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Book review: Peter Anghelides -- Another Life

jules.jones@gmail.com — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:17:52 GMT

First of the Torchwood tie-in novels, and set a few weeks after the start of the series, i.e. after the second episode and before the fourth.

The book opens with a second-person role-playing game scenario -- except this game's not in the computer, and when the "you" loses a life and hopes for better luck next time, it's a real body that dies. Of course, it takes Torchwood a little longer to work out why their serial killer has just cheerfully committed suicide...

In a second story strand, Owen's been spending a lot of time in a more conventional multi-player game, though he's taking advantage of Torchwood technology, and Toshiko's technical skills, to ramp up the online experience a little. When he runs into an old girlfriend in the game and discovers that she's living in Cardiff, he sees it as both a personal and professional opportunity -- he wants to prove his theory that the game is a good initial screening tool for potential Torchwood recruits, and Megan's just the sort of person who would make a good recruit for Torchwood.

While Jack, Gwen and Tosh are tracking down who their serial killer was working with and what he's done with a set of stolen nuclear fuel rods, Owen and Megan stumble across part of the solution quite by chance. And all the while the rain pours down on Cardiff, as the Rift's latest problem plays havoc with the local weather system...

The mirrored plotlines make it obvious early in the book what's going on (intentionally so). But the real puzzle is who's doing it, and what their motive is. Anghelides carefully weaves the different strands together so that the reader can see the pieces falling into place, as what seem like separate stories start to interlock. By the end, what seemed like pieces of characterisation and scene-setting turn out to be crucial to Torchwood winning the day.

This is a nicely constructed novel, with an interesting story and good characterisations. There's a good spread of scenes across most of the characters, and even Ianto gets some nice characterisation vignettes, even though the book's set at a point in the series timeline when he was mainly a background character. Notably, that includes a fair bit of the flirty banter between Jack and Ianto that was in the tv episodes at this point in the timeline.

I liked this book a lot, and think a fair number of my friends would too. While it's a tie-in, Anghelides does a good job of working the universe set-up into the first few scenes, and I think the book should also work well for someone who hadn't seen the show, although obviously you'd get more out of it if you're already familiar with the characters.

It's also available as an audiobook read by John Barrowman, which I haven't heard.

LibraryThing entry
at Amazon UK
at Amazon US

abandon ship...

jules.jones@gmail.com — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:51:21 GMT

Home early, because the public transport network in Manchester is having difficulty due to adverse weather conditions, and once those of us who managed to get in this morning had done all the "need to do it today" work, management said everyone who didn't live within walking distance should get out while there was still transport to be had. It looks like we're going to have similar fun and games tomorrow, which is why today's urgent work included cancelling as much of tomorrow's work as possible, *before* we start getting the frantic phone calls in the morning from our incoming clients about being stuck in snowdrifts.

Of course, this means that the heating hadn't come on when I got home, and I had to set it manually and wait for the house to warm up a tad...

Andre Norton's Beastmaster reissued

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:24:41 GMT

There was a certain amount of squeeing here about this weekend's "you might like this" email from Amazon -- Tor are re-issuing Andre Norton's "The Beast Master" and "Lord of Thunder" novels about Hosteen Storm in a trade paperback omnibus (also in hardback). Release date is 5 January 2010. I don't need to rush out and buy it as I already have both of them (I have the old Gollancz hardback of Lord of Thunder, of fond memory to many middle-aged Brits who had a library card in their youth), but I suspect that one or two of my flist will be pleased by the news.

Tor's online store
Amazon UK
Amazon US

wordage

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:29:30 GMT

Nil words so far today on the new novel, and likely to be nil until tomorrow when the under-10s leave again, especially given that I last left our heroes in bed (re-enacting the cover of L&M2 if you must know, but even so, not entirely fit for minors). OTOH, I've almost caught up with my December book log, and there's more than 250 words in that lot.

Book review: Martin H Greenberg and John Helfers -- Future Crimes

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:31:09 GMT

Anthology of sf crime short stories from the prolific book packager Martin H Greenberg. I normally like the anthologies Greenberg puts together, in both sf and mystery, but I've got a bad case of "it's not you, it's me" with this one. I can see why other people might like it, but it doesn't quite work for me, and I think it's because I'm not quite keyed in to the relevant genre conventions. Half way through, and I still haven't encountered a story I'd regret not having read, and have read one or two that left me feeling I'd just wasted a small piece of my life -- even though I know and like the work of several of the authors (and indeed, bought the anthology specifically because it included a short by one of my favourite authors). I've finally learnt that I don't have to finish a book just because I've started it, so I'm bailing at this point -- but even so, I think this one could work for a reader with slightly different tastes to me.

LibraryThing entry
at Amazon UK
at Amazon US

Book review: Arthur C Clarke -- Glide Path

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 15:48:02 GMT

This is often described as Clarke's non-sf novel, but it has a very similar feel to some of his hard sf. There is the same world building and sense of wonder inspired by science -- but the world he brings to life here was real and recent history. For this novel is a fictionalised account of the development of Ground Control Approach radar during the second world war, and Clarke draws upon his own experience of working on the project to safely talk down aircraft by radar.

It might sound dry, but it isn't. Clarke does a fine job on showing both the the technology, and the people who created the technology, with the interplay between different personalities, and the little and large incidents that make up life in a developmental project. The main character's not always that likeable a person, but in a way that makes him a believable viewpoint character rather than a stock hero. There's plenty of dramatic tension, and lighter moments as well, with both clearly being drawn at least in part from Clarke's own experiences. Glide Path is well worth a read for both sf readers and WW2 History buffs.

LibraryThing entry
at Amazon UK

Bad reviewer

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:14:38 GMT

That would be me. I appear to have offended someone again -- it's rather telling when all your reviews on a site before a certain date suddenly have one person who found this review unhelpful. Oddly, it's *not* Amazon, where spiteful votes are standard practice.

(No, I'm not upset about it. I just find it mildly weird, given that as far as I know that site has no perverse incentives to slam other people's reviews, and it would be an odd one for someone to track me to in order to punish me for perceived misdeeds elsewhere.)

Book review: Isaac Asimov -- The Union Club Mysteries

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 09:56:10 GMT

This anthology collected the first 30 stories from a monthly series of mystery shorts Asimov wrote for Eric Potter at Gallery magazine. The frame story for the series is a group of four men who sit together at their club. One of their number claims to have a background in intelligence, and has a habit of telling stories about problems he has solved for the police and intelligence services. The problems are typically in the form of lateral thinking puzzles, and Griswold invariably finishes by commenting that the answer was obvious, and waiting for his companions to admit that they can't work it out before giving them the answer (thus also giving the reader a chance to try to work it out before the answer is revealed). With only 2000 words to play with each month, the stories are of necessity fairly pared down and low on characterisation. They're often great fun, and I find it entertaining to watch the ongoing frame story about the narrator and his two friends trying to decide whether Griswold is telling the truth about his past or pulling their legs; but if you don't like bad puns you won't like a fair few of these little mysteries, and some of them have dated badly.

I enjoyed the collection, though it's more of a book for dipping into occasionally than reading all the way through in one sitting. I find them excellent for when I want something that will occupy me for five or ten minutes without making it difficult for me to put down the book at the end of a chapter. The collection has kept me entertained through more than a few bouts of 3 am insomnia when I wanted something light and short to focus on that I could put down again as soon as I felt sleepy.

It's not really worth going to a lot of effort to lay hands on a copy, but if one comes your way it's well worth trying a few of the stories.

LibraryThing entry
at Amazon UK
at Amazon US

wordage

jules.jones@gmail.com — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:27:05 GMT

Start the year as you mean to go on... 264 words on L&M3, the first fiction writing I've done in weeks. Let's see if I can keep this up for a bit.

Book review: John Carnell -- New Writings in SF 12

jules.jones@gmail.com — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:41:32 GMT

One of the 1968 volumes in the long-running sf anthology series. The highlights for me were a Sector General story from James White , and a novella from Colin Kapp that was definitely not an Unorthodox Engineers story, but which pressed some of the same buttons (at least for me). As usual with this series, I personally didn't like everything in the collection, but thought it was all well-written.

Vertigo -- James White

A Galactic Survey ship comes across a decidedly peculiar planet which the crew promptly name Meatball. While they debate how to recognise any intelligent lifeforms, the lifeform solves the problem for them by sending up a primitive rocketship. It appears to be in difficulty, so the survey ship rescues ship and pilot, and carts it off to Sector General for the pilot to receive medical treatment. It's up to Conway and friends to work out why the rescue seems to have made things worse...

It is in general a fun and interesting story, but I did find it rather implausible that the medics took so long to realise what the basic problem was, especially given the Great Big Clue in the initial encounter.

(Later included in the Sector General fix-up novel "Major Operation", which is where I first read it.)

Visions of Monad -- M John Harrison

Psychological study of a man who has been the subject of a sensory deprivation experiment. Well-written, but didn't work for me.

Worm in the bud -- John Rankine

Short story in the Dag Fletcher space opera series. Fletcher's on a diplomatic mission to a hostile planet. Part of that mission is a one-man geological survey with limited supplies in a remote part of the planet -- so why are the natives finding all sorts of ways to delay pick-up of the geologist past the safe time limit?

They Shall Reap -- David Rome

A young family give up everything to make a fresh start in a new community of farms founded by wealthy philanthropists. The valley is even more isolated than they realise, and with reason. While I liked the writing, John Wyndham had covered this territory a decade earlier, and to better effect.

The Last Time Around -- Arthur Sellings

Poignant exploration of the social and emotional effects of being a pilot on a relativistic ship, with your subjective time decoupled from the objective time of your society. This theme has been covered by many writers, but this is one of the best ones I've read.

The Cloudbuilders -- Colin Kapp

In a low-tech world, hot air balloons are the main form of long-distance travel. Jacobi the Journeyman joins Timor the master Cloudbuilder, bringing personal experience of new techniques developed by their Guild. But that's not all he brings.

LibraryThing entry

at Amazon UK

Happy New Year

jules.jones@gmail.com — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:14:00 GMT

May 2010 be a good year for you all.

An early Happy New Year

jules.jones@gmail.com — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:18:20 GMT

We have visitors, which means I am expected to be sociable. Some of them are of the under-10 variety, which means I had better *not* be reading parts of my flist without checking who's looking over my shoulder. I definitely won't have a chance to do a year/decade retrospective tonight (although may I point out that the mathematician in me thinks that the decade changes at the *end* of ***0, thank you). It will probably happen some time over the weekend, though.

In case I don't get to the computer later this evening, may you all have a good evening, and may next year be better than the last one.

New Year's Eve lunar eclipse -- in a Blue Moon

jules.jones@gmail.com — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 08:05:39 GMT

From the Space Weather mailing list:

BLUE MOON ECLIPSE: For the first time in almost 20 years, there's going to be a "Blue Moon" on New Year's Eve. In Europe, sky watchers will witness an even rarer event--an eclipse of a Blue Moon on New Year's Eve. What are the odds? Probabilities and observing tips may be found at http://spaceweather.com.

broadband!!!!

jules.jones@gmail.com — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:30:46 GMT

Back home, with my broadband [cuddles router]. I don't actually mind 56k dialup for a few days as long as it's over a good quality line, but the last few days was *not* over a good quality line.

We weren't due home until tomorrow, but with the bad weather forecast decided to come home today to be on the safe side. As it was, the trip took over an hour longer than usual. Tired now, so will probably not catch up on everything tonight.

I owe several people emails and/or prize copies of books, but as my brain has just switched off, I'll deal with that tomorrow. (Seriously. Sometimes it's as if somebody's flipped a switch -- in the last five minutes my cognitive capacity and fine muscle control has dropped significantly, to the point where I'm having trouble typing coherently.)

Season's Greetings

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:54:54 GMT

A somewhat belated Happy Christmas or Happy Newtonmass, according to your taste. I am currently stuck on a 56k dialup account on a per-minute landline that drops the connection if anyone tries to phone in, and sometimes even without provocation, so am having an almost completely net-free Christmas. (I don't actually mind the 56k so much as the "56k over a wet string that belongs to somebody else who would prefer that their wet string is not tied up for ages".) See you all for New Year's Eve, I hope.

Oliver Postgate documentary

jules.jones@gmail.com — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:10:58 GMT

Thoroughly enjoyable documentary about Oliver Postgate and his work (Bagpuss, The Clangers, Ivor the Engine etc etc) on BBC 4 earlier this evening, available for the next week on iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pht5q/Time_Shift_Series_9_Oliver_Postgate_A_Life_in_Small_Films/

Season's greetings

jules.jones@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:48:41 GMT

And a merry Gauda Prime Day to one and all. :-) Adding my vote to the "let's have a synchrowatch for thirtieth anniversary" movement, and my apologies for the lack of fic posting this year.

(If you didn't understand that, you probably don't want to...)

"You are old, Father Yahweh", the fabulist said...

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:18:23 GMT

Abi at Making Light started discussing whether writers create new history for the minor gods and mythical beasts they co-opt into their stories. The whole thread to date is wonderful. But my favourite so far is a filk of "You are old, Father William", in which Yahweh has it explained to him that he's getting a PR makeover whether he likes it or not. The New Testament as retcon...

Book log: Robert Silverberg -- To The Land of the Living

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:21:20 GMT

Sequel to Silverberg's "Gilgamesh the King". I don't own a copy of the first book, and hadn't read either for over a decade, so my memory of the first is pretty hazy at this point. However, the all seeing eye of Google confirms my impression that this one is different in tone to the first. It's set in a shared universe used by several writers, but I've never read any of the works by other authors, so from my perspective this is simply a sequel to a previous stand-alone.

The novel is set in the Afterworld, the dream-like place where everyone goes when they die. There is no escape from the Afterworld -- one can be killed there, but only to be revived again, sometimes within minutes and sometimes not for decades. For some, the Afterworld is Hell; for others, it is simply the place where they are now, different to life, better in some ways and worse in others.

The novel is set in the present day, so Gilgamesh the Sumerian has been in the Afterworld for a very long time indeed. The novel follows his wanderings in his quest to be re-united with his friend Enkidu, a journey that turns out to be as much about self-discovery as anything he had intended to do. But there are rumours that there exists a way back to the Land of the Living, and Gilgamesh is gradually drawn into the attempts to find that way. Along the way he meets a good many other historical figures, and one of the themes of the novel is the way in which history distorts real people and turns them into myths they barely recognise as themselves.

There's a lot of philosophy in this novel, but it's by no means dry. Indeed, it's often very funny. And it works well as a stand-alone, without knowledge of the first book. Definitely worth trying.

at LibraryThing
To the Land of the Living at Amazon UK
To the Land of the Living at Amazon US

Book log: James Anderson -- The Affair of the Mutilated Mink.

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:11:29 GMT

Second in Anderson's series of affectionate parodies of the classic 1930s country house murder mystery. I thought this one was better constructed than the first, with enough there to make it possible to deduce who the killer was if you were paying attention. I did work out who the killer probably was fairly early on, but not his motive, which is very cleverly hidden. I missed some of the clues and was distracted by some of the red herrings, so wasn't certain until close to the end.

Earl Burford has discovered the joys of the talkies, and is having a wonderful time being a starstruck fan. So wonderful that he can't believe his luck when a Hollywood film producer wants to hire Alderley as a setting for his latest film, starring the Earl's favourite actor. Naturally, the producer wishes to assess the building and grounds for practicality first, and to encourage the Earl to agree asks if he can bring his star along as well. Thus starts a weekend house party which snowballs, continually acquiring invited and uninvited guests until the house is full of people -- many of whom are not quite what they seem on the surface. And when one of them ends up shot dead in the middle of the night, Inspector Wilkins has a job on his hands untangling the many motives which have brought the characters to Alderley.

Great fun to read, with some appealing characters. I'm being more ruthless about getting rid of books now, and this one isn't a keeper for me, but it was well worth the time spent reading it.

LibraryThing entry
The Affair of the Mutilated Mink at Amazon UK
Affair of the Mutilated Mink Coat at Amazon US

cheap paid accounts

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:04:59 GMT

An offering from LJ to Paid Members:

If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can now send 10 of your non-Paid friends a $10 coupon. Your friend will be able to purchase a Paid Account for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25).

I have a Paid account, and thus a supply of coupons -- let me know if you want one.

authors behaving badly

jules.jones@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:15:53 GMT

Not that I am always a perfect observer of this dictum myself. But authors, if someone gives you a 1 star review, bite your tongue. Because if you follow Candace Sams's example in attacking a reviewer for daring to criticise her book, you are likely to end up a public laughing stock. Especially if you continue to keep digging your hole deeper when people try to advise you that your behaviour is ill-advised. If assorted big name editors and authors are pointing at the ensuing trainwreck as a teaching example for baby authors of What Not To Do On The Internet, you really can't claim that it's just Mean Girl readers who don't understand about writing.

November book log

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:52:22 GMT

My reading in November was rather erratic. One from October finished, and one complete book, but I also started several without finishing them before the end of the month.

Fred Pohl, editor -- Galaxy Volume 1
First part of a two part anthology celebrating 30 years of Galaxy magazine. Wonderful book, both for the stories and for the short but frequently not sweet essays by the authors on working with the various editors.
LibraryThing entry

Daniel Fox -- Jade Man's Skin
Second part of the trilogy started in "Dragon in Chains". Reviewed earlier today, executive summary "Go and buy this book. Now."

Started but not finished in November:

Robert Silverberg -- To the Land of the Living
Sequel to Silverberg's earlier fantasy "Gilgamesh the King". I hadn't read either for years, and don't own a copy of the first one. My copy of TtLotL has just come out of long-term storage, and I've almost finished re-reading it. I've been enjoying it a lot, but I'm trying to be more ruthless about weeding books that aren't "can't bear to be parted from it", and will probably dispose of it once I've finished it.

John Carnell, editor -- New Writings in SF 12
One of the 1968 volumes in the anthology series. Highlights for me were a Sector General story from James White, and a novella from Colin Kapp that was definitely not an Unorthodox Engineers story, but which pressed some of the same buttons (at least for me).

Terry Pratchett -- Making Money
I've missed the releases in the last couple of years because of General Upheaval. Spotted the hardback on discount in the remainder shop, and grabbed it. Started reading it on the bus on the way home, then exerted some discipline and put it away until I'd finished the other part-read books. Lots of fun so far.

John Barrowman -- Anything Goes
I'm not so much of a fangirl that I'd have paid more than remainder price for this, but well-written actor memoirs can be entertaining in their own right even if you're not a fangirl desperate to know all the details about a specific actor -- the first ones I read were those by David Niven, and at the time I'd never seen anything of his and knew nothing about him other than what was in the memoirs. Barrowman's isn't as good as those, but it's still entertaining. I'm reading it on and off as my light reading book for when I don't want to focus on something that requires the level of concentration that a novel does so not yet finished.

Book review: Daniel Fox -- Jade Man's Skin

jules.jones@gmail.com — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:25:37 GMT

Disclaimer: Daniel Fox is a friend of mine. However, I didn't review the book just because he's a friend -- I whined shamelessly for an ARC because having read the first book in the trilogy, I very badly wanted to read the next one as soon as it was available in edited form, rather than waiting until it was on sale.

Daniel Fox -- Jade Man's Skin
ISBN: 978-0345503046

Daniel Fox keeps up the quality and the pace in the second volume of his fantasy trilogy inspired by mediaeval China. The first volume, "Dragon In Chains", told the tale of the boy Emperor's flight from a rebel army, and the stories of some of those touched by the war. Now the Emperor has reached safety on the remote island of Taishu on the very fringe of the Empire.

Taishu may be remote, but no would-be usurper can afford to leave the Emperor there in exile. The island holds the jade mines that are the source of imperial power -- and in this world, that isn't just symbolic. This volume explores in greater depth the subtle magic that underpins imperial rule. And there is more than imperial magic. There are other intelligences in this world, and the human forces which are arrayed against one another are starting to learn just what it means to tangle such creatures into human battles.

It's hard to review this book in any depth without giving major spoilers for the first one (which I've reviewed previously), because this trilogy really is a single novel in three volumes, not a series of three interlinked novels. But what I can say is that it follows each of the major characters and threads from the first volume, developing each strand of the story in a satisfying way. This is no wish-fulfillment story wherein the Hero is noble simply because he is the Hero, but a careful consideration of the cumulative effects of power -- on those who have it, whether in name only or in reality, on those who desire it, and on those who are simply in its path. And like the first volume, it neither flinches from showing the horror of war, nor wallows in gratuituous gore.

This is a complex story with equally complex characters, which genuinely needs the three volumes to do justice to the tales it has to tell. But it's beautifully constructed, and told in stunningly good prose. If you've not read the first book, don't start with this one. It really is worth your while finding "Dragon in Chains" and reading that first, not least because part of the pleasure is watching how the characters are changing and growing in response to the upheavals in their world. But there's no need to wait for the final book to come out, as "Jade Man's Skin" offers enough intermediate resolution of plot threads to leave a reader feeling satisfied while still wanting to hear the end of the story. Go buy them now -- this series is breathtaking, in concepts, in story and in prose.

LibraryThing entry
Jade Man's Skin at Amazon UK
Jade Man's Skin at Amazon US

My review of Dragon in Chains (volume 1)
Dragon in Chains LibraryThing entry
Dragon in Chains at Amazon UK
Dragon in Chains at Amazon US

Google Wave

jules.jones@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:45:18 GMT

New toy -- I'm on jules.jones@googlewave.com