Memory of Empire

Galaxy spanning empire and political intrigue? You had me at galaxy, but ok - probably most people aren't as into these tropes as I am. As worn as they are, this read doesn't offer much new - though the plot pivoting on poetry at multiple points is fun.

This book does however join the ranks of those whose character names are etched indelibly in my consciousness, repeated over and again like a pop hook. 19-Ads and 3-Seagrass stand alongside Pham Nuwen and Dalinar Kholin, waiting their turn til they can eat my brain again.

This is How You Lose the Time War

 I would call it a modern day Romeo and Juliet, but of course it isn't. It's a Romeo and Juliet for all time.

The delicious archetypery, woven and weft so effortlessly it yields just the slyest of winks while sprinting past hubris, leaving only dust and a sense of wondering, what koan hath been left in the pattern of its settling through the morning air?

I have to confess, the ambition plain on its cover, blah blah yet another love story, how could I expect to be sated? And I'm not, indeed anything but: I need more. 

But how could there be more? If every novella was super no one would be, and it can only be downhill from here. I grit my teeth and wipe my tears and find solace in the knowing I have been so recently wrong, and wish I will be again, soon.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

I finished the 4th book the other day. Part of the club. The club of people who know what happens.

I had this actual conversation last week:
me: "I just finished the 3rd book this morning."
Stepho: "Oooh I'm most of the way through the 3rd book. Something just happened oh my god!"
me: "I think I know the thing you're talking about."
Stepho: "It's kind of like the thing that happened in the first book!"
me: "I definitely know the thing you're talking about."

So everybody else that I ever talk to, finish reading already so I can stop being mortally afraid of speaking in spoilers accidentally.

Several of my friends are currently having the same experience I did, of it being impossible to put these books down. It's hard to make time for stuff like laundry, sleep, feeding yourself, etc when you don't know how that battle is going to turn out. Or if that person is going to make it to wherever they're trying to get to safely. The suspensework is just horrifyingly effective.

Doug said that after the party last night he went home and drunk-read for an hour. Then woke up this morning and read it all again because he had forgotten it all.

So these books are good, and you've been warned. When we next see you with 4 day stubble and bloodshot eyes, speaking of how you "must needs to eat soon, you forgot to this morning" we'll know why. We of the club will just nod and be like, "where are you at? ohhh yeah that was a good part."

It's chock full of ethical choices. It's a goddamn kaleidoscope of conflicting loyalties and enumerations on whether the ends justify the means. Plus knights on horses and kings on thrones and sailors on ships and dragons and zombies and magic and betrayal. Ooooh the betrayal, it hurts.

So read it already, and then you can come to the Song of Ice and Fire trivia night I'm going to host.

Marooned in Realtime

This is Vinge's sequel to The Peace War. It was about the same quality - not as good as Fire upon the deep but still kept me turning pages. It pulled the same loose sequel trick as "Deepness in the sky" -> "Fire upon the deep", setting it a squillion years in the future, but contriving to keep one character (transformed somehow by their passage through time) to hark back to the history created in the first book.

Ho hum, It's a murder mystery, with a self-conscious Great Reveal at the end. It was still an interesting twist, looking back on the singularity Vinge loves to go on about. In this case the event also involved a mysterious mass exodus/death of most of humankind, just like in Singularity's Ring (or I should say it's the other way around, since Marooned in Realtime was published 22 years prior.)

It has the same weaknesses as his other writing - a mix of real characters and foil role players, all of whom act in overly explained rational or irrational interests as best they know how given the technology Vinge has gifted them with.

I'm coming to realize the thing I love most about his writing is every book has at least one and often several characters gaining super-human abilities. Watching big fish in a small pond is fun to me I guess. Watching little fish in a little pond, not as interesting, no matter what kind of dance they're doing.

Vernor Vinge: The Collected Stories, and The Peace War

I read two more books by Vernor Vinge recently. I still can't get enough.

The Peace War was a good read; definitely in a lower tier than his other work though. Had me turning pages to find out what happens next, but I think it showed off perhaps the one weakness I've seen in his stories. Most of his main characters play minimax optimal decision making strategies in conflict scenarios... and they take the time to explain themselves in dialog or thought as they make the decisions. It makes me want to skim through all the rationalizations, and leaves characters feeling robotic. Which I guess is a common theme in his characters - humans becoming more than human, with the aid of technology - so I guess it shouldn't be that much of a surprise.

The better of the two books was the anthology of his short stories. I'm not sure if it was comprehensive, but if it was - holy shit, I liked every single story in that book. They were all so different from each other. The other short story anthologies from single authors that I've read (Greg Egan, Jim Van Pelt) I enjoyed, but by the end of it I had a feeling that I could write a short story in their style with my eyes closed.

Vinge just keeps surprising with new ideas and plot structures in every story. My favorite part of the anthology though was his personal introductions to every story. He wrote what he thought was good writing about each story, and its weaknesses; exaulted in predictions of the future he got dead on, rued the big developments he missed. It was so impressive to hear him speak in plain words about a kernal of an idea he had for a story, and then to see the finished product so nuanced, detailed... and fresh even decades after it was published.

Steal Across the Sky

Aislinn lent me this novel by Nance Kress, and I started reading it aloud to Erin while we drove up to Seattle over thanksgiving. It starts off with a hook that had us both wanting to find out more, but then just hangs on the suspense far too long without giving the characters any new dimensions.

Probably had enough plot to make a decent short story, but there were just too many "why the hell did that happen... and wait it *never* gets explained?" moments to finish it all the way through.

The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse

I read this during mental health break tines at work since it was on the shared shelf. It was funny and a fast read, mostly dialog, totally enjoyable even in only 15 minute increments.

Also I just started reading To Say Nothing of the Dog. So far it reminds me a lot of A Scanner Darkly, but with time travel instead of drugs, and throwing in some british humour[sic].