To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (3.5 stars)

After loving most of The Doomsday Book (but really hating some of it), I decided I'd back it up with some more Connie Willis.

Interestingly after reading this, the Doomsday Book makes a bit more sense. The humour in Doomsday seemed really out of place, and...terrible, but in this novel it is much much better and even got me to chuckle a few times.

I see now that the author was trying a similar thing in Doomsday, but it just completely flopped. The humour in this one, and the overall absurd tone, reminded me quite a lot of Catch-22. Especially with Lady Schrapnell's relentless pursuit of the historians to "fly" missions back in time for the damn birdstump:

A thought struck me. “Could I be admitted to Infirmary?” I said hopefully. If anyone could keep Lady Schrapnell out, it would be those Grand Inquisitors, the ward nurses. “Put in isolation or something?”

 Colonel Mering was far and away the most absurd and most hilarious of all the characters:

Twaddle!” Colonel Mering said, which pretty much completed the collection of explosive Victorian disclaimers.

And Professor Peddick was the worst. Because he was basically non-stop history in-jokes which I didn't get at all...

“It is the very image of the field of Blenheim,” Professor Peddick said. “Look, yonder the village of Sonderheim and beyond it Nebel Brook. It proves my point exactly. Blind forces! It was the Duke of Marlborough who won the day!

Some of my favourite funny bits:

“Terence St. Trewes, at your service,” Terence said and doffed his boater, which unfortunately still had a good deal of water in the brim. It sent a shower over Mrs. Mering.

“Ah,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “I am so pleased to meet you, Mr. Henry. Allow me to introduce my flower garden.” I had gotten so used to having people say nonsensical things to me in the last few days that it didn’t even faze me.

But this was Baine we were talking about, clearly the forerunner of Jeeves, and Jeeves had always known everything.

And as in Doomsday, I quite liked the idea that history had a protective mechanism that wouldn't let you modify important events. It's a pivotal part of this novel, and actually really clever:

So it must not have caused an incongruity, because if it would have, the net wouldn’t have opened. That’s what had happened the first ten times Leibowitz had tried to go back to assassinate Hitler. The eleventh he’d ended up in Bozeman, Montana in 1946. And nobody’s ever been able to get close to Ford’s Theater or Pearl Harbor or the Ides of March. Or Coventry. 

and it makes for a great ending.

3.5 stars.

PS. There are mobile phones!!! Where were they in Doomsday? It drove me nuts.

I stuck the handheld in my blazer pocket, picked up the bishop’s bird stump, and started down the stairs with it. The handheld rang.

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (4 stars)

This is a book following two parallel story lines, split by time travel. One thread is set in the middle ages (the 1300s), and is incredible. A huge amount of research has gone into the descriptions of clothing, architecture, transport, medicine, religion, and Christmas traditions. But thankfully this isn't historical fiction so Willis presents this research cleverly as part of the story, often as the main character Kivrin's internal monologue as she tries to make sense of the medieval world she has been thrust into.

Some spoilers ahead.

Kivrin is an excellent character, and she takes us through an incredibly harrowing experience. Her desperate actions to save others with the help of Roche were very moving. In particular the scene where she has to keep pushing a cow out of the way to help the few remaining people who aren't dead will stay with me for a long time. The cow simply wanted to be fed and milked, but there was no-one to do it.

Willis did a sensational job of capturing what it would have been like to live through the Black Death and I stayed up to all hours to finish the book, which is always the sign of a great read.

But for every good thing I have to say about the medieval storyline, there are two bad things about the modern (2054) story. It's terrible. Willis seems to have designed it as some sort of British comedic relief from the incredibly sad experiences in the medieval section. It doesn't work.

Let's start with the thing that drove me absolutely crazy and then move on to the minor annoyances. 90% of the 2054 storyline is people trying to call other people on the phone, not being able to get through, or getting through and having no means to leave a message. And when I say phones I don't mean mobile phones, or some sort of futuristic implanted communications device, no, landline phones. IT'S 2054. Twenty. Fifty. Four. This novel was published in 1992.

Not only have we un-invented things that were in common use in 1992 (like pagers, radios, call waiting and answering machines), but there was a spectacular lack of foresight about mobile phones, which had been invented well before 1992 and were poised to enter the market as common consumer devices in just a few more years.

In fact, this is the least futuristic future I've ever imagined. There have been some advances: every landline now has video, effectively all common sickness has been cured, we have a weird past-only time travel that is mostly used for historical academia. But in 60 years no one has figured out how to leave someone a message apart from writing it down and handing it to them.

Actually the time-travel part I was mostly OK with. I thought the "time doesn't allow paradoxes" approach was actually quite a clever one for resolving lots of the inherent plot problems, and slippage as a inbuilt time-integrity protocol to avoid changing important events was especially good.

I was less convinced by the all-important need for a rendezvous time that couldn't be missed or you would be stuck there FOREVER, and this skepticism was born out by the plot resolution. What's to stop you just opening up the net and sending someone else in to go find you? Nothing, it would seem.

Here's more annoyances from 2054:

• They have lived through major, worldwide pandemics recently and can set up a flawless quarantine without hours. But they can't send through basic supplies like food, aspirin, and toilet paper. Why not? The quarantine is in a populated area where all of that is readily accessible.
• The nice lady who gives you shots before time travel is apparently also the most qualified doctor to run a major quarantine and lead the medical response that could save or lose the lives of a thousand people. Sure, I guess. Seems pretty unlikely though. If communications were really that bad they would bring in a quarantined command center.
• Finch being obsessed with toilet paper is supposed to be funny? It's just annoying. Similarly with Mrs. Gaddstone and the bell ringers. William's ability to seduce every woman around him just gets really silly.
• Gilchrist is a cringeworthy foil for Dunworth. He's a ridiculous cardboard cutout stuffy stickler-for-the-rules that is way overplayed and unbelievable.
• Days were wasted trying to get someone to "read the fix". So we can make a video call but we can't send a photo, or point a phone at the screen? Also we're told over and over that the only things that can go wrong are the coords and the slippage. So shouldn't those two things be obvious and readable by a layperson? Just how incredibly bad is time machine UI design?

So to sum up, the medieval story is amazing, the 2054 story is terrible. But it's still a great book and I'd recommend reading it. Just grit your teeth through 2054.

4 stars.

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (4 stars)

This was a great read, I particularly liked the extra menu item on the kindle where you could highlight a sentence and click "Send to the secret police for approval". This greatly improved my reading speed compared to the normal slow process of sending sentence-by-sentence approvals by post.

I would however caution readers to avoid the menu option below it "Request librarian visit". If fans of the novel are ever near the new library at 1st and 22nd, formerly my house, drop by and say hello.  I'm in the tent on the front lawn.

OK that's my contribution to the excellent amazon reviews for this book.

If you love a little weirdness, this novel is the place to soak in a whole tub of it. It's incredibly clever, funny, and even sweet in parts. But you've really got to be happy wallowing around in quirky sentences and getting sidetracked into descriptions of strange events without much plot progress.

This would have been a five star book if the plot had excited me more and helped turn the pages. As it was I had to be content with the beautifully weird world-building. I think this is actually the sci-fi version of literary fiction that is more about the beautiful prose than actually telling a story.

In defence of the authors I think the actual plot arc is very good, and they do an excellent job of introducing the world to people who haven't listened to the podcast. But there's a significant challenge in introducing tension and building a climax in a world where life-threatening danger and horror-movie themes are simply a part of day-to-day life. What is plot tension, and what is just another crazy Night Vale quirk that will be dismissed out of hand?

Some reviewers will tell you that if you haven't listened to the podcast you won't enjoy the book. This is untrue, I liked the book and hadn't listened to the podcast, but I love weirdness. You'll definitely miss some of the subtlety and nods to the podcast episodes.

Now I'm done with the book I started listening and I'm a few episodes into the podcast. I like it, but I'm not sure I love it. Cecil is actually much more deadpan than I imagined, which rubs me the wrong way. I read the novel imagining a fairly normal radio demeanor, just with crazy content.

I'll leave you with some of my favourite quotes:

It also houses a boy, not quite a man. He’s fifteen. You know how it is. Imagine a fifteen-year-old boy. Nope. That was not right at all. Try again. No. No. Okay, stop.

Most people in Night Vale get by with a cobbled-together framework of lies and assumptions and conspiracy theories. Diane was like most people. Most people are.

The Night Vale PTA released a statement today saying that if the School Board could not promise to prevent children from learning about dangerous activities like drug use and library science during recess periods, they would be blocking all school entrances with their bodies. They pulled hundreds of bodies out from trucks, saying, “We own all of these bodies and we will not hesitate to use them to create great flesh barricades if that is what it takes to prevent our children from learning.”

“You develop a taste for it, like you do with scotch whiskey, or cilantro, or a salt lick.”

She drove home and grabbed the things she would need to check out a book: strong rope and a grappling hook, a compass, a flare gun, matches and a can of hair spray, a sharpened wooden spear, and, of course, her library card.

Having trouble sleeping? Are you awake at all hours? Do birds live in you? Are you crawling with insects? Is your skin jagged and hard? Are you covered in leaves and gently shaking in the gentle breeze? You sound like a tree. You are perfectly healthy.  

4 stars.

Best of 2015 as read by G

This year I followed a few series which showed great promise in the first book, but failed to live up to it in subsequent novels. In fact every book listed below, except The Martian, is in that category.

The Martian and Ancillary Justice were the easily the best books I read all year, head and shoulders above the rest.

The best (5 stars):

• The Martian by Andy Weir
• Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie

Special mentions (4.5 stars):

• Hard Luck Hank: Screw The Galaxy by Steven Campbell
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• Leviathan Wakes by James S.A Corey

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson (4.5 stars)

This book is quite unlike anything else by Stephenson that I've read, especially in contrast to the epic world-building of The Diamond Age, but it is actually really refreshing. It's a self-contained eco-thriller that is apparently beloved by water quality engineers. Think on that a moment. It's approachable for pretty much anyone, although having some high school chemistry wouldn't hurt.

The main character Sangamon Taylor (S.T.) is fantastic. He's incredibly smart in some ways, i.e. analytical chemistry, zodiac piloting, dangerous and toxic environment diving, improvising pipeline-plugging hardware, working around FBI surveillance, and building an effective media circus. And in others he makes crazy decisions such as constant nitrous abuse and charging into incredibly dangerous situations with little or no plan.

Bartholomew was standing in front of the stove. With the level, cross-eyed stare of the involuntarily awake, he was watching a heavy-metal video on the TV. He was clenching an inflated Hefty bag that took up half the kitchen. Once again, my roommate was using nitrous oxide around an open flame; no wonder he didn’t have any eyebrows. When I came in, he raised the bag invitingly. Normally I never do nitrous before breakfast, but I couldn’t refuse Bart a thing in the world, so I took the bag and inhaled as deep as I could. My mouth tasted sweet and five seconds later about half of an orgasm backfired in the middle of my brain. 

And he's really funny. S.T's dialogue is full of great one-liners and little pearls of wisdom.

When I got back, bacon was smoldering on the range, filling the house with gas-phase polycyclic aromatics—my favorite carcinogen by a long shot.

“I’ll never understand why people give out directions, or ask for them. That’s what fucking road maps are for.” 

Because if you’ve put yourself in a position where someone has to see you in order for you to be safe—to see you, and to give a fuck—you’ve already blown it.

Stephenson obviously knows Boston quite well, or has done extensive research. It's quite entertaining to see it through the eyes of a late 80's environmental activist who has intimate knowledge of sewer outfalls and other methods that corporations are using to dump toxic waste into the harbour.

The ending felt rushed and a little too simple an end. It also irked me that (minor spoiler) S.T. seems to have completely avoided getting arrested as a terrorist in the end, without any formal rescinding of that status. Officially marking someone as a terrorist isn't something that gets undone just because you do some good stuff that makes the TV news.

I also found some of the action scenes, and the military-style assassinations, supposedly enacted by large corporations as part of dumping operation cover-ups pretty far-fetched. But I'll allow it, certainly made for entertaining reading. It's a page turner.

4.5 stars