|
Monday, May 21, 2012
Batman was an amateur
Title: The Knowland Retribution
Author: Richard Greener
Bookmark: the library receipt
You know that new TV show, The Finder? The credits say that it's based upon "The Locator" series by Richard Greener.
There are two books in the Locator series. I'm not sure that qualifies as a "series."
On the other hand, the show is really more "inspired by" than "based upon," so I guess they can apply that poetic license however they please.
Anyway. This is supposed to be about the book, not my various beefs with TV. The good news is, I really liked the book. Gripping story, interesting characters, timely plot. (man loses family to tainted beef, goes after all the corporate muckety-mucks who saw the disaster coming, ran cost-benefit analysis, and said, "we'll risk it. let's take the money.") All good stuff. Plus, most importantly, it's a lot of fun to read, and there was at least one point when I cackled with triumphant laughter. For a freshman novel, it's an impressive effort. I've read stuff by far more popular and well-known authors that wasn't nearly as interesting, nor as compelling.
I only have two complaints.
The first half of the book jumps around in time. A lot. I'd be ok with that, but there's no indication that it's happening until you realize that one of the people in the conversation died in the previous chapter, or that they're talking about some future event that happened 80 pages earlier. There's also a tendency to use characters an awful lot before you have any idea of who they are. I frequently found myself flipping back several pages--or several chapters--to make sense of an earlier scene after I finally got an idea of who was in it. That had settled down by the second half, but it was really distracting.
Second, I don't think Greener, a "retired broadcast industry executive" (from the author bio at the end of the book) has a good grasp of how us working stiffs actually live. After describing the opulent home and lifestyle of his main character, Greener has another, far more wealthy character tell our hero "you are by no means a wealthy man," and throws out a number, purportedly Walter Sherman's annual income, which is nearly five times more than I made at my last job. Granted, I paid taxes on mine, and he didn't, but I'm doing the math with pre-tax numbers. I don't know exactly where the line is drawn demarcating the "one percenters," but even if we're both below it, I know I'm a whole lot further from that line than Walter Sherman. I couldn't get over that conversation for the entire book. I'm still not over it.
But I'll probably read the next one anyway. If only to finish the series.Labels: commentary, corporations, food, mystery/detective
posted by reyn at
4:13 PM
0
comments
Monday, November 02, 2009
Worth it
Title: The Worthing Saga
Author: Orson Scott Card
Bookmark: I read this months ago. Who knows? Probably a candy wrapper, or grocery receipt, or a child's stolen dreams, or something.
Orson Scott Card doesn't really write books. He crafts worlds. Granted, I've only read the first two books of the Ender series, and there's a good chance that, like Frank Herbert's Dune books, or the Hitchhiker Trilogy, that one will also eventually show the author's boredom with the idea, or burgeoning insanity. But it's still more than just a sci-fi story; he includes little details of the life in that society that you may not think to ask about, but when presented matter-of-factly, and in a way that isn't overt ("oh, and look at this other cool technology! And see how we do things this way, instead of the way things are done in the reader's world??"), it comes across as though you're just peering into that world, and learning from your own casual observations, rather than being spoon-fed the things the author thinks will impress you most and think he's a good writer. Card doesn't prove he can write by trying to impress you--he proves he can write by writing, and damn well at that.
The Worthing Saga is actually a compilation of three earlier works, all in the same universe (I think in the foreword Card mentions that he didn't even think to connect them all in the same universe until after some of it had already been written, but I read it ages ago, so maybe I made that up. It still works.). The Worthing Saga tells of the arrival of two mysterious strangers on the day that a mountain village experiences pain, death, and loss for the first time. Both of the strangers are telepaths with vibrant blue eyes, and tell their story by feeding dreams to a boy in the village, and he writes the stories as they come to him. The man turns out to be Jason Worthing, a name spoken as a god on their world and, it turns out, many others as well. Through the boy's dreams and his conversations with Jason, he learns why Jason brought them pain (or did something else happen? yeah, probably. It's sci-fi, after all), why they needed pain, and what his own purpose in the world might be. We also learn the history of a trans-planetary society, from its roots of a few dozen people, to the seeding of dozens of planets, and up to the day when they all found Pain. At the center of it all is Jason, guiding his people up from a Tool Age to a spacefaring civilization as he skips through time on waves of Somec.
Tales of Capitol is a collection of short stories that sets the stage for the Worthing Chronicles. Each focuses on a different citizen of the city-planet Capitol, and in one case, a colony planet. Somec is a drug which allows people to sleep through years, or decades, prolonging their life indefinitely, but it is rationed according to status. The Empress is awake for only a day every five years. Others may only sleep for a year in ten, but even that is considered a great accomplishment. These stories show how Somec affects peoples lives and the society as a whole, but they also give glimpses into all layers of Capitol society, from the poorest dregs to the Empress herself. And behind it all is Abner Doon. Doon, whose name is that of the devil in the sleepy mountain village of the Worthing Chronicle. Doon, who sent Jason out as a Somec pilot on a colony ship and thereby saved humanity. Doon, whose machinations brought about the fall of the empire in the first place, not to destroy humankind, but to save it from its Somec-addled stagnation. He's a bastard, but he's a magnificent bastard, and though his methods may be questionable, I can't really argue with his reasons--or his results.
Finally, Tales From the Forest of Waters recounts some of what Jason's dreams told his biographer, but with greater detail and, honestly, quite a few changes. Jason explains the discontinuities by pointing out that the stories written by his biographer are the remembered dreams of transmitted memories of generational retellings, and some details may have been lost or addled along the way.
Card didn't just write a universe, he wrote the entire history of a trans-planetary society's rise, fall, death, rebirth, rise, stumble, and recovery. What's more, he does it in a way that gives the broad scope and personal stories at the same time, and manages to not bore me to tears while doing it. Excellent stuff.Labels: commentary, sci-fi, special abilities, world domination
posted by reyn at
9:30 PM
0
comments
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Trifecta of Imperial Doom
Title: American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
Author: Kevin Phillips
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, penned by lapsed Republican Kevin Phillips, is an interesting and informative read. Nevertheless, the thesis of the book can be summed up in a simple syllogism.
Major Premise: All empires crumble.
Minor Premise: The United States of America has become an empire.
Conclusion: We’re going down, friends.
Phillips’ book excoriates the Republican coalition that has dominated American politics for the past several decades, unified by an unhealthy reliance on oil, radical religion, and ballooning levels of national and consumer debt. If these three trends continue unchecked, Phillips argues, we’re heading for a massive meltdown. I read American Theocracy months and months ago, long before the home mortgage crisis, $125/barrel oil, and the advent of Mike Huckabee. Given the events of the past few months, Phillips just might have a point. It’s a little (ok, very) frightening.
This book is chock full of facts piled upon facts piled upon more facts. My sieve-like memory has retained very few of them, except for the general outline of how imperial Britain, the Netherlands, and Spain exhibited symptoms similar to the United States’ current woes before fading into (relative) imperial obscurity. And the chapters that outlined the history of the oil industry in the United States were surprisingly gripping, full of political shenanigans and examples of our cultural and social reliance upon black gold. In fact, Phillips was so effective in illustrating the United States’ reliance upon oil, and the dire consequences that may hold for our future, that even I began to have an imperial hunger for places like Iraq. If the President was determined to invade Iraq and wreak havoc, the least we could have done was secure cheap oil to feed our addiction! (Don't worry, I snapped out of it soon.)
Phillips’ arguments are appealing and appear to make sense, but I don’t consider myself sufficiently informed to judge whether he’s correct or not. That’s a job for history and better economists than I. Still, my view of the upcoming decades is hardly rosy. The United States might not slip into Phillips’ predicted headlong decline, but we may as well be prepared for the possibility.
A recent editorial by Phillips reminded me that this review was long overdue. I don’t really expect my fellow Ragers to read this behemoth of small type and doomsday commentary, but the article is brief and gives you the general idea.Labels: commentary, evil empire, non-fiction, politics
posted by Elizabeth at
7:30 PM
2
comments
|
|
