The Elder Gods

Yay! A new book by David and Leigh Eddings!

I am amazed how these two can take a theme (Gods and people interacting to save the world from a really tough, malevolent creature) and make it nice, new, shiny and fresh all over again.

And it's a series too!

The gods seem to work in shifts - one batch of four does their thing whilst the other batch of four nap for a couple of gazillion years. As the story unfolds, it's coming up on shift change, and the Vlagh (that big, scary malevolent critter) is getting ready to bring it on. The gods start gathering up their resources (people of different races, who thankfully agree to get along with one another so long as there's plenty of gold) and they get ready to bring it on.

One of the things I like about the Eddings' books is the wise-ass dialogue. I remember one episode in... I'll say the Belgariad, but I might be wrong, where a bad guy is tossed of a really high tower. A wizard/leader of the group asks where so-and-so got to, and the character to tossed the bad guy says something to the effect of "He's learning how to fly." The wizard then asks how the new apprentice of flight is doing, as a couple of muffled thumps reach their ears. The response? "Does bouncing count?"

Ah. That was delicious.

Blood Diamonds

I absconded into the realm of fluff for a while. Jon Land's novel is a fairly typical thriller - good guys, bad guys, secret weapons, and agents of good and evil who've attained some sort of super-human ability in their work of deduction, deception and combat.

The part I liked about this book was its relevance. "Blood Diamonds" are diamonds mined in Africa (typically) whose sale is used by governments and warlords alike to prosecute entirely self-defeating wars (as well as to enrich themselves) at the pathetic expense of the poor, dispossessed, hungry people in those countries, who would really, I think, have some livestock, arable land and a clean stream rather than being blown up, shot, and otherwise beaten upon.

I'm glad that this book was written, if only for the fact that it addresses real-life crap (slightly exaggerated for the story) in a forum outside of the normal preaching-to-the-converted arenas. Here's what I mean. I knew about 'blood diamonds' before reading the book. I knew that there are groups agitating to reduce the trade in those diamonds. However, and this is not to diminish the efforts of those groups, their voices seem to be lost in general tumult of voices clamouring for attention on behalf of ALL the world's problems. And the people that tend to listen to the merits of supporting a particular cause tend to be those who are already committed to some degree to helping that cause. It's hard to win new supporters, just because there are so many causes to choose from when decided to lend one's support. I suppose it's a supporter's market...

The political economy of international aid. I'll have to remember that for my Ph.D!

Anyway, good subject matter, somewhat above average writing, and thankfully a little thin on the combat-and-gear related jargon.

Cosmopolis

Don DeLillo has written another pretty nifty book. Set in NY, NY, the last day on earth of a super-wealthy technology playa is delightfully surreal. The surreality (I don't know if that's a word - if not, it is now.) took a bit of getting used to, but in the end was a bit like reading one of those waking dreams, where things could make sense, but not from your particular perspective at the time. You sort of need to let all sorts of preconceptions slide - like since when is gravity a law, anyway?

My thesis advisor let me know about DeLillo all those years ago - thanks, Vinny! DeLillo's narrative realm is the city. He doesn't write about cities, per se, but writes about things that are informed by their occurring within the city. He's got postmodernism going on, what with the meaning of referants and empty signifiers and all that, he's got deconstructionism going; and the part that I kind of like, he's got a knack for picking up on little, seemingly normal parts of city life (I'm assuming - I don't live in New York. I'll keep an eye out in Sydney, and see if any of it generalizes down there), and troping them into narrative foils for some commentary or another.
Right now (I'm writing on 20 March 2005, backdating this because I didn't have time yet to make the captain's log) I'm reading another DeLillo. It's just as bizarre.

Anyway, I figure these books aren't for everyone's taste, but I'm pretty impressed by 'em.

Whisper of the Ax

Richard Condon writes a wierd book - I didn't like it much at all. This is the same fellow that wrote the Mancurian Candidate, which was itself a little strange. The Whisper of the Ax did not leave me fulfilled or satisfied at all.

A brief summary: A bunch of people, whose characters are not wholly credible - that is, I had a lot of trouble suspending my disbelief - conspire to their different ends, and naturally, are thwarted from disrupting the flow of life in the United States and causing chaos for the greater good of their ideological perspective. Really, it was pretty boring.

After reading two of Condon's books, I'm starting to form the impression that he's mildly obsessed with the possibilities (or impossibilities) of, and cue the dramatic music here, mind control. In the Candidate, the principal is under mind control to assassinate the president, and in Whisper, there's a whole mind control industry dedicated to turning out good little guerrillas.

Not much to see here, carry on.

Camp Concentration

Holy mackerel, I'm going to read this one again before the library gets it back. The premise is pretty basic - in the context of some embattled, Orwellian society, one person (the main character) is imprisoned as a conscientious objector. Turns out he's a poet, and gets transferred to a top secret installation where nutcase scientists are trying to use a syphilus-derived treatment to get the inmates to achieve vaulting feats of genius.

Sure, why not. Blah, blah blah (It's a heck of a lot better than the book I'm reading now.)

What makes this book particularly interesting, is the intellectual name-dropping that Thomas M. Disch pulls off in the telling. I couldn't drop names with the same alacrity; the ones I do know he presents in a way that's familiar enough that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the other ones. It is a fascinating book. I'm sure that when I read it the next time (and look up the stuff I don't know) it'll be even cooler.

For example, I don't know who Ursula K. Leguin is, but she's just a little over the top in her fulsome praise, claiming that the book is a work of art and if you read it you will be changed. No: I don't think it's that kind of book. Notwithstanding, it's very interesting.

The Wedding

According to J. M. Coetzee, Imraan Coovadia's book is a tender love story rendered in prose of dazzling comic wizardry. Perhaps I don't have the same depth of wisdom as Coetzee (who I think is a fine writer) but this book kind of left me unsatisfied. I probably don't have enough personal experience (even second hand experience) of the Indian experience this century to really 'get' the book. There's a certain lovableness to the characters, but in the end, I didn't really care about them. The greatest pleasure I derived from the book was the presentation of what might be stereotypical patterns of speech; but after about the halfway point, even that wasn't particularly interesting.

This book is hailed on the covers as a brilliant first work; Coovadia certainly has skill as a writer, but I didn't feel the same affinity to the book as the authors quoted did. I thought the male main character was faintly dippy, the female antagonist was a pain in the ass, and the family interactions were typical.

I'm not saying don't read this book - I'm just saying that it's okay, not brilliant.