I finished Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander last night. This is the second time I’ve read the book; the first was probably 10 or more years ago. But I saw the movie (very good, btw) and just felt like taking a second look.

The first time I read it, I found it hard going. It was just too heavy on verbosity and too light on action. I’d just come off reading the entire Hornblower series and O’Brian’s style just wasn’t snappy enough for me at the time.

Well, I guess I’ve mellowed in my old age, because this time ’round I absolutely adored the book. The interactions between Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (the doctor — if you saw the movie I don’t think they once used his name) that I once found dull as dirt I now found quite amusing. And Aubrey himself is so much more interesting a character than his movie-version self. In fact, the film bears very little resemblance to the book (the film is based on both M&C and Post Captain, the second book in the series) which will no doubt disappoint some film fans.

Instead of chasing a Frenchman around the Cape into the Pacific, the book finds Aubrey in command of the HMS Sophie doing convoy duty along the coast of Spain and into the Mediterranean while trying to whip the crew into shape. Maturin is somewhat stranded; the patient he has accompanied to Port Mahon died en route, and Maturin finds himself adrift with no means of support. Aubrey needs a ship’s surgeon. Maturin is a physician, meaning the surgeon position would normally be beneath him. But being down and out, he accepts the job and off they go on an adventure that lasts through many, many books.

The nice bit about Maturin is, he’s no seaman. So as he tries to puzzle things out, you, the reader, are brought up to speed on the workings of the Sophie. O’Brian’s writing style reminds me somewhat of Dickens in that he tends to embellish and elaborate in an attempt to put you in the moment. So between that tendency and the technical details that trip some people up, you get a book that has more length than story, in some senses. Still, I found it to be a rewarding experience the second time through, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Today I finished listening to the audiobook version of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin. Finished it during my morning commute in to work, in fact, and all day I’ve been pondering what to say about it.

I guess it boils down to this: it depressed the hell out of me.

It tells the story of two sisters, born just after World War I into a wealthy family in its decline. One of the sisters, now dead, is famous for having written The Blind Assassin and we get to read that book as well. A book within a book. And in that inner book, a narrator tells the actual story of The Blind Assassin so now you’re three levels deep and…really none of it has anything to do with the ‘real’ story being told.

And in that real story we listen to the life story of Iris, the older sister. And we watch her unhappiness unfold for 83 long years. Watch her body start to fail her. At least, that’s what I took away from it. Read the reader comments at the Amazon link and you’ll get a totally different take on it.

Its a good book, beautifully written…but I don’t know that I’d recommend it, unless you’re just feeling too darned happy and want something to bring you down. 🙂

So, the lack of posts to this blog are an indication of how strongly Star Wars Galaxies has me in its clutches. So strongly, in fact, that I started wanting to know more about this universe; initially enough to be able to remain in-character when speaking in the game. What do they eat, drink, where do they go to relax? That kind of thing. If it were Star Trek I’d know they drank Rigellian Ale and went to Reisa for vacation, right?

So that’s why I first picked up a Star Wars novel. A friend had recommended I, Jedi, by Michael Stackpole, as a decent stand-alone novel to try, just to see if I could get into the whole Star Wars mythos.

And it turns out I probably can. Jedi was a fun book. Great literature? No. It had that series patina, you know? The same one you find in Dragonlance books, or RobotTech books, or any of those other selections from the sci-fi/fantasy series shelf of your local bookseller. Its like, rather than handcraft the story, the authors have a big bag of story modules, and they pull them out and snap them together, then fill in the cracks and gaps, slap a coat paint over them and send ’em off to be published. Some of these authors, including Mr. Stackpole, do a really fine job of picking good modules and spiffing them up, but there are still big chunks of the novels that give a keen sense of deja vu.

But none of this means they aren’t fun and enjoyable, because they are. This is the story of Corran Horn, one time CorSec operative (cop, I guess), one time Rogue Squadron pilot, and now jedi-in-training. Like another young jedi we once knew, Corran doesn’t really agree with the training he is getting, and ends up risking the dark side by striking off on his own. He does it to save his wife, rather than his friends.

What surprised me was the prevalance of the characters from the movies. Luke Skywalker is the Jedi Master trying to train Horn. He also crosses paths with Wedge Antilles, Leai Organa and Han Solo. I found it a bit jarring to have these characters that I “know” so well taking on lives of their own and acting differently than I’d expected them to.

The other problem with I, Jedi, for me, is that I had no idea what was going on outside of this one tightly focused story. There’re a bunch of these Star Wars books and they tend to link tightly together. Stackpole assumes you’ve read others, and the tale is peppered with references to events I know nothing about.

Which in addition to being a problem, is a draw. Because now I want to read more of these books; ones that take place during or just after the movies, so I can find out all that I’ve missed.

A month ago, I was not a Star War fan, at all. But between Star Wars Galaxies, these novels, and the XBox title Knights of the Old Republic I suddenly find myself eating, drinking and breathing Star Wars. And I’m amazed at hos much I’m enjoying it.

I wouldn’t suggest starting your foray into Star Wars novels with I, Jedi though. Find something that takes place a bit earlier in the history and start there. I’ll post any wisdom I come upon in regards to specifics.

Well, I’ve been kicked back yammering in other places making a fool of myself for too long; time to go back to making a fool of myself and yammering here. 🙂

My most recent audio book was Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. You may remember Atwood from her popular The Handmaid’s Tale, and once again she’s peering into the not-too-distant future.

This time, things have gone much more awry than in Handmaid. In fact, civilization has collapsed. We don’t know exactly why for quite some time, so I won’t tell you. But the protagonist was there for it all, and the story jumps back and forth between him trying to survive in a world gone wrong, and him recalling the story of his life and his relationship with the people who’ve caused the mess he is in.

What’s most troubling about Oryx and Crake is how incredibly believable it is. It doesn’t take much imagination to see our world following the path laid out by Ms. Atwood. Worth a read. I’m off Audible.com now (see below) but have to say the narrator does a decent job. So technically it gets a thumbs up, too.

I’ve been an Audible.com listener for a while now…I’ve had fairly good luck with the service, but any good will they’ve build over the months just went down the toilet.

The membership gives you 2 books/month on a ‘use them or lose them’ plan. I was falling behind so I decided to cancel my account, figuring I’d pick it up again in a month or two.

That’s when I discovered that, while you can sign up over the web, you have to call them to cancel. And when you do, you’ll find yourself in voice mail hell. 25 minutes I waited on hold, finally got someone on the line, said I wanted to cancel. Woman rattled off something I didn’t understand and transferred me back into the hold queue. Another 15 minutes of waiting and I finally got someone who could take care of cancelling my account.

Crap customer server = Two Thumbs Down for Audible.com. I urge you to avoid them.

During my trip this past weekend I finished listening to Anne McCaffrey’s The Dolphins of Pern. The version I heard was narrated by Mark Rolston. Let the slagging begin.

I try to review audiobooks in two ways. From a technical point of view, and then from a content point of view. Technically, this audiobook was really sub-par. First of all, Audible didn’t have it in their highest quality format, so it sounded rather muddy. Second, Rolston was reading like a fiend…like he got X dollars to do the job and wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. If there are chapters in this book, I don’t know about them, and in fact even when a scene changed from one side of the planet to the next, Rolston didn’t break his cadance. He read the whole thing as fast as he could without a single pause. It was *really* hard to follow at times. Add in the fact that the titular dolphins speak in their own strange lingo and it just turned into 9 hours of aggravation. DO NOT BUY THIS AUDIO VERSION!!

Now, as a book…well, in all honesty its hard to be fair reviewing it for content when it was so hard to hear, but I just don’t like the direction McCaffrey is taking Pern in. Technology has returned to the planet, and the residents are building radios and computer terminals and it just ruins the feel of Pern, for me. That’s a highly personal opinion, though. I just like Pern as a fantasy world. But beyond that, there didn’t seem to be much of a story here. It was more a big long vignette focused on the dolphins and how they’re reintroduced to Pern society. I find it really hard to believe that the dolphins have been talking to the people they’ve saved from storms for 2500 years and only now did someone think to talk back to them, but oh well.

All in all, a major disappointment. I’ll go back to the early periods of Pern history next time, I think.

Last night I finished the third book in Dave Duncan’s King’s Blades series, Sky of Swords. This one followed the adventures of Malinda, daughter of King Ambrose.

This has been a strange journey and I really can’t talk much about it without giving away some spoilers. So consider yourself warned. The first two books in the series (The Gilded Chain and Lord of the Fire Lands) both dealt with the same time period but told events very differently. Sky most logically follows the events that took place in Lord but by the end of it, the trio of books are all in sync, more or less.

The problem is, the plot device that explains the differences and ‘fixes’ things is so predictable, in general terms, that it’ll be obvious what it is very early on. And when it happens, it essentially makes moot everything you’ve just read. It’s just shy of And then she woke up. “Ah! T’was all but a dream!” Malinda cried, hugging a pillow to her chest.

Well, I suppose if it was all right for L. Frank Baum, it’s all right for Dave Duncan.

Aside from that, the book was quite good. It’s a grim story of Malinda trying to hold together a country that seems determined to tear itself apart after the death of King Ambrose, due to the machinations of a few power-hungry and evil individuals. She’s a very different Malinda than the one we met in A Gilded Chain; much more likable and sympathetic. All in all, this volume is more about politics and subterfuge than it is about action. Happily Duncan is adept at writing both.

This seems to be a little-known series and that’s a shame. Although I was a tad disappointed with the ending plot device, it was still a wonderful ride.

Driving to the Cape and back this past weekend gave me the chance to finish listening to Anne McCaffrey’s Chronicles of Pern: First Fall, a collection of medium length stories about the early days of this wonderous land. The Audible.com audio version was read by Meredith MacRae.

As an audio production, I found Chronicles to be a little disappointing. While Ms. MacRae is certainly intelligible, she puts very little “drama” into her reading. While this is better than too much drama, it does make it easy to get lost in long conversational passages, losing track of which character is saying what. I also, more than ever before, had to rewind and re-listen to passages as my mind just drifted away from her very even, almost monotone, reading. She also has a habit of micro-pausing before character names, which makes her sound a bit synthetic to my ears, but if you haven’t listened to much synthesized voice it might not bother you. To me it sounded like the names were ‘filled in’ to a templated speach.

As a book, Chronicles is really directed at the hardcore Pern fan. I used to be one of these but I’ve been away from the books for years. As the title would suggest, these are tales from very early in Pern’s history, from the initial survey of the planet until about 60 years after the colony was established. Reading these stories gives us a Pernese history lesson and not too much more. Since they’re such thin slices of the timeline, but so close to each other, you no sooner get really attached to a set of characters than the story ends and in the next one, the people you knew are all now dead. It got a little grim. However the last story makes the book worth reading, as it shows us how Pern got as isolated as it is in the later books; that was a fascinating tale, though told rather lacklusterly, if that makes sense. Like an average TV documentary that chronicles a fascinating bit of history. Read it for the history, not for the stories. But do read it…I think it’d be more enjoyable read than listened to and I’m giving the audi-book version a thumbs down.

Here’s an odd but fun site: Edgar Governo, Historian of Things That Never Were

This page is a resource for lovers of fiction in many forms: books, movies, tv, comics and games. It links off to histories and timelines of the stories we’ve loved. For instance if you’re on a Lord of the Ring buzz you might be delighted to find a link to A History and Complete Chronology of N�menor. Star Trek fans will no doubt prefer Fandom Star Trek Chronology. All told there’re over 250 links to fiction histories on this page. Dig in!

Finished the audio book version of Ursula Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore today. Another Fantastic Audio production, technologically and aurally it was another fine product. Scott Brick did a fine job with narration, giving characters enough personality to make it clear who was saying what, without falling into the trap of over-dramatizing things.

As for the book itself… I know The Earthsea Trilogy is considered one of the classics of fantasy, but I’d beg to differ. I enjoyed A Wizard of Earthsea quite a bit, but I found The Tombs of Atuan started very slowly and only really got going in the second half. This last volume starts slow and ended slow. It was a classic quest story but, really, the questers never met with much in the way of obstacles, beyond the sheer distances needing to be travelled. The end result was a book that was more mood-piece than story. A very good mood piece…Le Guin can really paint a picture with words, but I wouldn’t enjoyed a bit more action/adversity.