Books: A Game of Thrones

Cross posted at Air Theremin.

A friend of mine has been trying to get me to read A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin for years.

I just went ahead and borrowed it from him, and I have to say -- this is some of the best high fantasy I've read. An unjustly long book at over 800 pages, it is also surprisingly gripping.

Each chapter is written from a 3rd person limited point of view, but each also follows a different character. The story isn't told so much as it just coalesces. There are characters to love, characters to hate, and many characters to be mildly confused by.

At first, I was mildly put off by the feeling of omniscience you gain from seeing so much that other characters have no clue about, but that feeling gave way to a certain level of awe at the grandeur of the whole thing.

If "grand" and "sweeping" and "epic" are what you are looking for, this book has them -- and promises more for later in the series. Ah, yes, like all fantasy books, it seems, this is but one novel in a series. I've just picked up the second, A Clash of Kings, and it is longer than the first. Regardless, I started today, and am about 160 pages in - around classes and work.

All-in-all, a great fantasy book. If you like the genre, you need to read this book - it avoids many of the clichés that riddle fantasy fiction. If you don't like the genre, well, unless your dislike is founded on the clichés... you might want to pass.

All The Books in the World

A good graphic work here.

I've been getting more into comics and graphic novels, and this story was touching enough to share, if a little simple, a little flat.

-S

Tales of Ascension

I've been reading Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman, and I've been continually assaulted by the feeling that I've read something much like this before. No, I'm not thinking of The Forever War, by the same author, though that was an excellent novel, and one I heartily recommend.
I've realized that it reminds me of Technogenesis, by Syne Mitchell

As always, it's entirely possible that I am being far less original that I imagine, and far more derivative, or at least repetitive. However, an idea, new to me, at least, has been developing slowly in the stew of my consciousness. As usual, the idea relates to an unexpected commonality between disparate things. I suppose, as science fiction novels, the subjects of my stewing aren't really terribly disparate... but enough of this. Let me actually get to the point.

The Forever War, Technogenesis, and others (perhaps Childhood's End by Clarke, or Blood Music by Bear, and certainly The Changeling Plague, also by Mitchell) are what I would like to call "tales of ascension". Generally these novels could be considered singularity fiction, but I contend that these examples are something else as well, and something worth keeping in our collective mental libraries.

I call them tales of ascension because they are hopeful but deeply frightening stories of the future of the human race. The mechanisms are different, from disease to gengineering, to AI, to alien races, but the result is the same: a fundamentally changed human race. A changed humanity, and one that is greater than that which we currently experience. Often there is an ascension to a higher or group consciousness. Sometimes humanity becomes one undifferentiated unit. Sometimes we are provided the opportunity to move beyond the current boundaries of our bodies and brains. Regardless, the hopeful tone of this huge accomplishment is always tempered by the sheer scariness of the new. One real problem with ascension is that in order to move up, you must abandon your current position. Most of us experience that fear of change (regardless of its apparent positive impact) in our own lives, and I think it is this personal anxiety about change that informs our visceral emotional reaction to a species-wide change on such a high level.

When expanded to the species, however, the issue takes on philosophical overtones. What, for instance, can we call this post-ascension species? Are they still human? In many cases, the ascension is not presented as a sudden event, but rather as something gradual, affecting some before others, or phasing in through our natural generations. In these cases, how do the unchanged react to the ascended?

...

Well, I'm not a writer. YOU go write it. Let me know how it goes.

-S

reCAPTCHA

Those of you who run your blogs independently should really consider replacing your normal CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) with reCAPTCHA.

reCAPTCHA uses people's responses to their CAPTCHAs to help transcribe old books to text format. Unlike the image formats that you often find old books in (the pdf copies and such), the texts resulting from reCAPTCHA can be copy & pasted and ctrl-F'ed (not to be confused with "F'ed up").

I bring this up for two reasons. First, I've been meaning to for a while, especially since I strongly support their goal, and seriously wish that all my books were compatible with the ctrl-F feature. Second, I just discovered that stumble upon uses reCAPTCHA, which pleases me greatly. I hadn't realized that reCAPTCHA was well enough known to catch the attention of the folks at Stumble.

I would use it myself if I didn't host this blog on Blogger. Speaking of which, how 'bout we switch over to reCAPTCHA, guys?

Am I Already Obsolete?

Cell phone novels.

13 Bullets

...which, incidentally, is the number of bullets held in the magazine of the glock 23, which is issued to FBI agents on graduation from academy (unless they want a 22).

13 Bullets is also the book that David Wellington feels is his best work. It's a vampire action/horror novel. Mr. Wellington claims to be reacting to the Anne Rice vampire archetype wherein the vampires are smooth characters in lace collars, and intensely sexual beings. This is the current norm in the genre, but certainly not in Wellington's novel.

Wellington's vampires are hunters - more like sharks than gentlemen. Like many vampires they look as though they were carved from marble, but unlike most, they have rows upon rows of sharp teeth. They don't puncture veins to get at blood, they rip off arms.

Like most good books, however, the vampires and the morbid atmosphere are secondary to the character relationships. I find the reason hard to pinpoint, but Wellington's novel reminds me of Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. (which, by the way, have the most consistently hokey, over-manipulated photo covers. *sigh*).

I think it is largely the protagonists of the series - both are sort of cops, but not. Both are fixated on getting the monsters, but simultaneously afraid of their own inner monster. They aren't the same person - not by a long shot - but they fill a very similar role. They're the same archetype, if you will.

Wellington might cringe at the comparison, since Anita Blake is the kind of vampire hunter who he is reacting to - one who, as the series goes on, is seduced by the monsters she was (and often still is) fighting. But it is actually this fact that provided the clincher for me in terms of character similarity. Anita Blake is horribly frightened that she might be as much of a monster as those she is constantly fighting, largely (though not entirely) because of her continually increasing involvement in the "monster world." Although the cause of the feeling is different for Wellington's Laura Caxton, she too becomes frightened of her own perceived lack of humanity.
Ironically, this precise worry helps humanize these leading ladies.
Well, OK, neither of them are very lady-like, but you get the idea.

Books That Make You Dumb

OK, I don't like the title of Books That Make You Dumb so much, but that's because I feel that the study also goes to show which books make you smart.

OK, pretensions and condescensions aside, Virgil has compiled a very nice chart, backed by very nice statistical analysis (OK, it wasn't that complicated, but it must have taken a lot of work).... as I was saying, a very nice chart correlating favorite books with people's intelligence, or at least their scholastic aptitude.

He took the top 10 favorite books (as listed on facebook) of 1300 or so universities. He then used the average SAT scores of undergraduates at said universities to give each of the most popular books it's own average SAT score. Actually, he gives us a range, but you get the idea.

He uses this data to present us with three excellent charts - all with the same information; only the grouping is changed.

Two of the charts group books by genre, and here is the only place I quibble with Mr. Virgil (OK, Virgil is his first name, but I like to say it this way). A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is Children's Lit? What particularly makes Brave New World Sci-Fi, but A Clockwork Orange Dystopian? And Wuthering Heights is a classic, but Pride and Prejudice is Chick Lit? Really?

Anyhow, you know of my inability to praise without poking, but really, I love the study, and you should all definitely check it out.

Dirty Red Kiss

A Salinger for our generation, Dirty Red Kiss's Caulfield-esque narrator opens a window through which we can see humanity in a way that is beyond the capabilities of a more articulate, self-aware narrator.

Caulfield isn't the only protagonist that Derek Henkel's narrator reminds me of - he also bears a resemblance to Titus, of Feed, and Arel Ashe of Scorch.

What, you ask, could these four possibly have in common? Each book is set in a different moment in time, the protagonists are different ages and different genders. Feed and Scorch are both clear indictments of the consumerist west, while Catcher in the Rye and Dirty Red Kiss are both a bit more open ended. It seems as if there is nothing real or significant to tie these books and characters together.

I'm sure you'll not be surprised to find that I believe there is something they share. I would even go so far as to class them all as examples of an archetype, albeit one that I am proposing right now, for the first time: "everyman with the potential to rise above."

This is a fundamentally hopeful archetype, but one whose characters are usually tinged by sadness and uncertainty. They are normal, near average, and surrounded by friends and peers who are decidedly mainstream. Unlike their peers, they contain within them seeds of insight of creativity - seeds that we can only see because of our privileged position as readers. Perhaps, then, we are too rash to assume that they are alone among their peers? As much as our narrator may appear to be the only character with the potential to grow, it is mainly by their thoughts that we determine their potential.

It's for this reason that the "everyman with the potential to rise above" is fundamentally hopeful. No matter how poorly the protagonist's journey may go, their hidden seed of insight gives the reader hope that the most abject of us may yet go on to blossom.



So. Read it.

Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (or MoPI) is a novella length work of fiction by Roger Williams, available free on the net. Many of you who read this blog may already be familiar with MoPI, but I'll address this post to those of you who aren't.

MoPI is a work of singularity fiction, that is, fiction that deals with the world after an intelligent agent (named Prime Intellect in MoPI) has taken more or less total control over the earth and/or universe. In such a world, humans would have essentially unlimited lifespans, no ability to harm one another, and no desire left unfulfilled.

This brings us to Williams' first chapter. He makes the reasonable argument that with nothing left to achieve, and no meaningful goals to strive toward, many people will turn to pain and death as the only worthwhile things left to them. In his world these people are called "Death Jockeys," to the ranks of which our first protagonist, Caroline, belongs. I need not go into details, since Williams certainly does, but, essentially, Death Jockeys attempt to get themselves killed in new, innovative, and particularly painful ways.

That's the first chapter.

It is incredibly gory, grotesque, violent, and perverted. I am not an easily flustered person, and I felt queasy at various points. In fact, I almost did not continue reading past the first chapter, which, apparently, is a fairly common sentiment.

The rest of the eight chapter novel is very different. We get to see the creation/childhood of Prime Intellect, which is exciting, and we explore the backstory of Caroline, as well as that of Lawrence, our second protagonist and genius programmer. There are a few points of physical and sexual perversity in the remaining eight chapters, but if you made it through the first chapter, you shouldn't have any problem. Which is good. Because I don't know if I could have handled eight chapters of that level of violence.

Overall, I like the story quite a bit more than Wax Banks, who feels that the ideas of MoPI are "not original and have likely been presented more beautifully elsewhere." I, on the other hand, have not encountered anything quite like MoPI before, and while the potential beauty of the story is definitely marred by a certain roughness of narrative, it is full of worthwhile and relatively original ideas (that is to say, they are certainly not derivative).

That being said, I have two main reservations with the story:


1.) Is all that violence and nauseating sexual activity in chapter one really necessary?

Wellllll, yes and no. That is, I do think that I developed a greater appreciation for the gravity of the situation from our author's and protagonists' viewpoints. However, it also made the story feel disjointed, and, in a way "lied" to the reader by misrepresenting what the novella was about. In my opinion, it was a good lie, since I thought the actual subject of the story was far more interesting, engaging, and worthwhile than the first chapter would have you believe. But, by that same token, it was a bad lie, since it could (and, I'm sure, does) turn off readers who might actually enjoy the contents of the other seven chapters.


2.) Where is the competitive instinct?

When I first read the term "Death Jockey," in the context of this singularity story, I assumed we were talking about some kind of thrilling mortal combat, or potentially fatal race. That's because something of that kind provides the participants the chance to illicitly experience the same pain and death, but also a chance to prove themselves better than their opponents, and we all know that there aren't many things that people like more than feeling superior to other people (Think religion, clubs, arrogance, false humility, patriotism, fandom, etc).

While I think the second qualm is the more picky, it also seems to be the more legitimate. My issue with the violence could just be a difference of opinion with the author - he thinks it's necessary, I'm not so sure. The second point, however, seems less debatable. The absence of combat or competitive games of any type is difficult to ascribe to a conscious decision on the part of the author. They would seem to be more common and more popular than Death Jockeys, and yet there isn't a single mention of them (The same author does mention combat to the death, briefly, in another story set in the MoPI universe.).
I just can't bring myself to believe that we'd have more masochists than Jocks, more sadists than patriots, more... I'm out of synonyms, but you get the idea.


Overall, a very worthwhile story - you know your own ability to handle gore, so use your judgment. If all else fails, just stop reading Ch. 1 and skip to chapter two. You won't miss much.

Blooks

I can't help but feel silly when I write the word, but "blook" is a term that appears to be gaining legitimacy: there's even a blooker prize.

A blook, apparently, is a book whose contents were based on a blog. At least, that's how the Lulu blooker prize defines them. It seems to me that a serial novel published in a blog would be a great definition. The above-linked blook, Plague Zone, is by David Wellington, who seems to be after print publication, so he fits the Lulu blook definition pretty well.
There are, however, plenty of examples of web serials that might be called blooks - and often so call themselves.

On the other hand, maybe we need a better word (or words) for all of these things. Any suggestions?

Books: The Traveler

I'm about halfway through The Traveler, by John Twelve Hawks (Seriously, what's with that middle name? Is it a pen name, or were his parents just exceedingly odd?)

As the NY Times review of the book observes, Traveler reads like "a cyber 1984," which, as far as I'm concerned, is unfortunate. Y'know, since that book has already been written. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. Traveler doesn't actually feel like 1984 merely updated for the internet age. It feels more like Hawks loved dystopian novels like 1984 as a young'un, and now, when he has a cool plot idea, he decides to set it in a big brother dystopia.

The problem is, it's getting more and more apparent that the current danger is not an oppressive governmental system. We've been amply warned of that, and are very wary of it. No, the worrisome direction in which we are currently moving is toward the cronyism of a government that is no more than a tool of big business. Sure, the government has done some crummy things lately as far as civil rights are concerned, but it's important to remember that we, the people, have an expectation that the government respects civil rights - there is no such expectation for multinational corporations.

Have any of you heard of CRM? It stands for Consumer Relations Management, and it's a concept so prevalent that it's introduced to business students in their basic marketing course. The idea is that the corporation should pursue a one-on-one relationship with their customers, offering them only the products and services that they are likely to desire. Sounds OK, no? Unfortunately, pursuit of this goal involves collecting LOTS of data about you and your purchasing habits - over the course of years - and then compiling it all into a data warehouse. That's somewhat concerning, but most (not all!) companies have privacy policies that preclude them selling that information to third parties. The catch? When a company with a CRM database goes bankrupt, there is a precedent of considering their consumer data an 'asset'. It is therefore sold to the highest bidder. Disconcerting, no?


To get back to the novel, despite the somewhat juvenile and arbitrary choice to house the story in a big brother dystopia, I'm actually quite enjoying the book. The story follows several different characters living "off the grid," which is quite an accomplishment in Hawks' dystopia (it's tough enough in today's USA!). My favorite, and probably the strongest character, is Maya. She is a Harlequin, a sort of modern warrior - she uses a sword and everything! Well, ok, she uses a shotgun too, but you get the idea.

As I pointed out earlier, I have yet to finish the book, so I don't know if these characters meet up, although I suspect they do. All in all, it's been a good and interesting book so far, and I suggest you give it a shot.

The Traveler

I'm all for the free books. Are you?

So, I have discovered a website.
I hadn't planned to make a plug on my first post, but these guys are pretty amazing.

WOWIO

They have free books - eBooks, yes, but still books. It works like this: you sign up with a non anonymous email address (meaning no hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc.) or with your credit card. Then you can download 5 free books each day. So far I have downloaded 35 books.
The selection is not excellent, but that is understandable given that this is a fledgling enterprise, not yet a year old. There is a pretty solid selection of political books, recent and otherwise, a growing selection of novels, and quite a bit of poetry (not my thing - I'll stick with prose, thanks). I personally found quite a bit to read in the way of fiction, because I am a fan of Vonnegut and P.K. Dick, whose books were well represented. I even found a new author, A. D. Nauman, who has a nice little Dystopian novel called Scorch
The books are nice, high quality PDF files. They have two full pages of ads at the beginning, and one more at the end. Right now Verizon appears to be their only sponsor, so expect to see a lot of black and red. Each book has your name on the very first page, and has a very small serial number on the bottom left of each page. They don't really mention this, but it's pretty easy to find if you look.
All in all, they've developed a system that is a pretty good deal for everybody. You get free books - five a day. That should do you, since even I can't manage five full sized books in one day. They make money (I assume) by selling ad space on these books. You have no real incentive to pirate, since your name is on everything, and you might as well just send your friends to the same link.

I've said a lot, but all you really need to know is "Free books!"