A Milestone Birthday…

We recently celebrated Barbara’s 80^th birthday (Sue’s Mum) with two events; a little party for the younger members of the family who were around; and a sit-down dinner for her children and their partners. She seemed to be happy to be in the middle of all this family hubbub. 

More of wot I have read…

A bit of a catch up on what I have been reading over the last few months.

The Long Cosmos by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

This is the final book in the Long Earth series and in it we find the combined inhabitants of Long Earth come to realise that there is a more advanced civilisation out in the Long Cosmos that has focused its attention on them. It aims to pull together several of the threads introduced in earlier books, giving more background to several storylines and offering up an interesting conclusion.

‘2070-71. Nearly six decades after Step Day and in the Long Earth the new Next post-human society continues to evolve.

Joshua Valiente, now in his late sixties, wants to make one last, solo journey into the High Meggers. Only it’s an adventure that turns into a disaster. Alone and facing death, his only hope lies with a group of trolls.

As Joshua confronts his mortality, the Long Earth receives a signal from the stars. A signal picked up by radio astronomers but also in more abstract ways, by the trolls and by the Great Traversers. Its impact will be felt by all who inhabit the Long Earths.

The message is simple but its implications are enormous: JOIN US.’

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

This is part of an ongoing series about humans and aliens and the possibilities around their interaction. It has a different view point being from a Chinese author and this along with the complexity of some of the ‘science’ being proposed, can make it a challenging read, however the characters and overarching story are compelling and thought provoking.

‘Imagine the universe as a forest, patrolled by numberless and nameless predators. In this forest, stealth is survival – any civilisation the reveals its location is prey.

Earth has. Now the predators are coming.

Crossing light years, they will reach Earth in four centuries’ time. But the sophons, their extra-dimensional agents and saboteurs, are already here. Only the individual human mind remains immune to their influence.

This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a last-ditch defence that grants four individuals almost absolute power to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from human and alien alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown.

Lou Ji, an ambitious Chinese astronomer, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he’s the one Wallfacer the aliens want dead.’

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Sue picked this book up for me when we visited Hemingway’s house in Key West. I found it a difficult read; partly I think for the ‘voice’ used to tell the reader when Spanish was being spoken; secondly, I think the slow pace of the book is a side effect of the period it was written in (we now prefer faster paced action stories in our rapid pace information age) - also I think I found the characters unsympathetic (our ideas of morality and what is acceptable also changed over time). I am not sure it stands the test of time as an enjoyable read, but has merit for the subject and for a glimpse into another time.

‘High in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a guerrilla band prepares to blow up a vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There, in the mountains, he finds the dangers and the intense comradeship of war. And there he discovers Maria, a young woman who has escaped from Franco’s rebels.’

The Whispering Swarm by Michael Moorcock

Well this was an odd book! I am not sure if I got the joke. Was this really an autobiographical story or some sort of vehicle to explain the author’s influences? I found it a little self-indulgent and I lacked empathy with the ‘mail character’. Being unfamiliar with his other works I do not know if it is a typical Moorcock book or not. I am not sure I am tempted to find out.

‘London is just recovering from the Blitz and years of austerity. For a young man named Michael Moorcock, the future is rife with possibilities. From his time as the youngest editor in Fleet Street to the first inklings of his future career as a writer, as he picks his way through the hidden backstreets and private worlds most Londoners don’t know about, he believes hi is safe.

Until he meets a strange Carmelite monk, goes through a locked gate, and discovers a different London hidden in plain sight. A city filled with fantastical people and unbelievable stories. A society full of dangers, magic and love. A place which calls to him with a whisper only he can hear!’

The New World by Chris Adrian & EliHorowitz

This was an interesting concept but it was too strung out and esoteric for a full novel and would have been better as a short story.

‘What does love feel like beyond death?

Jane’s husband Jim has just died – or not quite. For Jim, a mild-mannered chaplin at the hospital where Jane works as a surgeon, has left his body to Polaris, a shadowy cryonics organisation that promises to do away with mortality forever. Stranded in the realm of the Living, reeling from the loss of her husband, Jane sets out to confront Polaris and to discover just where, exactly, his body is now. Meanwhile, awake in a strange new world, an afterlife of sorts, his body gone but his consciousness intact, Jim learns that the cost of eternal life is higher than he could ever have imagined.’

Son of the Morning by Mark Alder

I enjoyed the idea of this a lot even if it is not overly original. The span of the story was rather grand but it was helped with interesting characters and finely crafted nods to historical references. I enjoyed this book very much.

‘Edward the Third stands in the burned ruin of a church. Another French raid on the south coast of England. The king is beset on all sides and terribly in debt. He needs a victory against the French to rescue his Kingship. But this is a war he cannot win.

By his divine right as king, Philip of Valois can summon seven angels to fight for him. A French army that marches beneath his banner never loses.

Edward should be able to call his own angles, but they have not spoken since his father was king. Is God truly on the side of the French?

But a banker makes Edward an offer. The help of a young boy. A Luciferist who carries one of the keys to Hell. For a price, Edward could open the gates to Hell and take an unholy war to France.’

  

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

This was a book that inspired my reading at an early age and revisiting it I think I noticed more of the cleverly crafted ideas than I would have as a boy. I would recommend this to any young person first starting to explore books, words, numbers and the often-absurd English language.

‘When Milo receives a mysterious and intriguing package through the post, all his previous feelings of boredom are banished. Having nothing better to do, he points his pedal car towards the strange land beyond the Tollbooth, and quicker than a flash he’s entered the Kingdom of Wisdom, where everything is unexpected.’

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

This was another book bought for me by Sue, and as a short story it is a much more accessible and enjoyable read than Fore Whom the Bell Tolls. I would recommend it for its excellent use of language to conjure up a scene and to evoke an emotional response.

‘Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway’s magnificent fable is the story of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. In a perfectly crafted story, which won for Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of a man’s challenge to the elements in which he lives’.

S.N.U.F.F. by Victor Pelevin

Perhaps a little too clever for itself. There are some interesting ideas and a very political message that the author is trying to get a cross, but it drags at times and feels quite self-indulgent at others.

‘Damilola Karpov is a pilot. Living in Byzantion, he makes his living as a drone pilot – capable of being a cameraman who records the events unfolding in Urkaine or, with weapons aboard his drone, of making a newsworthy event happen for his employers: CINEWS, INC.

His recordings are known as S.N.U.F.F.: Special Newsreel/Universal Feature Film – an esoteric sacrament in Movism, the post-antichristian religion of Byzantion and Urkaine.’

Lock In by John Scalzi

Another interesting idea though it feels a little forced and reads a bit like a screen play rather than a novel, but nevertheless it is a fun and entertaining read.

‘Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. Most of those afflicted experience nothing worse than a fever and headaches. A few suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in history. And 1 percent find themselves ‘locked in’ – fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus.

It may not seem like a lot. But in the US alone that’s 1.7 million people ‘locked in’… including the President’s wife and daughter.

Spurred on by grief and the sheer magnitude of the suffering. America undertakes a massive scientific initiative. Nothing can fully restore the locked in, but two new technologies emerge to help. One is a virtual-reality environment, ‘The Agora’, where the locked in can interact with other humans. The second is the discovery that a few rare individuals have minds that are receptive to being controlled by others, allowing the locked in to occasionally use their bodies as if they were their own.

This skill is quickly regulated, licensed, bonded, and controlled. Nothing can go wrong. Certainly, nobody would be tempted to misuse it, for murder, for political power, or worse.’

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

I enjoyed this story, though the setup is vague and contrived, the main story line is involving and engaging even if the conclusion is a trifle unsatisfying.

‘Brendan Doyle, a specialist in the work of the early-nineteenth-century poet William Ashbless, reluctantly accepts an invitation from a millionaire to act as a guide to time-travelling tourists. But, while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time. Caught up in the intrigues between rival bands of beggars, pursued by Egyptian sorcerers, befriended by Coleridge, Doyle somehow survives. And learns more about the mysterious Ashbless than he could ever have imagined possible.’