04/07/2002 - 04/13/2002

The Peshawar Lancers / S. M. Stirling

The Peshawar Lancers / S. M. Stirling

An alternate history from a guy who sent the entire island of Nantucket back in time in his latest series of books.

This one is a bit of Kipling, a bit of Haggard. It's nice.

I have found, with a lot of books in the alternate history genre, too much obediant love for a myth of royalty, tinged with a hint of Rand's John Galt. This isn't exactly uncommon in SF -- from the heroic engineers of Gernsback's era through Heinlein or Asimov's heroes, to a lot of current military SF (David Weber's books being a particular example). There's a scene in Tom Clancy's Patriot Games in which Jack Ryan sees Prince Frikkin Charles as a tough old ex-marine, instead of an inbred pampered scion. I feel the same kind of vague embarassment whenever I see a someone like Norman Schwarzkopf accept a knighthood. Uh, no, guy. You earned being called "General". Being called "Sir" is a mild slap in the face to the Republic. We don't have Knights and Counts and Barons here. We have Citizens, which is a better thing entirely.

In Stirling's book the New Raj Royals are uniformly heroic and full of noblesse oblige and other good things you would want in a parliamentary king-emperor. But it's hard to reconcile that concept with the actual history of the British throne, including the power-mad nuts, the religious nuts, and the plain old nuts. Basically, a group so generally combining bloodthirstiness with incompetence that even their own nobles had to stick the Magna Carta on their heads. And the current batch is basically only lauded when they die.

For all of that, Lancers is an enjoyable book, and a nice bit of world building.

Chicago Blues / Hugh Holton

Chicago Blues / Hugh Holton

His books have raves from Wambaugh and Uhry, but Hugh Holton's books seem to be the insane cousin of the police procedural, even though the author is a longtime vert of the Chicago PD. This one works in some very Ludlum-esque aspects. The one I picked up after this one (Presumed Dead) seems to have Poe or King-like aspects.

Holton's a solid writer and things roar right along. But every once in a while, you sort of take a deep breath, look around, and say to yourself, "This is nuts! How did this guy think this would work?" And then you go right back to finding out what happens next.

The Amber Spyglass / Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass / Philip Pullman

I had something to say about this, wheN I was reading the previous two books in the series. But I didn't enjoy this one as much as the others, and so I've lost my enthusiasm for looking into Pullman more.

So, here's the commentary in brief: Paradise Lost redux, with God as the weak, sniveling bad guy, but it doesn't equal the atheist's Narnia. It's heretical, and Pullman's storyline is amusing (God as a johnny-come-lately to the universe, taking credit for something that already existed). But it never really addresses the idea of a Supreme Being. It's certainly contemptuous of the idea of One Sky God, but anyone who reads the ridiculous inconsistencies in Genesis (like different and conflicting creations) would probably come to the same conclusion.

Anyway, I like the first two books a ton, but the narrative verve seemed to go out of Amber Spyglass.

Basket Case / Carl Hiaasen

Basket Case / Carl Hiaasen

One of Hiaasen's better efforts. My favorite of his is Native Tongue. This one has less grotesque aspects (no rotting Rottweiler heads stuck on people's hands, for example), but is damn fine.

Up Country / Nelson DeMille

Up Country / Nelson DeMille

Interesting, though huge. Paul Brenner, the main character from The General's Daughter, goes back to Vietnam to investigate a murder that took place during the siege of Quang Tri.

I kind of hate the way it ends, though I am quite sure what happens after, based on the characters involved. But in a bestseller, the whole point is to read things happen, not assume them. But that resolution might have been a whole book in and of itself.

Brenner's relationship with Susan Weber sounds like the worst date/relationship ever, though there's lots of sex involved. Which is, of course, why bad relationships linger longer than you might expect from any rational point of view.

Some Audio Books

Listing audio books feels a bit like cheating, but what the hell. Harlan and I listened to a bunch of them while driving to Atlanta and back for a trade show. Only a couple were worth listening to, however.

The Good
The Judge / Steve Martini
LT's Theory of Pets / Stephen King / Stephen King

The Awful
The Smoke Jumper / Nicholas Evans
Just painfully arch and boring. We only got about 15 minutes into this.

Violets Are Blue / James Patterson
We actually got a couple of CDs into this one. But listening to it pointed out one bad thing about audio books: authors that are borderline readable in book form (because you can skim the boring bits) jump over the line into intolerable when read aloud, because you suffer through every annoying chapter, clause, phrase and sentence.

In this case, the "Alex Cross Investigates" chapters were fine. The "Alec Cross Deals with His Damn Family" chapters were annoying and repetitive. The "Murder and Murderers" chapters ranged from passable to hideously painful.

It was a line in one of the "Murderers" chapters which caused us to scream and punch the eject buton like a speed bag at Gallagher's Gym.

That was when we looked at each other, eyes already rolling, and decided this one was done.

Isle of Dogs / Patricia Cornwell

We got about half a chapter in, before cringing and putting the CD away.