Good intentions

I had some good intentions to make something of the blog this week, but final preparations for a six-week holiday to Europe have won the battle for my time.

I won't promise, but you can expect occasional updates about my European adventures over the next couple of months. This blog has been officially hijacked.

A very lean November... and an obese December

In previous years it has felt like the school year really winds down in the last few months (I'm a high school teacher). Of course that was not to be the case this year. In fact November, the month I had hoped to set aside for a genuine tilt at NaNoWriMo, proved to be the busiest work month of the year. As a result I completely bombed out on the 50,000 word challenge (I wrote 0 useable words, though I felt I did some worthwhile outlining) - if you follow me on Twitter you may have already seen me lamenting that fact. Any time I had I tried to devote to writing rather than reading/reviewing/blogging. I haven't thrown in the towel for this blog after only a month or so.

In five days my wife and I leave for a six week tour of Europe. Over the next few days I will actually put up some content for the blog that reflects its intended purpose, beginning tomorrow with my favourite reads of 2010 and possibly two or three reviews I drafted at random points throughout November. I know my rabid subscriber base is starved for new book-related content.

However, for the six weeks or so after that the majority of any posts I make will be holiday related. Before the end of the week I will probably upload my journal from our trip to Japan in January (as peripheral pages attached to the blog, rather than posts). If that interests you, brilliant!

NaNoWriMo Update

In spite of the fact that I only started the blog a month or so ago I have been taking a break from it to help my NaNoWriMo progress. Not that there has been much of that. Most of my time has been devoted to planning and plotting. I think that's my method. I haven't written much that would appear on a page in a book, and that's disappointing (but it's been that way all year, not just in November). It's hard even yo disclose a word count when I've done so many little things all over the place. Suffice it to say, I won't have 50,000 words come November 30.

I'm behind the times in posting about this, but it turns out that several professional writers aren't big fans of NaNoWriMo. I completely understand the agents and editors that read through unending piles of slush in December not being enthused by it, but I agree with the comments of Mary Robinette Kowal and John Scalzi, who leapt to the defence of National Novel Writing Month (International if, like me, you're Australian).

Essentially, NaNoWriMo is terrific if it encourages expressions of creativity and gives would be writers the extra bit of motivation they need to cross the line from thinking about writing to doing it. Would I let someone else read a story I churned out in a month? Now way. But I would edit and build on what I produced in that time frame, and use it to propel me forward. Mary Robinette Kowal in particular revealed that her debut novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, started in this way.

Review: Old Man's War by John Scalzi

Old Man’s War – John Scalzi (Published 2005)

Genre: Science Fiction

Sub-genre: Military

Completed: September 11 2010

Of all the novels I have read this year, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War is the book that most reminded me of a movie. The story itself is cinematic in terms of scope and the images the author conjures, but it was the effortless nature of reading it that most recalled the movie-going experience. It is a fairly short novel, but it was definitely my fastest read this year.

I think I am fortunate in that I can review the book purely on its own merits. I can’t comment on its place in the tradition of Heinlein having never read Starship Troopers (or any Heinlein at all, to my shame). My reading of science fiction in general has been quite limited, so Scalzi’s ideas are mostly new to me and more intriguing for it. For example, the development of the skip drive, for faster than light travel (of a sort), was pretty mind bending.

Of course the central premise of Old Man’s War is equally thought-provoking. In Scalzi’s setting, humankind has begun to colonise outside our own galaxy and unsurprisingly met the resistance of other sentient species with varying levels of technology. The soldiers who are fighting to protect human expansion are men and women who join the military at age 75, the theory being that their life experience makes them superior soldiers. Through the eyes of central character John Perry we see the inevitable process of regeneration and training, before the old folks head into battle.

At first Scalzi seems utterly neutral when it comes to the cloning and regeneration of the aging soldiers. As the story progresses however he begins to raise questions of identity and self with regard to this area of science, concluding that people are much more than their DNA. Memory is particularly significant for Scalzi’s characters, most of whom have lengthy life experience. However, these issues aren’t strictly couched in moral terms. Indeed the character who has the most cause to be angered by these processes seems quite ambivalent towards them.

Moral ambiguity is practically a theme of the story, in terms of both the science discussed above and when Scalzi looks at the expansion of human civilization in a way that is necessarily at the expense of other species. Technological development and pure survival seem to be the guiding principles for the humans in Old Man’s War, and the author quite deliberately avoids judging the actions of his characters, from sexual promiscuity to killing.

Old Man’s War gets 4 stars. It isn’t literary genius, it’s very commercial, but it is a very engaging and entertaining read. For fans of epic fantasy like myself it may feel lightweight (at barely over 300 pages), but this is not at all to the detriment of the story. The best compliment I can give to the book is that although I’m not a massive fan of science fiction I will definitely be reading more Scalzi in the future.

Read it – to enjoy a fast-paced story of space exploration and the future of humanity, even if you don’t normally like sci-fi

Don’t read it – if you just refuse to read sci-fi, otherwise there’s no reason not to

Review: Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

Consider Phlebas – Iain M. Banks (Published 1987)

Genre: Science Fiction

Sub-genre: Space Opera

Completed: May 16 2010

Consider Phlebas has been my most disjointed reading experience for some time. It took me over a month to finish it when I had been averaging close enough to a novel per week. The issue was not necessarily with the book - I have been extremely busy at work. Ultimately the experience lacked continuity for me.

Some blame must go to the book - the list of places where I fell asleep while reading this book is quite long. The strange thing is, I don’t recall being bored by the story at any time. I just struggled to read it. The similar experience that I had with Neuromancer suggests that Science-Fiction may not be my thing – but I’m too intrigued by it to give up.

Consider Phlebas is the first of Iain M. Banks’ Culture series. These books are linked through their setting, rather than story. I, however, am something of a completionist. I had heard that Consider Phlebas is not the best novel in Banks’ universe but it is the establishing shot. I felt that reading Consider Phlebas would earn me a better experience when I get to the later novels. Time will hopefully prove me wise.

I knew that I was in for a novel likely to be heavy on set-up. There is plenty of techno-jargon that I’m sure went over my head, though there was usually enough for my mind to picture what was going on. The descriptions of the world and its incredible Science-Fiction creations were vivid and exciting for the most part, but occasionally felt intrusive and excessive. In some cases, for all of the imagination at work, certain characters and events felt out of place in the world, as if they were designed primarily as allegorical comments then somewhat artificially inserted.

Perhaps the biggest issue with the world-building is that Banks often has to pull back from the characters in order to establish elements of the setting and to explain the part their actions play in a broader conflict. Yet it was of course the characters that I was interested in... even if I didn’t really like any of them. I found them somewhat unsympathetic - I didn’t really agree with any of the perspectives that Banks created through Horza, Baveda and Xoxarle - but the contrasting philosophies and motivations were the most intriguing part of the story. Essentially, if Consider Phlebas is viewed as a fable designed to validate the existence and beliefs of the galaxy spanning Culture it is very effective.

What was lacking was any clear understanding of the importance of the characters in the broader conflict. The resolution of Consider Phlebas is anticlimactic at best. If you proceed to read the (brief) appendices it becomes even more tragically apparent that the efforts of the characters were irrelevant in the context of galactic conflict. I was left with a fairly strong feeling of ‘so what?’ which was particularly disappointing given that the execution of the conclusion was much more fast-paced, engaging and exciting than the preceding chapters. Banks utilized unconventional and rapid viewpoint switches to ratchet up the tension while still disguising from the reader exactly what was about to transpire.

Consider Phlebas gets 3.5 stars, with some degree of benefit of the doubt. When I was able to give the book the chance to impress me, it did. I certainly churned through the last quarter, and I can’t wait to get to some of the later books in the Culture series. For all of the issues I have pointed out with the structure and broad thematic picture I can’t help but feel that Banks is a seriously good writer.

Read it – if you intend to read further in the Culture series, or if you have read other Culture novels and are keen to see where it all began.

Don’t read it – if you hate books that seem designed to explore and establish their setting as much as tell you a story.