Richter 10

Arthur C Clarke collaborated with Mike McQuay to write this science fiction novel about human hubris and insignificance in the face of the awesome forces of nature.

Lewis Crane, the main character, is a child during the devasting 1994 LA earthquake in which his parents are killed when their house collapses and a leaking gas main is ignited. Fastforwarding, he is revealed to have become a rather brilliant, though naturally eccentric scientist, who has dedicated his career to the precise prediction of earthquakes. I won't do a spoiler by revealing his ultimate, hidden agenda.

Since the book is set in the relatively near future, the authors are free to hypothesize on the outcomes of various evolutions in technology, commercial and political spheres. The technology hypothesis is admirably understated, though perhaps an extreme extrapolation of consumerist/entertainment trends of 1995. As an example, imagine the ultimate reality TV, where the traffic accident you have just passed (or caused...) is broadcast live on the sides of buildings and on clouds. Imagine, also, brand names projected upon the Moon. Commercially, the book extrapolates the trend of mega-mergers of multinational corporations, and predicts (in 1995) the ascendency of the Chinese as an economic power. This I found interesting, as the Globe and Mail devoted a large portion of this Saturday's paper to analysis and description of the Chinese growth into a global economic powerhouse. Politically, the book's prognostication is an extension of the commercial/economic influence on the political sphere. The cynic in me finds the political economy of the book unsettling as it is again but an extrapolation of existing trends.

The conflict between groups of people, religions and races also has verisimilitude due to the drawing out of historical trends - although the rise of Africa as a world power, at this point, can be readily debated. I suppose it helped that most of the Middle East was turned into a sea of glass after the detonation of 30 multi-megaton nuclear bombs...

I can't neglect to mention the impacts of environmental degradation that are presented as merely a fact of life for the characters of the future - moonbathing is the last activity left for people to do outside unless they are protected by full clothing, hats, and powerful sunscreen.

This is a delightfully complex and wideranging book. Well worth reading.

A Hack a Day

The Hack a Day Web site/blog collects up all sorts of different hacks. Take a look, it's kind of interesting.

Canadian Stories of the Sea

This is a collection of stories and excerpts edited by Victor Suthren, whose credentials are impressive both as a historian and as a sailor. The book has eight logical sections, each with five or six stories. The first section, The First Peoples, presents First Nations' accounts and myths dealing with naval adventure. The Newcomers, the second section, covers the initial encounters of what would become Canada by the Norse and the Europeans. Blood on the Waters covers the early naval warfare in the region. Making a Living on the Sea holds stories of the fishing industry. Special Ships, the fifth chapter or section, has tales of the Bluenose, of an esoteric experiment by a Nova Scotian, and of the sinking of the Princess Sophia. Going It Alone comprises a few tales of solo maritime adventure in the spirit of Joshua Slocum. Dark Shadows: Modern War at Sea holds tales of Canadian naval trial by fire - the Atlantic Convoys and the like. Finally, chapter eight addresses "The Modern Sea: Harsh Workplace, Beckoning Playground," with stories from the boom, bust and evolution of fishing industries to the notion of going to sea for amusement.

These stories don't necessarily require an affinity for the sea to be appealing - they form an empathetic picture of a significant aspect of Canadian history.

Well worth reading for anyone with an interest in history, Canada, the sea or any combination of those.

Big Trouble

Dave Barry is a fairly amusing writer - he is based in Florida and has a syndicated column. In this instance, he's written a novel. Big Trouble is a rather warped crime tale, building on what may or may not be stereotypes about life in Miami. While it's pretty readable and amusing, I don't agree is the effusive praise heaped on this book. True enough, it has fun with the genre, but I wouldn't go to the extreme that Publishers Weekly did in calling it "[like] a Garry Trudeau send-up of hard-boiled crime novels."

The best thing I can say about this one is that it's conveniently sized for carrying about and reading on the bus.

The Gospel According to the Son

I finished this book of Norman Mailer's last night, and it is a quite a departure from my usual fare. Essentially, it's Jesus of Nazareth's autobiography. I can't really comment too much on the accuracy or reasonableness of the content as I am not particularly conversant in the Bible. The review exerpts on the book's cover and inside pages are quite glowing - although that may be partly because it's Norman Mailer.

In any case, it was interesting in the way that a museum exhibition on Biblical stuff is interested when it's aimed at the general public - not too wordy or elevated, but just fancy enough to get people to say "Ooooh," and "Neat" or whatever words are cool enough for them to use.

I couldn't even tell you if it's heretical or blasphemous. I can imagine some hard-core holy folk getting a little worked up, if only because religion is involved. This book questions the veracity of some of the Gospels, but on the other hand, doesn't really come down too hard on the Gospel-writers for it.

There's lot's to chew on here, and it's well worth reading.

Red Thunder

John Varley's book is pretty recent (2003), and thus somewhat relevant to the hullabaloo about going to Mars. Yep, that tried and true formula - mixed with the other tried and true formula about a gang of misfits coming up with a supremely elegant solution, with a dash of the impossible new technology that's as obvious as the nose on your face, so long as you look at it differently.

From that less than enthusiastic intro, it sounds like the book's not all that good. It's actually alright. It's a good read, at least - the characters develop well, the plot isn't too simplistic, and it touches enough current issues (for the U.S., anyway) including racism and commercialism, to achieve verisimilitude. In fact, the book is real enough (except for the impossible-by-today's-science technology) that it could be science-maybe-not-fiction.

The ending kind of fizzled, though, but that's a common complaint of mine - the book rolls along fine, then it seems that we get up to a page marker, and all the pieces drop into place, and all the loose threads are allocated a paragraph, and the book's done with enough room for the advertising page at the end.

A nice, 400 page, one-day read.

Where Nests the Water Hen

This book by Gabrielle Roy (translated by Harry Binsse) is a bit different from the books I normally read - it's CanLit! It's a pretty evocative recounting of a family's pioneer life in frontier Manitoba. There are two tropes: the first is the building and commissioning of a schoolhouse by the Tousignants, and the second is the intersection of the roving priest with their life and that of their sparsely populated community. A third subtext is the emigration of the children (so many of them!) from the Water Hen district to be doctors and so on further south.

Apparently the translation is quite good - I haven't read the original language version, and do not claim to be in a position to judge the translation even if I had read it. The story is a little slow-moving, but complete in its progress. The book conveys a sense of the land and time the characters occupy, making it feel almost like a nostalgic golden time of hope, and simplicity.

I liked the book, and I did chuckle at the character who felt that if the Water Hen district population kept increasing at one per year (as babies were brought into the world regularly) soon he would have to decamp and move to a more remote area without so many people (before the children began leaving, there may have been 15 or 20 people at most in the immediate area, and 30 or 40 if you went out a few miles.)

Guanya Pau

Here's a book I never would have expected to read. Joseph J. Walters wrote "Guanya Pau" in 1891. It's interesting - written by a Liberian studying in the US. I'm not quite sure what to make of this book, though. Guanya (an African princess) rebels against her arranged marriage to a polygamist - and in so doing, against entrenched oppressive traditions - and becomes a prototypical feminist/women's rights activist. Her whole flight from the situation is filled with references to the inequality of men and women, and I think while Walters may have been focussed on the African experience, the common themes with women's rights movements are strong. I'm not going to spoil the book completely, but it's not a happy ending.

The part that set my teeth on edge just a little bit was the strident gospel hallelujahs that are sprinkled through the book - for example, the author writes that his African brothers and sisters will be able to rise for the benighted inequality of their lives so long as they rejoice in the light of God... standard missionary fare. It is not the overarching premise of the book - the passages where the author excuses his exuberant digressions into praise for the Almighty disjoint the story a bit. It's not a huge problem, but it seems that the author had a little trouble either keeping two theses separated, or in incorporating two streams of argument into a single one.

I can't say it's the most thrilling book I've ever read, but it's interesting, particularly for the point of view and arguments made in the context of the time when the author wrote it.

The Face

My good friend Ozayr recently lent me Dean Koontz's "The Face" to read. It's a murder mystery, but with an enjoyable swirl of the supernatural that makes it an ideal book for right around Hallowe'en - the body count, which rises rapidly, helps too in this regard. In short, a rather pointless movie star of the first order has a 10 year old (or so) boy who lives in the star's superlatively ostentatious mansion. Security is headed up by an ex-cop, whose mission is to ensure the safety of said star. The villain is an anarchist who has an affinity for chaos, yet is remarkably organized, well-connected, and scarily clever. The supernatural twist consists of an acquaintance of the security chief who is balanced on a metaphysical knife-edge between life and death, and has a role as guardian angel.

The story is very well done - the book actually finishes well, something that bothers me about a lot of other books. Koontz draws some interesting inspirations from reality, particularly in using the stereotypical (or real, for all I know) realm of movie stardom to rapidly fill out characters; as well as fairly perceptively identifying little things that can turn neighbour against neighbour.

A great read, just fluffy enough to be fun, and smart enough not to be boring.

The True History of the Kelly Gang

Well, here's a problem when you either a) have a lousy memory or b) just don't keep track of what you've read.

I picked up Peter Carey's "True History of the Kelly Gang" from the local library a while ago with my last batch of books. As I flipped through it, it looked awfully familiar. Turns out I read it a couple of years ago. I think I actually have this book somewhere in my collection. I hate it when that happens, but what can you do.

The book's okay - the translation of accent and dialect into print is a bit of a struggle at first and takes some getting used to. Ned Kelly is a legendary hero of 19th century Australia, dirt poor, and on the run from authorities, and attempting to win his mother's release from prison. Once Kelly began his flight from the authorities, he sustained himself and his gang for twenty months of a manhunt by using his bushwhacking skills and robbing banks.

I'm not going to spoil the ending, but I will say that there's a town in New South Wales with an enormous statue of Ned Kelly - it has to be 50 feet tall at least - standing in his homemade armour.

Numbers in the Dark (and other stories)

Italo Calvino's "Numbers in the Dark (and other stories)" is a collection of short stories written between 1943 and 1984, collected from published stories as well as unpublished (and some uncompleted) manuscripts. Calvino's writing is typically interesting, and this collection of stories is no exception. Some are only a page and a half long, and those I found to be a lot of fun. They are from early in his writing career, and are really surreal - delightfully so. Progressing through the book, and thus the chronology of Calvino's writing, the surrealism is increasingly suffused with political and social commentary. The stories are all very readable - at least, to me.

I'm not going to get overly drawn out - Googling for the title of the collection brings up a pretty good review from someone who's clearly much better equipped to analyze and comment on the collection. Suffice to say, I really liked it.