Planescape: Torment by Chris Avellone, Colin McComb, and Rhys Hess (Editor) (2000)
As a badly edited novelization of the "revered-by-the-types-of-people-who-revere-cRPGs" cRPG Planescape: Torment—i.e. more or less a straight port—this was readable. It helped me figure out, more than a decade later, what happened in the last 15-20% of the game I never finished, without the ordeal of replaying something that hasn't aged well. Additionally, in this format, I was able to access excellent writing and characterization from dialogue trees that I never triggered in-game. On the downside, while the dialogue translates well to novel format, the nonlinearity of the game does not—and above all, I felt the absence of the excellent soundtrack/audio design; the immersion in Sigil; those moments when you're looking at seven or eight different dialogue options, each of which could spin off an entire new universe... so yeah, don't expect any of that from a book.
All told, consider me officially HYPE for Torment: Tides of Numenera, Tyranny, and every other game being billed as a "spiritual successor to PS:T," since, to the benefit of narrative-driven cRPG-lovers like me, they seem to be growing on trees.
—
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang (Penguin Books, 1998)
★★★★☆
As a Chinese American, I never heard war stories growing up and instead developed a healthy obsession with Japanese culture, learned Japanese, etc. I thought Japan had already apologized countless times for WWII and even questioned why it wasn't enough, why we as an international community continue to blame the current generation for the mistakes of the past.
This book forces us to confront the atrocities of history and to ensure they aren't forgotten in a "second Holocaust." Outside of the horrifying accounts of the brutalities committed in Nanking, Chang details how hollow the Japanese "apology" has been, and how many of the Rape's worst perpetrators escaped justice, in some cases even with the complicity and to the benefit of the US.
Chilling: a "polite Japanese answer" is an answer to satisfy the questioner, not an answer owed the questioner because of their shared humanity. Even more so: the veneer of civilization is tissue-thin, and we are all pretending is isn't.
—
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu (Gallery / Saga Press, 2016)
★★★★★
Powerful fucking stuff. Stories at the intersection of Chinese/Chinese American/Asian identity, technology, law, philosophy, history. I cried multiple times reading this.
—
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany (Vintage, 2001)
★★★★☆
I am convinced that Dhalgren is one of the best books I have ever read, though not one of my favorites.
I did not hear the bottle shatter, only the explosive intake of gasoline igniting, flames throwing black shadows against the concrete; our shadows, running. We all were running, and in the eyes of a Kennedy-jawed girl from the Virginia suburbs I would see something I had never seen before: a feral shiver, a bright wet shard of ancient light called Panic, where dread and ecstasy commingled utterly. And then the first canisters fell, trailing gas, and she was off, running, like a deer and in that moment as beautiful. And I ran after her, and lost her, and sometimes I imagine she is running still.
That's William Gibson, from the foreword, which helps to center the reading: written in 1974, Dhalgren is a response to "the singularity that overtook America in the nineteen-sixties" (Gibson, again). Despite its age, in 2016, the year of everything-going-to-shit, it feels intensely apropos.
In the city of Bellona, where an unnamed catastrophe has happened and strange meteorological occurrences light up the sky, we meet many stripes of characters: the Richards family, who pretend like nothing happened; the hippie commune, who attempt love and peace but have their own internal strife; the scorpions, a gang/tribe that tends toward violence but also contains moments of familial beauty; and many others. I found this aspect of the book to be an astute conceit about how people respond to cataclysm and a sometimes heartbreaking portrait of the structures people will create, in their relationships, religions, and otherwise, when surrounded by chaos.
The Kid, our protagonist, is sharply observant and has half-interesting, by turns non-sequitur/self-defeatist inner dialogue, but he also stumbles over large gaps in his memory, including not remembering his own name and not being able to tell what's real and what's been dreamt. By simply going with the flow he ends up performing acts that others construe into heroic (but the same impulse leads the opposite to happen, as well). The scorpions all have wearable projectors that transform them into fearsome holograms of mythical beasts (dragons, manticores, etc.), and one of the book's mysteries is, like Indian poker, what Kid's projector shows. "How exciting, to anticipate your glowing aspect, to puzzle over what you’ll turn out to be."
There is a moment, during Kid's first "run" with the scorpions, where he encounters a mirror and sees that the reflection is not his, but rather the author's—and freaks out—that is just perfectly done, with respect to the blurring of writer/character, subject/object, self/other. This is my first novel of Delany's, but prior to this I read his autobiographical The Motion of Light In Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, and it was fun (and a little annoying) to see where swaths of Dhalgren are simply lifted from Delany's actual life experiences, as recounted in that book (e.g., Kid loses one shoe because a dog unexpectedly chased him from under a house porch; Kid spent some time on a shrimp boat; Kid is in a polyamorous relationship, right down to the sexually explicit details). Kid also writes poems, and when the opportunity arises for them to be published, he has embarrassingly intense fantasies about authorship that hit a little too close to home.
All of this is hyper-lucidly written in prose that's often beautiful, in a disjointed, annular structure reminiscent of Infinite Jest. While it's true nothing much happens in Dhalgren, and it is, by and large, boring and tedious to read (another characteristic it shares with the latter), I found the experience of reading it worthwhile, and found myself moved in a deep, complex, difficult-to-describe way.
Oh, my poor, inaccurate hands and eyes! Don’t you know that once you have transgressed that boundary, every atom, the interior of every point of reality, has shifted its relation to every other you’ve left behind, shaken and jangled within the field of time, so that if you cross back, you return to a very different space from the one you left? You have crossed the river to come to this city? Do you really think you can cross back to a world where a blue sky goes violet in the evening, buttered over with the light of a single, silver moon? Or that after a breath of dark, presaged by a false, familiar dawn, a little disk of fire will spurt, spitting light, over trees and sparse clouds, women, men, and works of hand? But you do! Of course you do! How else are we to retain the inflationary coinage and cheap paper money of sanity and solipsism?
—
The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi (Tor Books, 2012)
★★★★☆
It was going to be hard to follow up The Quantum Thief. I liked getting more insight into the Sobornost and their internal divisions during this book, but it turns out the Sobornost intrigues and Matjek Chen's Great Common Task/origin story just aren't that interesting. The book moves too fast to a) understand what's going on or b) care, a lot of times. I had a hard time understanding the basis of Mieli's suicidally depressive state in the first half (it was clearer on 2nd read-through it's because the pellegrini was given the ability to make gogols of her, but why is that such a big deal?). The adventure into the zoku router seemed like conflict for the sake of conflict. I still don't understand what the Kaminari jewel is or what it does.
Oh well, it was still enjoyable. 4 stars.
—
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (Del Rey Books, 2006)
★★★★☆
Altered Carbon reads like a less pretentious Neuromancer. The main mystery kept me turning pages, while the threads of the main character's backstory and the world-building were woven in nicely. I was pretty confused over the true motivations for the mystery resolution, and I still don't really understand why Takeshi hated Reileen so much. Kind of wish there was a bigger to-do at the end; it was sort of "I'm Mr. Antihero, look at me!" All in all, fun read with cool tech.
—
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (Saga Press, 2015)
★★★★☆
I've never encountered a fantasy novel quite like this—Eastern influences not in the world-building but in the style of storytelling. The opposite of Guy Gavriel Kay, maybe? It reads like one of my favorite video games, Suikoden II, plays (which makes sense given Suikoden is based on The Water Margin, one of the great four Chinese classical novels... that I still have never read). The world itself is otherwise not Eastern or Western, it's unique, and the fantastical and "silkpunk" touches are enjoyable to read about. With such a huge cast of characters I was pleasantly surprised to find myself engrossed.
—
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (Harvest Books, 1994)
★★★★☆
First Umberto Eco. Sort of like a medieval Se7en. Takes a while to get going, but his afterword notes this is the penitence for entering the abbey. Did not expect to be so entertained.
—
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit, 2014)
★☆☆☆☆
I'm apparently the only person who didn't like this book. Maybe because I read the first one too long ago? Didn't care for any of the characters (couldn't, really, tell the difference between most of them, and I want to believe that's not due to the gender thing), hated the dialogue, hated the extra-on-the-nose injection of the author's views into the dialogue ("I hate children. Wait, but children are their own people, aren't they?").
—
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc, 1999)
★★★★★
I read this because all the Amazon reviews said "best book I've ever read." And it WAS really good. Complex characters, tons of action right off the bat, lovely exploration of dark themes about memory and identity. Agree with another review about the contrasting antagonists—very humanized and well done. Beautiful, lyrical writing. Kind of drags in the middle though, and the ending didn't blow my mind quite as much as expected. I really liked the treatment of Erlein—my palms were sweaty while reading about the encounter with him, and the depiction of the ensuing complex, raw emotions was just on point.
—
Embassytown by China Miéville (Del Rey, 2011)
★★★★★
This isn't a perfect book. There are a number of characters whose arcs fizzle. The protagonist doesn't do much until fairly late in the game, and it's hard to see why she's the only one capable of making the intervention she does.
That said, I hate how perfect this book is. The language-virus premise reminded me of Snow Crash, and the way the primary conflict ultimately resolves is almost sublime. The world and politics Miéville builds; their slow descent into hell; the immer; all were logically but richly, deftly imagined. (The post-virus Ariekei factions: the mindless addicts, the self-imposed Languageless, the resistance trying to wean themselves off the drug...!) The way he leaned on future-slang felt a little off-key sometimes to this techie (e.g. "bansheetech"), but I guess that's one area where if you just have enough swag, you can fake it till you make it -- supposing your reader can stomach the density. (Robin Sloan does this very effectively in Annabel Scheme, and in places where Miéville succeeded at weaving his future-slang into a Future, I was reminded of that book.) But I think the ultimate comparison is probably to something by Ursula K. Le Guin: the writing that en-languages this rich Future is lustrous and incredibly tight (the dialogue in particular feels very real), and I am not surprised Le Guin is quoted on the cover.
—
The Expatriates by Janice Y.K. Lee (Viking, 2016)
★★☆☆☆
Is motherhood really the be-all, end-all of a woman's life? This book sort of sickened me in the way each of the three main characters only seemed to realize her purpose when she fulfilled her motherhood. I will say some of the children's actions and the mothers' attendant loving internal reactions were treated so tenderly I did feel real empathy, and I highly enjoyed the detailed portrayal of Hong Kong's expat community as well as the incisive arm's-length commentary thereof.
—
Giftwish by Graham Dunstan Martin (Kingfisher Books, 1978)
★★★☆☆
I remembered loving this book as a child. Rereading it, its magic and richness are much simpler things than the adult-oriented fantasies I read nowadays, but the kernels are there. It's a traditional quest with fantastic encounters along the way, a great chapter devoted to a cerebral "disposition on sorcery," and even some nifty otherworldliness. I think it's gonna be a treat for my favorite kid.
—
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz, 2007)
★★☆☆☆
I liked almost none of the characters in this book except the Dogman. I could read three books about the Dogman but unfortunately it seems like I would have to read about everyone else, too.