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.

Omega

Jack McDevitt has a really interesting science fiction book here. Set a couple of hundred years in the future, with humans possessing faster-than-light travel, and all sorts of other nifty technological doodads, the story is of the "Omegas", big ol' scary interstellar travelling clouds that, well, home in on and destroy whatever looks like civilization - e.g., right angly stuff. Humans are looking for neighbours in the universe, and have found a couple - a bunch that like to fight, and a bunch that got walloped by the Omegas and went from some pinnacle of evolution to clubbing things with sticks.

Humans find another civilization because one of the clouds they're tracking noticed it and wandered over to beat up on it. Humans are also scared 'cos one of these clouds is coming to pay a visit in a few thousand years. Humans also know that they can't do much with these clouds - for example, they're not terribly bothered by a bunch of nuclear explosions inside them. Humans figure that this could be a good test run to fend off a cloud; besides, maybe they can make friends with the really nice civilization they found.

Fairly standard sci-fi stuff. What makes the book interesting (and I suspect it is contingent on the reader actually responding to these themes) is the way the story includes trenchant observations on ego, faith, epistemology, doctrine, and humanity.

I think I'm going to hunt down his "Polaris" and "Chindi".

The Manchurian Candidate

Apparently this tale by Richard Condon has stirred controversy and debate over the past, what, 40 years or so. It's been somewhat on the fringe of my awareness for a while, so I finally decided to read it when I stumbled across it in the library.

The edition I picked up has a introduction including some manner of analyis, though clearly not in sufficent depth to cover the reactions of the whole period since the book was published. Clearly, though, the introduction's author knows far more about the book's and the author's circumstances than I do, making references to the screen-play qualities of the book, and the logic that it should have those qualities as Condon was in the midst of the Hollywood whirl while writing it.

The book is plenty readable - there are rough patches, where it's a little incomprehensible, and some of the vocabulary is inconsistent with the surrounding text. Of course, it is greatly appreciated when an author drops in an unusual, go-get-the-dictionary word; and it turns out to be the perfect word. That happens once in a while; occasionally, the word is not the perfect one, which just seems kind of embarrassing.

The story is just a little far-fetched, but appears to be based somewhat on real life events. The main character's patrol in Korea is ambushed, and brainwashed. The main character is moulded into the perfect assassin - once triggered, he completes the orders; once completed, he doesn't remember anything. Lovely fellow.

His mother is a scheming, despicable woman; and I have never really figured out where her allegiances lie. Most likely, to herself and herself alone. She mixes it up with a US Senator, and the arc of this duo's ascent not too subtly echos the black mould of McCarthyism - entirely understandably.

Blah blah blah, the story goes on, and comes to a logical, though not necessarily entirely pleasant ending.

I suppose this is one of those books that's a 'must read' from the American canon. Fortunately, it is a pretty good book.

Time Scout

Robert Asprin's tale of time tourism and adventure is remarkably entertaining and engaging, for what appears to be a pulpish sort of little paperback science-fiction diversion. Certainly not to be ranked among the Asimovs and Bradburys, the story has a core of sympathetic, albeit archetypal characters - the hardbitten, experienced elder statesman adventurer, a young woman with burning ambition and something to prove, an intelligent hippyish independent, a couple of lost souls, one or two unpleasant people, the requisite corporate entity that invites the derision of those involved at the lower levels, and, of course, an eccentric though brilliant seamstress/tailor/costume maker.

I particularly liked the way Asprin treated the issue of occupying the same space at different times, and vice versa; as well as the enormous emphasis placed on learning about different eras to which people may travel, and the fine detail that is required for time tourists to safely (e.g., anonymously) visit other times.

A fun little book.

Hot Plastic

Peter Craig has managed to write a book that I found interesting. The story follows the three major characters as they con their way around the US in the 1990s, elaborately purloining identities to gain funds, making fencing scams for the same purpose, shoplifting for the same reason... yep, all they do is flit around trying to hit the big one.

Why is it interesting? First, Craig manages to make the characters engaging. Second, he successfully uses the disjointed chronology technique, leaping between the end of the story and the backstory to hustle the plot along. Third, he rather comprehensively details the intimate details of the cons, but doesn't get overly concerned in technical details when it comes to the junior members forays into high-tech scams.

I'd say it's worth reading.

Shampoo Planet

Douglas Coupland is overrated, in my opinion. This book starts like it has attention deficit disorder, and while I can see some of the social commentary regarding the importance of shallow concerns such as appropriate product choice, it's not nearly as incisive, telling, or astute as it would have to be to be a fantastic book. It's not terrible - don't get me wrong; it just is kind of laboured, like he's trying really hard. It could be that I just didn't find the characters that interesting, too.

Old Enough to Say What I Want

Dave Broadfoot has got to be one of my favourite comedians. This is his life story, and is as funny as any of his monologues. I had no idea he was so old, though, and some of the stuff he's done and is able to relate humorously is amazing. By all means, if you like comedians, read this. As a bonus, he includes some of his material - Sgt. Renfrew, Big Bobby Clobber and the whole gang.

Portfoolio 20 - The Years Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons

This is a collection of editorial cartoons for 2004. The cartoons are typically brilliant; the editorial blurbs introducing sections are somewhat wan as they try to mix written humour with a 20 second backgrounder on the issues being addressed by the cartoons.

Dead Heat

This mystery by Caroline Carver was more engaging to me than most mystery novels, perhaps because it's set in tropical Australia, where I lived for a few months. There's not much to the book - dangerous animals, hippy-ish healers, Chinese organized crime, and James Bond-ish Australian policemen - but it is a fairly rapid page turner and a bit of fun to read.

King of the Scepter'd Isle

Michael Greatrex Coney's book is an interesting concept, but somewhat dry in the reading. It's the fourth in a series, but fortunately the previous three books don't seem to be essential to getting the story. It's a take on the Arthurian legend, where Merlin and... I've forgotten the character's name - roam about England telling stories about Arthur and the Round Table and so on; stories so real that the audience feels like they are right in the story. There are also 'happentracks', basically parallel universes that converge and diverge through time. There are also a sort of supreme being, who manipulate or guide events along particular happentracks. There's gnomes, too, and gnome-human relations, and robots and interstellar grasshoppers.

These are all the ingredients of a fabulous story, but I found it sort of limp to read.

The Conqueror's Child

Ah, the thirty year long creative process wraps up. Again, I don't really agree with the fulsome praise heaped on this book by the reviewers cited on the covers.

Summary: Yay, everything kinda works out in the end.

The most interesting part of this series is that it is a feminist sci fi opus spanning 30 years - at a meta-analysis level, the shading of the good versus evil does show some evolution over time. I won't pretend to be sufficiently expert in the realm of feminist theory and/or dogma to say whether the books follow the evolutionary trends, though. Alldera the Conqueror would smite me down.

If someone was considering reading this series, I'd really suggest starting with the last book; and then starting from the beginning, because the first book is a little offputting in its simplicity of scenario and lack of nuance - frankly, tedious. However, the series is worth reading for the arc of development.

The Furies

This is book three of Suzy McKee Charnas' Holdfast Chronicles. Well, I was right - this is a feminist oeuvre through and through - and about as subtle as a sledghammer against a window. I'll avoid for now the arguments around feminism's different schools of thought and so forth.

The book, in my opinion, suffers for being so blatant - there's no mystery or challenge in trying to figure out who is a bad guy and who is a good woman. I'm writing this blurb after I finished the fourth book, and I think this, the third one, is the weakest in terms of holding interest.

I may as well carry on to deal with the fourth book...

Lucifer's Hammer

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's book about the end of the world at the hands of an enormous comet is strangely fascinating. They clearly hail from the Hobbesian perspective of Man (I know, but it's Hobbes' term, not mine) in a state of nature. Of course, getting one's world destroyed in a very scary way probably constitutes a confounding variable, but suffice to say, there's a lot of nasty people in this book.

The second thing that strikes me about this book is the American (specifically, Californian)-centric nature. I'm not calling that an inherently bad thing, because it is a very effective means to constrain the scope of the book which otherwise would be thousands of pages long if written in the same degree of personal detail and addressing the whole world. What I am now curious about is sci-fi takes on the end of the contemporary world from other areas of the world. This book, for example, written in 1977 has as a minor theme the US-USSR Cold War rivalry. I wonder, for example, how would survivors in Africa, or the Andes, or ... wherever would be perceived as carrying on after a catacylismic event.

I just thought about it a bit more, and the device to limit the scope of the book is elegant in its simplicity - tsunami take care of the world's population, because people just seem to love that beachfront view (I know, port cities, trade, it's all economic and logical!); a nuclear war takes care of another large swath of the earth when one country gets jumpy on the trigger finger, and most of the rest of the world (which isn't much) doesn't seem to be all that important except for a few offhand mentions.

I find it hard to read about fictional people reduced to barbarity, and the nasty things they do to one another, especially when the real world has far too many examples of it already. I think the writers used the barbarity to try and make their point (a little crudely) about the strength of the American dream and the power of technology; I can understand the device, but I didn't really enjoy it.

The praise heaped on this book by reviewers (at least the ones plastered over the back and face page of the book) is overly effusive. It's not really that good, in my opinion - I was curious to see how it ended, but at no time did I have trouble putting it down - it's not a "just another couple pages" book. To the book's credit, I now have a literary interest in the cultural study of end-of-the-world stories.

A Nation Forged in Fire : Canadians and the Second World War, 1939-1945

J.L. Granatstein and Desmond Morton wrote a fairly thin history volume, which is deceptive - it's quite well written, and includes a good stock of photographs.

It's hard to comment on the plot and character development of a war history book. This one's pretty good.

1066: The Year of the Conquest

David Howarth has done some rather serious detective work surrounding the Norman invasion of England, decoding disparate sources such as the victor's tales, the loser's accounts, and even the Bayeux Tapestry, to deduce a fairly rigourous and tenable story.

It is a very academic undertaking - I would expect this for a graduate thesis in history; but Howarth does make it readable by bringing characters to life. It's not really a book to read for fun, but I rather enjoyed it - it's a great train book.

A World in Flames, 1944-1945

This is the second volume of Richard Malone's tales of his involvement in World War Two, and I think the novelty of the story is wearing off, because this volume wasn't as captivating as the first one. The book's value is in the perspective it provides of the war effort, and overall is well written. I think I'm getting war history burn-out, though.

Worth reading.