Neuromancer / William Gibson

3 out of 5 stars

The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .
Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employers crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

I can certainly see where Neuromancer was important in the 1980s when it was published. It brings together many threads of literature and assembles a lot of ideas that hadn’t previously been combined. There is the drug culture and general aura of darkness of Philip K. Dick’s fiction; the technology of Spider Robinson’s Mindkiller; the emergent machine intelligence foreshadowed by Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; the “heist” elements of the story. For me, it also had faint echoes of Dhalgren, with the whole “degeneration of society” aspect. I can also see where Neuromancer and Blade Runner both had influence on The Matrix movies.

The idea of computer hacking was fresher in the 80s—the mass media was just starting to catch on to what it was and who was involved in it. Neuromancer explores possible future implications of hacking, including being able to directly wire one’s self into cyberspace or to eavesdrop on/ride along with augmented people. The bulkiness of the gear required to do this is shocking to 21st century sensibilities—our hardware just keeps getting more compact. This is one of the aspects of the book that truly ages it.

There are lots ideas that were au courant then that really haven’t turned into mainstream items. Despite a lot of work, no one has managed to create a sentient artificial intelligence, so we don’t need a Turing Law Code to govern such things. It was a great idea on Gibson’s part, however. Space habitats that are easily accessed and cryogenics are still fiction at this point as well.

I was struck by Case’s disparagement of his “meat,” his physical body. Our physical selves have their limitations, but they are also the sources of our greatest comforts—food, sleep, sex—and I’m unsure that we would feel the same emotions without our brain structures to support them. I, for one, have no desire to ever be uploaded to a machine—like the Flatliner Dixie that Case works with, I hope to cease to exist when my time comes.

I give high marks for the world building—I felt like I could actually envision the dark corners of The Sprawl. Somewhat depressing is the fact that so many people are still living on the edge, scrambling to make enough cash to support themselves. So much for the happy, prosperous futures envisioned in earlier science fiction.

This is book number 188 in my science fiction & fantasy reading project.

Bridge of Birds / Barry Hughart

3.5 stars out of 5

When the children of his village were struck with a mysterious illness, Number Ten Ox sought a wiseman to save them. He found master Li Kao, a scholar with a slight flaw in his character. Together, they set out to find the Great Root of Power, the only possible cure.

The quest led them to a host of truly memorable characters, multiple wonders, incredible adventures—and strange coincidences, which were really not coincidences at all. And it involved them in an ancient crime that still perturbed the serenity of Heaven. Simply and charmingly told, this is a wry tale, a sly tale, and a story of wisdom delightfully askew. Once read, its marvels and beauty will not easily fade from the mind.

My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character.

So says Master Li to Number Ten Ox when Ox is sent to the city to find a sage to assist his village, dealing with a mysterious disease. I personally was born in the Year of the Ox and therefore had a soft spot for Number Ten Ox.

This novel rated about 3.5 stars for me which, I hasten to add, I consider to be a good rating. I may have been reading Bridge of Birds at the wrong moment for me, as I am in a bit of a slump right now and finding it difficult to concentrate on the page.  Or there may be a slight flaw in my character.

In many ways, BoB reminded me of reading Aesop’s fables—as a reader, I was very aware that the author was not in any way attempting to reconstruct Ancient China. He was using Ancient China for a fun backdrop to his own kind of fable, enjoying have different cultural elements to play with than are common in Western literature.

He did, however, borrow the trope of the shady character who really has a heart of gold and who uses his criminal talents for a good cause. I thought of Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat many times while reading Bridge of Birds. Master Li is the brains of the operation and Number Ten Ox is the brawn. That reminded me strongly of Fritz Leiber’s Ffafhrd and the Gray Mouser series. Some of Master Li and Number Ten Ox’s adventures may also have been influenced by the Indiana Jones movie franchise.

An enjoyable, fun book well suited to lunch-break reading.

Book number 187 in my Science Fiction & Fantasy reading project

Road trip to Lake Louise

On September 27th, I drove out to Lake Louise with a friend.  Despite how close I live, I rarely go out to the Canadian Rockies.  This has to change!

Lake Louise, Alberta

Chateau Lake Louise

Cheeky Clark's Nutcrackers delighted the Chinese tourists (and me)

The lake again, with canoes.  To get more Canadian, we would need either a moose or a Mountie.

The Magnificent Ambersons / Booth Tarkington

3.5 out of 5 stars

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published in 1918. The Magnificent Ambersons chronicles the changing fortunes of three generations of an American dynasty. The protagonist of Booth Tarkington's great historical drama is George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled and arrogant grandson of the founder of the family's magnificence. Eclipsed by a new breed of developers, financiers, and manufacturers, this pampered scion begins his gradual descent from the midwestern aristocracy to the working class.

While reading The Magnificent Ambersons, I couldn’t help but compare Tarkington’s work to that of his fellow Hoosier, Kurt Vonnegut. I know, completely unfair, as they are of different generations. But I think they share a certain desire to demonstrate the necessity for kindness in an industrial world.

Interestingly, the other writer that I kept thinking of was Robertson Davies. Seeing the world from the view point of George Amberson Minifer was a little like looking at Canada through the eyes of Boy Staunton of Davies’ Deptford Trilogy. I could just envision Boy Staunton, as the rich young ruler in Deptford (as seen through the eyes of Dunstan Ramsey) and he blurred with Georgie from time to time. Especially since both Boy Staunton and Georgie Minafer were very concerned with appearances, etiquette, and properness. The convolutedness of the family relationships also reminded me strongly of Davies (Francis Cornish’s relationship to his aunt in What’s Bred in the Bone, for example).

But enough comparing Booth Tarkington to other authors! I did appreciate his clear-sightedness with regards to human behaviour and our remarkable capacity to misunderstand what is motivating other people. How strong is our tendency to attribute our own reasons to the actions of another! And how completely inaccurate that can be—it’s a wonder that there aren’t more serious differences among family and friends than already occur. Ah, family relationships—the refusal to talk about money is a deadly sin, laid out here in dissection.

Recommended for those who are overly concerned about the opinions of others.

The Bone Clocks / David Mitchell

4 out of 5 stars

Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.

For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.

What a difficult book to review! Compounded by the fact that I had to take a hiatus in the middle of the book to deal with a dead refrigerator—the new one couldn’t be delivered for 2 weeks and, as I camped in my own kitchen, I found I didn’t have the energy for The Bone Clocks or anything much else.

Despite these complications, I did really enjoy the book, especially when I picked it up the second time to finish it. (Feeling the pressure to have it read before book club and knowing there were holds waiting at the public library both helped push me back into reading it).

I really liked Holly Sykes and was glad that she was such an integral character all through the novel. Even in the Crispin Hershey section, there she was, intruding into his consciousness. I even became somewhat sympathetic to crusty, cranky Hershey. I have to wonder how much of himself the author injected into Hershey and how much was borrowed from the lives of others (apparently including Martin Amis, if the critics are to be believed).

I enjoyed the flow of language and there were many turns of phrase that I found lovely. Having never read any other works by Mr. Mitchell, I couldn’t appreciate the links to his other works through re-appearing characters. However, I am familiar with the concept, having enjoyed that phenomenon in the works of Kurt Vonnegut. (Kilgore Trout, anyone?)

The fantasy elements of the novel are nothing new to a science fiction & fantasy fan such as myself, but I can see where they would be disquieting to the serious literary crowd. I thought that the presence of the Horologists shook me out of the here-and-now, asking me to consider life decades down the road. There was a very strong environmental consciousness which culminates at the novel’s end, making one think of the consequences of just living life in the now, not thinking ahead. Recalling the Biblical story, we are being inconsiderate grasshoppers right now, enjoying our privileges and ruining things for future generations, when we should be industrious ants, getting a handle on conspicuous consumption and mindless carbon emissions. And yet, how hard it is to give up my car! Alas for difficult choices!

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / Mark Twain

4 out of 5 stars

Finally, I have read something substantial by Mark Twain. It has taken a very long time—Mr. Twain’s works have never been assigned reading for me in any high school or university courses that I have taken. Here in Canada, we are much more likely to be assigned the classic of Stephen Leacock’s, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (I may have read that, although it does not stand out in my memory).

I borrowed a 1918 printing of Huck Finn from our university library, so I got a politically incorrect edition, complete with copious use of the N word. It is jarring to the modern reader, but it provides a look back into the heads of people in the past that is intriguing. Scholars will probably continue to debate whether the work is a critique of racism or not, but to my way of thinking, Twain humanized those who were considered to be “other.”

Common wisdom would have it that a writer should avoid using dialect, but Twain does this masterfully in Huckleberry Finn. The book is very readable and comprehensible, especially considering that it was the dialect of the 1880’s southern states and I am a Canadian reading it in the 21st century. I’ve certainly encountered science fiction books with more difficult language (the slang in Clockwork Orange for example, or pretty much all of Riddley Walker).

What struck me hardest, I think, was the persistence of social problems—Huck’s drunken & abusive father, the judgments of society on poor people, and the difficulty of making a living when you are on the fringes of society. In some ways, Huck was lucky because he could hunt and fish to provide for himself—many of our modern folk living on the edge are in cities and don’t have those avenues available to them.

As many have pointed out, few people would criticize Huck for escaping from his abusive father, so his flight would likely be considered legal, despite his status as a minor. Jim is doing exactly the same thing, but his skin colour makes his escape illegal. The reader must wrestle with this dichotomy and make their own determination of the rightness or wrongness of the situation. This may be the crux of why people object to the book—Twain doesn’t get preachy on the subject. He doesn’t come right out and tell us what to think. The story is what it is, and he considers his readers intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions.

The Diabolical Miss Hyde / Viola Carr

3.5 stars out of 5

In an electric-powered Victorian London, Dr. Eliza Jekyll is a crime scene investigator, hunting killers with inventive new technological gadgets. Now, a new killer is splattering London with blood, drugging beautiful women and slicing off their limbs. Catching "the Chopper" could make Eliza's career—or get her burned. Because Eliza has a dark secret. A seductive second self, set free by her father's forbidden magical elixir: wild, impulsive Lizzie Hyde.

When the Royal Society sends their enforcer, the mercurial Captain Lafayette, to prove she's a sorceress, Eliza must resist the elixir with all her power. But as the Chopper case draws her into London's luminous, magical underworld, Eliza will need all the help she can get. Even if it means getting close to Lafayette, who harbors an evil curse of his own.

Even if it means risking everything and setting vengeful Lizzie free . . .


** spoiler alert ** I find myself unable to discuss this book without revealing details of the ending, so be warned here in the first sentence and read no further if you are bothered by such things.

Having read the original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde earlier this year, I was intrigued by this modern steampunk version, featuring Dr. Jekyll’s daughter, Eliza, and her alter-ego, Lizzie Hyde. Set in an electrified Victorian London, the book certainly speaks to the repression of women. Despite her education and competence, Dr. Eliza Jekyll is sidelined by the Old Boys Club amongst the constabulary, which still believes that women should be restricted to needlepoint and producing babies. As infuriated by this attitude as she is, there are no legitimate routes for a gentlewoman to protest these conditions. But as Lizzie Hyde, she unleashes her ambition, her sexuality, and her street-smarts—and sometimes Lizzie is convinced to help her solve a crime.

I appreciated the little touches—the addition of a journal of Victor Frankenstein, for example. The Royal Society as a repressive regime, persecuting renegade scientists rather than religious heretics. Eliza’s mysterious guardian, whom she meets only on his terms, never knowing what he looks like.

I sense a second book in the making, as Eliza has not made a clear decision between the potential men in her life by book’s end. Ironically, Lizzie is drawn to the Royal Society man (with secrets of his own) and Eliza is lured by the criminal whom she saved from the gallows.

Playful and easy to read, I would recommend it to fans of steampunk and of the Jekyll & Hyde story.