Moveable Feasts

January 11, 2021 at 8:15 am

A few weeks ago, while up in my mountain fastness, I rewatched MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, the Woody Allen film about a struggling writer visiting modern Paris (played by Owen Wilson) who finds himself travelling back in time to Paris of the 20s, where he finds himself bumping into Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Dali, Picasso, and the other artists and writers who made that such a special time. It’s a lovely, entertaining movie about nostalgia. I have enjoyed it before and I expect I will enjoy it again.

Watching it, however, made me realize that I had never read Hemingway’s A MOVEABLE FEAST, his memoir about his days in Paris as a hungry young writer in the 20s. That book, and the times it chronicles, were obviously what inspired Allen to do MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. I have never been a huge Hemingway fan, as it happens — I have read several of his novels, of course, though by no means all, and when I look back on the writers of that era, I find I much prefer F. Scott Fitzgerald — but I was curious, so I went and ordered the book and devoured it as soon as it arrived.

A few random thoughts–
— Woody Allen really nails Hemingway in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, hoo boy,
— I liked A MOVEABLE FEAST more than I have any of Hemingway’s novels, truth be told.   It was a vivid glimpse back into a vanished time and place, and into the author himself as a young man.   The book was not entirely what I expected.   Parts of it were moving and nostalgic, but other parts were surprisingly funny, like Hemingway’s efforts to assure Fitzgerald that his dick was not too small by showing him statues in the Louvre.   Other parts were sad, like the account of his estrangement from Gertrude Stein.   And his thoughts on life, love, and writing are always fascinating,
— Hemingway could not have been an easy friend; his judgements of others could be scathing and acidic.   Alice Roosevelt Longworth would have wanted him sitting near her, for certain,
— whatever golden glow might light the moveable feast of Paris in the 20s, I can never escape the knowledge that after the 20s came the 30s, when the lights went out all over Europe.   You know. Nazis.   And that makes me think of the world today, and shiver.

Thing is, while A MOVEABLE FEAST is about Paris in the 20s, it was not written until decades later. It was, in fact, published posthumously, after Hemingway took his own life. He was writing and editing it during the last years of his life… an old man, rich and famous and sad, looking back on his youth when he was poor and struggling and unknown, but alive and vital, in love with his first wife and with Paris, drunk on dreams of what the future might hold, of all the possibilities that lay before him. The whole book very much exemplifies what Woody Allen was talking about in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. Papa, in those final years, is writing of the time and place when he was happiest… or at least the time and place he remembers being happiest… but I do wonder whether or not he is only remembering the good stuff.

Reading it, I could not help but reflect on my own life. We all have our own moveable feasts. For me, I think, it was science fiction fandom in the 70s. I was a struggling writer then, just as Hemingway was in the 20s; writing, writing, going to workshops, collecting rejections, trying to get better, never knowing when the next sale might come. No, I did not get to hang with Scott and Zelda, or Hemingway, or Gertrude Stein, or Dali… but I had Howard Waldrop and Jack Dann and Lisa Tuttle, I drank with the Haldemans, I hunted the hallways of worldcon with Gardner Dozois looking for the Secret Pro Party, went skinny-dipping in hotel pools and met Parris in a sauna. When I got hungry I went looking for an editor with an expense account who might buy me a meal (elsewise I was scrounging in the con suite). Giants walked the halls in those days, and I had the good fortune to meet a few of them, if only to tell them what their work had meant to me. I shook the hands of C.L. Moore and Edmond Hamilton and Murray Leinster, I had actual conversations with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury and Ted Sturgeon, I got to share meals with Julie Schwartz and Wilson Tucker, with Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg.

Like Hemingway in Paris, I never had much money. I shared rooms at cons, slept on floors or in a bathtub, got to the cons on a bus or in the back seat of a friend’s car… walked to the hotels from the bus station, lugging my suitcase in my hand (no wheels on luggage in those days) since I did not have the money for a cab. Were those the bad parts? Or the good parts? From 2020, it is not easy to say. They make me smile now, as I look back. But if I try, I know that there were really bad parts too. Like Hemingway, though, I choose not to dwell on them. The world was a fucked-up place, then as now, but fandom was a refuge; warm, welcoming, strange (but in a good way), a community unlike any I had ever known, united by a shared love of our peculiar little branch of literature and the people who wrote it.

To quote one of Hemingway’s contemporaries, however, you can’t go home again. By the time Hemingway sat down to write A MOVEABLE FEAST in those last years of his life, he surely knew that the Paris he had known and loved in the 20s was gone forever… and the fandom that I knew and loved in the 70s is gone as well. This year the worldcon is in Washinton DC, in the very same hotel where the 1974 worldcon was held… the worldcon where I lost my first Hugo, accepted Lisa Tuttle’s Campbell Award, and prowled the halls till dawn with Gargy, looking for parties we never found. There is a part of me that somehow hopes that going back to the same hotel in the same city, I might somehow recapture something of those nights. But my head knows better. My head knows those days are gone forever, along with so many of the people that I shared them with. I wonder how often Papa Hemingway returned to Paris in the 40s and 50s, and what he thought of the place when he did.

Anyway… I quite like MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, and I loved A MOVEABLE FEAST. Maybe you will too.

Current Mood: melancholy

Tags: fandom, movies, reading, writing

Old Favorites, New Favorites

November 16, 2020 at 8:05 am

I read. A lot.

Since I was a kid. Whatever else may be going on in my life — writing, traveling, speaking, buying railroads and cinemas — I have a book or three by my bedside. I read every night before sleep. A few pages, a chapter… but the best times are when a story really gets its hooks into me and I find I cannot put it down. Then I read late into the night, and resume reading when I get up in the morning. Mind you, that does not happen often. Most books, even some very fine books, do not have that effect on me. But I love to find the ones that do.

Bernard Cornwell is one of the writers who never fails to grab me by the throat. I have loved his Sharpe books, several of his stand-alones, his Thomas of Hookton series, his Arthurian triad… but my favorite is his long-running Saxon series, the tales of Uhtred son of Uhtred, some of which have been brought to television in the excellent series THE LAST KINGDOM. The latest installment in Uhtred’s saga is WAR LORD, which arrived here just a few days ago. As always with Cornwell, it went right to the top of the stack, and I gulped it right down. Excellent, as always. No one writes better historical fiction than Cornwell… and the Saxon series is especially cool in that it brings to life a part of British history that I knew almost nothing about. (Other eras, while fascinating, have been done to death, in good books and bad ones). The battle scenes are terrific, as ever. Cornwell brings battles to life like no one else, whether he is writing about the shield walls of the Dark Ages or the musketry of the Napoleonic Era.

There was only one thing I did not like about WAR LORD. It reads as if it is the last Uhtred. We have been following him since childhood, but he is very old now, and on his third king, and the epilogue definitely gives the impression that his tale is at an end. If so… well, he had a great run, but I will miss him. Though maybe Cornwell will continue with tales of Uhtred son of Uhtred son of Uhtred, who knows? Whatever he writes next, I am sure it will be well worth reading.

(If you like historical fiction, read WAR LORD by all means. But don’t start there. If you have not been following Uhtred previously, you want the start with THE LAST KINGDOM. Despite having “last” in the title, it is actually the first book in the series).

While my shelves are full of books by old favorites like Bernard Cornwell, writers that I have been following for decades, I am always looking for new writers as well. I do try to keep up on today’s SF and fantasy, though I wouldn’t say I do a great job of it… there is just so much of it (these days publishers sent me the first volume of almost every new high fantasy series in hopes of blurbage, so the pile just keeps getting higher). And I like to read other stuff as well: historical fiction (like Cornwell), history, mysteries, mainstream, horror, classics, non-fiction… hell, all sorts of things. As well as rereading books I have read before, stories dear to my heart like LORD OF THE RINGS.

But I digress. The point is, last summer in Dublin at the Irish Worldcon, I met a newer writer at my Hugo Losers Party at the Guinness Storehouse. Her name was S.A. Chakraborty. She was not a Hugo Loser (yet — though I suspect she will be), but she had been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and had lost that, which was more than sufficient to qualify her for the party. In any case, she came up and introduced herself and we chatted… very briefly, things are always very hectic for me when playing host at the Hugo Losers Parties, and someone or something interrupted us and I had to break off… but she was bright and charming and interesting, and I told myself “I really must check out her work.”

I finally got around to it, a year and a half later. I read THE CITY OF BRASS, the first volume of her debut high fantasy trilogy, and I am so glad I did. I get sent a lot of fantasies, as I said, but this one really stood out. I loved the protagonist, there was a nice cast of supporting characters, and the plot had some twists and turns that I did not see coming… and her style is vivid and colorful and very readable. The best thing, though, was the setting. Instead of drawing on the European Dark Ages and Middle Ages, like me and JRRT and a thousand other epic fantasists, Chakraborty evoked the flavors of the Middle East and ARABIAN KNIGHTS and the legends of the djinns. I enjoyed the novel hugely, and I just ordered the second and third books in the trilogy so I can may continue the adventure. And if I should ever run into the author at another convention, I hope I get to speak with her a little longer.

So there you have it. One old favorite, one new one. Cornwell and Chakraborty, names to remember.

Now pardon me. I have more books to read (and one to write, I know, I know, I know).

Current Mood: enthralled

Tags: books, reading

Writing, Reading, Writing

June 23, 2020 at 9:38 am

I have to confess, after half a year of pandemic, quarantine, and social distancing, I am showing signs of cabin fever… half of which is quite literal in my case. Yes, I am in an actual cabin in the mountains. No, I have no fever. Yay! For the present at least, I am healthy… for an out-of-shape guy of 71, at least … and doing all I can to stay that way.

If nothing else, the enforced isolation has helped me write. I am spending long hours every day on THE WINDS OF WINTER, and making steady progress. I finished a new chapter yesterday, another one three days ago, another one the previous week. But no, this does not mean that the book will be finished tomorrow or published next week. It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go. Please do not give any credence to any of the click-bait websites that like to parse every word of my posts as if they were papal encyclicals to divine hidden meanings.

I was heartbroken when CoNZealand was forced to go virtual due to the pandemic and I had to cancel my plans (exciting plans) for a long trip down to Wellington with Parris and my minions… but there is definitely a silver lining in that cloud. The last thing I need right now is a long interruption that might cost me all the momentum I have built up. I can always visit Wellington next year, when I hope that both Covid-19 and THE WINDS OF WINTER will be done.

I still plan to host the Hugo Awards and fulfill all the rest of my toastmasterly duties for worldcon, and have started pre-recording some bits for the ceremony (a wise precaution, since I am hopeless with Zoom and Skype and like things), but that is a lot less time-consuming and distracting than flying to the other end of the world. In between tapings, I return to Westeros. Of late I have been visiting with Cersei, Asha, Tyrion, Ser Barristan, and Areo Hotah. I will be dropping back into Braavos next week. I have bad days, which get me down, and good days, which lift me up, but all in all I am pleased with the way things are doing.

I do wish they would go faster, of course. Way way back in 1999, when I was deep in the writing of A STORM OF SWORDS, I was averaging about 150 pages of manuscript a month. I fear I shall never recapture that pace again. Looking back, I am not sure how I did it then. A fever indeed.

Anyway… when I am not writing, or thinking about writing, I am watching television and reading. Publishers send me huge piles of books, so my “to be read” pile is always growing, no many how many books I consume. Of course, I also buy books as well. Cannot help it, I am a book junkie. The new Stephen King collection IF IT BLEEDS was one recent favorite. I love these novella collections that King comes out with from time to time between his novels. This one features a new Holly Gibney story, and it is always great to see that character again… but there’s also a story called “Rat” about a writer trying to finish a novel in an isolated cabin which… ah… resonated with me rather strongly for some reason. One bit, where the writer gets derailed trying to figure out how many rocking chairs a sheriff could fit on his porch, was a dead-on depiction of the kind of stuff I go through all the time. Steve’s protagonist gets some help when a dead rat turns up to be his muse. So far, no rats at my cabin. Sid did catch a couple of mice last year, but she made pets of them. And Timmy and TomTom were no help whatsoever with WINDS. (Please don’t send me long emails about the dangers of mice, we know all that stuff).

Another recent book that really knocked me out was THE GLASS HOTEL, the latest by Emily St. John Mandel. A few years back, she wrote a (ahem) post-pandemic SF novel called STATION ELEVEN which I loved at the time and now devoutly hope is not going to prove prophetic. It was my favorite novel of that year, and I thought it deserved to win the Hugo and the Nebula. Which it didn’t, alas. But I had Emily at my theatre for an author event, which was great, and snapped up her three earlier novels. I really liked those too. Now comes her latest, THE GLASS HOTEL. No, this one is not science fiction or fantasy. In fact, I would be hard pressed to say what it is except a damn fine novel. It is about a hotel in a remote location, the people who work there, the people who stay there, it is about a Ponzi scheme, and art, and music, and a dysfunctional family, and… oh, well, I don’t know what it is about, but I do know that once I started reading, I could not stop. When people describe a book as a “page turner,” usually they are talking about novels that have a lot of plot, which Mandel definitely does not, yet somehow she keeps me turning pages regardless. And she writes just beautifully. Her prose is not overblown or excessively ornate, as is the case with too many writers who are known as “stylists,” but… it is just lovely, haunting and evocative and immersive… I guess you can say I am a big Emily St. John Mandel fanboy. I look forward to whatever she writes next.

There are other things going on in my life as well. I bought a railroad… well, I bought a third of a railroad. See the post below. Hollywood has slowed to a crawl thanks to the pandemic, but THE HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is still flying along wonderfully, thanks to Ryan Condal and his writers, and the tireless Ti Mikkel. With my producer hat on, I am still involved in trying to bring Nnedi Okorafor’s brilliant WHO FEARS DEATH to the small screen, and relaunch the WILD CARDS tv project. We have feature films in development adapted from my stories “Sandkings” and “The Ice Dragon” and “The Lost Lands,” television shows in development based on works by Roger Zelazny and Tony Hillerman, there are the secret shorts we’re doing that… well, no, if I spilled that, it wouldn’t be secret.

But up here on the mountain, all of that that seems very distant, and much of it has stuttered to a halt in any case, until Covid goes away.

Mostly, it’s just me in Westeros, with occasional side trips to other places in the pages of a great book.

Now you will have to excuse me. Arya is calling. I think she means to kill someone.

Current Mood: contemplative

Tags: a song of ice and fire, everyday life, reading, the winds of winter, writing

Time to Read!!!

April 22, 2018 at 5:27 am

I cannot tell you how jazzed I am to be a part of THE GREAT AMERICAN READ.

PBS is out to find America’s most beloved novel. (Note: not the most loved novel by an American writer, but rather the novel most loved by American readers, which is why a number of British books are on the list). They’ve selected 100 finalists, and in the months to come the public will be encouraged to read all of them… or as many as they can… and vote for their favorite.

It’s Thunderdome for books; 100 novels enter, one emerges.

Of course, it’s all for fun… and to encourage reading, and conversations about books. About fiction, specifically.

Check it out here: http://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/home/ if you want to play.

And yes, if you squint at that poster, that’s A GAME OF THRONES you see, right in the middle of the fourth row from the top.

It’s a VERY eclectic list, one that runs the gamut from canonical classics of modern English literature to last year’s bestsellers and mega-sellers, touching every base in between. Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Melville are there, together with Tom Clancy and James Patterson and E.L. James. Genre fiction, I am pleased to say, is well represented, including SF and fantasy: not only my own work, but also books by Robert Jordan, Douglas Adams, Michael Crichton, Frank Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many more. And congrats to my friends Ernie Cline and Andy Weir, who made the list as well with READY PLAYER ONE and THE MARTIAN. Mysteries, romance, erotica, literary novels…. it’s quite a list.

(Are there omissions? Of course there are. I can think of a dozen books I’d like to add myself, and a dozen I’d drop. But that’s where the conversations can start. PBS wants to get people talking about their favorite books, and so do I).

I don’t think A GAME OF THRONES has a chance in seven hells of winning the competition… but just being on the same list as LORD OF THE RINGS, THE GREAT GATSBY, GONE WITH THE WIND, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, LONESOME DOVE, CATCH 22, CHARLOTTE’S WEB blows my mind. Those are favorites all, towering masterpieces, books that changed my life.

I can’t pretend to have read every book on the list… but I’m going to do my best to fill in the gaps in the months to come.

Oh, and besides the vote, there’s also an eight-part TV series devoted to THE GREAT AMERICAN READ. I will be one of the guests on the show, talking about a couple of my own “most loved” titles on the list. No, not my own work. Presumably one of the other guest authors or critics will talk about A GAME OF THRONES, but if so, I have no idea who that will be.

This should be great fun.

And remember: The reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.

Current Mood: excited

Tags: a game of thrones, reading

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Re-Read Time!

March 3, 2017 at 3:05 pm

The Wild Cards Re-Read has kicked off over at Tor.com.

First up: book one, WILD CARDS. That makes sense.

Go join the fun at http://www.tor.com/2017/03/02/wild-cards-reveals-a-dark-reflection-of-our-post-war-reality/#comment-651329

To Jetboy!

Tags: reading, tor, wild cards

Good Stuff

May 18, 2016 at 1:08 pm

I used to have a couple pages on my website called “What I’m Watching” and “What I’m Reading.” They’re still there, actually, but they’re years out of date. I just don’t have the time to keep them up any longer, with all the other things on my plate.

But that doesn’t mean I have stopped watching movies or television, or that I don’t read. I still read voraciously, watch lots of television, and go to a movie a week, on the average. So I thought I’d say a few very brief words about stuff I’ve enjoyed recently.

Most of the films I see are the ones I’m playing at my own theatre, the Jean Cocteau… but not all. A few days ago, Parris and I caught the new JUNGLE BOOK at the Violet Crown down the street from the JCC, and I loved loved loved it. A magnificent production. Supposedly it’s a remake of the old Disney cartoon version, but it’s about ten thousand times better for hardcore Kipling fans like yours truly (Kiplers?) Not completely faithful to the books, which I count as an enduring masterpiece, but it certainly captures much of their flavor, which the cartoon did not. Gorgeous to look at (CGI has come a long way), genuinely exciting… Shere Khan is scary. My only quibble is Baloo. Much as I love Bill Murray, and I do love Bill Murray, I wanted a lot more of Kipling’s Baloo. Murray’s version is so very Bill Murray he could have wandered into the jungle straight from GHOSTBUSTERS. That’s minor, though; the other voice actors did a marvelous job of becoming their animals, and the kid playing Mowgli (who has gotten some mixed reviews) struck me as charming and unaffected, a natural and believable performance. If you like Kipling, see this one. If you like good movies, ditto. (I wonder if talking animals make this fantasy enough to be eligible for a Hugo next year? I’d certainly be willing to nominate it).

Meanwhile, on television… this really IS the Golden Age of television, so much good stuff to watch. It’s hard to keep up. Parris and I are going to miss THE GOOD WIFE, but we’ve been enjoying the hell out of BETTER CALL SAUL and COLONY, and the new season of PENNY DREADFUL has been fun so far as well. The show that’s really knocking our (argyle) socks off, however, is the second season of OUTLANDER. Diana Gabaldon should be thrilled; they are really doing her books proud. This year the action moved to France, and the costumes, sets, and cinematography have all been fabulous. As have the performances. Both of the leads are terrific, and Tobias Menzies (who also appears in GAME OF THRONES from time to time) is sensational in his double role. They should nominate the guy for an Emmy twice, once for each character. OUTLANDER is one of the best shows on television, a wonderful blend of historical drama, science fiction, fantasy, and romance.

Books? Well, if you haven’t yet grabbed a copy of Joe Hill’s THE FIREMAN, you need to. Original and gripping, a page-turner… and I am looking forward to meeting Joe in person when he visits the Jean Cocteau on Monday for a reading and signing (tickets going fast! get yours now). I’ve also really enjoyed a non-fiction title from a couple of years ago called THE BEAUTIFUL CIGAR GIRL, by Daniel Stashower, which is simultaneously a bio of Edgar Allan Poe and a “true crime” account of a sensational NYC murder case that inspired him to write “The Mystery of Marie Roget.” Call this one history or biography if you must, but it reads like a novel… and I especially loved the stuff about the New York City press, one of my obsessions.

Oh, and while the stack of ARCs and bound galleys and new books by my bedside waiting to be read is taller than I am, I’m especially excited by a couple of recent arrivals. HIGH GROUND, the first volume of Melinda Snodgrass’s new space opera series, is here, and I can’t wait to get into it… especially since one of her villains, BoHo, is actually my creation (he is not really villainous, he’s just misunderstood) from the days when Snod and I were making up characters for a new shared world series that never took off. ((Think of BoHo as the Flashman of Space; I loved George McDonald Fraser almost as much as I love Kipling)).

Also on hand is David Anthony Durham’s new historical novel, THE RISEN, his take on Spartacus. DAD never disappoints, and Spartacus is another fascination of mine… I look forward to seeing how Durham’s take on him differs from Howard Fast’s and Colleen McCullough’s.

Also just in is Lisa Tuttle’s THE SOMNAMUBIST AND THE PYSCHIC THIEF, featuring Miss Lane and Jasper Jesperson, the Victorian-era detectives she first introduced in her stories for DOWN THESE STRANGE STREETS and ROGUES. Those were hugely entertaining stories, and I am eager to see what Lisa does with the characters at novel length. Fans of Sherlock Holmes should love this.

So… lots of good stuff.

Life is too short. So little time, so many books and movies and television shows.

Tags: films, reading, television

Reading, Reading, Reading

July 14, 2015 at 1:11 pm

I have been doing a lot of travelling of late — Germany, Sweden, Finland, Chicago — and that means I have been doing a lot of reading as well. When I travel, I read. Always have, always will. There’s no better way to fill the endless hours on the plane, and the strange hours in the middle of the night when the world is sleeping but you’re awake, thanks to jetlag. A few words about some of the things I’ve read are in order, therefore. I read the new Eric Larson bestseller, DEAD WAKE: THE LAST CROSSING OF LUSITANIA. Larson is a journalist who writes non-fiction books that read like novels, real page-turners. This one is no exception. I had known a lot about the Titanic but little about the Lusitania. This filled in those gaps. Larson’s masterpiece remains THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, but this one is pretty damned good too. Thoroughly engrossing. I read an ARC of the long-awaited new novel from Ernie Cline of READY PLAYER ONE fame. ARMADA, like READY PLAYER ONE, is a paean to the videogames of a bygone era, and like READY PLAYER ONE it is a tremendous amount of fun for anyone who remembers that time and played those games. (Those who did not may find it incomprehensible, admittedly). Those of you who liked the old movie THE LAST STARFIGHTER will really like this one. Hugely entertaining… though it does make me wonder if we’ll ever see Ernie write something that isn’t about videogames. He’s a talented guy, and I am sure that anything he writes would be terrific. I read the mega-bestseller THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, by Paula Hawkins, a mystery/ thriller/ novel of character about three women who live near the train tracks of a London commuter lines, and how their lives and loves get entwined when one of them disappears under mysterious circumstances. Fans of Gillian Flynn’s books will probably like this one too. I know I did… though I don’t think Hawkins is quite as deft a writer as Flynn. The first person voices of the three narrators sounded too much alike, I thought, but that’s a minor quibble. The main narrator, an alcoholic who is slowly falling apart, is especially well drawn. It’s a strong story, with a great sense of time and place, and one that had me from start to finish. I read ANGLES OF ATTACK, by Marko Kloos, military SF, third book in his series, and the immediate sequel to LINES OF DEPARTURE, the novel that was (briefly) a Hugo finalist thanks to the Puppies before its author withdrew it as an act of conscience. I’d read LINES OF DEPARTURE as a result of that, my first exposure to Kloos. I liked that one well enough, but didn’t love it. ANGLES OF ATTACK is, I think, better. I’m still the wrong audience for this — my list of “great military SF novels” includes STARSHIP TROOPERS, BILL THE GALACTIC HERO, THE FOREVER WAR, and an oldie called WE ALL DIED AT BREAKAWAY STATION, but not much else — but these are very entertaining books. Since I know there are a lot of fans of military SF out there, I’d say that ANGLES OF ATTACK might actually have an outside chance at earning a genuine Hugo nod solely on its merits… assuming the Puppies don’t slate it again. In any case, Kloos is a writer to watch. (I do hope this series isn’t going on for twenty more books, however. I want to know more about his gigantic and enigmatic aliens, and I want a resolution). Oh, and I also read a lot more of this year’s Hugo nominees. The stories and books that were NOT withdrawn. Hoo boy. More on that later. Suffice it to say that I was very glad that I had the books listed above to hand, to cleanse my palate after sampling some of the Hugo stuff.

Tags: hugo awards, puppygate, reading, reviews

Reading

June 7, 2015 at 5:58 pm

I used to have a page called “What I’m Reading” on my old website. It’s still there on this new(er) website, actually, but I haven’t updated it in years. Keep meaning to, but there’s too much to do, too few hours in the day.

That doesn’t mean I am not reading, however. I read all the time. Usually a chapter or two right before I go to sleep… but sometimes a novel takes hold of me, and I wind up gulping down the whole thing in a night. A long, sleepless night. But I love that when it happens.

Anyway, just thought I’d mention a few of the books I’ve read recently.

I’ve already commented, at some length, about two of this year’s Hugo finalists, THREE-BODY PROBLEM and THE GOBLIN EMPEROR. You can find my thoughts on those below.

I also read LINES OF DEPARTURE by Marko Kloos. This was part of the Hugo ballot as originally announced, one of the books put there by the slates… but Kloos, in an act of singular courage and integrity, withdrew. It was his withdrawal that moved THREE-BODY PROBLEM onto the ballot. This is the second book in a series, and I’ve never read the first. Truth be told, I’d never read anything by Kloos before, but I’m glad I read this. It’s military SF, solidly in the tradition of STARSHIP TROOPERS and THE FOREVER WAR. No, it’s not nearly as good as either of those, but it still hands head and shoulders above most of what passes for military SF today. The enigmatic (and gigantic) alien enemies here are intriguing, but aside from them there’s not a lot of originality here; the similarity to THE FOREVER WAR and its three act structure is striking, but the battle scenes are vivid, and the center section, where the hero returns to Earth and visits his mother, is moving and effective. I have other criticisms, but this is not a formal review, and I don’t have the time or energy to expand on them at this point. Bottom line, this is a good book, but not a great one. It’s way better than most of what the Puppies have put on the Hugo ballot in the other categories, but it’s not nearly as ambitious or original as THREE-BODY PROBLEM. Even so, I read this with pleasure, and I will definitely read the next one. Kloos is talented young writer, and I suspect that his best work is ahead of him. He is also a man of principle. I hope he comes to worldcon; I’d like to meet him.

I also read the new novel by Lauren Beukes, BROKEN MONSTERS, a sort of crime/ serial killer novel with some supernatural Lovecraftian touches. Set amidst the urban decay of contemporary Detroit, this one has a vivid sense of place and a colorful and interesting cast of characters, but it gets very strange at the end, where the Lovecraftian elements come to the fore. I don’t think it is entirely successful, and it’s certainly several notches below the author’s last, the brilliant SHINING GIRLS (which would have been my choice for last year’s Hugo, but, alas, it missed the ballot by a handful of votes). I found it an engrossing read all the same, and I will be looking forward to whatever Lauren Beukes does next. She’s a major major talent.

I also read and enjoyed the new Naomi Novik, UPROOTED. Novik is best known for her popular series of Napoleonic Era dragon books, so this high fantasy is somewhat a departure for her. The whole set-up has a ‘fairy tale’ feel to it, but draws its inspiration from Russian folklore rather than the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen strains more familiar to modern readers. I thought Novik did a nice job of ringing changes on the old fairy tale tropes, and I liked her characters. But the story rushed by a bit too fast for my taste; I would have liked a longer book, where the characters might have had a bit more room to breathe. And I was seriously disappointed by the ending, wherein several important revelations came out of nowhere.

Next up? Not sure. CITY OF STAIRS and ANCILLARY SWORD and SKIN GAME are all on the stack besides my bed, along with an ARC of the new Ernie Cline novel (yay!). But the new Stephen King has just turned up as well, so…

Tags: reading, reviews

Amanda’s Art of Asking

November 20, 2014 at 2:58 pm

When Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman visited the Jean Cocteau Cinema in September, Amanda read a bit for us from her new book, THE ART OF ASKING. Sounded very cool…. unfortunately, we couldn't sell any copies, since the book had not yet been published. The only copy on site was the advance copy that Amanda was reading from.

But hey, the wait is over… the ART OF ASKING has now been published, as of 11/11, and should be available at your local bookstore, or from your favorite online bookseller (alas, we don't have any signed copies available at the Jean Cocteau, but we hope to remedy that the next time Amanda and Neil come to visit).

Amanda says:
" it's a book about….a lot of things. my marriage, my days as a weird street performer, my amazing band and label disaster,
my difficulties dealing with a best friend who's had cancer for the past three years; but that's all sort of a veil.
mostly it's an attempt to try to discover why all human beings (especially artists) has such a hard time asking for things.

i poured my heart into it. it's a really personal book.
it's also really FUNNY.
and sad.
it's a weird book.
but i'm really, really proud of it."

Everything you could want to know about ordering a copy can be found here: http://amandapalmer.net/

Happy reading. Happy asking.

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Tags: reading

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