Author: C S

Oh. My. God. I finished the novel ‘Wool’ only moments ago and my heart is still pounding. It is the best book I have read in some years, combining a rich post apocalyptic world with well rounded characters and riveting plot.

The foreshadowing is brilliant, giving the reader just enough clues to figure out the mysteries but hiding things well enough that there isn’t much lead time between the ‘aha’ moment and the author’s reveal. The title is an allusion to the phrase “pulling the wool over their eyes” which was fairly obvious early on but the imagery echoes in little ways a few more times before we’re sure the central theme is deceit.

I know I go on and on about science fiction but there is something captivating about exploring a new world. In the world of ‘Wool’ life is underground, in a silo over a hundred and fifty levels deep with modern technology such as computers and radios common place but things we think of as common such as water and paper in short supply. Within the limited environment of the silo, everything is recycled, including people. It’s no soylent green solution, but the garden is the graveyard, reusing the nutrients in the human body to feed those who are left. Reproduction is strictly limited with legitimate couples allowed a chance at children by lottery and all others implanted with birth control in the cradle. Labor is divided and modeled after an apprentice style of teaching for trades such as gardening, mechanical, or IT. Yes, this post apocalyptic world has an information technologies department to run the screens that show the outside world. The View.

The View takes up the top level of the silo. There are cameras above ground that feed into a huge display in the cafeteria that is ever present. It is so critical to the maintenance of the social atmosphere that on occasion someone will be sent to clean the cameras exposed to the dirt and grime of the toxic atmosphere. The cleaners are only sent if they commit a crime worthy of the death sentence, or if they express a wish to go outside. Though many years of hard work have gone into improving the protective suits they wear, none make it farther than the next hill. Tragic but necessary, it is a way for people to blow off steam, a holiday when you can come see the crisp picture through clean cameras, and a reminder to keep your head down and not even think about outside.

Our heroine Juliette is brought from the down deeps, the floors past floor one hundred, where the mechanics live and work keeping the drills pumping up oil for the generators, making electricity to grow food and live and work. She is brought up top to fill the vacancy left by the sherriff, the character from the opening scene, the man last sent out to clean. During her few short days in office she discovers something about the suits given to the cleaners: they are fake. They are built with materials designed to fail in order that the men and women don’t live long enough to discover a bigger world. The visor is a screen, programmed to show the cleaners a vision of paradise, a clean world, a vision to induce their cooperation, to ensure they clean the servers like they are supposed to and never leave or try to come back. She knows the secret and so she is sent outside to clean and to die before she can infect others with her knowledge.

She does neither. One other person who can help her knows the secret and has her suit built with materials designed to work, designed to succeed and give her time, more time than anyone has had before. Instead of behaving as she’s ‘supposed to’ she walks past the hills and discovers the bigger secret: they aren’t alone. She discovers another silo and an open door. After this discovery the novel moves quickly. We’ve solved the mystery, now it’s time to save the world, or at least her world. The last few chapters went so fast I almost flew through the pages. There is love and sorrow and action and anger and resolution and then another problem to solve. My heart was racing. My eyes kept skipping ahead to find out what happens next, unable to wait as long as it takes to finish the page.

Howey’s world is beautifully rich. Every page reveals a new social norm that is alien, but makes perfect sense in a world like that. The next page is a twist to the plot that you almost saw coming. We see a moment of weakness and then of strength that carves each character from pure literary marble, so captivating as to make Rodin envious. The last time I read a book that caused such a physiological response was years ago and is a book I have treasured since childhood. This novel is great. I reccomend it far more highly than the last few. You will at least admire it, if not simply love it.

Greater than the story, richer than the world, more personal than the characters is the what if factor. The greatest thing about science fiction is that the author is writing about us, but not us. He writes about humanity driven to the breaking point and what happens when we reach it? The war that destroyed the earth and made it uninhabitable is not outside the realms of possibility but what is truly interesting is how the author mused we as a people might prepare for that and how we might deal with the aftermath. In this case it is with lies and deceit, a strict purge of anything that might bring out the truth, a sophisticated method for murder in the interest of preservation. The author’s projection of our capacity for ruthlessness in the case of the war and of the daily deceit of an entire small world is frighteningly possible. And that is the beauty of SciFi 🙂

I finished another post apocalyptic science fiction novel recently called “The Last Policeman” and really enjoyed it. The last book I finished was, while not exactly disappointing, not as engaging as it could have been. TLP is a human interest story if ever there was one. The premise is suggested in the title: there is an impending doom, an asteroid heading towards Earth. Several Km across, it will if not destroy at least severely limit all life on earth, specially human life and definitely life as we know it. The exact date the asteroid will impact is already known, though the place is not revealed until later in the novel, but the impending doom is more of a backdrop than a plot point. This story is a mystery, a murder staged as a suicide at a time when suicide is a popular choice across the board. The character is a detective, recently promoted due to… losses in the force. He is young, but has good instincts and has not left his post, not for anything. The atmosphere is a combination of pre-apocalyptic and charmingly mundane.

The plot, the mystery, is not particularly original. The culprit is somewhat easy to figure out and the steps the detective takes are about par for the course for a mystery. What truly sets this novel apart is the human aspect. What happens when you have six months left? What if everyone on the whole earth has only six months left? What happens when everyone in the world decides to pursue their ‘bucket list’ and leave their work and family behind? They are called ‘bucket listers’ in the novel and are the reason for many vacancies in the ranks of business and industry. Those who stay behind do so because they already are where they want to spend the rest of their lives, they are too scared to run off, or they don’t have the resources to do so. Emergency laws are enacted authorizing the death penalty for drug related crimes while at the same time illegal drug use skyrockets. Marijuana is decriminalized in the hopes that harder drugs will be less desirable. Our hero has to deal with mundane results of extraordinary circumstances, for example being unable to access criminal records from Colorado because there has been some sort of rioting that destroyed critical infrastructure. The local McDonalds is no longer affiliated with the franchise because it collapsed. The government tries to reign in inflation with price controls but the detective casually leaves a thousand dollar tip. It’s the day-to-day life of a man who feels like doing the right thing, set in between the lives of people facing the end of their world. The juxtaposition of our protagonist’s almost disregard for the impending disaster and the rest of the world’s insanity is both bizarre and thought provoking. It’s not only a question of what would you do, but the certainty that life can go on despite whatever else threatens it.

The plot does have some interesting and unexpected twists, and more deaths than I had anticipated. The novel covers the span of a week or so meaning the reader doesn’t get to see the asteroid hit, we don’t see the end of the world, we just see a bit of it. As usual with science fiction it’s not the plot as much as the universe that most interests me. The more mundane the activities of our hero the more humanized the impending doom and people’s reaction to it. I feel as though I’m not getting the feeling across very well. It would be like calmly filing paperwork on the top floor of the first tower on 9/11: nothing on the floor will ever be seen by another human being. It doesn’t matter if the paperwork gets filed, but you do it because it’s what you do, and it makes you feel better. It’s almost comical the level of calm detachment the detective has about the end of the world and it’s absolutely the most interesting part of the book.

It’s an easy read, and not very long as scifi novels go. I would recommend this novel both for its thought provoking power and for its sheer entertainment value. The writing is clear and engaging, pacing is good, and the little details add a sense of the philosophical. Overall a good read.

With classes nearly finished I found time to read a science fiction novel given to me by one of my delightful gentleman friends. It’s called ‘The Unincorporated Man’ and is written by brothers Dani and Eytan Kollin. As a first novel it is… fabulous. And interesting, and a little confusing. There are similarities to Heinlein’s ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ but mostly in structure and basic story arc: it’s essentially a two-part book with the first half exploring how a stranger from the past fits into the world he wakes up in and the second half following his adventures getting the world to fit his personality. There will be spoilers here so if that bothers you, you may want to skip this review until you’ve read the book.

The main character, Justin Cord, is a wealthy older businessman, widower, and cancer patient living in the early twenty first century. He spends his billions on a suspension unit that will freeze him until such time as he can be safely revived. Because he distrusts the world, he has himself hidden in an empty mine, entrusts his faithful assistant to administer his affairs, and has all record of his tomb and efforts to defeat death erased. Three hundred years later he is revived into a society that has developed nanotechnology, eliminated aging, can revive any deaths provided there is minimal brain damage, and has terraformed several planets, the moon, and the asteroid belt. This, of course, is all expected: these are the technological wonders we dream of and would not be surprised to discover were we able to travel centuries into the future. What is unexpected, however, is the social change.

Every child, at birth, is incorporated. They are given seventy five thousand shares of themselves, their parents are given twenty thousand, and the government is given five thousand making a total one hundred percent. In order to fund education and pay for medical costs, a person sells shares of him or  herself to raise money. The shareholders are then able to exercise certain rights over the incorporated person. These include the right to do a psychological evaluation (nanobots essentially rebuild your nervous system should they deem it necessary), the right to audit your assets and, in the case of a person who holds fifty percent or less, dictate which school you attend, job you hold, and where you live. Corporations have their own currency, private companies provide the services that in our era are under the jurisdiction of the government such as public defense, utilities, courtroom proceedings, and most transportation, though roads and a few other things are still the government’s job. It is a utopia in that no one ages, most people don’t die, everyone has access to adequate food and shelter, and people are generally entertained. They’re happy and content and many are essentially slaves.

Into this world comes steely eyed, blue blooded, free and brave Justin Cord who spends the first half of the novel learning why, exactly, he can’t fall in love with Neela, why people are content with corporate ownership of each other, how to interact with his ‘avatar’, why virtual reality is prohibited, how nanotechnology works and how to use it, and the history of the grand collapse of society shortly after he was entombed. It is interesting and entertaining. The reader experiences along with Justin the delights of fast travel, gourmet food, technology that changes anything into anything else, and huge new buildings.

The second half of the novel begins at Mardi Gras. This holiday has become a system-wide week of insanity. It’s the week where anything goes. During this week people get body modifications so thorough that a woman can actually be a succubus, complete with functioning wings and tail, and a man can be a spider with a spinneret and eight long, hairy legs. Justin and Neela finally consummate their passion and Justin finally decides that he wants to start a movement to end incorporation, or at least make it voluntary. What follows is a series of physical and legal battles against the premier corporation and it’s primary underling, Hektor Sambianco, over Justin’s lack of incorporation

Though Justin becomes an instant celebrity, he is also an instant enemy of all who believe incorporation is critical to a functioning society. The major players in the heroic drama come and go. Hektor’s fortunes rise, fall, rise, fall, skyrocket, are nearly assassinated, and then float off into the mist of the sequel, so we must read it to find out how he continues to go after Justin. ‘The Chairman’ is a mysterious figure who often seems to work against Justin but is ultimately an ally. Even the underlings play a dangerous game of deception against each other to throw everyone off balance. In all this chaos, a revolution breaks out, terrorists begin attacking, new foes rise and fall in a dozen pages, our hero nearly changes his mind, then becomes firm in his convictions, then wavers again. For a short time I actually wanted him to give in, to incorporate, and to find out it’s not as bad as he thinks it is. I’ve never rooted for the bad guy before, but one conversation between Hektor and Justin is so compelling that I wouldn’t have been surprised, may even have been pleased at the turnabout, had Justin given up and become part of this strange land.

I’ve always enjoyed watching new universes unfold in the minds of authors. I love seeing the characters they devise, the worlds they share, and their imagining of what humanity might do when confronted with certain circumstances. In that this novel rises admirably. It is a new and interesting concept, this personal incorporation thing, and it makes a certain sense. If I own a share in your stock, I get part of what you make. Ok, what if you fall ill? It’s in my best interest that you get well again as soon as possible. What if you are not content and your productivity suffers? It’s in my best interest that you have some way to feel better, say bringing your family with you to a remote assignment. In theory, incorporation takes the interest we have in ourselves and uses it to make us responsible for each other. In reality, it turns minority shareholders into slaves, subject to the desires of their stockholders. It is this that Justin sees and this that The Chairman has observed over his lifetime.

The concept is thought provoking, the characters are down to earth and the pacing is fast enough that in one night I read nearly half the book, because I had to know what happened next! However, the last few chapters seemed rushed, forced, and a little too neat. The reader is left with a few loose ends, but we are promised a sequel so no worries on that. What does worry me is the sheer number of times the reader is thrown back and forth in ideology once we get near the end of the novel. Justin ‘wavers’ and considers what the opposition has to say. The opponents come out of the woodwork but the read is given too much, too soon. We meet them, know their personality, and then they are removed from the novel all in a chapter or two, it seemed like. Plus there’s this whole side plot of the avatars having gained sentience and influencing humanity with only one of the billions of people figuring out they are self aware. It’s… a bit too full of plot devices. It would have been well served by a bit of streamlining, or by having all those twists and turns actually end with a climax other than the patent “hero gets the girl and leads a revolution which the reader can essentially assume he will win.” Overall recommended but wouldn’t read it twice.

I’m less inclined to read the second novel in the series as I am to read more of the novels given to me a few weeks ago. I’m trying for one review a week but we’ll see. With school nearly finished I should have less guilty time and more actually free time.

I just finished a book called Sweet Tooth, written by Ian McEwan. He wrote the book Atonement also which is a film I absolutely loved so I had high hopes. They were not fulfilled.

The book describes itself as kind of a coming of age, a tale of lies and romance and spying and whatever else they put on the dustjacket. I found it a tale of youthful angst, foolishness, and not even any kind of moral to justify the foolishness and conceit of his main characters. The book opens on a young woman, Serena, just finishing secondary school in Britain during the Cold War. She is somewhat aimless, in a relationship with a man she can’t satisfy but who is content to love hew physically, and wholly self indulgent. She begins a relationship with an older professor and becomes the mistress until after graduation. He finds her a job with MI6, leaves her, and allows her to essentially find her own way. All this is punctuated by long, self indulgent monologues about the suspected motives of other characters that I personally found to increase Serena’s arrogance. It reminds me of a British Twilight: a Mary Jane with little to no personality, inexplicably loved by everyone she meets and who never has a real obstacle to overcome in the entire novel. The second half of the novel follows Serena through a promotion she didn’t earn and a relationship based on dishonesty which culminates in a contrived plot twist that is supposed to make the reader suddenly empathize with her and realize that the whole time her arrogance is justified because she’s been right about everything. It was one of the most difficult books to force myself to finish since Les Meserable and didn’t have the epic story line or the moral outrage to hold the reader’s interest. Overall I found it to be shallow and condescending.

I did find one literary device to be interesting: When Serena is preparing to solicit a young writer to write for the government, she reads his short stories as part of her handling of an undercover agent. We are treated to a summary of his short stories, complete with italicized lines drawn from this supposedly inspired writer. I found the use of passages from the book to be a good way to draw me in and help me develop interest in the short stories which I felt were far more interesting than Sweet Tooth as a whole. I also found her analysis of her relationship with this author/secret government agent interesting when she compared herself to characters in stories he had written. She thinks things like “He did x like the character in his story” and uses the stories as a window into this young man as she develops a deeper love for him.

I compared it to another book I read some time ago called Shop Girl, written by Steve Martin. My first shock at that book was finding out that he is not only an accomplished actor, but a skilled writer and also talented banjo player. Neat guy. Anyway, the reason I compare the books is that they are both about young women in relationships with both older men and then younger men later on. They are both about a young woman’s formative years and they both are from her perspective, written by men. Where Sweet Tooth felt as though it was wishful thinking by an older man wishing he had the love of a young woman and pretending he understood them, Shop Girl felt more like it was written by a father, to other fathers, showing them that a young, independent woman can have relationships with whomever she chooses and, while they may not be perfect or seemly, they can be happy and good and a learning experience.

Shop girl opens in a quiet department store in the glove section with a young bored girl named Mirabelle leaning on the counter, watching people in cosmetics. It’s familiar, mundane, made special only by the presence of this girl and her few customers. Mirabelle and Serena share an aimlessness and interest in an older man followed by an interest in one of the same age.The older lovers, a professor in Serena’s case and a businessman in Mirabelle’s, are purported to be wise, they take care of the young women, genuinely love them, but don’t end the relationships well in either case. The young lovers, a musician for Mirabelle and a writer for Serena, are a bit daft, mildly charming, broke, and redeem themselves in the end. Both young women have some sort of learning experiences, but Serena seems to be simply proven right at every turn while Mirabelle actually does some character building and ends the novella a different person than she started as.

The more I write about it the more I feel that is my problem with Sweet Tooth: everyone is so damn right all the time. The older lover is right to end the relationship the way he did, even though it was emotionally destructive: it’s ok in the end. Serena was right to lie to her agent, even though it was really rough, int he end it was the right thing to do. Her jealous rival was right to drive wedges into her relationship because it all worked out in the end and we’re all right and smug as shit about it. It’s as if McEwan didn’t want to do any actual character development so he just introduced stock characters at the appropriate times. Shop girl is a tenth the length, has three main characters and half a dozen supporting roles, and tells a far fuller, more complex, touching, and real story than Sweet Tooth.