The Book That Broke Me.

As you may have noticed there is a large gap between this post today and my last entry.  There is a very good reason for that.  Well, I mean, I have a good sounding excuse at least.  The excuse I have is the 'cock-blocking book'.  That's right, I totally coined that phrase.  Feel free to use it and send me the royalties. What it means is this:

Cock-blocking book: A book that is so difficult to read that you are unable to finish it (despite a great need/desire to, IE. I can't let this book beat me!), move on to another book and may consider a full memory erase just to get the hell on with your life.

It is the worst possible thing that can happen on a literary level.  It burns all desire to read from your brain.  It makes you think you are broken beyond repair, like books are a contagion and you are infected with stupid.  It makes you feel like you have been ambushed by the thing you trusted most.  

This is not the first time this happened to me.  I have always loved reading.  Books will be your friend even when the rest of the world won't.  Except when they aren't.  The first time I felt this feeling was with a notoriously verbose series. You may agree or you may find it appalling, but Lord of the Rings is the biggest waste of paper I have ever read.  I do not care who is related to whom or what adventure they went on when they were young hobbits or where the hell you got your fireworks.  I DO NOT CARE.  I loved the Hobbit and all I wanted was a follow up with dragons, killing and AWESOMENESS.  I am sorry, but if you get 60 pages deep and all you know is how everyone is related to everyone else then it is NOT GOING TO BE READ BY ME. 

After that traumatic event I found it difficult to trust a book again.  It was then that I found Philip K Dick.  He saved me.  He came to me in my hour of need and gave me what I required. I had wubs, electric ants and simulacrum.  And all was right with the world.  I had another close call with Bram Stoker's Dracula (don't even get me started) but again, Dick was there for me.  And yes, I know how that sounds.

Back to my point.  I was doing so well with my book a week.  I was up to about 12 and going strong, when I started this novel: 

It is unassuming.  It is pure evil.  I love novels and stories that depict the end of the world as we know it, whether it be zombies or, as is this case, a world wide drought.  Or so I thought.  I struggled through the part one of the book.  The characters are hollow and unlikable, I didn't really care for their existence at all.  It gets worse.  The first chapter is regarding the slow decline of the world, where the deserts grow and the resources have been slowly shrinking away until it culminates in a frenzy for the remaining resources.  

Part two I know very little about.  Mostly because it is the most horrid wretch of a story I have ever read.  The characters are even more empty and I find myself just wishing they would die so the story would at least end.  I got about twenty pages in before it completely broke me.  It had already taken me 3 weeks to get that far, I couldn't go on.  

This was months ago now and I have only just started to heal, it took me that long to realise what I needed.  I needed Mercer, conspiracy theories and pinball machines that fight back.  Give me time, but hopefully with Philip K Dick's help I will get back on track.

It is going to be a freaking long time before I trust another author I have never read before.  Thanks Ballard, you jerk.

1 out of 5 stars. Save yourself, DO NOT READ. Not for the weak.

Skyfall - Harry Harrison

Before you ask: NO it isn't a James Bond book and NO it isn't the Alien prequel.  

 
Now that we have that out of the way I can get on with the book review.  Firstly, I have only ever read one other Harry Harrison novel.  That novel is Make Room! Make Room! which the movie Soylent Green was 'based' on, however was pretty much an entirely separate entity seeing as the whole point of the movie was shifted.  Spoiler alert... Soylent Green is people.  But not according to the book which was well written but kind of left me hanging on the whole cannibal front seeing as Soylent Green is NOT people.  In the book at least.  But I digress.  The point is that I looked at the cover of this book and wondered what lies it was spinning about it.  Maybe there isn't any spaceships and it's actually on Mars!  I damn well hoped for destruction and death, as the cover seems to promise.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I did not have high hopes for this novel.  The thing that drew me to in the first place was that it was perfect.  Not one crease in the spine, no dog eared pages and not a mark on it.  Pretty good for a book printed in 1979.  The covers were smooth and even, just like I had plucked it new off the shelf.  At once I wondered if it had ever actually been read, if anyone else had even intended to read it. Maybe it was an unwanted gift or surplus stock.  I figured that if anyone were to take this book's virginity it ought to be me.

When I say that Harry Harrison is a boring writer I think I am misunderstood.  He has a style of writing that feels as if it were written by a supercomputer, and as if he doesn't really understand human emotion or interaction.  It is dull, but factual.  I really didn't know if I could get through this book.  At one stage I was sneakily perusing my other books just in case I had a moment of weakness and gave it up.

Then it hit me.  It was like a tonne of bricks.  HOLY HELL. Characters that I almost hated for their tedious and dull existence became alive.  No Patrick! Don't let him go out into the vacuum!! Coretta you tramp, good on you for getting your rocks off! At one stage I was reading it in the work tea room when I had to cry out because a character was about to get wasted and he didn't even see it coming.  I was distraught.  I think my co-workers think I need therapy.

I honestly don't know how he did it.  The words still had the same sterile and automated feeling but something had changed.  I cared for the characters, I related to them.  I am stuffed if I know why.  I guess I could call him a 'Hump Author', not unlike J.R.R. Tolkien.  One of those people that insist on boring the hell out of you for the first 60 pages or so but if you can just get over the 'hump' it all comes together to be something spectacular.

The story is based around a joint venture by the Americans and Russians to create an ultimate power source but sending a giant rocket, filled with fuel and uranium and weighing 20,000 tonnes into orbit around earth to capture and deliver energy from the sun to Earth.  What could possibly go wrong.  A fucking lot, apparently.  It is one of those stories that Murphy tends to have a big part in, as he screws all the characters over probably laughing and he does it.  In some parts the inevitability is painful, but worth the perseverance.    

 If you are a persistent reader such as myself and if you can make it through the boredom then an exciting and, admittedly stressful, story awaits.  And trust me, it is worth the struggle. 

4 out of 5 stars

 

Science Fiction - Pure Fantasy?

As a lover of Science Fiction I often find myself standing in frustration in the middle of bookstores, hands on my hips wondering where in the hell the Sci-Fi novels are kept.  One thing is for certain: they are not in the Sci-Fi section.  As I am sure many of you would have noticed the wonderful and unique category of Sci-Fi is being overwhelmed by popular Fantasy novels. If the book stores were to be believed Science Fiction and Fantasy are synonymous and interchangeable. 

For some reason this idea both confuses and infuriates me.  It may be due to the fact that true Science Fiction is slowly being pushed out and replaced with books I simply have no fancy for.  In many cases I find it quite difficult to even find the classic Sci-Fi authors such as Asimov and Philip K. Dick amongst the sea of Hobbits and dragons.  I attended a trivia night last year that had a round claiming that ten pictures depicted aliens and we were to name where they were from.  Maybe it is just me but I don't consider Teen Wolf to be any kind of alien.

Perhaps I am just a perfectionist with little tolerance for deviation from what I believe are true Science Fiction novels and movies.  To me Sci-Fi is time and space travel to strange and distant lands, alien invasion and contact, alterations in the fabric of our universe and the laws that govern them, robots and androids and all they stand for, dystopic and utopic worlds.  What I believe it are not under this umbrella includes magic, fairies and dragons with no scientific basis.  I will admit there is bound to be some kind of overlap in the two genres but never will a novel such as I Robot be fantasy as Lord of the Rings will never be Science Fiction.  One has absolute logic and science and the other controlled by magic and whimsy.

I am not saying that I don't wish to see any Fantasy novels grace our shelves, I am wishing that bookstores and the like would make my life easier and separate the two, or at the very least have some Science Fiction in the Sci-Fi section. .  Nothing is more disheartening than walking into a bookstore and finding a huge Sci-Fi section filled with Fantasy. I think I will go and read my books now instead of getting all grumpy and telling kids to get off my damn lawn...

Not Just Another Book...

I was at a friend's 25th birthday BBQ recently when I heard the very thing that makes my heart sink most of all.  We had been chatting casually about all manner of things, including music, movies, which actors were hottest etc. The usual chit chat.  I almost missed it as I was in another conversation but my brain sparked my attention away when I heard someone say, 'I love my kindle.  Now I don't have useless books lying around.' 

At first I was too shocked to reply, until I heard another voice join the chorus 'I know, they just sit around and collect dust.'  How could they say that?  How could they be so callous to such wonderful and dear friends?  Isn't the dustiness just a reflection of the time you have had it?  Of whom it came from?  But how can you pass on a book, with all its beauty and meaning if it is just computer code? 

This was pretty much exactly what I blurted out at them, they seemed slightly taken aback. 
It became pretty clear to me then that books were in more trouble than I realised.  These people were only a year my junior and already they were waving them away with a smile on their faces.  No more packing up those heavy books every time you moved.  No more space taken up by something you read once and never look at again. 

The more the conversation progressed the more disheartened I became.  I thought of the books on my bookshelf in my attic and wondered how people could be so callous.  They weren't dust collectors taking up space.  I would never read them once and then throw them aside.  Even in my last trip overseas I had downloaded some novels onto my phone, as carrying that many books would have been difficult, what with all the other junk I was lugging about.  Despite that on my return flight to Australia I just couldn't help myself.  I needed a physical, tangible, ACTUAL book.  And I got one too. 

A couple of days later it was still bugging me.  This little nagging twitch in my brain that would just not let it be.  I needed to take action, so I called my Dad.  If there is one thing to be counted on it is that my Dad will understand.  As we talked and complained about this apparent new order with reading we decided something: a book is never really a book.  It may look like a book, feel like a book and even sound like a book, whatever it is they sound like.  But it is never just a book.

The thing is that the human brain never sees something, say a car, and says 'Oh, that is a car'.  The human brain is far too complex to be so simple and straight forward.  It sees the car and instantly recalls a number of situations where it has seen that car before.  It may recall an advertisement, or maybe a friend owns a similar car. 

The point is this is the same with books.  I go up to my attic and see The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham.  Instantly I am reminded of the day I found that book sitting in my Dad's closet, like a little lost treasure. I remember talking to my Dad about it and imagining how I would make my house triffid proof.  I remember giving it to my wonderful boyfriend when he was looking for something to read and I remember watching him smile as he read it.  I remember so much more than lugging it from house to house with all of my other books.  The funny thing is, I don't remember that at all.

In the end I feel sad for those who miss out on this wonderful memory bank.  Every book I own has its own memories.  I have read some of them more than once and each time I find myself making a new memory of it.  The best part is giving someone a book.  Because it is never giving just a book, it is giving the potential of so much more...




I would love to hear your fond book memories, please let me know by leaving a comment!

Jurassic Park

There is something about dinosaurs that captures the hearts and minds of children and adults alike.  A world where the past is big, mysterious and full of teeth.  I have never known a child to not like the famous predator, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, despite the fact that if it were real it could swallow any one of us without even breaking a sweat.  I was no exception to this and growing up the biggest influence on my love of these terrible lizards was undoubtedly Jurassic Park.

This brings me to this weeks recommendation, the original tale written by Michael Crichten. As a child I only ever knew of the movie and only recently discovered there was a book. I was pretty excited about this, let me tell you.  There was a time where I watched Jurassic Park at least once every month, sometimes up to twice a week.  This was only two years ago.  It is likely, actually definite, that I have seen this movie in excess of 50 times. 

It kind of feels like an old friend...

I had found this one also at a Lifeline book fest for a dollar, the K-Mart price sticker still proudly displaying $9.96.  As I picked up the book I could feel the same excitement I felt when I was six years old, walking into the local cinema with my parents to get the first taste of what would surely change my life.  Although I felt mostly excitement there was also some apprehension.  What if it wasn't what I expected? What if it was boring? What if it was all facts and no play?  The cover promised it to be 'the most electrifying techno-thriller of all time', what ever that means. 

I needn't have worried.  I easily raced through it's 400 pages in the week, a no mean feat considering I was busy running kids to school for my sister and catching up with people in my home town.  Jurassic Park is definitely the kind of book that keeps you up to all hours of the night with the promise of just one more chapter...

One of the most interesting things I found in the book where the differences in the personalities of the characters.  Alan Grant was actually a child loving man who is not at all obsessed with velociraptors. John Hammond is a lot more crazy and unreasonable than the movie let on and the kids are actually more annoying in the book than the movie.  One thing I found was slightly distressing is the number of times I felt compelled to yell at the characters in the book to stop doing something or start doing something to prevent them from being eaten.  I guess that is the mark of a good story teller, you don't actually want any of the people to die, even the guy in the movie who gets eaten off the toilet.

A favourite moment from the film doesn't appear in the book, but there are still some pretty unfortunate ends...

The book is also much longer than the movie, which is mostly the case with book to movie adaptations.  Something that Jurassic Park fans will love is the appearance of events that have been weaved into the later movies.  Each time one such scene popped up in the book I felt a little excited and smug, like I knew something no one else did.  Some of the events bordered on fantasy if you ask me, while others felt so vividly possible that it easily rationalised sleeping with the light on.

The simple conclusion I found is that if you love Jurassic Park the movie, you will adore the book.  I am actually looking forward to reading it again sometime, kind of like my rewatching of the inspired movie.

4.5 stars out of five. AWESOME!

The Time Traveller

You can't tell me this cover art doesn't completely suck you in...

I found this book at the Lifeline Book Fest for $1, along with about 25 others.  I have always loved H.G. Wells after reading, listening to and watching War of the Worlds, but I have never had the chance to read any of his other works.  I wasn't sure what to expect as I opened the laminated cover, obviously some one had once thought it precious enough to protect it.  On the inside I see it was once sold for $9.95 which is crossed out with $3.95 underneath.  My copy was printed in 1977 but the original edition was published in 1895, making it the earliest book I have read to date.

On the first page alone I knew it was going to be different from many other books I have read.  With no other book have I needed a dictionary three times in the first two paragraphs, for a start. The other thing I noticed was the complete narrative style.  The story of the Time Traveller is being told to the narrator by the main character.  I thought this would be distracting at first but the more I read the more absorbed I became.

There is something about Science Fiction writing of the 50's and 60's, maybe it is the way in which they do not feel the need to harp on about their clever technology or perhaps it is the intricate way in which they weave subtle (or not so subtle) moral and ethical tales within their pages.  The Time Traveller is no exception.  Although it takes some time to become familiar with the prose and pace of the novel I found once I was in the rhythm it was difficult to put it down.  H.G. Wells has an effortless way of making otherwise flat and unimpressive characters become a portal to worlds and times unexplored.

One thing I found of this book, which I find in many great Science Fiction works, are the loose ends within it make it difficult to get it out of my head.  To try and move on I watched the first movie based on this novel.

Get excited, people! Pretty women, an athletic hero and a villain we love to hate...

I first watched the 1960 adaptation of the book and found it in keeping with most movies of the time.  The human descended people, Eloi, were suddenly very attractive and much less childlike.  I guess this was necessary in order for them to get away with the Time Traveller getting friendly with the main female character, Meela. In the books she is treated as a child, which the time traveller grows to love - as a child. In the adaptation... not so much.  Although I cannot altogether go into detail without revealing some wonderful changes and differences that, personally, are half the fun of watching the movie: It certainly makes for great social commentary!

All in all The Time Machine is a fabulous book with a style of writing that takes you right back into the late 1800's and into the very living room where the tale is being recounted.  It is also quite a short novel which is finished altogether too quickly.  The stop-go animation of time travel was also something I enjoyed more than I had anticipated.

The 1960's adaptation of the novel, despite being a product of it's time, is actually quite endearing.  Typical 1960's attitude towards women and a good versus evil view that was quite common at the time give it such a nostalgic quality.  Almost like visiting an old, crazy and half-baked friend.  I even found myself tearing up a little at times, the raw tragedy of the Time Traveller's loss is moving. 

One hint though, if you really want to watch the movie, don't watch the trailer for it.  The one I found was full of spoilers.  I did enjoy the ending of the movie a little more, but I guess you will just have to read and watch it to find out why.  I was also going to watch the most recent incarnation of the Time Traveller made in 2002, but honestly, this was enough time consumed for one week...

4.5 out of 5 Stars for the book.

3 out of 5 Stars for the 1960's Movie.

The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards - SF

Quite a nice looking read...

There is something about finding a little gem like this on your travels that makes it feel like an old friend.  I picked this one up at the airport after a competition in Sydney.  I was on the way home but still far enough away to feel quite removed from everything familiar.  To me books are a great source of comfort and reassurance.  Even if you don't know where you are headed next or what you are in for, you always know you can turn to its pages for an escape. 

Published in 2011 it is definitely the newest works in my possession.  The cover is still smooth and perfect, the spine has a slight crease as it is quite a large novel.  Just from the cover alone you can tell you are in good company.  I picked up this book not because I knew any of the authors but because it just called to me.  Good quality artwork really does make all the difference.

One of my favourite stories in this book is by Kage Baker, the Nebula Award winner and most fantastic writer.  "The Women of Nell Gwynne's" is a fantastic steam punkesque story of women using their assests in more ways than one.  The almost theatrical style of writing drew me in, kept me wanting more.  This was in direct contrast to "Spar" written by Kij Johnson, which is an entire story of an alien raping a woman in space and, in turn, the woman raping the alien.  I am sure I there is some kind of deeper meaning to it all but I could not find it amongst the graphic details of general rapery.  Perhaps I will read it again to find out.  Probably not.

There are stories of alternate realities and interesting theories on quantum physics.  Literally something for everyone!  Overall this anthology contains some of the best modern science fiction I have read to date.  Despite the odd story of bizzare alien relations and such, it is actually a brilliant book.  If nothing else it pulls you out of your comfort zone and amazes you with possibilities of worlds unlike ours.  There is also the comfort that if you dislike a story there are plenty more to explore.

4 out of 5 Stars