Arts & Letters

What is good?

Arts & Letters, Culture, Science Fiction / /

Ian Sales thinks he knows:

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told “good is subjective” or “best is subjective”. Every time I hear it, it makes me howl with rage. Because it is wrong.

If there is no such thing as good – because if it’s entirely subjective and personal, then it’s completely useless as a descriptive term – then how do editors choose which books to publish, how do judges choose which books to give prizes to, how do academics chose which books to study? And why don’t they all choose completely different books?

The irony here is that I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told that “good is objective”. And yet, no one seems to be able to define what constitutes good. Even Ian, despite his adamant stance, describes what is good in entirely subjective terms.

It is not an exact science, and it is subject to changes in taste and/or re-evaluation in light of changes in attitudes and sensibilities. But there are certain key indicators in fiction which can be used to determine the quality of that piece of fiction.

Having established that there are key indicators that can be used to determine quality, Sales proceeds to list… approximately none of them. Instead, he talks about “taste” and “changes in attitudes and sensibilities” (both of which are highly subjective). If it’s not an “exact science”, how is it objective? Isn’t this an implicit admission that subjectivity plays a role? He does mention some criteria for bad writing though:

Perhaps it’s easier to describe what is bad – if good is subjective, then by definition bad must be too. Except, strangely, everyone seems to agree that the following do indeed indicate that a piece of fiction is bad: cardboard cutout characters, idiot plotting, clumsy prose, tin-earred dialogue, lack of rigour, graceless info-dumping, unoriginality, bad research…

The problem with this is that most of his indicators are subjective. Some of them could contain a nugget of objectivity, notably the “bad research” piece, but others are wholly subjective. What exactly constitutes “tin-eared dialogue”? One person’s cardboard cutout character is another person’s fully realized and empathetic soul.

Perhaps it’s my engineering background taking over, but I have a pretty high standard for objectivity. There are many objective measures of a book, but most of those aren’t very useful in determining the book’s quality. For instance, I can count the number of letters or words in the book. I can track the usage of punctuation or contractions. Those numbers really won’t tell me much, though. I can look at word distribution and vocabulary, but then, there are a lot of classics that don’t use flowery language. Simplicity sometimes trumps complexity. I can evaluate the grammar using the standards of our language, but by those measures, James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon would probably be labeled “bad” writers. For that matter, so would Ian, who’s recent novella Adrift on the Sea of Rains eschews the basic grammatical convention of using quotations for dialogue. But they’re not bad writers, in large part because they stray from the standards. Context is important. So that’s not really that useful either.

The point of objectivity is to remove personal biases and feelings from the equation. If you can objectively measure a book, then I should be able to do the same – and our results should be identical. If we count the words in a book, we will get the same answer (assuming we count correctly). Similarly, if we’re able to objectively measure a book’s quality, you and I should come to the same conclusion. Now, Ian Sales has read more books than me. The guy’s a writer, and he knows his craft well, so perhaps the two of us won’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. But even getting two equivalently experienced people to agree on everything is a fool’s errand. Critical reading is important. Not everyone that subverts grammatical conventions is doing so well or for good reason. Sometimes simplicity can be elegant, sometimes it feels clumsy. Works of art need to be put into the cultural and historical context, and thus a work should stand up to some sort of critical examination. But critical is not equivalent to objective.

Now, Ian does have an interesting point here. If what’s “good” is subjective, then how is that a valuable statement?

If good is subjective, then awards are completely pointless. And studying literature, well, that’s a complete waste of time too. After all, how can you be an expert in a topic in which one individual’s value judgment is worth exactly the same another person’s? There’d be no such thing as an expert. All books would have exactly the same artistic value.

Carried to its logical extreme, the notion that what’s “good” is wholly subjective does complicate matters. I don’t think I’d go quite as far as Ian did in the above referenced paragraph, but maybe he’s on to something.

So far, I have mentioned a bunch of questions that Ian asked, which I will now try to give an answer to:

  • How do editors choose which books to publish? This is a pretty simple one, though I don’t think that Ian will like the answer: editors choose to publish the books that they think will sell the most. To be sure, editors will also take a chance on something that could bomb… why is that? Because I think even Ian would concede that most readers are not even attempting to be objective in their purchasing habits. They buy what feel like reading. The neat thing about this one is that there actually is an objective measurement involved: sales. Now, are sales an indication of quality? Not really. But neither are most objective measurements of a book. The neat thing about sales, though, is that it’s an objective measurement of the subjective tastes of a given market. There are distorting factors, to be sure (advertising, the size and composition of the market, etc…), but if you want objectivity, sales can boil the subjective response to a book down to a single number. And if an editor is bad at picking good sellers, they won’t be an editor for much longer…
  • How do judges choose which books to give prizes to? My guess is that it’s their subjective taste. In most cases, there isn’t a single judge handing out the award, though, so we’ve got another case of an objective measurement of a group of people’s subjective assessments. In the case of, say, the Hugo Awards, there are thousands of judges, all voting independently. There’s a lot of room for fudging there. There’s no guarantee that every voter read every book before casting their ballot (all you need to do to vote is to pay to be a member of the current year’s Worldcon), but since there are usually around 1000 voters, the assumption is that inexperience or malice among voters is smeared into a small distortion. Other awards are chosen by small juries, one example being the Pulitzer Prize. I don’t really know the inner workings of these, and I assume each award is different. I’ve definitely heard of small juries getting together and having a grand debate amongst themselves as to who the winner should be. The assumption with juried prizes is that the members of the jury are “experts”. So if I were to be on the jury for a Science Fiction award, I should probably have extensive knowledge of Science Fiction literature (and probably general literature as well). More on this in a bit. Ultimately, an award is meant to do the same thing as revenue or sales – provide an objective assessment of the subjective opinions of a group of people.
  • How do academics chose which books to study? And why don’t they all choose completely different books? I won’t pretend to have any insight into what drives academia, but from what I’ve seen, the objective qualities they value in books seem to vary wildly. I assume we’re talking about fiction here, as non-fiction probably has more objective measures than fiction.
  • How can you be an expert in a topic in which one individual’s value judgment is worth exactly the same another person’s? I get what he’s going for with this question, but there’s a pretty simple answer here. An expert in a topic will have more experience and knowledge on that topic than a non-expert. Sales has read more books than me, both within and outside of SF, and he’s a writer himself. I would think of him as more of an expert than me. I’m just some guy on the internet. Unfortunately, one’s expertise is probably also subjective. For instance, you can measure how many books someone’s read, but comprehension and contextualization might be a little more difficult to figure out. That being said, individual experts are rarely given a lot of power, and I imagine they would suffer setbacks if they’re consistently “wrong” about things. At their most important, they’ll be a reviewer for a large newspaper or perhaps a jury member. In both cases, their opinions are smeared across a bunch of other people’s thoughts.

The common thread between all of these things is that there’s a combination of objective and subjective measurements. At some point in his post, Sales sez that objective measurement of what is good is “why some books are still in print two hundred years after they were first published.” That’s something I think we’d all like to believe, but I don’t know how true that is… I wonder what books from today will still be in print in 200 years (given the nature of current technology, that might get tricky, but let’s say I wonder what books will be relevant and influential in 200 years)? There’s a school of thought that thinks it will be the high literary stuff discussed by academics. Another school of thought thinks it will be best-selling populist stuff like Stephen King. I don’t think it’s that easy to figure out. There’s an element of luck or serendipity (whatever you want to call it) that I think plays into this, and that I think we’re unlikely to predict. Why? Because it’s ultimately a subjective enterprise.

We can devise whatever measurements we want, we can come up with statistical sampling models that will take into account sales and votes and prizes and awards and academic praise and journal mentions, whatever. I actually find those to be interesting and fun exercises, but they’re just that. They ultimately aren’t that important to history. I’d bet that the things from our era that are commonly referenced 200 years from now would seem horribly idiosyncratic and disjointed to us…

Sales concludes with this:

If you want to describe a book in entirely subjective terms, then tell people how much you enjoyed it, how much you liked it. That’s your own personal reaction to it. It appealed to you, it entertained you. That’s the book directly affecting you. Another person may or may not react the same way, the book might or might not do the same to them.

Because that’s subjective, that is.

He’s not wrong about that. Enjoyment is subjective. But if we divorce the concept of “good” from the concept of “enjoyment”, what are we left with? It’s certainly a useful distinction to make at times. There are many things I “like” that I don’t think are particularly “good” on any technical level. I’m not saying that a book has to be “enjoyable” to be “good”, but I don’t think they’re entirely independent either. There are many ways to measure a book. For the most part, in my opinion, the objective ones aren’t very useful or predictive by themselves. You could have an amazingly well written book (from a prose standpoint) put into service of a poorly plotted story, and then what? On the other hand, complete subjectivity isn’t exactly useful either. You fall into the trap that Ian lays out: if everything is entirely subjective, then there is no value in any of it. That’s why we have all these elaborate systems though. We have markets that lead to sales numbers, we have awards (with large or small juries, working together or sometimes independently), we have academics, we have critics, we have blogs, we have reviews, we have friends whose opinions we trust, we have a lot of things we can consider.

In chaos theory, even simple, orderly systems display chaotic elements. Similarly, even the most chaotic natural systems have some sort of order to them. This is, of course, a drastic simplification. One could argue that the universe is headed towards a state of absolute entropy; the heat death of the universe. Regardless of the merits of this metaphor, I feel like the push and pull of objectivity is similar. Objective assessments of novels that are useful will contain some element of subjectivity. Similarly, most subjective assessments will take into account objective measurements. In the end, we do our best with what we’ve got. That’s my opinion, anyway.

Clang

Neal Stephenson, Video Games / /

So this is old and indeed, the Kickstarter for Clang has already ended (funding successful!), but there’s some interesting stuff going on here beyond the typical Kickstarter stories. This was a campaign to raise money for an accurate sword fighting video game, one that would rely on motion controls. This seems soooo 5 years ago at this point, but on the other hand, if someone actually made this game 5 years ago, motion controls might not be the joke they are right now. That’s interesting, right? Alright, fine, you caught me. My interest in this originates more from Neal Stephenson’s involvement than anything else. Here, check out this funny, detailed pitch:

There’s actually a bunch of other interesting videos explaining some of the detailed thought behind why they want to make this game. I particularly enjoyed the one talking about how comprehensive our selection of guns are in games and how people argue over the minutia of gun combat, but sword based games have a depressing lack of options.

It might seem odd that a science fiction novelist is making a video game based on swordplay, but then again, this is a guy who wrote a book about a sword-wielding pizza delivery ninja. It also seems to be an outgrowth from one of his other interesting projects: a collaborative, interactive publishing system optimized for digital devices. I still haven’t gotten around to reading The Mongoliad, but it’s making its way up the queue.

Anyways, there’s been some interesting interviews about the project and he even did a Q&A on Reddit recently which was pretty fun. It’s all well and good, but I’m glad his involvement in this stuff seems to be winding down. I’m sure I’ll keep tabs on Clang and the Mongoliad, but in the end, I’m really a fan of Stephenson’s writing, so I’m looking forward to a new book… at some point.

Fahrenheit 451

6 Comments / Science Fiction / /

I recently finished Ray Bradbury’s short novel Fahrenheit 451. The title refers to the temperature at which paper ignites, and it tells the story of Guy Montag, a fireman in a world where books and reading are illegal. Ironically, in this book, firemen don’t fight fires, they start them. Whenever a stash of books is found, the firemen are called in to burn them. In one memorable and vivid incident, a woman refuses to leave when the firemen show up, preferring to burn with her books. This seems to represent a crisis point for Montag, the point at which he begins to wonder why books must be burned.

There’s nothing particularly special about the characters or the plotting of the story, but Bradbury’s ideas and style seem to carry the book. Bradbury’s delirious prose evokes a lot of emotion and imagery. There’s the aforementioned woman burning with her books, but also the sensory overload of the “parlors” (basically a room rigged up with multiple televisions), the snake-like stomach pump, the mechanical hound, and the fire itself, burning through everything. It’s not an easy read, perhaps even overly poetic, but in this case it works. The novel is short enough and the ideas behind it are crazy enough that Bradbury’s style fits.

It’s a dystopia, and like a lot of such stories, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Again, Bradbury’s stylistic flourishes are what make it work here. There’s a lot of talk about how the book is critical of state-sponsored censorship, and I suppose there’s an element of that, but where Bradbury differs from his contemporaries is where the censorship began: as a populist movement. As Montag’s (surprisingly well-read) boss Beatty explains:

There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time…

It’s an intriguing notion. Mass media and conformity extrapolated out to its logical extreme. The dystopia aspect is unrealistic, and yet, the steps it would take to get there are things we see all the time. For a later edition of the book, Bradbury wrote a Coda where he expanded upon some of these ideas:

About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed my experiment in space mythology, The Martian Chronicles.

But, she added, wouldn’t it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women’s characters and roles?

A few years before that I got a certain amount of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining that the blacks in the book were Uncle Toms and why didn’t I “do them over”?

Along about then came a note from a Southern white suggesting that I was prejudiced in favor of the blacks and the entire story should be dropped.

…

The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from the book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever.

It’s a weird blend that Bradbury conjures with this novel. It’s the tyranny of the minority versus the tyranny of the majority, only they’re somehow set together into a negative feedback loop until you end up with a book-burning society. Some see the book as a condemnation of communism; railing against conformity in favor of individuality. And that’s certainly there, but what Bradbury wrote also condemns democracy and technology as a conduit towards conformity. I don’t think he’s entirely correct about it. 60 years later, we struggle with different problems… but that sorta misses the point.

Like Orwell’s 1984, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a document of its era. I don’t find it a realistic portrayal of the world, but that doesn’t mean that Bradbury failed. Indeed, it means he succeeded. His tale portrays the nightmares of 1953, a time when radio and television and movies must have had the book on the run. Despite the frequent lament that people today don’t read enough, I think we’ve avoided Bradbury’s nightmare, and instead live with our own, perhaps stranger, problems.

55 Reading Questions

Arts & Letters, Science Fiction / /

As memes go, this one is self-explanatory, but I read a lot so it’s fun too:

1) Favourite childhood book?

I suppose this depends on where you draw the line of childhood, but the book that comes to mind is Dean Koontz’s Lightning. It’s the book that I credit with getting me to read for pleasure. I was 13 at the time, and reading was generally something I was forced to do for school, not something I did for fun. But my brother gave me this book once when I was bored and I couldn’t put it down. I’d never had an experience like that before, and from that point on, I read as much as I could. If teen years don’t count as childhood, another thing that came to mind is Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books, but it’s been a solid 20-25 years since I’ve even seen those things, and I remember very little about them except a character named Taran and the black riders that seem so similar to the Nazgul from LotR…

2) What are you reading right now?

I just finished Fahrenheit 451, part of an effort to familiarize myself with Bradbury’s work (this originated back during the NPR SF/F list days when I acknowledged my shame of not having read any Bradbury – it’s just a not-so-happy coincidence that I read this book in the wake of Bradbury’s passing). I just started reading a collection of short stories by Sharma Shields called Favorite Monster, which, despite having only read a few of the stories, might be the weirdest thing I’ve read all year.

3) What books do you have on request at the library?

Sadly, I haven’t been to the library in many years. I’m not even sure where the closest library is…

4) Bad book habit?

I’m not really sure I have any, save perhaps not reading enough…

5) What do you currently have checked out at the library?

Again, no library usage here.

6) Do you have an e-reader?

Yes, a Kindle Touch that I’ve used more than expected. In fact, Fahrenheit 451 was the first paper book I’ve read in several months… Though it was sorta appropriate given the subject matter, it was really just because the physical book was cheaper than the Kindle version (I get that instituting ebooks at a big publishing house is non-trivial, but stuff like this is so non-intuitive and frustrating).

7) Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?

For the most part, I’m reading one book at a time. I primarily read fiction, but will often have a non-fiction book started as well, and will switch back and forth as my mood dictates or given certain situations (this might be too much information, but I almost always have a book in the bathroom, often a book about homebrewing or beer). In general, though, I will get into one of the two books and burn through to the end.

8) Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?

I started this blog about 12 years ago at this point, and my reading habits have changed several times in that interval. I will say that I do tend to blog more about what I read these days, that being a good way of arranging my interests in parallel.

9) Least favourite book you read this year (so far)?

A two-way tie between Foreigner, by C. J. Cherryh (my thoughts) and Fool Moon, by Jim Butcher. In both cases, I will probably revisit other works by the author, but I don’t have anything planned in the short term…

10) Favourite book you’ve read this year?

Another two-way tie (but the books are deeply intertwined and part of the same series) between Memory and A Civil Campaign, both by Lois McMaster Bujold. Check out my thoughts on both, along with some other books in the series.

11) How often do you read out of your comfort zone?

Occasionally. A lot of non-fiction is generally outside my comfort zone, and I’ve been vying away from my normal comfort zone more this year than last year…

12) What is your reading comfort zone?

Science fiction and pop-science non-fiction. Maybe horror and fantasy would also fit, though I don’t read a lot of either…

13) Can you read on the bus?

I’m sure I can, but buses around here are generally to be avoided.

14) Favourite place to read?

If it’s nice outside, I like to sit on my deck and read, but the grand majority of my reading is done in my living room, on my couch.

15) What is your policy on book lending?

I’m generally pretty open to lending, though it doesn’t seem to come up much.

16) Do you ever dog-ear books?

I’m sure this is blasphemy to some folks, but yes, I’m a compulsive dog-earer, especially for non-fiction. However, I’m finding that one of the big advantages of an ereader is the ability to easily highlight passages (and even save some notes about why I’m highlighting the passage).

17) Do you ever write in the margins of your books?

Very rarely did I do this with physical books, though perhaps I did for a few things in college, but I do so more often now that I read ebooks.

18) Not even with text books?

I don’t have much occasion to read text books these days, but like I said, when I was in college, I probably did a little of this (but not a ton).

19) What is your favourite language to read in?

English is pretty much the only language I can read. Unless someone is writing novels in javascript now… I feel like an unworthy nerd. I can’t even read stuff in Klingon or Dothraki!

20) What makes you love a book?

Interesting ideas, engaging characters, and good storytelling.

21) What will inspire you to recommend a book?

I find recommendations difficult. I rarely give unqualified recommendations, but if I really love a book, I will recommend it. If someone’s asking for recommendations, I do my best to tailor my recommendations to their needs and desires, rather than just what I like…

22) Favourite genre?

Science fiction.

23) Genre you rarely read (but wish you did)?

I wish I had a better handle on crime novels. I love crime movies, but have rarely read crime books. It’s something I want to become better acquainted with. I’m reasonably familiar with horror literature, but I have not read much in the past few years, nor have I gone as deep as I have with something like SF.

24) Favourite biography?

I don’t read many, but Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War was fantastic and would probably be my favorite.

25) Have you ever read a self-help book?

I can’t say as though I have, unless you count stuff like Homebrewing books or pop-science books.

26) Favourite cookbook?

I have a couple cookbooks, but they’re fairly unremarkable, to the point where naming them my favorite seems like a waste. If homebrewing counts, then How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time by John J. Palmer is a great introductory text.

27) Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?

Not sure if I really get inspired as this question intends, but pop-science non-fiction always seems to get me fired up. So far this year, I’d say that Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson was probably the one that hit me the best…

28) Favorite reading snack?

Pretzels, but for the most part I’m not eating whist reading. I usually drink tea or water whilst reading though. On rare occasions, I’ll crack a sipping beer, like a barleywine or a bourbon-barrel aged stout or something (a good pairing in winter).

29) Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.

I don’t really see much in the way of hype when it comes to books. Perhaps there are some classics that don’t quite live up to their reputation though. A lot of golden-age SF is written in a bit of a flat style, but often the ideas are still well represented, so I’m having trouble thinking of specific examples…

30) How often do you agree with critics about a book?

I can’t say as though I read a lot of critics, at least not in the way that I read a lot of film criticism. I suppose I tend to agree with most of what I read, or I can at least understand where someone’s coming from when their opinions don’t match mine.

31) How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?

I don’t relish giving bad/negative reviews in the way that some people in the internets do, but if I didn’t like a book, I’m going to say so.

32) If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?

An interesting question. The first thing that came to mind was Japanese, but I suppose Russian would be an interesting one too.

33) Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?

Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon.

34) Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?

An interesting question. There are perhaps a few, but the one that springs immediately to mind is James Joyce’s Ulysses.

35) Favourite poet?

Not much of a poetry guy, but who doesn’t like Robert Frost? Or heck, Shakespeare…

36) How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?

Again, no real library usage here.

37) How often have you returned books to the library unread?

Again, no real library usage here.

38) Favourite fictional character?

This was a tougher question than I thought, but the obvious answer for the past couple years is Miles Vorkosigan from Lois McMaster Bujold’s very long series of books mostly detailing his life and times. After thinking for a moment, I also thought of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe clans from Cryptonomicon, but that’s sorta cheating, as there are multiple characters and I love them all…

39) Favourite fictional villain?

And this is even harder than the last question. The first thing that came to mind was Sauron, but that’s a boring answer. Unfortunately, not that many other options are forthcoming. How about Grand Admiral Thrawn from Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars books? I suppose it’s a bit hokey to reference Star Wars books, but Thrawn was a genuinely well thought out villain and a worthy successor to Vader and the Emperor…

40) Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?

Something that is breezy and easy to read in busy places with lots of distractions like beaches or airports. I once tried to read Umberto Eco on a trip and it was… not quite as rewarding as it would have been if I read it at home in a more controlled environment. On the other hand, Bujold’s books were great companions last year, and I’m sure John Scalzi’s books would fit the bill as well…

41) The longest I’ve gone without reading.

I really don’t know how to measure this one. I presume we’re talking about books here and not newspapers, magazines, websites, etc… but even then, I’m not really sure how to go about quantifying this. There are certainly periods in my life where I didn’t read nearly as much as I do now, but I don’t really know the longest period of time I’ve gone between reading books. Let’s say a couple weeks?

42) Name a book that you could/would not finish.

It’s pretty rare that I don’t finish a book, but I never did finish David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. It’s something I may go back to, but I got pretty well fed up with the book while reading it. I got almost halfway through it though, which is actually a lot of time and effort to throw away, but I was getting annoyed by the lack of any real point to what I was reading. Oh sure, lots of themes and interesting stuff, but it felt like reading a SNL show filled with disconnected skits, and even when they connected, it wasn’t quite enough to make up for all the stuff about drugs and stuff that I didn’t particularly care about.

43) What distracts you easily when you’re reading?

I was going to say the internet, but really that’s my fault, so the real answer to this question is me. I let myself get distracted sometimes, but that’s usually indicative of the fact that I’m not enjoying what I’m reading.

44) Favourite film adaptation of a novel?

That’s a tough one, as there aren’t a lot of situations in which I’ve both read the novel and seen the movie. The Lord of the Rings movies are certainly a candidate, as they managed something I wasn’t sure was possible… Fight Club is a pretty great adaptation. I do love The Shining, despite the fact that it is so very different than the book. I think that’s what really makes it work though, as I will often get bored by the book or movie if I’ve already read/seen the other version of the story.

45) Most disappointing film adaptation?

Another difficult one as there are so many bad adaptations. How the Grinch Stole Christmas comes to mind. David Lunch’s Dune is more of an interesting failure than a disappointing one. I definitely want to call out Starship Troopers, as it’s one of the least faithful adaptations ever put to film. Regardless of what you may think of Heinlein’s right-wing novel (it’s not one of my favorites), the film completely changes the direction while keeping the basic structure in place. It’s a movie that has inexplicably enjoyed a sorta cult following since it bombed at the box office, and I will admit there is something compelling about the film, but in a bad way. Like watching a trainwreck.

46) The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?

I can’t say as though I’ve really kept track. I don’t tend to buy a lot of books at once though, so I’m guessing it’s pretty low. Then again, there’s definitely been a holiday season or two when I’ve bought a lot of books as presents, probably going as high as $100…

47) How often do you skim a book before reading it?

It’s pretty rare, though I do like to see how much reading is left before the end of the chapter/section I’m currently reading. This is one thing that does annoy about ereaders, as it’s very difficult to do that sort of thing.

48) What would cause you to stop reading a book halfway through?

So the inverse of what I love is a good place to start: Dumb ideas, bad characters that I can’t engage with, bad storytelling or plotting. As I mentioned before, it’s pretty rare that I stop reading a book though. I can only think of a couple books I’ve not finished in the past few years.

49) Do you like to keep your books organized?

I have a loose system, but nothing particularly special. I know there are lots of folks who obsess over their bookshelves, but it’s not something I’ve ever really worried about.

50) Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?

I generally keep books, but I wouldn’t have a problem parting with a lot of them. I’m a bit of a packrat though, so I tend to keep stuff.

51) Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter has been on my shelf for a while now. I’m sure it’s something I’d enjoy, but it’s a really long book – 1000+ pages of very dense, complex prose – and I feel like it would kill the momentum I’ve built up this year in reading…

52) Name a book that made you angry.

I tend to avoid books I think will make me angry, but some non-fiction will make me angry, especially politics or detailing tragic situations in the real world, etc…

53) A book you didn’t expect to like but did?

Another tough question, as I don’t read a lot of books I don’t expect to like. I generally go into a book hoping to like it… That being said, I think I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness

54) A book that you expected to like but didn’t?

The aforementioned Foreigner, by C. J. Cherryh was the most recent and egregious example of this…

55) Favourite guilt-free, pleasure reading?

I can’t say as though I’ve ever really felt guilty of reading something, though perhaps my recent reading of a couple of Christopher Farnsworth’s trashy Vampire spy novels kinda fit.

Well, there you have it. It was a long one, but fun. Feel free to berate me for my answers in the comments and have a happy Independence Day!

Peak Performance

Arts & Letters, Best Entries, Culture, Science Fiction / /

A few years ago, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article called How David Beats Goliath, and the internets rose up in nerdy fury. Like a lot of Gladwell’s work, the article is filled with anecdotes (whatever you may think of Gladwell, he’s a master of anecdotes), most of which surround the notion of a full-court press in basketball. I should note at this point that I absolutely loath the sport of basketball, so I don’t really know enough about the mechanics of the game to comment on the merits of this strategy. That being said, the general complaint about the article is that Gladwell chose two examples that aren’t really representative of the full-court press. The primary example seems to be a 12 year old girls basketball team, coached by an immigrant unfamiliar with the game:

Ranadive was puzzled by the way Americans played basketball. He is from Mumbai. He grew up with cricket and soccer. He would never forget the first time he saw a basketball game. He thought it was mindless. Team A would score and then immediately retreat to its own end of the court. Team B would inbound the ball and dribble it into Team A’s end, where Team A was patiently waiting. Then the process would reverse itself. A basketball court was ninety-four feet long. But most of the time a team defended only about twenty-four feet of that, conceding the other seventy feet. Occasionally, teams would play a full-court press—that is, they would contest their opponent’s attempt to advance the ball up the court. But they would do it for only a few minutes at a time. It was as if there were a kind of conspiracy in the basketball world about the way the game ought to be played, and Ranadive thought that that conspiracy had the effect of widening the gap between good teams and weak teams. Good teams, after all, had players who were tall and could dribble and shoot well; they could crisply execute their carefully prepared plays in their opponent’s end. Why, then, did weak teams play in a way that made it easy for good teams to do the very things that made them so good?

The strategy apparently worked well, to the point where they made it to the national championship tournament:

The opposing coaches began to get angry. There was a sense that Redwood City wasn’t playing fair – that it wasn’t right to use the full-court press against twelve-year-old girls, who were just beginning to grasp the rudiments of the game. The point of basketball, the dissenting chorus said, was to learn basketball skills. Of course, you could as easily argue that in playing the press a twelve-year-old girl learned something much more valuable – that effort can trump ability and that conventions are made to be challenged.

Most of the criticism of this missed the forest for the trees. A lot of people nitpicked some specifics, or argued as if Gladwell was advocating for all teams playing a press (when he was really just illustrating a broader point that underdogs don’t always need to play by the stronger teams’ conventions). One of the most common complaints was that “the press isn’t always an advantage” which I’m sure is true, but again, it kinda misses the point that Gladwell was trying to make. Tellingly, most folks didn’t argue about Gladwell’s wargame anecdote, though you could probably make similar nitpicky arguments.

Anyway, the reason I’m bringing this up three years after the fact is not to completely validate Gladwell’s article or hate on his critics. As I’ve already mentioned, I don’t care a whit about basketball, but I do think Gladwell has a more general point that’s worth exploring. Oddly enough, after recently finishing the novel Redishirts, I got an itch to revisit some Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes and rediscovered one of my favorite episodes. Oh sure, it’s not one of the celebrated episodes that make top 10 lists or anything, but I like it nonetheless. It’s called Peak Performance, and it’s got quite a few parallels to Gladwell’s article.

The main plot of the episode has to do with a war simulation exercise in which the Enterprise engages in a mock battle with an inferior ship (with a skeleton crew lead by Commander Riker). There’s an obvious parallel here between the episode and Gladwell’s article (when asked how a hopelessly undermatched ship can compete with the Enterprise, Worf responds “Guile.”), but it’s the B plot of the episode that is even more relevant (the main plot goes in a bit of a different direction due to some meddling Ferengi).

The B plot concerns the military strategist named Kolrami. He’s acting as an observer of the exercise and he’s arrogant, smarmy, and condescending. He’s also a master at Strategema, one of Star Trek’s many fictional (and nonsensical) games. Riker challenges this guy to a match because he’s a glutton for punishment (this really is totally consistent with his character) – he just wants to say that he played the master, even if he lost… which, of course, he does. Later, Dr. Pulaski volunteers Data to play a game, with the thought being that the android would easily dispatch Kolrami, thus knocking him down a peg. But even Data loses.

Data is shaken by the loss. He even removes himself from duty. He expected to do better. According to the rules, he “made no mistakes”, and yet he still lost. After analyzing his failure and discussing the matter with the captain (who basically tells Data to shut up and get back to work), Data resumes his duty, eventually even challenging Kolrami to a rematch. But this time, Data alters his premise for playing the game. “Working under the assumption that Kolrami was attempting to win, it is reasonable to assume that expected me to play for the same goal.” But Data wasn’t playing to win. He was playing for a stalemate. Whenever opportunities for advancement appeared, Data held back, attempting to maintain a balance. He estimated that he should be able to keep the game going indefinitely. Frustrated by Data’s stalling, Kolrami forfeits in a huff.

There’s an interesting parallel here. Many people took Gladwell’s article to mean that he thought the press was a strategy that should be employed by all teams, but that’s not really the point. The examples he gave were situations in which the press made sense. Similarly, Data’s strategy of playing for stalemate was uniquely suited to him. The reason he managed to win was that he is an android without any feelings. He doesn’t get frustrated or bored, and his patience is infinite. So while Kolrami may have technically been a better player, he was no match for Data once Data played to his own strengths.

Obviously, quoting fiction does nothing to bolster Gladwell’s argument, but I was struck by the parallels. One of the complaints to Gladwell’s article that rang at least a little true was that the article’s overarching point was “so broad and obvious as to be not worth writing about at all.” I don’t know that I fully buy that, as a lot of great writing can ultimately be boiled down to something “broad and obvious”, but it’s a fair point. On the other hand, even if you think that, I do find that there’s value in highlighting examples of how it’s done, whether it’s a 12 year old girls basketball team, or a fictional android playing a nonsensical (but metaphorically apt) game on a TV show. It seems that human beings sometimes need to be reminded that thinking outside the box is an option.

Redshirts

2 Comments / Science Fiction / /

In geek parlance, “red shirt” is a reference to red-uniformed Star Trek officers who frequently die during episodes1. They basically represent the writer’s ploy to allow Kirk and McCoy to display grandstanding emotions (and Spock to show a lack thereof). I don’t know who coined the notion or where (or if the the show intentionally employed this strategy), but 5 minutes of comprehensive research on the internets reveals a 1985 Star Trek novel called Killing Time, in which a character opines “you don’t want to wear a red shirt on landing-party duty” (so sez Wikipedia2). That’s the earliest reference I could find, but I’m sure this is something that the show’s obsessive fanbase has been remarking on since the 1970s. It’s a meme that has been frequently referenced and parodied throughout the years. The most obvious is in the movie Galaxy Quest, where the character of Guy Fleegman, “Crewman Number Six”, fears for his life due to his character’s expendable nature (fortunately, this parody inverts the meme, allowing him to survive). There is even a grand tradition amongst some SF authors to “reward” fans of their work by naming a character after them, then killing them (for example: David Weber).

All of which is to say that the concept behind John Scalzi’s latest novel Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas isn’t exactly a new one. It is, perhaps, the most thorough deconstruction of the trope – most others are mere references, homages, or simple skits on the matter – but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. Fortunately, Scalzi is a talented author who knows how to turn the page. Indeed, I finished the book in a mere two sittings. Not quite a record, but close. And it’s a solid story, filled with typical Scalzian characters and their snappy dialogue, with a some clever ideas thrown in for good measure. It didn’t take me long to become attached to the characters, at which point my over-analysis of the title faded away and I devoured the rest of the book.

The general premise of the novel is that a bunch of characters on a Star-Trek-like ship recognize that people who get roped into away-missions with high profile members of the crew tend to end up dead. Essentially, the redshirts recognize their role in the show, and try to fight back. This stuff manifests itself in a number of ways. One of my favorites being “the box”, a magical device used whenever the characters run into an impossible problem. They simply feed the problem into the box, and then when it’s dramatically appropriate, it spits out an answer. It’s a pretty funny take on Star Trek writers’ tendency to tech the tech.

It’s a fun book, perhaps more comedy than SF, though fans of Star Trek will probably enjoy it. I’m not entirely sure how well executed some of the mechanics of this whole premise is… For instance, it’s not entirely clear when the characters are “on screen” as it were. One of our redshirts speculates that there’s a “narrative”, you see, and that if you can avoid the narrative, you can avoid an untimely death. There’s even a funny sequences meant to illustrate how ridiculous commercial breaks are, but again, the mechanics of this aren’t entirely clear. Of course, in an exercise that is so self-aware and meta, that’s sorta the point. The TV show these characters are stuck in is clearly pretty bad, so of course a lot of this stuff doesn’t make sense… and that’s part of the fun of it all… but you could also argue that it’s a bit of a cop out. Personally, I feel like such things are worthwhile if they’re done well, and for the most part, everything here works even if it doesn’t precisely fit.

The story proper is quite entertaining and fun, but it should be noted that it pretty much ends about 2/3 of the way through the novel. The remaining 100 pages or so consist of the sub-titular Three Codas. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this at first. It wasn’t really surprising to see the story end when it did, except insofar as I already knew there was still 100 pages or so left. Scalzi even manages to extend the self-referential meta elements beyond the simple redshirt notion, though it’s exactly what you’d think when you think about the premise. Anyway, the three short stories are all related to the main narrative, touching on side characters or concepts here and there. The first coda comes off as a little slight, but it ends up being pretty effective. The second coda is actually pretty meaningful and interesting, adding a depth and seriousness the rest of the novel was missing. The third coda builds on that heft while still managing to end on a clever but positive note. There’s something a little gimmicky about the codas – they’re written in first, second, and third person, for instance – and I can see how some folks wouldn’t appreciate them in general, but I thought they were well done and meaningful.

It’s strange. I find that the things I don’t like about this book, like the title and the structure, are superficial. These meta aspects (not to be confused with the meta nature of the story itself) trouble me more than the actual contents of the book. I don’t quite know what to make of this. The title “Redshirts” does perfectly encapsulate what you’re in for, but there’s something corny about using a decades-old meme as the title for your book3. Fortunately, the actual contents of the book don’t strike me that way, so I ultimately enjoyed the book heartily. I don’t know that I would entirely agree with Justin’s (very funny and entertaining in itself) review that this is “Spoof Trekkie Fiction: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There is” (an oblique reference to Scalzi’s recent controversial and ill-fitting metaphor for life as a video game), but there is a distinct Saturday Night Live skit feeling to the premise of the book. But it’s a really well done skit, if that’s the case, and I’m generally of the mind that such exercises can be fun if executed well, which this is. In the end, I really enjoyed the book, despite any reservations I may have about the title and structure, and would recommend it to just about anyone.

1 – This appears to impact mostly the original Star Trek series and it should be noted that plenty of blue or gold shirted crewmen die on the series as well. Star Trek: The Next Generation (and later shows) tried to invert the meme by placing its main characters mostly into red shirts themselves. Deaths seem less frequent as well, though there is still the occasional unfortunate mishap, and the poor character is sometimes wearing a red shirt. Star Trek is definitely a show in which The Main Characters Do Everything, so when you see some random dude on the away team, chances are that he’s in trouble.

2 – Scalzi actually makes a pretty funny, but obvious, dig at Wikipedia in the book. I don’t know why I needed to put this in a footnote, but I always find references to Wikipedia and the internet interesting in works of art.

3 – There appears to be a rash4 of this sort of title. Consider another example: Rule 34 by Charlie Stross (Rule 34 of the internet is: If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions. Its awesome, but kinda lame when you name your book after it).

4 – I have recently established that only two examples are needed in order to qualify as a “rash”. Which, since I’ve identified two different rashes in the past week, means that I’m experiencing a rash of rashes. Gross.

Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga

2 Comments / Science Fiction / /

So I’m finished. I love the series and highly recommend checking it out. The problem is that there’s a lot of churn in terms of how to read the series. It’s a long series consisting of 13 novels, 3 novellas, and 1 short story (plus a few other outliers), and there’s a lot of discussion on ye olde internets about the ideal order to read them. Like the recently discussed Star Wars, there are two obvious orders: internal chronology and in order of publication.

There are some complicating factors that can lead to different (or streamlined) sequences though. First, most of the books center around a character named Miles Vorkosigan, but the first two are told from the perspective of Miles’ mother, Cordelia Naismith. Second, the initial installments of the series were written and published out of chronological order, so there are plenty of folks out there who’ve read the series that way. Third, Borders of freakin’ Infinity (more on this below, but it’s a collection of novellas that can confuse the order). Fourth, most of the books have been collected together in omnibus editions, which complicates things a bit, but if you want to read the series chronologically, they’re actually pretty well organized. Fifth, and the reason I struggle with the whole reading order thing, is that the height of the series starts about 8 or 9 books in… This is not to say that those first 8 books aren’t good, just that the series got better than I ever expected around that time with an amazing four book run starting with Mirror Dance and concluding with A Civil Campaign.

Every book in the series tells a discrete story. There are no cliff-hangers, but there are a bunch of character-centric multi-book arcs. Interestingly, the series could be read almost as a series of pairs, and the omnibus editions are mostly built around that notion, with the novellas from Borders of Infinity thrown in for good measure. Aside from attempting to read the second of a pair first, I suspect you could try to get into the series almost anywhere along the way. Before I go further, it might be useful to list out the series, publication dates, and omnibus editions:

#vorkosigan {border-left: 2px solid #A8B3C2;}

#vorkosigan th {vertical-align: bottom; background-color: #A8B3C2; color: #EEEEEE; padding: 3px;}

#vorkosigan td {padding: 3px; color: #444; border-bottom: 2px solid #A8B3C2; border-right: 2px solid #A8B3C2;}

Story Published Omnibus Notes
Falling Free 1988 N/A Independent novel set 200 years before main series.
Shards of Honor 1986 Cordelia’s Honor Told from Cordelia’s perspective.
Kaedrin Reviews: Shards of Honor, Barrayar
Barrayar 1991
The Warrior’s Apprentice 1986 Young Miles Kaedrin Reviews: The Warrior’s Apprentice, Mountains of Morning, and The Vor Game
“Mountains of Morning” from Borders of Infinity 1989
The Vor Game 1990
Cetaganda 1995 Miles, Mystery & Mayhem Ethan of Athos is an independent story.
Kaedrin Reviews
Ethan of Athos 1986
“Labyrinth” from Borders of Infinity 1989
“Borders of Infinity” from Borders of Infinity 1989 Miles Errant Kaedrin Reviews: Borders of Infinity, Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance
Brothers in Arms 1989
Mirror Dance 1994
Memory 1996 N/A Kaedrin Review
Komarr 1998 Miles in Love Kaedrin Reviews
A Civil Campaign 1999
“Winterfair Gifts” 2004
Diplomatic Immunity 2002 N/A Kaedrin Review
Cryoburn 2010 N/A Kaedrin Review
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance 2012 N/A Told from Ivan’s perspective.
Kaedrin Review

So the first thing to note is that Falling Free, while technically part of the series, is an extreme prequel and doesn’t really involve any of the characters (it’s set 200 years before the rest of the series). As such, it’s almost completely independent of the rest of the series. I say “almost” because I’ve heard it would be good to catch up with this one before Diplomatic Immunity. Also, I neglected to mention a short story called “Dreamweaver’s Dilemma” which is apparently also an extreme prequel that’s not closely coupled with the rest of the series. Of course, I haven’t read either of these, so I can’t say for sure (Update: I’ve since read both, and they are indeed not closely coupled with the rest of the series, I would skip them and come back later). I do plan to catch up with them at some point, but the real meat of the Vorkosigan Saga starts with Shards of Honor.

Shards of Honor is where I started the series, though it appears that many people bypass Shards of Honor and Barrayar, and start directly with The Warrior’s Apprentice, which is when Miles first shows up (well, there is a short scene in Barrayar where you see him as a young child, but that’s from his mother’s perspective…) There are pros and cons to each approach. Starting with Shards of Honor and Barrayar gives you a lot of background on the universe and characters, while The Warrior’s Apprentice will get you into the series quicker. Personally, I opted to start with the Cordelia books. I’m something of a completist, but it worked really well for me. The other option is to read the books in order of publication, which will have you ping-ponging from Cordelia stories to Miles stories and back again a few times, as well as being all over the internal chronology… but I’m sure it would work too.

The most confusing thing I encountered in the series, though, is Borders of Infinity. This is a collection of three novellas (including one called “Borders of Infinity”, just for added confusion), which in a lot of other arenas, means that you can probably skip them… but I would strongly advise against that, actually. “Mountains of Mourning” is quite possibly the best story in the entire series. “Borders of Infinity” is a really clever prison story, and the events in that story – some of which rubbed me the wrong way at the time – pay off huge in Komarr (I have no idea if that was always Bujold’s intention, or if she just thought of it later, but it was a fantastic revelation in any case). “Labyrinth” is the most unusual of the bunch, but it also introduces one of my favorite side characters from the series, Taura. Now, these stories were originally published as part of one collection, but the three stories all take place at varying points of the chronology. The omnibus editions do an admirable job mixing the novellas into the series though, which lessens the confusion quite a bit. The only thing lost, then, is the narrative glue between the stories, but that’s only about 5 pages or so (even still, it takes place between Brothers in Arms and Mirror Dance, making it a difficult thing to fit in – you won’t really miss it). Anyways, there are a bunch of options for Borders of Infinity… it might even make an interesting introduction to the series, though it’s always hard for me to judge (I’d still recommend starting with Shards or Warrior’s).

Ethan of Athos is another book that is noteworthy for its independence from the rest of the series. Indeed, Miles is barely even mentioned, though one of the series’ recurring characters, Elli Quinn, plays a prominent role. It’s an interesting story, probably one of the least mainstream of the entire series, but it’s also very independent. There are some small references to it in later stories, but nothing big enough to say this needs to be read in order (though, completist as I am, I did). If you’re looking to get to the amazing four book run starting at Mirror Dance, you can probably skip this one.

So I think that covers all of the exceptions and divisive parts of the series. There are a lot of books that pair together well, and I think the omnibus editions do an excellent job latching them together. Incidentally, just because something isn’t part of an omnibus doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. I think my second favorite story in the series is Memory. Also, just because something is a novella or a short story doesn’t mean that it’s not worth reading. I’ve already mentioned that, but it bears repeating. Even “Winterfair Gifts” was a great story (which, I believe, is only really available as part of the omnibus).

This series has probably been my favorite recent discovery. It’s a tricky thing, and I think there’s an interesting discussion to be had about series like this. I have to wonder how good something like Memory or A Civil Campaign would appear to an outsider who didn’t have so much background on the characters or the universe. It certainly worked wonders for me, but it’s hard to express that because in order for anyone else to get that feeling, they have to read several books into the series to get there… Tricky. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Update: Added Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, some additional notes.

Weird Book of the Week

2 Comments / Arts & Letters, Weird Movie of the Week / /

After reading the following post, I’m expanding the Weird Movie of the Week franchise to apply to books:

In her book on writing, The Art of Fiction, Ayn Rand said no fiction writer should ever use real people or contemporary events. She said her original draft of The Fountainhead included Hitler, but she later cut him out because she wasn’t sure anyone would know who he was in 10 years. While she was obviously wrong, the principle stands, and today we’re seeing why.

… a book recently sent to BW for review called The President’s Vampire by Idaho author Christopher Farnsworth, opened with Bin Laden’s assassination—by a vampire who stuffed a grenade in his mouth and then threw him over a cliff so he exploded in midair. Also, Bin Laden was actually a giant lizard, genetically modified by a vast international conspiracy of reptilian humanoids.

I gotta say, that sort of grabs you right out of the gate.

But now … well, it just doesn’t seem as plausible.

Issues with plausibility aside, I think I’m going to read these books. This is exactly the sort of thing I’d take a chance on because of Kindle, though now that I look at it, the Kindle version is more expensive than the hardcover, which is absurd. Anywho, this series of novels is apparently based on a true story:

….he discovered an odd factoid in American history: a sailor who was convicted of killing and drinking the blood of his crewmates, then inexplicably pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. So Farnsworth provided a reason: The vampire sailor had taken an oath to serve the nation. The ideas for a series of novels were quick to follow.

“I just thought it would be really cool if Jack Bauer were like a vampire,” said Farnsworth.

Well, yeah. Of the Bin Laden incident described above, Farnsworth had this to say: “That was my Captain America punching Hitler in the mouth moment.” I rather think he one upped the stakes there, and that’s saying something.

Incidentally, this marks the second occasion I’ve linked to the freakin’ Boise Weekly, an Idaho “alternative newspaper”. I blame one of their staff writers, Josh Gross, who seems to have a knack for this stuff.

I’m still going to file this under Weird Movie of the Week, because really, this needs to be made into a movie.

Update: The audio version of the first book in the series is narrated by Bronson Pinchot. Bronson. Pinchot.

SF Book Review, Part 11: The Vorkosigan Saga Ends

Science Fiction / /

The last time I wrote about the Vorkosigan Saga books, a commenter noted that the best books were ahead of me, and indeed, I think they were. In fact, the run of books starting with Mirror Dance and concluding with A Civil Campaign is as good as any series I’ve ever read, and the series as a whole represents quite a feat. It is not so bogged down with continuity that you have to read all of them – most of the novels are complete stories in and of themselves. But on the other hand, when you read them in order (as I have done), a lot of value is added. This makes some of these later books in the series difficult to judge. Memory might be my favorite novel in the series, but is that because of what happens in the novel by itself, or is it reliant on previous installments for that heft? And is that a bad thing? Personally, I don’t think so… but it may make an interesting topic for another post.

Below are short reviews of the last five novels of the series (with a bonus short story thrown in for good measure). I’ve tried to avoid any real talk about the plots of each, but there might be some minor spoilers on a macro level. That being said, I knew a lot of this stuff was coming before I read it, and it did not diminish anything. Half the fun is Bujold’s style, which is not ornate or flowery, not showy, but perhaps deceptively effective and downright compelling. These are page turners, but ones of unusual sophistication. While I have finished the series, I don’t think this will be the last I blog of it. Indeed, I already have a few ideas for other posts, but they will have to wait for another day. In the meantime, here’s some mixed thoughts on the last five books of the series:

  • Memory – I think this may be my favorite novel of the series. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have nearly the same impact if you started here. This book is a culmination, a real turning point for both the character of Miles and the series as a whole. Up until now, Miles has led a dual life, and for the most part, he’s gotten away with it. But the chickens come home to roost in this novel, and Miles has to make some hard choices. Like all the best Vorkosigan novels, seemingly nothing goes right in the first portion of the story. I keep thinking to myself: This is wrong! Or No, you idiot! Fortunately, Bujold knows what she’s doing. Miles falters in the beginning, but starts to pick himself back up, and watching him grow, watching him finally accept and acknowledge his identity, his true identity, makes for a wonderful story (this is primarily why new readers might not wholly get it). Oh sure, there’s lots of intrigue and conspiracy and of course Miles is in the center of it all, but that’s the norm for him. What’s new is that he doesn’t retreat to his normal crutches (er, not after the beginning anyway), and instead forges a new path for himself.

    Also notable here is the setting of Barrayar, which becomes more complex and real to me every time I see it. Sometimes it seems like every science fiction planet has their own monoculture (or monoclimate), but Barrayar is fully realized, with distinct differences between rural and city areas, and multiple political factions, etc… It helps that the planet is populated with a veritable plethora of familiar and likeable side characters (another reason the book probably wouldn’t resonate with new readers). In particular, it’s fun to see a different side of Illyan, who up until now has been something of an inscrutable spymaster (though we do see him when he’s much younger too). There’s even a callback to my other favorite Vorkosigan story, The Mountains of Morning – Miles visits Silvy Vale again, to find that things have changed there, in no small part because of his previous efforts. It’s a turning point for Miles in this story, and thus a turning point for the whole series.

  • Komarr – In this book, Miles and one of the Emperor’s other Imperial Auditors visits one of the other two planets in the Barrayaran Imperium to investigate an engineering disaster. It looks pretty straightforward at first, but seeing as though Miles is involved, things get hairy pretty quickly. There are a few things that really set this book apart, and one is that half the book is written from Ekaterin Vorsoisson’s perspective. She’s the niece of Miles’ Imperial Auditor colleague, and she’s married to a minor Vor lord and administrator on the planet. This is a relatively new direction for the series, which has often relied on Miles as detective, but this time, it’s his official role. I won’t say much about the mystery in question, except that it’s pretty well plotted and interesting. The real strength of this book is Ekaterin, who’s in a pretty rough situation, and things get worse for her as time goes on. Miles and Ekaterin actually develop an interesting relationship here, and there’s a moment about halfway through the book where they have a minor adventure when shopping, and it forces Miles to have flashback to his Dendarii days – it’s actually a callback to one of the novellas from Borders of Infinity, and it totally explains something that I never quite got when I was reading that story. It’s one of those moments when all the pieces unexpectedly come together… for something you never even realized was an issue. It makes me wonder about the degree to which Bujold had planned out the series. In any case, this is an interesting book. I wouldn’t say that it’s better than Memory, but it’s solid in its own right, and it’s an interesting direction for the series. Miles is still growing into his new role, and finding that his Impsec habits die hard (and that’s a good thing, too, as his many varied experiences serve him well in his new job).
  • A Civil Campaign – You wouldn’t think a book whose centerpiece is a (disastrous) dinner party would have very high stakes, but, well, here we are. Oh, and the conclusion of the story hinges off of… a democratic vote. Yeah, from the outside, this doesn’t seem like much, especially in a series that has previously centered on military action and espionage, but it’s actually quite involving because it’s a big character piece. The points of view in this book expand from Miles and Ekaterin to also include Mark Vorkosigan, Kareen Koudelka, and even Ivan Vorpatril. Like Memory, we’re on Barrayar here, so there’s a huge cast of well established side characters making appearances, along with a bevy of new ones, including even some folk of the Vorrutyer clan who have been villains in previous books, but this time around, there are a couple that are, uh, maybe not good guys, but certainly better than the alternatives! It’s another change of pace for the series, and the Romantic angle which has been building since Memory seems to have picked up a lot of steam. The books starts a bit on the slow side, but once you get to that ill-fated dinner party, which is hysterically funny by the way, things pick up considerably, making this among my favorite of the books in the series. Actually, the grand majority of the book is funny, probably making this more of a comedy than previous books in the series. Where Memory was all about Miles, this book seems more about Ekaterin. Her character underwent a lot of changes in Komarr too, but she’s really the one that is driving everything this time around. This book really does a lot, but Bujold manages to juggle all the various storylines well, and make it all seem natural and balanced. Excellent book.
  • Winterfair Gifts – This is a short story that depicts Miles’ wedding on Barrayar. The Dendarii mercenaries (sans Elli Quinn, for obvious reasons) have arrived for the wedding, but Lady Ekaterin has mysteriously fallen ill… The story is told entirely from Armsman Roic’s POV, which is a neat touch. We’ve seen him a bit in the previous novel, but he really gets a chance to shine here. Indeed, there’s even something of a romantic subplot with him and Taura, the 8 foot tall, genetically modified Dendarii mercenary with fierce, catlike features. Roic, being a Barrayaran, has a prejudice against women soldiers and “mutants”, of which Taura certainly qualifies. But he quickly reverses position. It’s not really the focus of the story, and it was pretty clear that nothing much would come of this because of Taura’s unnaturally short lifespan, but it was a nice touch. The mystery the two of them solve is pretty neato too. All in all, it’s a really pleasant story, and it was really nice to get updates on the Dendarii folk, who had been pretty absent from the recent books. If you’re reading the series, don’t skip this one because it’s “just” a short story. It’s a lot of fun.
  • Diplomatic Immunity – As I tweeted when I was reading this, I tried really hard to resist the “urge to constantly scream the title like the South African guy from Lethal Weapon 2“. Of course, I failed miserably, and yes, I just kinda screamed it right now. Anywho, after the previous four books in the series, which were all superb, I think this one probably represents a bit of step backwards. Not bad at all, just not quite at the level of the previous few books. It does take a little while to get started, but once the nature of the conflict starts to become clear, it becomes incredibly tense and thrilling. Unfortunately, a fair amount of the conclusion happens “off screen” as it were, and we find out that Ekaterin saves the day in Miles’ stead (I’d like to have seem more from Ekaterin’s perspective in this one). On the other hand, we do get to hang out with Bel Thorne again, which is awesome, and Bujold’s writing is still wonderful and absurdly funny at times. I don’t want to talk much about the plot here, as it is interesting (you’ll probably have to have read Cetaganda before this one for the ending to really have a good impact) and despite not being my favorite Vorkosigan book, it’s still better than average SF mystery! It’s one of those weird things. Miles manages to foil a galaxy-wide conspiracy plot that could have potentially lead to war… yet it seems like there is less at stake here than in A Civil Campaign!
  • Cryoburn – Like Diplomatic Immunity, this one suffers a bit from reduced stakes. Bujold manages to work around this by adding the POV of Jin, an 11 year old kid at the heart of the conspiracy that Miles is uncovering. But the book takes place on Kibou-daini, a planet that we’ve never heard of before (most of the other planets in Bujold’s universe are mentioned and foreshadowed in other books before a story gets set there), and the only familiar face we run into is Armsman Roic (who is indeed awesome!) A few others show up later in the story, and we see some communiques from Ekaterin and Gregor and the like, and we hear a little about Miles’ kids, but for the most part, it’s all new characters. Fortunately, the new folks are pretty great in their own right, and the story here is also rather interesting, which I think elevates this above Diplomatic Immunity, even if it doesn’t quite reach the heights of some other installments. Ironically, despite being the latest novel published (and the latest in terms of the chronology), this might make a decent entry into the series, which is rather strange, and of course, everything you’d read after this would be prequel, so I wouldn’t recommend it, but I suspect that’s why this managed to garner a Hugo nomination… Anyway, I had a ton of fun with this, but there was something about it that felt strange. Not bad, but it’s like Miles has become so powerful in his old age. He’s done all the growth he’s needed to do. It’s like he’s maxed out his levels in an RPG and so most enemies don’t really represent a threat to him… so while I enjoyed the story, I never quite feared that he wouldn’t manage to pull it all off in style, which, of course, he does. There’s nothing really wrong with that, and again, I really had a lot of fun with the book, it’s just another that isn’t really top tier stuff (though Bujold’s writing is tight as ever). The very end of Cryoburn, after the story proper has been resolved, seems a bit rushed for what it represents. There’s a bit of a tragedy there, but not an unexpected one, and indeed, Bujold laid the hints on pretty thickly in the preceding chapters, though I didn’t quite recognize that for what it was. It makes for a fitting end to the series, though I’m sure there are plenty other stories that could be told as well (and indeed, Bujold has written a tale centering around Ivan that will be out later this year).

Whew. There are only two books in the series that remain for me, one that takes place a couple hundred years in the past and is mostly unrelated (Falling Free) and one that is forthcoming (Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, which can’t get here soon enough – I think withdrawal pains are starting to set in already).

Recent Podcastery

Arts & Letters, Culture, Link Dump / /

I like podcasts and listen to many different ones, but it seems that the ones that I actually look forward to are few and far between. Here are a few recent additions to the rotation:

  • Extra Hot Great – This has been my favorite recent discovery, and over the past couple months, I think I’ve burned my way through their entire archive (80 episodes, plus a crapton of “Mini” episodes). Great personalities and commentary, a solid format with some inventive segments, and plenty of fun. A typical episode starts with a quick discussion of a recent TV series or movie (incidentally, tons of spoilers, so be forewarned), followed by some miscellaneous segments (my favorites being “I am not a crackpot” where people lay out their crackpot ideas, and “The most awesome thing I saw on television this week” in which Kim Reed gives a hysterical plot summary of the most ridiculous shows that she apparently watches a lot of), and then The Canon, in which someone presents a single television episode for induction into the Extra Hot Great Canon. The Canon is a surprisingly well rounded affair, with lots of variety and really in-depth discussions. The folks on the podcast are actually quite discerning in their judgement, and it’s always interesting listening. Each podcast ends with a “Game Time” segment, during which you realize that these people know way more about television than you (or, well, me). It’s more television focused than my usual preferred podcasts, but I love it anyway. Very fun and interesting stuff. Highly recommended!
  • Onion AV Club Reasonable Discussions – The Onion somewhat recently revamped their podcast and it was really great. They discuss music, movies, and television, and they’re usually pretty insightful folks. They don’t quite have a big format like Extra Hot Great, but it’s still an interesting podcast. Alas, they seem to be on something of a hiatus right now (no podcast in about a month). I hope they do bring it back though, as it was solid.
  • Slate’s Culture Gabfest – I think this might be the most pretentious thing I have ever heard, but it’s actually pretty approachable, even if they sometimes let loose with a massive wave of elitist snobbery from time to time. I probably disagree with them more often than not, but they tend to tackle interesting subjects from week to week. Another podcast without formally defined segments, but they usually have three culturally significant things to discuss, and end every episode with an “endorsement” of something they enjoyed during that week.

That’s all for now….