Books
Yes, I’m posting more today than I have in weeks. It’s what a day off when you are deaf in one ear, recovering from travel/vacation, and have no grad school assignments due will do to you. (I did check my Microsoft e-mail today and answered one budget question for the group I am in, of all things.)
I finished Peter Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star last night on the plane. That’s a pretty hefty book at roughly 900 pages but I enjoyed it quite a bit. (On an amusing sidenote, I was reading the library’s paperback copy rather than my own hardcover of it.)
In many ways, it is reminiscent of the Night’s Dawn trilogy. Not in overall plot but in the feel of much of the civilization. Hamilton seems to like to build these interstellar civilizations that are far from utopias but still doing basically OK and then have something horrible happen to them. Unlike Night’s Dawn, he actually makes a vague attempt to acknowledge that an interstellar capitilistic society may not be either the most fair or natural form of things, in some respects. He has a character who is an old communist revolutionary who has done some horrid things in the past but been worn down by the sheer size of his enemy over time. This character gets used as a mouthpiece for asking why, among other things, people can have such an advanced society with instantaneous interstellar travel but there are still slums and super-wealthy dynasties controlling the world. Hamilton doesn’t answer this beyond the character’s belief that the system is purposefully manipulated by the elites to create scarcity (which is not a difficult argument given the nature of power).
On a story level, it’s a good book and I found it engaging. I’m quite fond of Hamilton’s space opera and I think he writes a good story. He also has an eye to character, which makes all the difference in books. He seems to manage to have characters which are both movers and shakers in his universes but also includes questionable types like the revolutionary, a morally challenged social climbing reporter, and even a few “normal” people just trying to raise families and get by. A good mix.
Once I finished this, I began working on John Burdett’s Bangkok 8. This had been recommended to me a while ago by my friend Will at work as a gritty detective book set in…Bangkok. I hadn’t gotten around to reading it but quite recently, Burdett wrote a sequel to it, which has been getting good reviews as well. The clincher was when I listened to this interview with Burdett from The Agony Column. (I’ve made a habit of checking out the site because many of my favorite authors seem to wind up there.) After hearing the author speak a bit about the work, Buddhism, and his own background, the novel sounded even more interesting.
As of last night, I’m about half way through the book. It’s not terribly long but it is quite good. The writing is first person and contains enough that it really at odds with your typical detective tale or western tale that I’m quite enjoying it.
Next week, I’ll probably get around to reading the used copy of King of Morning, Queen of May that arrived recently. I’ve been plowing through the backlist of Ian McDonald’s work recently. Ares Express by him has been one of my favorite recent novels and he was nominated for a number of awards for his current River of Gods. (I have an Indian coworker who keeps asking me to lend him my copy but I keep forgetting to bring it in. I’d love to know what he thinks of a science fiction tale set in India 50 years from now.)
