rif (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} rifmeister) wrote,@ 2007-06-15 08:48:00 |
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Two Sci-Fi Novels
I've actually been making time for recreational reading recently, which is pretty impressive for me. I went years barely reading anything except machine learning papers and math books.
The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross. I am obviously this book's target audience. It's set in an alternate present where sufficiently advanced mathematics is indistinguishable from dark dark magic. Turing discovered how to open up gates to dimensions filled with tentacled horrors, and our heroes work for a secret British government agency trying to keep the world safe. The book contains a short novel and a separately published novella, and I could've used a bit more complex plotting. It's quite good for what it is. I found some of the matching present day details (references to Linux, etc) a little out-of-place somehow. Good fun. 8 out of 10. Apparently this book has serious literary pretensions, as there's a lengthy afterward where we learn that cold war spying and horror are closely related blahblahblah. Don't read that part.
Only Forward, Michael Marshall Smith. It starts out as a hilarious futuristic noir, a sort of Takeshi Kovacs meets Hitchiker's Guide. Our gumshoe hero gets hired to find a kidnapped citizen of the Center, a neighborhood of Type A personalities that includes organizations like the Department of Getting Things Done Really Quickly and the Ministry of Really Getting To The Heart of Things. It's a delightful romp. Then, about halfway through, we enter an extended dream sequence. Well, it's not really entirely a dream, it's a journey through dreamworld. We learn what's really going on. The last quarter of the book changes pace again, and we learn what's really going on. This part feels very intimate somehow, very personal to the author, very autobiographical in the way first novels often are. I was reminded of Murakami and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The plot fizzles a bit, although it doesn't disappear entirely. I give the three parts ten, five, and seven out of ten, respectively. I will read more books by this author, because the first half was so good.
I've actually been making time for recreational reading recently, which is pretty impressive for me. I went years barely reading anything except machine learning papers and math books.
The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross. I am obviously this book's target audience. It's set in an alternate present where sufficiently advanced mathematics is indistinguishable from dark dark magic. Turing discovered how to open up gates to dimensions filled with tentacled horrors, and our heroes work for a secret British government agency trying to keep the world safe. The book contains a short novel and a separately published novella, and I could've used a bit more complex plotting. It's quite good for what it is. I found some of the matching present day details (references to Linux, etc) a little out-of-place somehow. Good fun. 8 out of 10. Apparently this book has serious literary pretensions, as there's a lengthy afterward where we learn that cold war spying and horror are closely related blahblahblah. Don't read that part.
Only Forward, Michael Marshall Smith. It starts out as a hilarious futuristic noir, a sort of Takeshi Kovacs meets Hitchiker's Guide. Our gumshoe hero gets hired to find a kidnapped citizen of the Center, a neighborhood of Type A personalities that includes organizations like the Department of Getting Things Done Really Quickly and the Ministry of Really Getting To The Heart of Things. It's a delightful romp. Then, about halfway through, we enter an extended dream sequence. Well, it's not really entirely a dream, it's a journey through dreamworld. We learn what's really going on. The last quarter of the book changes pace again, and we learn what's really going on. This part feels very intimate somehow, very personal to the author, very autobiographical in the way first novels often are. I was reminded of Murakami and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The plot fizzles a bit, although it doesn't disappear entirely. I give the three parts ten, five, and seven out of ten, respectively. I will read more books by this author, because the first half was so good.
