Book reviews

Book review: Ready Player One

Two of the last three novels I’ve read have been first-time efforts. The previous one I’d read was Brian Keene’s The Rising, which I found mediocre and fairly filled with first-time authorisms. Ready Player One has its share of flaws, too, but as a debut I felt it worked much better.

The main character of Wade/Parzival seemed a little too prone to silly actions and emotional speechifying. The most cringe-inducing moments in the book were usually when several characters engaged in dialogue. But as they are mostly teens or near-teens I found this forgivable, even realistic. Having been a teen once (that was enough for me) I can attest to the propensity for silly actions and saying Very Serious Things Stop Laughing At Me, so in RPO it works, for the most part.

The key concept of the OASIS was fleshed out just about right — the technical ins-and-outs of this proto-holodeck are presented with enough detail to make it seem plausible without descending into unnecessary Star Trek-level technobabble.

This is very much a niche book. While a movie version would be more accessible, simply due to the visual experience, the novel’s constant and key references to all things 1980s (or thereabouts) makes the story best-suited for those who grew up in that era. Being a massive nerd is probably essential, too. Since I qualify in both regards I enjoyed the nostalgia trip, even as I stopped to wonder if the occasional detail was right or not.

The ending is a bit pat and as others have said, Wade has a whole lot of coincidental knowledge that turns out to be precisely what he needs. The ability to memorize countless movies, books and games is a stretch, too — you pretty much have to handwave it or the whole story collapses on itself.

The character of Art3mis didn’t quite click for me. Her actions felt more like they were in service to the plot than organic or natural.

Still, there’s no denying the spectacle, the villains are suitably over-the-top and it’s a fast-paced, effortless read. If you’re at all nerdy and know your 80s references, you’ll probably have a good time with Ready Player One.

Book review: Majestic

Since it was just recently reprinted ans I missed it back in the day, I read Majestic, Whitley Strieber’s ‘true fiction’ account of the Roswell Incident. It’s partially epistolary in nature, as some chapters are told directly from the memoirs of the (fictitious) character of Will Stone, an ex-CIA officer who was deeply involved in the Roswell crash recovery and subsequent cover-up and who ultimately confesses the secrets of what happened to a reporter for The Bethesda Express (in 1989, the year the novel was originally published). The remaining chapters are told from the first person perspective of the reporter as he recounts the stories he is told and the material he uncovers in his research.

The story starts out fairly grounded (ho ho) but as it moves beyond the initial discovery of the crashed disk it gets progressively weirder, with Strieber projecting the behaviors of the ‘visitors’ from his book Communion onto the aliens. Said visitors go on to seriously screw around with the minds and bodies of several people, some of them actual historical figures. The government stuff is handled believably, with everyone up to the president appropriately freaked by the potential an alien invasion could have — and the orders to both shoot first and cover up the whole thing not only works perfectly for conspiracy theorists, it’s plausible as something the government would probably do in such a situation.

My biggest disappointment with the story is probably in regards to the details of what is found. There are several scenes with scientists and military men gathered to discuss findings and propose strategies but the emphasis is clearly on the military side of things, leaving a lot of potentially interesting bits on the alien technology only hinted at.

Still, this is a short and breezy read. For those looking for a (fictional) take on Roswell, it may be worth checking out. Just be prepared for more emphasis on trippy happenings and less on government shenanigans as you get further in

Book review: My Work Is Not Yet Done

Thomas Ligotti’s My Work Is Not Yet Done is a book that was recommended by several readers on Quarter to Three and I’m always willing to try a new author, so I gave it a go recently. The experience was a bit confusing, not because of Ligotti’s prose, but rather the borked formatting of the Kobo ebook version I was reading, which presented incorrect jumps to the wrong chapter or section. Fortunately the table of contents worked properly and I was able to complete the book without going totally mad.

The heart of the book is a short novel in which the protagonist faces off against seven other ‘swine’ in an office where he correctly figures himself the lowest of the low. He ultimately plots revenge against his co-workers via copious amounts of gunfire but when he suddenly finds himself with supernatural powers he plots out more (extremely) grisly and imaginative ends to the people who demean and mock him. The story is told in the first person and the time spent in Frank Dominio’s mind is at turns fascinating and amusing but ultimately without reward. None of the primary characters in the story are remotely likable.

Ligotti does a good job keeping a consistent and clear tone with the narrative. You may not like Dominio but you will understand him and the frustrations he feels, even as you remain unconvinced that he is not just, as he fears he will be remembered, a kook. More broadly, My Work Is Not Yet Done serves as a philosophical statement on the corporate realm, its inhabitants constantly referred to as swine, its goals and purpose consistently derided. The frank exchanges between the characters in their numerous meetings are simultaneously amusing and depressing.

I enjoyed the craft of the story more than the actual story itself. I’ve not read Ligotti before and have heard this collection may not be fully representative of his work. He is a fine writer but My Work Is Not Yet Done is unrelentingly bleak. The sarcastic, droll observations of Dominio lighten the tone but only slightly. Still, I can’t deny Ligotti’s imagination and skill, so I may seek out some of his other work.

Just not right away.

Book review: Dark Delicacies III: Haunted

Despite the subtitle, Dark Delicacies III: Haunted is not really a collection of ghost stories, though many play on the theme of ghosts or some kind of haunting.

Perhaps its most bizarre inclusion is a foreward by Steven Weber. Yes, the guy from Wings.

As is often the case with collections there are a few standouts, some clunkers and a lot of perfectly serviceable reads to be found. Most of the stories are quite short at ten pages or thereabouts so even the bad ones won’t linger. As befits a horror collection a few stories are built on gross-outs and some fairly graphic sex. Be warned, ye of delicate sensibilities!

My favorites include Richard Matheson’s cheeky “How to Edit”, which has a kind of companion piece in the ultimately nonsensical “Tyler’s Third Act”, both stories dealing with self-mutilation. The latter falls apart at the end (no pun intended), while Matheson’s wraps up appropriately. David Morrell’s “The Architecture of Snow” rounds out the book (save for a very brief poem by Clive Barker) and is a wonderfully meditative piece. “Man with the Canvas Bag” by Gary Braunbeck is weirdly wonderful while Chuck Palahinuk’s “Fetch” is just plain weird, kind of what you would expect if Jack Handey wrote a horror story. Funny, though.

“Food of the Gods” left me cold and not just because it’s one of several stories in the collection to use the ‘haha, even though the story is written in first person the narrator is DEAD, fooled you!” shtick. “The Slow Haunting”, though well-written, is flattened by a twist ending that isn’t earned.

Overall, though, any fan of horror should find enough here to warrant a look. I give Dark Delicacies III: Haunted 3.5 out of 5 severed heads.

Book review: Cosm

Cosm is a 1998 SF novel by Gregory Benford. I’ve read and enjoyed several other of his novels, including Great Sky River and Timescape. The concept of Cosm intrigued me but when I first picked it up years ago I only got about ten pages in before abandoning it because it’s one of those books that doesn’t jump right into the main plot right away. In fact, the beginning is rather boring.

This year I picked it up again and finished it and I’m left with a feeling of indifference. Cosm is not a bad book but it is perhaps a badly told story. The premise is neat — an accident with a super-collider leads to the creation of a small sphere, the titular cosm. The cosm provides a literal window to a miniature universe growing at an exponentially accelerated rate within it.

The protagonist of the story is a stubborn, abrasive black physicist with an inept social life named Alica Butterworth. After the accident, she claims ownership of the cosm and returns with it to the University of California Irvine where she teaches and researches. The novel follows both the politics surrounding ownership and treatment of the cosm as well as her research into it. The problem is that most of the story focuses on the politics, with rival universities, the government, religious groups and others weighing in on the matter, while the actual study of the phenomenon is handled in a bland, perfunctory manner, as if it’s just another research project to write papers on.

Cosm ends up as more a look into the battles professors face at educational institutions and less a look at a potentially world-changing experiment. As such, it proves to be a disappointment. It does pull off the neat trick of ending with both a bang and a whimper, though. Benford completists may want to check it out but there are better SF novels out there.