February
11,
2006
One of the stranger experiences I keep having is reading the works of “minor” (by which I mean that you’re not going to go into a random bookstore and find a big pile of their books) writers from Ye Olde Days of Science Fiction, writers like R.A. Lafferty and Avram Davidson. After reading Cordwainer Smith’s The Rediscovery of Man
, a collection of short stories from NESFA Press, I’m adding Smith to this list of unexpected writers.
The thing is, when I was growing up, I read a lot of Asimov. I mean, a lot of Asimov. All his novels, obviously; probably all his short stories, most of them multiple times (as they were collected in overlapping, but not quite identical, collections); and even piles of his non-fiction. And I’ve read Heinlein’s short stories, and a bunch of Clarke, and... well, you know. All the big names. And those guys have a certain style in common, a very dry and rationalist matter-of-fact approach. Lots of characters who are scientists, lots of technical problems, lots of physics and chemistry. After a while, I naturally have come to think that this is just what old-timey SF was.
And then I go and read a book like The Rediscovery of Man. Smith (whose biography is frankly unbelievable) is writing a grand future history, like a lot of those other guys; but his history, like his prose, is more lyrical and Romantic than those of Asimov and Heinlein. Consider deep space: In a traditional hard SF story, it’s a dangerous place because of the iron laws of physics. In Smith’s universe, it’s a dangerous place because it’s haunted by ancient enemies and dark mysteries that drive men mad.
My only criticism of this volume isn’t of the stories, but the organization. Rather than ordering the stories by publication date, the editors arranged the stories in internal chronological order. This arguably makes them build into a more coherent story (though it’s only semi-coherent; the stories don’t necessarily agree entirely with each other), but it obscures the development of Smith’s writing, and leads to the occasional reveal without impact (”Her son would become Lord So-and-so” when we haven’t yet read the earlier-published story about the doings of Lord So-and-so, for instance). I think the ideal arrangement would have been to have the stories in publication order, but with a timeline of internal chronology to minimize confusion.
At any rate, this is really excellent stuff, well-written and original; if you like Vance, Lafferty, Davidson, or Lem, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
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February
11,
2006
You know, it’s kind of weird that I’ve read a big bunch o’ David Foster Wallace’s short stories and non-fiction, but have never read his big fat novel. Keeping my streak alive on this score, I polished off David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster
a while back.
This is a collection of essays similar to A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, but better. The earlier collection was wildly uneven, with really fascinating essays (like the titular one) mixed in with some very pedestrian writing about uninteresting topics. This time, the quality was a lot more consistent, and none of the pieces (with the possible exception of a piece about John Updike, about whom I care not at all) came off as filler.
Wallace’s schtick is taking on a topic from the side, with lots of insightful pondering. So a dispatch from the Adult Video News Awards becomes a meditation on pornography; an article about a lobster festival is an investigation into the ethics of eating lobster; a review of a book on English usage is a rambling discourse about the failures of descriptivism, sources of authority, and Wallace’s own geeked-up childhood.
When this works, when the observations are sharp and fresh, this approach makes for engrossing reading; when it fails and presents you with trite commonplaces masquerading as deep insight, it’s phenomenally irritating. Your reaction to this book will be determined almost entirely by how often you think Wallace is full of insight vs. full of shit. Personally, I felt that his 9/11 piece mostly missed the mark and the lobster essay was a bit obvious, but that the rest were fascinating. Your mileage is pretty much guaranteed to vary.
Definitely recommended for fans of Wallace; definitely not recommended for anyone irritated by cleverness and/or footnotes.
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February
5,
2006
All right. Time to clear up the intimidating backlog of comics.
- I’m really sick of Superman pastiche, so J. Michael Straczynski’s Supreme Power
failed to impress me, despite it’s basic okayness. Its main twist is that the U.S. government found and raised a Superman-esque baby in a hyper-propagandized way to use as a weapon. Been there, done that.
- I’m really sick of Superman pastiche, but Robert Kirkman’s Invincible
was pretty decent. Its main twist is that a Superman-esque character got married to a normal woman and had a kid, who’s just starting to find out his powers — it’s not really a Superman story, it’s a Superman’s son story. Like most superhero comics, it’s best when it’s focusing on the human side of things, and not the superhero side (there are exceptions to this rule, but this isn’t one of them); my main complaint is that there’s too much superhero and not enough civilian.
- In Ed Brubaker, Brian K. Vaughan, Steve Aylette, and Mark Schultz’s Tom Strong, Book Five
, Alan Moore hands off the series to a bunch of different writers. The result: Tom Strong stories that feel pretty much like Moore’s own. Eerie.
-
Dan Slott’s Great Lakes Avengers: GLA Misassembled
is the jokey story of a highly unofficial Avengers branch set up in Milwaukee. It’s supposed to be funny, but it ends up not really managing it. The danger of telling stories about sad and pathetic characters is that it’s really easy for your story to end up just as pathetic, which is what happens to Slott here. Not worth reading.
-
Kurt Busiek’s Superman: Secret Identity
is a Superman story as told by Kurt Busiek in Astro City mode. The setup is almost painfully precious: A boy growing up in the normal world, named Clark Kent by parents with a bad sense of humor, is always teased about his name... and then one day, he develops powers just like Superman’s. Eye-rollingly implausible. But if you accept that and move on, it’s a pretty good story, focusing on Clark’s life as he grows up, gets married, has kids, and gets old. Busiek’s a great writer at his best; he’s not quite at his best here, but he’s good enough to make this story good enough to overcome the premise.
-
Mike Carey and Mark Millar’s Ultimate Fantastic Four: Inhuman
introduces the Inhumans to the Ultimate world, but it does so in a fairly perfunctory manner. It’s also filled with all sorts of winks and nods that will sit there not connecting with you if you don’t know a lot about the Inhumans. I know I missed a bunch of them. This is very much a “keep reading if you’re already reading, but don’t start just for this” kind of volume.
- I should have read Paul Jenkins’ Inhumans
before the Fantastic Four book, because this is a solidly long mini-series dealing with the Inhumans in enough detail that I’d’ve caught the winks and nods. The overall plot of the book is that a bunch of humans have found the Inhumans’ secret city of Attilan, and are trying to invade, aided by certain elements within the city. It’s a bit lacking in tension (there are maybe about two pages when you actually think that the Inhumans are in any real danger), and there’s maybe too much portentous narration about Black Bolt; but fundamentally, it’s a pretty decent superhero story.
-
Wil Pfeifer’s H.E.R.O.: Powers and Abilities
is the story of a magical device that can turn people into superheroes, a different one each time it’s used. Neat concept, but the execution is bleak. All the people who find the device are losers, leading lives of loud desperation — and becoming heroes only makes their lives worse. Depressing, and not in any good way.
- Finally, Ed Brubaker’s Captain America: Winter Soldier
. I bought this because I really liked Brubaker’s Sleeper and was hoping for something in the same mold. Not quite. This might well be a very good Captain America story, but I’ve never really liked Captain America, so can’t judge. If you’re not already a Captain America fan, don’t bother with this.
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