). They’re pretty insular a lot of the time, granted, but if there’s a problem out there in the world, they’re probably the only ones who can solve it. And Ged is very aware of that fact. There’s the short story in Tales from Earthsea where he goes after a disgraced wizard, and then there’s the whole plot of The Furthest Shore…
  • Valek (Poison Study). The Commander might be the centre of power, but he wouldn’t be that way without Valek keeping people in line.

And for a guy who does represent the boys in blue, though this is not strictly fantasy (it’s alternate history)…

  • Peter Carmichael (Small Change trilogy). Because he tries to do his job even when it’s hard. Because despite all the risks to himself and those he loves, he subverts the regime he’s in, and supports real justice.

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Review – Prickle Moon

Posted January 29, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Prickle Moon by Juliet MarillierPrickle Moon, Juliet Marillier

Prickle Moon is a collection of short stories, most of them previously published but five of them new, and I knew I’d have to pick the book up someday because of that hedgehog on the cover. I love hedgehogs; just yesterday we rescued one from our garden which seemed too small to be out, and sent her off to a carer to spend the winter. Last winter we did that with a couple of hedgehogs; one of them died, but the second lived and was even strong enough to make a break for it. He tunnelled out with some friends and is now living under someone’s decking!

So mostly I got this for the title story, Prickle Moon, because I love my hedgehogs. Like most of the stories in this collection, it’s bittersweet; woven with loss and hope, awful tasks and finding your way through them. Some of the stories are fairytale retellings — Rapunzel, Baba Yaga — and some are new stories very much styled as fairytales, with very familiar motifs. Some of the stories are oddly modern, which jars against the more traditional and more fantastical ones. Marillier’s good at putting her characters into awful situations which require compromise with their morality, and then making it work out so that it isn’t so bad after all. She’s good at grief, and especially healed grief — the kind of grief you learn to live with and live in.

The collection also includes a Sevenwaters story. I haven’t read that series, so it took me a little while to get into it and pick up everything that was going on, but the joy in the ending, the hope, is not something you need to have read Daughter of the Forest and the other books to understand. Though, right now, I’m definitely in the mood to read more of Marillier’s work.

Rating: 4/5

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