You know which Mission Impossible movie is my favorite? (Trust me, this is relevant.) The first one. Before they got too action-oriented and just plain ridiculous (though the 4th one was enjoyable), there was the first one, that, if you were paying attention, dropped little bread crumbs along the way. Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone is like that, only without the part where Tom Cruise rips off his face.
(This book has zero face-ripping, in case you were looking for that sort of thing.)
This is the first book in what is now part of a trilogy, and as the third one is out - or due soon - it seemed like a good time to write the first one up. Gladstone's created a brand new world here, with it's own mythology and blend of fantasy and science fiction and even a little steampunk, and though there isn't a lot of the usual world-building that would go into a more traditional sci-fi treatment of the piece, there's enough there so the reader doesn't get lost wandering in and out of both the alleyways and the politics of this new world. Part of me wishes there had been a little more, as there's clearly a class divide at work in this world, and an even greater divide between the cities that run on magic and the outer areas that don't, and that's mostly left unexplored other than the bits the reader is introduced to as character development. Perhaps that's what the sequels will help do.
As for this one, there's a murder mystery of sorts at the heart of this story. Civilization is built around various gods, each one providing the life-force - or just the utilities - that keep their individual cities going. One of those gods has been killed, and it's up to a young lawyer/witch to help her boss figure out who and why. The novel does a great job of blending the legal aspects of having a city and a world that runs a lot on magic with the more down to earth practicalities off it. A great deal of thought went into how it all works, and though a legal drama might not sound like the best thing to blend magic and science with, it works very well. Even when the scene shifts into a courtroom, in a scenario that, minus the trappings, would be at home in a John Grisham novel, it never loses it's sense of action.
There's also some philosophical/theological explorations here, which is fitting when the other main character is a priest whose job it was to watch over the god, and who therefore has a vested interest in solving the mystery. Again, like the courtroom material, what could have been a heavy-handed or even boring exploration of these weightier issues is deftly woven within the action of the main story, and never feels out of place or makes the story slow down.
The characters were well-thought out, the machinations of all involved sufficiently complex without being overwhelming, and the world just gritty enough to feel lived-in yet still retaining its sense of being something new. A blend of Grisham and perhaps Mieville, with just a dash of Gaiman around the edges, this is a world well worth taking the time to explore.
As for that Mission Impossible thing? If you're paying attention, Gladstone drops clues as to the ultimate reveal, like any good mystery writer does. Some of them you may not catch until the end, but they are they throughout and they make for a satisfying puzzle. While you can't solve everything from the clues, there's a big part of the mystery that's waiting for you to figure it out.
Only without the face-ripping.
Showing posts with label Saturday review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saturday review. Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
The Saturday Review: Deeply Odd
I think this is the second book of Koontz's I've reviewed here this year. (Well, maybe this year. I know it's been ... a while... since I've been regular here. ... Do they make an equivalent of writerly prune juice to keep the ideas flowing? Only that leads to an easy and uncomfortable metaphor, doesn't it? Never mind on that one.) This one is going to go much the way of that last one, and if you'd rather not sort through the rest of this, here's the final verdict up front: meh.
That's an official "meh" as in: I didn't quit half-way through but seriously, seriously thought about it and only really finished it because I was sufficiently mildly interested in how the train wreck would resolve itself. I gave it three stars on Goodreads only because they don't have a half-star system, and two seemed a little too harsh.
This is a "read if you've got nothing else better on your TBR list or there's nothing better in the library. Or on TV." I mean that. There's better storytelling on television. Even on the networks.
As for the details...
When I started thinking about how to best summarize my feelings on this, I was going to devise a "Deeply Odd Drinking Game." Only I realized it would more likely be the "Deeply Odd Sure-fire Path to Alcohol Poisoning" which doesn't really sound like anybody's idea of a game. Least no one I want to go drinking with, at any rate. So, instead, I've devised a game we'll call "Spot the Plot." Here's how you play. Open the book, anywhere, at random. Read a paragraph. Does it have anything to do with the plot?
Odds are, no. (Pun not intentional.)
Try again.
That's an official "meh" as in: I didn't quit half-way through but seriously, seriously thought about it and only really finished it because I was sufficiently mildly interested in how the train wreck would resolve itself. I gave it three stars on Goodreads only because they don't have a half-star system, and two seemed a little too harsh.
This is a "read if you've got nothing else better on your TBR list or there's nothing better in the library. Or on TV." I mean that. There's better storytelling on television. Even on the networks.
As for the details...
When I started thinking about how to best summarize my feelings on this, I was going to devise a "Deeply Odd Drinking Game." Only I realized it would more likely be the "Deeply Odd Sure-fire Path to Alcohol Poisoning" which doesn't really sound like anybody's idea of a game. Least no one I want to go drinking with, at any rate. So, instead, I've devised a game we'll call "Spot the Plot." Here's how you play. Open the book, anywhere, at random. Read a paragraph. Does it have anything to do with the plot?
Odds are, no. (Pun not intentional.)
Try again.
Odds are, the next one won't, either.
As you could be at this a while, let me tell you what you will find, in no particular order:
Odd reminisces about his dead girlfriend
Odd tells someone to call him "Odd" - and the they don't. Or vice versa as in someone tells Odd to call them "X" and he insists on saying "Mr X" or "Mrs X" or some such.
Odd ruminates on the nature of evil and evil people, which, frankly, he does so often I figure he's got more stomachs than a cow.
Someone tells Odd how special he is, how much he's going to do. Bonus points for it being random characters who more or less exist in the book solely to tell Odd how special he is.
Odd then goes "gee aw shucks." (This is a separate point because he does this a bit.)
While I normally write spoiler-free (as much as possible) reviews of the things I read, please be aware I have now spoiled half the book for you.
Yes, half. I wish I was making that up.
Koontz is one of those authors who is largely hit or miss for me. Either I really like the book, or I don't, and the reasons why I don't have become somewhat predictable over his long and very prolific career. I have thought, in the past, that some of his prolificness may be what hurts certain books, and why, in more recent years, he's become a bit more miss for me than hit. I've learned to read the book jackets, anticipate the plot, and know beforehand whether I want to give it a go. Occasionally I'm wrong - his "Shadow Street" book fell flat for me despite my hopes - and so far the Odd series had avoided Koontz's more problematic pitfalls.
This one, by contrast, was a study in them. (The only thing it was missing was a dog. I mean, there was a dog, of course there was, but it was a much less precious and precocious pooch than the usual canines that show up in Koontz's books. Oh, and the precocious "special" child was missing from this one. Sort of.) I figure there was only about enough plot in this, as written, to sustain half the total pages. This could have been a novella, and a much more satisfying one than it was as a novel. Moreover, although the series is clearly building on things, you could easily skip this one, as now doubt all the things you really need to know will be gone over in great depth and far too much detail in the next installment. Or, better yet, they won't be, and this little escapade in Odd's tales will be written off as a bad dream.
I'm really hoping this doesn't mark a turning point for the series, though I have reasons to fear it does. I started off liking Koontz's Frankenstein series, though that series went off the rails much, much faster. The first book held so much great promise, and the second one mostly spent its time breaking that promise by partially or wholly abandoning most of the premises that made the first one so good. (And by slipping into the standard Koontz cliches. Though I think it avoided the dog, there was the child.) By the end of the Frankenstein books I was so thoroughly unimpressed that I read them mostly for completion's sake.
As you could be at this a while, let me tell you what you will find, in no particular order:
Odd reminisces about his dead girlfriend
Odd tells someone to call him "Odd" - and the they don't. Or vice versa as in someone tells Odd to call them "X" and he insists on saying "Mr X" or "Mrs X" or some such.
Odd ruminates on the nature of evil and evil people, which, frankly, he does so often I figure he's got more stomachs than a cow.
Someone tells Odd how special he is, how much he's going to do. Bonus points for it being random characters who more or less exist in the book solely to tell Odd how special he is.
Odd then goes "gee aw shucks." (This is a separate point because he does this a bit.)
While I normally write spoiler-free (as much as possible) reviews of the things I read, please be aware I have now spoiled half the book for you.
Yes, half. I wish I was making that up.
Koontz is one of those authors who is largely hit or miss for me. Either I really like the book, or I don't, and the reasons why I don't have become somewhat predictable over his long and very prolific career. I have thought, in the past, that some of his prolificness may be what hurts certain books, and why, in more recent years, he's become a bit more miss for me than hit. I've learned to read the book jackets, anticipate the plot, and know beforehand whether I want to give it a go. Occasionally I'm wrong - his "Shadow Street" book fell flat for me despite my hopes - and so far the Odd series had avoided Koontz's more problematic pitfalls.
This one, by contrast, was a study in them. (The only thing it was missing was a dog. I mean, there was a dog, of course there was, but it was a much less precious and precocious pooch than the usual canines that show up in Koontz's books. Oh, and the precocious "special" child was missing from this one. Sort of.) I figure there was only about enough plot in this, as written, to sustain half the total pages. This could have been a novella, and a much more satisfying one than it was as a novel. Moreover, although the series is clearly building on things, you could easily skip this one, as now doubt all the things you really need to know will be gone over in great depth and far too much detail in the next installment. Or, better yet, they won't be, and this little escapade in Odd's tales will be written off as a bad dream.
I'm really hoping this doesn't mark a turning point for the series, though I have reasons to fear it does. I started off liking Koontz's Frankenstein series, though that series went off the rails much, much faster. The first book held so much great promise, and the second one mostly spent its time breaking that promise by partially or wholly abandoning most of the premises that made the first one so good. (And by slipping into the standard Koontz cliches. Though I think it avoided the dog, there was the child.) By the end of the Frankenstein books I was so thoroughly unimpressed that I read them mostly for completion's sake.
If the Odd series keeps going the way of this book, I may not be able to even muster that much effort.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
The Saturday Review: Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore
Been sitting on this review a while, but as the sequel to this is due out soon, I figured I ought to get around to writing it. I've been sitting on it because while I liked the book a lot, overall, especially the world-building that goes on in the first book of any series, and the novel approach to the mythology the author is utilizing (both of which I will address in a minute), I had a problem with the ending ... and I'm not sure exactly why.
But I'll get to that.
First, the world-building. This is a novel where, if the characters and the places hadn't been rattling around in the author's brain for a long, long time, it certainly felt that way. This was a cast of characters with history, much of it broken, and if the reader doesn't know all of it to start - or even by the end - it doesn't matter because you can still feel the weight of that history bearing down on them, some more than others. It's almost an in media res (if I may channel my high school English classes) set up, save for the initial event that gets the plot rolling. But there's a lot going on with these people (well, most are people, a few are... other things), and it gives them an added depth that not every initial novel manages. The rules are quickly laid out, the roles defined, and more importantly a layer of grime and dirt is smeared over everything, letting you know that not only is the world a lived-in one, but that's it's often not a nice one.
Part of that hinges on the depth to the mythology that's being plumbed here. I will not claim to read a lot of urban fantasy, as that genre's gotten way too big for me to catch up with (and I rarely delve into the side alleys of romance and the other related areas), but the authors I stick with are the ones that can do something new and different with the established mythos. (One can only take so many fairies who are clearly borrowed out of Tolkien (and mistaken for elves), Shakespeare, or Barre.) From the cold-opening, readers are treated to a different pantheon, and it's quickly made clear that there are multiple frameworks at play in this world. Not only does this make a nice change of pace to be dealing with Mayan deities and Vodou loa, but it also opens up the possibilities for future novels in the series. You get the early feeling that there isn't anything that's not on the table. Moreover, the different gods/spirits are given distinctly different feels. This isn't just a cut and paste approach to the various mythologies; Blackmoore's done his homework, or at least doing a good impression of it.
Which brings me to the only problem I had with this: the ending. It wasn't quite as satisfying as I had hopes for, in part because by the end it's clear that one aspect of the plot was little more than a MacGuffin to set up another aspect. And that second aspect doesn't quite deliver, in some ways reading mostly as a set-up for future novels. Which I'm fine with a first book doing, so long as something in the first book is properly resolved. Dead Things doesn't quite do that, and worse for me was that it felt like to get there, the lead had to do something rather... well, stupid. With plenty of other characters telling him it was not only stupid, but unnecessary. Granted, there's likely not a one of us who hasn't done something in our own lives with those same parameters, and there are explanatory circumstances so it's not as if he's handed an idiot ball, but, still... it didn't feel quite right, and worse, seemed to shut the door on one of the more interesting side players we'd been introduced to.
Bottom line is, I really liked it, up until the last few chapters, and those weren't enough to deter me from the next book (which, as I mentioned, is either already out or out soon). There's a lot of promise in the premise, and I want to see what Blackmoore does with it.
I will say that, even though it fits in the UF genre (or however the heck you want to categorize that), it is a lot grimmer, a lot darker, and a lot grittier than other series. It reminded me some of Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim books, only less humorous (which is saying something). Blackmoore reads like a cross between Jim Butcher and Andrew Vachss, and that may not be to everyone's taste. It is to mine, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the next book goes.
But I'll get to that.
First, the world-building. This is a novel where, if the characters and the places hadn't been rattling around in the author's brain for a long, long time, it certainly felt that way. This was a cast of characters with history, much of it broken, and if the reader doesn't know all of it to start - or even by the end - it doesn't matter because you can still feel the weight of that history bearing down on them, some more than others. It's almost an in media res (if I may channel my high school English classes) set up, save for the initial event that gets the plot rolling. But there's a lot going on with these people (well, most are people, a few are... other things), and it gives them an added depth that not every initial novel manages. The rules are quickly laid out, the roles defined, and more importantly a layer of grime and dirt is smeared over everything, letting you know that not only is the world a lived-in one, but that's it's often not a nice one.
Part of that hinges on the depth to the mythology that's being plumbed here. I will not claim to read a lot of urban fantasy, as that genre's gotten way too big for me to catch up with (and I rarely delve into the side alleys of romance and the other related areas), but the authors I stick with are the ones that can do something new and different with the established mythos. (One can only take so many fairies who are clearly borrowed out of Tolkien (and mistaken for elves), Shakespeare, or Barre.) From the cold-opening, readers are treated to a different pantheon, and it's quickly made clear that there are multiple frameworks at play in this world. Not only does this make a nice change of pace to be dealing with Mayan deities and Vodou loa, but it also opens up the possibilities for future novels in the series. You get the early feeling that there isn't anything that's not on the table. Moreover, the different gods/spirits are given distinctly different feels. This isn't just a cut and paste approach to the various mythologies; Blackmoore's done his homework, or at least doing a good impression of it.
Which brings me to the only problem I had with this: the ending. It wasn't quite as satisfying as I had hopes for, in part because by the end it's clear that one aspect of the plot was little more than a MacGuffin to set up another aspect. And that second aspect doesn't quite deliver, in some ways reading mostly as a set-up for future novels. Which I'm fine with a first book doing, so long as something in the first book is properly resolved. Dead Things doesn't quite do that, and worse for me was that it felt like to get there, the lead had to do something rather... well, stupid. With plenty of other characters telling him it was not only stupid, but unnecessary. Granted, there's likely not a one of us who hasn't done something in our own lives with those same parameters, and there are explanatory circumstances so it's not as if he's handed an idiot ball, but, still... it didn't feel quite right, and worse, seemed to shut the door on one of the more interesting side players we'd been introduced to.
Bottom line is, I really liked it, up until the last few chapters, and those weren't enough to deter me from the next book (which, as I mentioned, is either already out or out soon). There's a lot of promise in the premise, and I want to see what Blackmoore does with it.
I will say that, even though it fits in the UF genre (or however the heck you want to categorize that), it is a lot grimmer, a lot darker, and a lot grittier than other series. It reminded me some of Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim books, only less humorous (which is saying something). Blackmoore reads like a cross between Jim Butcher and Andrew Vachss, and that may not be to everyone's taste. It is to mine, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the next book goes.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
The Saturday Review: X-Files, Season 1
First of all, to those of you asking why I'm "reviewing" a series that is now 20 years old (yes, you read that right) here's the thing: I had money last year, and like any good American, I splurged some. Including buying the complete series of the X-Files. (Amazon had it on sale, okay, so don't judge me.) As I started to watch it I was curious to see whether it would hold up, being 20 years old, or whether it would, like many cherished things from my childhood, fall flat. And by "childhood" I mean college years, because let's face it, most of us aren't really adults those first few years in college. And by "fall flat," I mean turn out to be much, much more horrible than I ever realized it was, like Flash Gordon, which, let's face it, could not be saved even by the combined powers of Queen, Brian Blessed, and a future James Bond.
The X-Files did not have a catchy theme tune by a popular, possibly even god-like, rock band. If it features a role starring a future James Bond, it was not in Season 1. And nowhere did anyone even begin to approach the levels of scenery consumption that Brian Blessed achieves solely by walking on set. It was, however, just as good as I remembered it being.
Some things do not hold up, of course. It was a product of the 90s, and the first on-screen appearance by a boxy-nosed car was a little jarring, mostly because I associate those with a much earlier and more primitive era. (The 80s.) In certain respects you have to regard the X-Files as something of a period piece, harkening back to a time when women still wore shoulder pads to rival NFL linebackers and you could use a portable phone to bludgeon someone to death. Any scene featuring a computer is almost comedic.
There are also certain actors whose immediate presence automatically screams early 90s - such as Amanda Pays, who I had a huge crush on ever since her roles in The Flash and Max Headroom, both of which I would also buy if Amazon put them sufficiently on sale because I am weak like that, as well as some who are still around, like Mark Sheppard of BSG and Supernatural fame. (Who has also freakishly not aged in the intervening 20 years. Made me wonder whether his role as Crowley is really an act.)
That said, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that everything I loved about the early years of the X-Files still held up. Although there is a distinct low-budget quality to the first half of Season 1, probably due to concerns about whether the series would survive past mid-season, it's clear that Fox knew they had a hit on their hands and started shoveling more money toward the show in the second half. Starting with the death of Scully's father, there's a decided upswing in the effects and the locations that is rather noticeable. Yet this change in resources doesn't mean that the first half of the season is, from a story standpoint, weaker than the first. Indeed, the first half of Season 1 features one of the more memorable villains from X-Files lore.
I was also surprised to see that many episodes I thought were in the first season are, instead, in the second season, with the exception of one of my all-time favorite episodes, "Darkness Falls," which still managed to creep me out some. Indeed, many of what would become staples of the later seasons were conspicuously absent here: there is no black oil, Skinner is only introduced late in the season, and the Cigarette Smoking Man is less adversary and more just nameless face of the conspiracy.
There is obvious chemistry between Mulder and Scully from the start, and it was interesting to watch as their roles of believer and skeptic solidified some. I can see why I kept watching the show, and why I still maintain that the show was often strongest when it wasn't dealing with its core mythos of aliens and UFOs and abductions. Most of the stand-out episodes of the first season are the ones that have nothing at all to do with extra-terrestrials.
That said, the first season did manage to set the stage for things to come. The conspiracy hinted at in the first episode was slowly expanded on, and a sense of menace imbued to the key players. There is the appearance of the "establishment" trying to shut down the X-Files (which of course they manage to do by the end of the season, as would happen a couple of times throughout the series run). There were the supporting players like the Lone Gunmen, who remind the audience that as far out there as Fox Mulder might seem, he wasn't the craziest one out there.
There were also things that, if memory serves, got lost a little bit in later seasons. Certainly when aliens became more the focus there was less "weirdness of the week," but almost all long-running shows with similar themes have to eventually outgrow that if they are to survive (see Supernatural, for instance). And I think there was less made of the fact that Fox was, in fact, quite the brilliant agent at the FBI who chose to dedicate his career to weirdness, and as such respected for his talents if mocked for his beliefs.
All in all, I enjoyed re-watching the first season, and am looking forward to watching Season 2 now, which has some more of the episodes and themes I more clearly remember (like the one with the submarine and the fluke man). Although parts of Season 1 did feel dated, I did mange to recapture the things that got me hooked on the X-Files way back in my freshman year of college, and that alone was worth the cost.
The X-Files did not have a catchy theme tune by a popular, possibly even god-like, rock band. If it features a role starring a future James Bond, it was not in Season 1. And nowhere did anyone even begin to approach the levels of scenery consumption that Brian Blessed achieves solely by walking on set. It was, however, just as good as I remembered it being.
Some things do not hold up, of course. It was a product of the 90s, and the first on-screen appearance by a boxy-nosed car was a little jarring, mostly because I associate those with a much earlier and more primitive era. (The 80s.) In certain respects you have to regard the X-Files as something of a period piece, harkening back to a time when women still wore shoulder pads to rival NFL linebackers and you could use a portable phone to bludgeon someone to death. Any scene featuring a computer is almost comedic.
There are also certain actors whose immediate presence automatically screams early 90s - such as Amanda Pays, who I had a huge crush on ever since her roles in The Flash and Max Headroom, both of which I would also buy if Amazon put them sufficiently on sale because I am weak like that, as well as some who are still around, like Mark Sheppard of BSG and Supernatural fame. (Who has also freakishly not aged in the intervening 20 years. Made me wonder whether his role as Crowley is really an act.)
That said, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that everything I loved about the early years of the X-Files still held up. Although there is a distinct low-budget quality to the first half of Season 1, probably due to concerns about whether the series would survive past mid-season, it's clear that Fox knew they had a hit on their hands and started shoveling more money toward the show in the second half. Starting with the death of Scully's father, there's a decided upswing in the effects and the locations that is rather noticeable. Yet this change in resources doesn't mean that the first half of the season is, from a story standpoint, weaker than the first. Indeed, the first half of Season 1 features one of the more memorable villains from X-Files lore.
I was also surprised to see that many episodes I thought were in the first season are, instead, in the second season, with the exception of one of my all-time favorite episodes, "Darkness Falls," which still managed to creep me out some. Indeed, many of what would become staples of the later seasons were conspicuously absent here: there is no black oil, Skinner is only introduced late in the season, and the Cigarette Smoking Man is less adversary and more just nameless face of the conspiracy.
There is obvious chemistry between Mulder and Scully from the start, and it was interesting to watch as their roles of believer and skeptic solidified some. I can see why I kept watching the show, and why I still maintain that the show was often strongest when it wasn't dealing with its core mythos of aliens and UFOs and abductions. Most of the stand-out episodes of the first season are the ones that have nothing at all to do with extra-terrestrials.
That said, the first season did manage to set the stage for things to come. The conspiracy hinted at in the first episode was slowly expanded on, and a sense of menace imbued to the key players. There is the appearance of the "establishment" trying to shut down the X-Files (which of course they manage to do by the end of the season, as would happen a couple of times throughout the series run). There were the supporting players like the Lone Gunmen, who remind the audience that as far out there as Fox Mulder might seem, he wasn't the craziest one out there.
There were also things that, if memory serves, got lost a little bit in later seasons. Certainly when aliens became more the focus there was less "weirdness of the week," but almost all long-running shows with similar themes have to eventually outgrow that if they are to survive (see Supernatural, for instance). And I think there was less made of the fact that Fox was, in fact, quite the brilliant agent at the FBI who chose to dedicate his career to weirdness, and as such respected for his talents if mocked for his beliefs.
All in all, I enjoyed re-watching the first season, and am looking forward to watching Season 2 now, which has some more of the episodes and themes I more clearly remember (like the one with the submarine and the fluke man). Although parts of Season 1 did feel dated, I did mange to recapture the things that got me hooked on the X-Files way back in my freshman year of college, and that alone was worth the cost.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
The Saturday Review: Windup Girl
I am a big fan of William Gibson. The novels of The Sprawl were my first introduction to "modern" science fiction (for as valid a term as that is), and over the intervening decades since I first stumbled across them, I have eagerly awaited each of Gibson's new novels. Which, as anyone who is a fan of Gibson knows, is a usually a pretty long wait. And while they are always worth the wait, I am not very patient. Fortunately, there is The Windup Girl.
If I called this book Gibsonian, that would probably sum up it's basic premise better than anything else. TWG is not cyberpunk in any traditional sense (a quick look at blurbs describes it as "biopunk," but that seems too easy a label), but the nature of the world the characters lives in has that same streetwise neo-noir future. Only where Gibson and others delved into the realm of the computer and the technological, Bacigalupi's future is more organic, and one that seems a much more impending future. The set-up is simple: this is a post carbon-crash world, one where fossil fuels have either run out or run sufficiently short to amount to the same thing. Bioengineering is a way of life and has been for a while, with the consequence that there are genetically modified foods in the market, strange new artificially created life forms, and frightening new viruses and plagues.
If I called this book Gibsonian, that would probably sum up it's basic premise better than anything else. TWG is not cyberpunk in any traditional sense (a quick look at blurbs describes it as "biopunk," but that seems too easy a label), but the nature of the world the characters lives in has that same streetwise neo-noir future. Only where Gibson and others delved into the realm of the computer and the technological, Bacigalupi's future is more organic, and one that seems a much more impending future. The set-up is simple: this is a post carbon-crash world, one where fossil fuels have either run out or run sufficiently short to amount to the same thing. Bioengineering is a way of life and has been for a while, with the consequence that there are genetically modified foods in the market, strange new artificially created life forms, and frightening new viruses and plagues.
At one part steampunk in it's approach to getting around the problems created by a lack of combustion engines (there are airships, of course), unlike stories in that genre this is no alternate future or reworked past. This is a serious look at what such a new world would mean not only for the world economy and the great nations, but smaller nations as well. And if it is one part steampunk, it is also one part dystopian disaster fiction. Climate change is a harsh reality in this world, all the more so for nations that live close to sea level, including Thailand, where the story is set. The sea is kept just barely at bay, and at great expense. Just as real are the results of bioengineered crops and animals more keenly felt in smaller, less powerful nations. Eating the wrong food from the market can expose yourself to all sorts of unpleasant consequences, and people are always on the lookout for past food stores and genetics that offer purer alternatives.
We meet several characters, each of them compelling in their own way if not all equally likeable. One is a company man, a "Calorie Man" working for what seem to be the big movers and shakers in this new world: biotech companies. Here, too, the author draws on a familiar theme, that of the mega company of the future that is the ultimate mover and shaker in a world where old political and economic boundaries have fallen. But, again, TWG does something a little different with it, and gives us the perspective of the smaller nation having to compete and defend itself against companies that would have felt right at home in a William Gibson novel.
We meet several characters, each of them compelling in their own way if not all equally likeable. One is a company man, a "Calorie Man" working for what seem to be the big movers and shakers in this new world: biotech companies. Here, too, the author draws on a familiar theme, that of the mega company of the future that is the ultimate mover and shaker in a world where old political and economic boundaries have fallen. But, again, TWG does something a little different with it, and gives us the perspective of the smaller nation having to compete and defend itself against companies that would have felt right at home in a William Gibson novel.
Another character is the titular Windup Girl, a creation straight out of Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (though perhaps owing more to Bladerunner than the novel itself), an artificial woman struggling with the nature of who and what she is. Then there are government rebels, and self-serving refugees, and a host of smaller characters, all at once both familiar and new. All as equally plausible, as equally believable as the setting itself.
This is a novel that draws heavily on past materials, then interweaves them with new ideas and points them in new directions, all masterfully written with a style that was as compelling as it was innovative. Once started it was hard to put down, as I kept wanting to spend more time in this world the author has created, even if parts of that world aren't very pleasant.
In fact, if I had one complaint about this novel, it is that it is so far the only novel set in this world. Bacigalupi has written two short stories set in this universe, but The Windup Girl is the first full-length novel. (Which was a bit surprising. I expected "Calorie Man" to be another novel, given how fully formed this world he's created is, and it took me a bit of searching to discover it was in a book and not a book itself.) Just so long as it's not the last, I'll be a very, very happy reader.
This is a novel that draws heavily on past materials, then interweaves them with new ideas and points them in new directions, all masterfully written with a style that was as compelling as it was innovative. Once started it was hard to put down, as I kept wanting to spend more time in this world the author has created, even if parts of that world aren't very pleasant.
In fact, if I had one complaint about this novel, it is that it is so far the only novel set in this world. Bacigalupi has written two short stories set in this universe, but The Windup Girl is the first full-length novel. (Which was a bit surprising. I expected "Calorie Man" to be another novel, given how fully formed this world he's created is, and it took me a bit of searching to discover it was in a book and not a book itself.) Just so long as it's not the last, I'll be a very, very happy reader.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
The Saturday Review: Helix
Details matter. Details can make or break a story, because if the writer can't pay attention to details, you have to wonder about the rest of it. Now, I know some things get overlooked. Mistakes happen, and I'm okay with that. There's also a certain amount of suspension of disbelief required in almost any story, no matter how "realistic" it is. The less grounded in reality, the greater the suspension, but details can be key to holding that suspension in place.
It's in the details where Helix fell apart for me. I'm disappointed by this, because I wanted to like the show. There's certainly a lot to like about it, including the cast, but I couldn't help feeling they overlooked too many things. Maybe this is nitpicking, but when it gets to a certain level the nits start unraveling the whole.
(A couple of spoilers in this, so just be forewarned.)
I'm going to break these down into a couple of categories, starting with
Location
Point #1: Okay, did anyone in charge of this show remember that the Arctic, unlike it's southern cousin, is an ocean. I know one person did: whoever did that gorgeous matte that was under the helicopter on approach to the facility. Did you see those cracks? They were great. They were there because, again, the Arctic is an ocean, and the ice there does very different things than ice on solid land. There's a reason there aren't the kind of bases in the Arctic that there are in the Antarctic, and one of those is that sea ice isn't anywhere near as stable.
Even when it isn't melting. Which brings me to
Point #2. Now, they did a nice job on the map situating it in a place where there is still not open water in the summer in the Arctic, but whoever sank the probably millions if not billions of dollars into this thing (I mean, did you see that head office? Wood floors, spacious enough to park a couple of cars in, and that massive window? In the Arctic?), I hope they designed it to float in the long term.
Now, judging by the day/night cycles it's somewhere between summer and winter (because they are, according to what they said, above the Arctic circle), so we can't expect it to be at the height of summer, and we're not yet to open water in the entire Arctic in the summer, but if I were building something like that, I'd be worried about it.
Point #3: Speaking of temperature, what idiot walks out into that kind of cold without a face covering? Idiots who spend their lives in LA and don't actually have any appreciation for cold weather, that's who. This one should have been a matter of common sense. Again, even allowing that it's not the dead of winter, there was serious blowing snow and cold. Enough cold to freeze the monkeys solid, and rather quickly by the looks of it. And yet, the army guy, and the scientist trying to escape, are out there dressed no more warmly than if they're trying to build a snow fort on a Saturday afternoon.
Contagion Protocol
If these are really the people working at the CDC, I'm suddenly a lot more frightened. I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. And even I know that those suits they wear are not just about airborne pathogens. Even I know that you don't take off the thing that protects your face when you have infected rats right in front of you. For something that they know is so deadly, they are awfully cavalier about it in certain scenes.
Beyond that, it looks as though new people will be showing up. I'm sorry, but what part of "quarantine" were they unfamiliar with? New people cannot come in, just as the old people cannot come out. That's what it means to be quarantined.
Even before the outbreak, why are there such big air vents? Why aren't there more filters that would make it harder for the bad guy to move around in the vents in the first place? This is a lab dealing with various pathogens, some of which had to be potentially airborne, and yet there seem to have been zero precautions in place. Maybe this will be explained as part of some nefarious scheme, but still...
Common Sense
This to me is the most damning part. Okay, they're playing fast and loose with the CDC stuff. Not like it hasn't been done before. Okay, it was clearly written by people who only see snow in snow globes. Not the first time there, either. But then there were these things:
You have a dangerous, contagious man on the loose. And yet, near as I can tell, the job of head of security is to stand around behind the others. Everyone seems to forget to look for the biggest threat. What else does security have to do at this point other than conduct a manhunt for the number one threat to them all? Because clearly security isn't doing other things they should be.
Then the bad guy takes the hand of one of his victims. We know the chip in the hand allows access to the locks. Why not immediately rescind the dead guy's access? If I could figure out that's what he wanted a hand for, the guy who's job it is to keep everyone secure should have. Heck, even if it wasn't what the bad guy wanted the hand for, this does not seem an unreasonable precaution. Yet no one even suggests it, even after it's been demonstrated that access can, in fact, be restricted.
Also, what's the number one rule of any horror film? DO NOT GO ANYWHERE ALONE. This is not just a question of the characters being less genre-savvy than the audience, this is common sense. You have a bad guy who is traveling through the air vents, vents that lead everywhere and cannot be sealed off. (I'll grant them that one, seeing as the bad guy demonstrates serious strength.) Why is anyone, ANYONE, traveling through the facility or working alone at this point? I don't care if you're taking a shower, you don't go alone.
Speaking of which, tracking a person through a metal air vent should not be hard. It makes an awful lot of noise. Although in this case it only seemed to do so when necessary to build suspense. Though I suppose that falls under the convention of having big enough vents to move around in anyway. Look, I bought it for Die Hard - which they had the good grace to name drop - but, in the intervening decades, I thought we'd all become savvy enough to know that in real life, these vents aren't big enough for that.
I'd like to nitpick having to manually search for the guy in the vents in the first place, but it's not entirely implausible that there isn't so much as a Roomba in the entire facility. Though, really, someone or something has to be keeping that gorgeous hardwood floor clean and shiny.
So, where does that leave me with the show?
When all is said and done, I really, really wanted this to be good. And parts of it are. Parts of it - and some of these are narrative things that I did not address here - are not. The lack of attention to detail worries me, from the small details to the big ones that seem to be driving the story.
I may tune in next week, but I really think they've lost me just by not paying enough attention.
It's in the details where Helix fell apart for me. I'm disappointed by this, because I wanted to like the show. There's certainly a lot to like about it, including the cast, but I couldn't help feeling they overlooked too many things. Maybe this is nitpicking, but when it gets to a certain level the nits start unraveling the whole.
(A couple of spoilers in this, so just be forewarned.)
I'm going to break these down into a couple of categories, starting with
Location
Point #1: Okay, did anyone in charge of this show remember that the Arctic, unlike it's southern cousin, is an ocean. I know one person did: whoever did that gorgeous matte that was under the helicopter on approach to the facility. Did you see those cracks? They were great. They were there because, again, the Arctic is an ocean, and the ice there does very different things than ice on solid land. There's a reason there aren't the kind of bases in the Arctic that there are in the Antarctic, and one of those is that sea ice isn't anywhere near as stable.
Even when it isn't melting. Which brings me to
Point #2. Now, they did a nice job on the map situating it in a place where there is still not open water in the summer in the Arctic, but whoever sank the probably millions if not billions of dollars into this thing (I mean, did you see that head office? Wood floors, spacious enough to park a couple of cars in, and that massive window? In the Arctic?), I hope they designed it to float in the long term.
Now, judging by the day/night cycles it's somewhere between summer and winter (because they are, according to what they said, above the Arctic circle), so we can't expect it to be at the height of summer, and we're not yet to open water in the entire Arctic in the summer, but if I were building something like that, I'd be worried about it.
Point #3: Speaking of temperature, what idiot walks out into that kind of cold without a face covering? Idiots who spend their lives in LA and don't actually have any appreciation for cold weather, that's who. This one should have been a matter of common sense. Again, even allowing that it's not the dead of winter, there was serious blowing snow and cold. Enough cold to freeze the monkeys solid, and rather quickly by the looks of it. And yet, the army guy, and the scientist trying to escape, are out there dressed no more warmly than if they're trying to build a snow fort on a Saturday afternoon.
Contagion Protocol
If these are really the people working at the CDC, I'm suddenly a lot more frightened. I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. And even I know that those suits they wear are not just about airborne pathogens. Even I know that you don't take off the thing that protects your face when you have infected rats right in front of you. For something that they know is so deadly, they are awfully cavalier about it in certain scenes.
Beyond that, it looks as though new people will be showing up. I'm sorry, but what part of "quarantine" were they unfamiliar with? New people cannot come in, just as the old people cannot come out. That's what it means to be quarantined.
Even before the outbreak, why are there such big air vents? Why aren't there more filters that would make it harder for the bad guy to move around in the vents in the first place? This is a lab dealing with various pathogens, some of which had to be potentially airborne, and yet there seem to have been zero precautions in place. Maybe this will be explained as part of some nefarious scheme, but still...
Common Sense
This to me is the most damning part. Okay, they're playing fast and loose with the CDC stuff. Not like it hasn't been done before. Okay, it was clearly written by people who only see snow in snow globes. Not the first time there, either. But then there were these things:
You have a dangerous, contagious man on the loose. And yet, near as I can tell, the job of head of security is to stand around behind the others. Everyone seems to forget to look for the biggest threat. What else does security have to do at this point other than conduct a manhunt for the number one threat to them all? Because clearly security isn't doing other things they should be.
Then the bad guy takes the hand of one of his victims. We know the chip in the hand allows access to the locks. Why not immediately rescind the dead guy's access? If I could figure out that's what he wanted a hand for, the guy who's job it is to keep everyone secure should have. Heck, even if it wasn't what the bad guy wanted the hand for, this does not seem an unreasonable precaution. Yet no one even suggests it, even after it's been demonstrated that access can, in fact, be restricted.
Also, what's the number one rule of any horror film? DO NOT GO ANYWHERE ALONE. This is not just a question of the characters being less genre-savvy than the audience, this is common sense. You have a bad guy who is traveling through the air vents, vents that lead everywhere and cannot be sealed off. (I'll grant them that one, seeing as the bad guy demonstrates serious strength.) Why is anyone, ANYONE, traveling through the facility or working alone at this point? I don't care if you're taking a shower, you don't go alone.
Speaking of which, tracking a person through a metal air vent should not be hard. It makes an awful lot of noise. Although in this case it only seemed to do so when necessary to build suspense. Though I suppose that falls under the convention of having big enough vents to move around in anyway. Look, I bought it for Die Hard - which they had the good grace to name drop - but, in the intervening decades, I thought we'd all become savvy enough to know that in real life, these vents aren't big enough for that.
I'd like to nitpick having to manually search for the guy in the vents in the first place, but it's not entirely implausible that there isn't so much as a Roomba in the entire facility. Though, really, someone or something has to be keeping that gorgeous hardwood floor clean and shiny.
So, where does that leave me with the show?
When all is said and done, I really, really wanted this to be good. And parts of it are. Parts of it - and some of these are narrative things that I did not address here - are not. The lack of attention to detail worries me, from the small details to the big ones that seem to be driving the story.
I may tune in next week, but I really think they've lost me just by not paying enough attention.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)