When I wrote my review of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass I admitted being puzzled at all the fuss being made about its “anti-Christianity” message. Well now that I’ve finished The Subtle Knife it all makes a lot of sense. In this, the second book of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, Pullman’s atheistic leanings become much more pronounced.

This didn’t bother me personally, but I can understand how it could be offensive to some. And frankly, without going on a huge tangent, its easy to point to all the quantifiable evil that has been done in the name of the church (the Spanish Inquisition springs immediately to mind), but its much harder to measure the good that comes out of peoples’ religion. How much evil has been averted due to a moral compass guided by faith? Well anyway, I’m about the last person in the world who should be taking on these questions, so let’s get back to the book.

Lyra Silvertongue is back in this volume, but she ‘co-stars’ with a boy name Will who is from our world, or at least a world that seems identical to ours. He is on a quest to find his missing father, and in the course of events he finds a window into another world. Not Lyra’s world, but a third world that felt like something out of a Star Trek episode mixed with a bit of Lord of the Flies. No adults, children bordering on going feral, and an unseen evil.

In fact there is some fairly intense violence in this book, and in general once again the concepts being discussed (elementary particles, dark matter) are going to go over the heads of most younger kids, so this is definitely for teenagers and older. Also once again, there’s nothing here to make it less interesting to adults; don’t let the YA tag make you think it’s just for kids.

No talking polar bears in this one, and in general things seem a lot less fantasy-ish. Will is a fairly normal kid, and the creepy kids-only world seems fairly ‘ordinary’ too, aside from those facets I already mentioned. Plus we transition back to “our” world a few times.

But I found this volume more compelling. Perhaps because I could relate to Will more, or perhaps because the “Big Picture” of what the trilogy is building towards became much more clear. And we do get a few more of my favorite Book 1 characters popping in.

The ending is, if anything, even more of a cliff-hanger than the ending to The Golden Compass. Make sure you have book 3 at hand as you wind down to the end of this one!

Donald A Petrie’s The Prize Game turned out to be a very interesting little book. I’m not linking it here because its out-of-print and I imagine it’d be awfully hard to find, but the ISBN is 1557506698 and it was published by US Naval Institute Press in 1999. Petrie, at least at the time of writing, lived in Wainscott, NY and that’s probably why I was able to find it at Bookhampton in East Hampton some number of years ago. Local author and all that.

Turns out the whole concept of taking prizes in the Age of Sail was a way of warfare that had rules that were followed among many different countries. How different from today’s world, eh? The book talks about these rules and illustrates them by following the adventures of a few successful privateers. The book is heavily footnoted and if you flip to the back and read you’ll find Petrie got a lot of his information from actual ship’s logs from times, as well as from court documents and newspapers. Turns out that prize-taking was followed by the papers almost like a sport would be today.

If you can find it, well worth a read. I’ll be taking good care of my copy for future reference.

On a personal note, it felt good to read some non-technical non-fiction for a change of pace. I’ll have to make a point of doing more of that.

Last night I finished The Golden Compass, Book 1 of Philip Pullman’s YA fantasy trilogy, “His Dark Materials.” I have to admit this one never would’ve made it onto my radar if not for the movie version (which I have not seen) getting promoted all over the TV.

There was much to-do made about the book’s anti-Christianity message, and Pullman, as I understand it, is an atheist and did indeed set out to write a “children’s book” that set itself directly opposite the pro-Christian symbolism in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books. As someone not very much concerned with organized religion, I wouldn’t have given this aspect of the book a second thought had I not heard all the fuss about it. At the same time, I can’t in good faith (pun not intended) address the possibility of the book being offensive or troubling to someone with strong Christian beliefs.

I can describe the setting though. The Golden Compass takes place in a world parallel to ours. Land masses are the same, and many countries are familiar. Technology has advanced in a more steampunk sort of way, though scientists understand (mostly) the same elementary particles that scientists in our world do. At the same time it seems airplanes were never invented, and zeppelins still rule the skies. They don’t have electricity but they have “anbaric” energy (which seems to be electricity) and “naptha” (gas?) lamps.

The big difference is that every person has a “daemon” that takes the form of an animal and is intimately connected to the person. Essentially, these daemons are the souls of the humans in this other-world. These daemons remain in close proximity to their humans, and it is a huge taboo to touch another person’s daemon. It is unclear to me if this is what people of strongly Christian faith are bothered by — the idea of a soul external to the body — or if it was the fact that Pullman re-wrote brief passages from the Book of Genesis (adding daemons to the mix).

In any case, let’s talk about the story. Our protagonist is Lyra, a 12 year old girl who has been “adopted” by Jordan College at Oxford. Although she is of noble birth, she spends most of her time playing with the children of the servants of Jordan College, so when ‘commoner’ children start disappearing, including one of her friends, Lyra decides that she must do something to rescue them. Thus starts a whirlwind adventure taking her to “The North” where talking, armored polar bears rule (as far as we see, these polar bears are the only sentient animals in this world). Along the way Lyra starts to show certain abilities that may or may not be ‘magic’. She also learns much about the parents that she never knew.

It was an entertaining tale. As a YA book, I have to think it skews old. There are some fairly advanced concepts thrown around and the vocabulary is an adult one. For the most part it is “YA” only in the fact that the protagonist is a child, and that there is really just the one plot and one set of characters to worry about. There is violence, but no sex aside from one scene where we get a short voyeuristic glimpse at what happens between daemons when people become passionate.

Lyra is well portrayed; her ‘accent’ went a long way towards making her real in my imagination. The other characters don’t ‘pop’ so much, with the exception of her polar bear companion later in the book. Also about two-thirds of the way through, Lyra changed in a way that I found it hard to put my finger on. She started using “dear” a lot as a term of endearment, which felt odd. I suspect Pullman had put the novel aside for some length of time when he was writing it, and Lyra changed while he was gone. It’s a nit, but it has stayed with me and bothered me since I came to that change.

Take to heart that this is Book I in the trilogy, because it really doesn’t wrap up very well. It just kind of ends at a logical breaking point, but with many, many questions unanswered. At this point I’m not sure if I’d give the trilogy a thumbs up or not. If I had to rate The Golden Compass, I’d give it 3.5 stars out of 5. Good, not great.

It’s been a few days since I finished Steven Erikson’s Deadhouse Gates (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 2) and I never did review the first book, Gardens of the Moon.

Why?

Because I’m just not sure what to say about them. Do I like them? Oh yes, very much indeed. Can I describe them succinctly? Not a prayer of that. Erikson has built an incredibly rich fantasy world, gritty and often dark. And at the start of the first book he drops us in it and we must learn to swim or drown in its complexity. I learned to swim, barely. Not nearly well enough to give you any tips.

Humans are the primary race of the world, but there are others, some incredibly ancient. It’s an old, old world. There is magic, based on “warrens” which each have a name and, one presumes, particular characteristics. There are old gods, and “ascendent” godlings: mortals that somehow shrug off their corporeal bodies and enter the heavens (or the hells). You start reading these books and you’re immediately caught in a whirlwind.

While Deadhouse Gates takes place after Gardens of the Moon, either book stands alone (and I suspect this holds true with the rest of the series as well). Characters are sent ‘off stage’ in Book 1 to take care of a quest, and Book 2 is all about that quest. Characters cross-over mostly in the form of being referred to, reminding the reader that we’re peering at a tiny slice of this huge world.

I personally enjoyed Book 2 more than 1, but I think that might be because I’m slowly understanding the world better. I intend at some point to re-read Gardens

If you like big, meaty fantasy tomes where the good guys don’t always win and bad things sometimes happen to good people, and you don’t need to have everything spelled out for you, then I highly recommend checking out both Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates.

Yeah, I’ve been one heck of a poor blogger lately. I’ve got a post about NaNo in my head…been there for about 2 weeks. I’ll write it down one of the days. But anyway…

Last night I finished Trudi Canavan’s Voice of the Gods, which completes her “Age of the Five” trilogy. If was good…actually it was really good, until the very end which stumbled a bit. And the foreshadowing was heavy enough that there were no real surprises at the end, which takes a little away from it, but still I have to call it a satisfying finish to a satisfying series. I definitely give the trilogy as a whole a thumbs up, with the caveat that some readers might find the first book a bit impersonal. Books 2 & 3 were much more character-driven.

As expected from the title, book three focuses a lot on the Pentadrians, who were the ‘bad guys’ of Book 1. But one of the wonderful things about these books is that neither side is really ‘the bad guys’. There are good and bad people on each side of the conflict, which gives the world a very realistic vibe. Auraya is still a major focus, but Canavan manages to keep the cast of characters broad enough that things never grow dull.

The book ended leaving me wanting for more. I’d grown to care about these characters, and there were cases where two individuals would be at odds due to misunderstandings, and I wanted Canavan to write more so they could all come to an understanding, but it was not meant to be. Ever been in that situation where you have two good friends, and you introduce them to each other and find they don’t like each other, and you just want to do whatever you can to help each of them realize what a great person the other is? Yeah, that was what I needed Canavan to do at the end of the trilogy.

Perhaps some day she’ll write more in this world and do that for me. Until then, I think I’ll be checking out her Black Magician Trilogy.

Last of the Wilds is book 2 in Trudi Canavan’s Age of the Five trilogy. You might recall that although I enjoyed Book I, Priestess of the White, I was somewhat hesitant in recommending it, based on the fact that it was more event driven than character driven.

I’m glad to say that Wilds is a very different kind of book, and something I’m much more at ease recommending. This time out we have characters that do step out of the pages of the book and become real. Events are on a much smaller, more intimate scale: in Priestess there was essentially a world war; in Wilds very little happens that would impact ‘the common man.’ Thanks to the smaller scale, the camera is focused much more tightly on a handful of characters, and several disparate plot lines that weave in and out of each other. To me, this almost defines great fantasy.

Once again there is very little that is black or white, good or evil. Lots of shades of gray. In fact, now that I think about it, there really is no “bad guy” in this book, which makes it even more interesting because there is definitely strife. Everyone seems to be doing what they think is best for the world, and the set up for the third book is quite compelling.

With the change in ton and focus in Wilds I am much more confident in giving the trilogy a thumbs up. I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into book 3: Voice of the Gods.

I finished Trudi Canavan’s Priestess of the White last night. This is Book One of her “Age of the Five” trilogy. I need to say right up front that I enjoyed it, because some of my comments might sound negative.

People in this world are essentially divided into 3 factions. The Circlians rule in the north, The Pentadrians rule in the south, and The Dreamweavers are a kind of gypsy-healer group that live scattered throughout the world. Both the Circlians and the Pentadrians have their own set of five gods that they worship. The Dreamweavers worship no gods.

As the story begins, the Circlians and Pentadrians are at odds, based primarily on their respective religious beliefs. The Circlians consider the Dreamweavers heathens and have forbid their people from using the healing skills of them. The Pentadrians, we are told, accept the Dreamweavers. The book focuses on events happening in the Circlian half of the world, with some attention devoted to the stress between Circlians and Dreamweavers.

Have you noticed I’ve yet to name a character? Despite its title, Priestess of the White is not a character-driven story. The major events of the book revolve around the Circlians securing allies against the Pentadrians while the latter prepare for war. I sometimes found myself thinking of the book as a kind of narrative strategy wargame, just imagining the maps color-coded based on which group was in control, and arrows showing troop movements. Now I enjoy this kind of thing, so that was OK with me. Your mileage may vary.

Another thing this book doesn’t have is a set of clear good guys and bad guys. Perhaps my personal belief system is coloring my perception here, but neither the Circlians nor the Pentadrians seemed like ‘good guys’ to me. The Dreamweavers did, but they’re more of a foil (at least in this volume) than a major player. We only meet a handful of Dreamweavers by the end of the story.

Obviously there are characters in the book and they have their adventures, but while I found this interesting, I didn’t find myself really caring that much about them. They were more a conduit of information to me than individuals that popped off the page. (The one exception was a sorceress who had her own plot line that I found pretty engaging.) There is forbidden love and there is betrayal and there are heroics, but I didn’t really *feel* any of this in my heart, if you get my meaning.

All of this makes it sound like I didn’t like the book, and I did. Canavan has built a fascinating world, and the fact that I’m not sure what is going to happen next (I have my suspicions, but I wouldn’t want to bet money on them) has me eager to start the next book. Priestess of the White also stands pretty well on its own, so if you try it but don’t like it enough to buy the rest in the series, you’re not going to be left totally hanging with no closure. I give this one 3 out of 5 elder gods.

NaNoWriMo is right around the corner and I’ve been wrestling with the question of whether or not I should participate this year. Finishing up Ralph Keyes’ The Courage to Write seemed like a good way to help me to decide.

The Courage to Write isn’t a “how-to” book. It’s more of a “why-to” or even more accurately, a “why-not-to” (and how to silence those objections) book. It talks a lot about why people who think they want to write, don’t. And as the title would suggest, fear is one of the biggest reasons (according to Keyes) that people don’t write, and overcoming that fear is a struggle for many writers. Keyes illustrates his points with many anecdotes that he has gathered both from writers we’ve all heard of and those we haven’t and never will (since they gave up the fight). More specifically, one of the greatest fears that a writer faces is that of making a fool of him or herself. Keyes talks about how writers expose themselves when they write, and how intimidating that can be.

This is a great read for struggling writers. It’s like a shot of moral support in book form. It won’t make you a better writer, but it might keep you writing, and that will eventually make you a better writer. The tone is very informal, like having a comforting chat with the author. This isn’t one that you finish and stick on a high bookshelf somewhere. This is the kind of book you want to keep close at hand for when you need some inspiration or the comfort of a friendly voice reassuring you that you aren’t alone in the doubts that are plaguing you. 5/5 for writers, and might even be of interest for serious readers, too.

Wow, I finished it. I feel like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

I don’t normally do this, but before writing this review I checked the rating for George B Dyson’s Darwin among the Machines at Amazon. I’d heard great things about the book and wanted to see if I was just out on my own with my opinion of it. Amazon rating: 4 stars. So yeah, I pretty much am.

But I’m calling the Emperor clause. I believe he has no clothes. The book does have an interesting theme, but that theme is more “a history of computing” than anything to do with “the evolution of global intelligence” (the subtitle of the book). But the basic problem is that while Dyson might be a Very Smart Guy, he doesn’t know how to write and communicate clearly. Seriously, this book was a slog… I read it in 3-4 page chunks (started it back in June) because the style was so awkward it made my head hurt. I’d often have to read a passage several times to figure out what point he was trying to make. Also, Dyson uses a *lot* of quotes. There’re 30 pages of footnotes for the 230 pages text and the quotes tend towards lengthy passages. I’m going to estimate that 70% of the book is quotations. Why is that a problem? Because it means the there’s no unified ‘voice’ to the book. A theory voiced by an individual from the 16th century is going to read very differently from one voiced by a modern individual (not to mention the changes in language over those years). So you’ve constantly got to ‘switch gears’ in your mind as you read.

Here’s a passage, more or less at random:

When the Spanish armada entered the English Channel in July 1588, a network of fire beacons raised the alarm, cradling the newborn Thomas Hobbes with fear. The invention of the telescope in the early seventeenth century extended the distance between relay stations and allowed more complex symbols to be distinguished. The feasibility of a “method of discoursing at a Distance, not by Sound, but by Sight” was addressed by Robert Hooke in a lecture “Shewing a Way how to communicate one’s Mind at great Distances,” delivered to the Royal Society on 21 May 1684. Having advanced the optical instruments of his day, Hooke showed that “’tis possible to convey Intelligence from any one high and eminent Place, to any other that lies in Sight of it, tho’ 30 or 40 Miles distant, in as short a Time almost, as a Man can write what he would have sent, and as suddenly to receive an Answer as he that receives it hath a Mind to return it… Nay, by the Help of three, four or more such eminent Places, visible to each other… ’tis possible to convey Intelligence, almost in a Moment, to twice, thrice, or more Times that Distance, with as great a Certainty as by Writing.”

Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was a brilliant but difficult character whose “temper was Melancholy, Mistrustful and Jealous, which more increas’d upon him with his Years.” Possessed of “indefatigable Genius,” his creative output was astounding, despite ill humor and ill health. “He is of prodigious inventive head,” reported contemporary John Aubrey, adding that “now when I have sayd his Inventive faculty is so great, you cannot imagine his Memory to be excellent, for they are like two Bucketts, as one goes up, the other goes downe. He is certainly the greatest Mechanick this day in the world.”

– Darwin Among the Machines by George B. Dyson, pp 133-134

Again, I just pretty much randomly opened the book and grabbed a passage. You can see the proportion between Dyson’s own words and historic quotations, and you perhaps will wonder what Hooke’s character really has to do with a global intelligence developing like an Orson Scott Card character in the spaces between networked computers. I know I did.

That said…it *is* an interesting book from a historical perspective. I rather wish Dyson had just written a “history of computers and technology” and forgotten about the intelligence aspect. As it stands, I found the book difficult to read and rather unfocused. I never really got the point he was apparently trying to make, in any but the vaguest of ways. He certainly didn’t provide any evidence that would convince me there’s some kind of ‘machine intelligence’ percolating along at the speed of light in our networks. And I *think* that was the point he was trying to make.

2.5/5 stars from me.

Ever gotten into that awkward situation where a friend lends you a book and urges you to read it, and you look at the cover with dismay, just *knowing* you’re going to hate it but not wanting to be rude? Yeah, that’s how Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking ended up on my Now Reading list.

And guess what? The old saw is true. You *can’t* judge a book by its cover, because this one turned out to be quite an enjoyable read. Great literature? No, but not everything has to be, does it? Harrison mixes two parts fantasy with 1 part detective fiction here, adds in a dash of alternate history, and the result is just good fun.

Rachel Morgan is a witch in a world very similar to ours, except in her world, a bio-engineered plague wiped out a good chunk of humanity. When it did, the vampires, werewolves, witches, pixies and fairies (Inderlanders, they call themselves) came through unscathed. Seems they’ve always been here, hiding in plain sight often enough, but they’ve kept a very low profile. When the plague (or The Turn, as they call it) hit and the humans were all sick or dying, the Inderlanders stepped forward and kept society from falling apart. That was 40 or so years ago. Humanity has rebounded, and now humans and Inderlanders co-exist uneasily. (That, at least, is how I understand things…future volumes may correct me.)

When it comes to law enforcement, there are two parallel branches: the FIB takes care of human crime, and the IS takes care of Inderlander activities. Rachel is a ‘runner’ for the IS. She tracks down Inderlanders that are breaking various laws, such as vampires feeding on unwilling snacks, or witches using black magic. Her boss and she don’t exactly see eye to eye, though, and he’s been feeding her crap cases for so long that she finally up and quits, in spite of the fact that she has a contract. Much to her surprise, several of her co-workers join her in leaving the IS. Even more surprising, her ex-boss puts out a contract on her, and now she’s under siege by all manner of Inderlander assassination squads.

Her only hope is to set up a sting operation to take down a rich and powerful figure who she suspects is a Brimstone dealer. If she can hand this guy to the authorities she’ll have enough clout to buy off the contract on her.

Trust me…it all works when you’re reading it!! I’m leaving out a lot of the fun stuff for fear of spoilers.

And it turns out this is one of those cast of character driven books. The plot is fun and interesting, sure, but the characters, and their interactions, are what keeps you turning pages as often as not. I’m having to sit on my hands in order to not expound on that, but let’s just say Rachel ends up with quite a diverse team of friends helping her out.

Again, not great literature and it isn’t going to change your worldview on anything. But its a fun read about characters that you’ll come to care about. Harrison has written a bunch of books in this world and I look forward to re-visiting it again in the future. 3.5/5 amulets. 🙂