This is one of the trio of tie-in novels released for the first season of Torchwood, and is set early in that season, after Gwen's settled in but before Cyberwoman. Tie-in novels can disappoint, but this is a solid story that's well-written and that fits the Torchwood universe well; a dark tale about the things that come through the Rift and their misuse by the locals. It's actually better than the first couple of tv episodes, because the sex and violence is used to good effect in the story, rather than feeling as if it's tossed in just to see how far the show can go in a post-watershed slot.
There are two interweaving plots here. The main plot concerns an outbreak of killings involving cannibalism, and their link to a very dubious weight-loss clinic. The team's hunt for the solution is given added urgency when Gwen realises that Rhys has taken one of the clinic's pills. The minor plot concerns Tosh's research into a series of alien devices.
There's good exposition and world-building, and I think this book will work for someone who hasn't yet seen the show. The characterisation's not that deep, but it's not bad for an early tie-in where even an author who's a fan or involved with the show's production wouldn't have had much to go on, and it's accurate. With one exception there's not much reference to specific events in the tv series, and even the exception is blended in nicely as something that will be simply a character quirk to people who haven't seen the relevant episode.
The book focuses strongly on the relationship between Gwen and Rhys (and does so very nicely), but generally doesn't neglect the rest of the team. There are some decent bits for particular characters: Tosh gets a decent word count, even if she spends it being girl geek as usual; there's a good storyline for Owen where circumstances force him to interact with an attractive woman as a person, rather than just a shag. On the other hand, Ianto's barely mentioned; but when you do see him he's spending a lot of time lurking in the remote archives and discouraging other team members from wandering into them, which is appropriate for this point in his storyline, and he gets some good interaction with Tosh.
Physically, it's a hardcover with a perfect-bound book block, which is what you'd expect at this price point for a hardback. It's solidly constructed with no loose pages, and there's a good cover design which links in with the other two books in the set. Designer Lee Binding's done a nice job with stock art here.
Slow Decay is a good read for both the plot and the characterisation, and I expect I'll be re-reading it soon. Well worth the money.
I got this book as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer programme, and probably wouldn't have picked it up if I'd simply seen it in the bookshop. But the description in the ER programme intrigued me, and I'm glad I read it.
It's a multi-layered pastiche and parody of the old pulp African adventure stories, with two interlocking stories set early in the twentieth century, narrated by one of the protagonists as an old man late in the twentieth century. As the novel opens the narrator, Tommy Thomson, is scraping a living as a young man by ghost writing pulp adventure stories. He's frustrated by the need to pander to the extreme racism and disregard for facts of the pulp market. He loses the ghost writing job, but is offered the chance to write a true African adventure story -- ghost-writing the story of a man who is awaiting trial for the murder of his two employers on a gold-hunting expedition in the Congo.
Tommy is drawn ever deeper into Marcus Garvey's story. It's very like the pulp adventures he's written before, but with one twist -- this time it's a tale of brutal and amoral English aristocrats abusing first the black Africans and then a strange race of underground people, white but not entirely human, with a low-class servant who is the flawed hero. This tale of derring-do is interwoven with the story of Tommy's own life over the course of the years he writes Garvey's story, interrupted by his service in the First World War. Tommy thinks of his own life as boring and humdrum, but it's an enchanting read with some fascinating secondary characters.
There are multiple levels of unreliable narration, so things aren't quite as they seem. Part of the game is deciding who is unreliable and how far, and the author plays fair in the end. In the meantime you get a cracking read, with a lot of homages to other works.
I enjoyed the book a great deal, but I did have some minor problems with it. There are a lot of anachronisms, a couple of which threw me out of the story (in particular, singing "God save the Queen" in court at a time when a King was on the throne). These felt like mistakes by the author rather than being deliberate. One of the signals that part of the story is unreliable simply doesn't work if you're used to reading science fiction or magic realism. If you're an sf fan, switch into mainstream reading protocols when you're reading this book. And be warned that there is some gruesome imagery which might be a bit much for some readers.
One particular point -- this is a translation of a novel written in Catalan. Translations vary a lot in quality and can sometimes feel stiff and lifeless, but this one is excellent. It flows very well and is a joy to read.
Enormous fun, and well worth the time.
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I'd been hearing good things about this book for a while, so when it was mentioned as one of the incentives to sign up for Tor's new online promotion material, I went straight over to give them my email address. The link for the OMW download arrived just before lunch. I didn't intend to read it then and there, but flicked through the file to make sure it had downloaded properly. Had my attention snagged by some of the dialogue in the first chapter. Decided to read the first chapter while I was reading lunch.
I read the whole book. It's *that* good at getting you to turn the pages.
It's a Heinlein pastiche, primarily influenced by Starship Troopers but with significant nods to some other books, particularly Space Cadet. But it's an original and interesting riff on those themes, not a knock-off. Here it's not the young men but the old men who go to war, and there are some well thought out reasons as to why.
The basis of the book is that the Colonial Defense Force has rejuvenation technology, and if you live on Earth the only way you can get access to it is to sign up to be a soldier when you turn 75. One-time only offer, use it or lose it. Nobody on Earth knows exactly what the technology is or does, because part of the sign-up deal is that you are declared legally dead on Earth, and can never, ever return. Oh, and you're signing for a term of at least two years, and up to ten -- and while little detail comes back to Earth about the colonies, it's clear that soldiering is a risky business.
John Perry's got nothing to lose. He and his wife made the decision to register as potential recruits when they turned 65. She's dead now, and there aren't any other ties strong enough to hold him to Earth. So he enlists in the old man's war, and finds out just what's out there on the other side of the sky. It turns out to involve a lot of hostile aliens and a multi-way battle for territory that can get very, very nasty indeed.
Perry's a decent and likeable man, and it's fascinating to watch him go through the process of being moulded into a soldier. While this is military sf that makes no bones about it sometimes being necessary to fight to live, it isn't a lazy glorification of the military. You could equally well read it as a subtle critique of unthinking glorification of the military. There are some significant moral issues raised in a quiet way and simply left there for the reader to think about if they notice them.
There's a good and funny look at what it means to be old, followed by an exploration of what happens when a mind with 75 years of experience gets a new body that's not just fifty years younger, but seriously tuned for performance. And there's some thoughtful discussion of identity and what it means to be human that makes the book more than just a romp. But it's also a very fine romp, and enormous fun to read.
I do have a couple of criticisms. Perry is both smart and lucky, as befits an action hero, even a 75 year old action hero. But his rapid rise through the ranks and special shininess edge a little too close to blatant Mary Sue territory in places. Yes, it's a pastiche of the pulp style, but it broke willing suspension of disbelief a couple of times, at least for me. And I found the ending a little too abrupt, feeling as if Scalzi had simply run out of story for now. However, there are two more books in this universe, and I was left wanting to go out and buy them.
(There is also one specific issue which bothered me a *lot*, but it bothers me for personal reasons which won't pertain to most readers -- see Nicholas Whyte's detailed post on the Bender episode: http://nhw.livejournal.com /642176.html plus the discussion in the comments thread for why that scene is the way it is and why some of us still think it comes over as a bone tossed to the more rabid "peaceniks are dumb" milsf fans. Lots of spoilers.)
If you're a Heinlein fan, this book's well worth reading. But it works in its own right as well, whether or not you've ever read any of the books it's influenced by. If you're looking for some milsf with some decent science fiction speculation, this one's worth a look.
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Pohl and Kornbluth's's sharp satire of the consumer society and corporate corruption of government is as relevant today as when it was first published 50 years ago. "Gladiator at law" describes a possible future for the 1950s in which the working and middle classes are kept under control by the threat of losing their job and with it their tied housing--and the unemployed masses are kept quiescent with bread and circuses, Roman style. Reality tv may not have gone quite as far as the entertainment for the proles depicted in this novel, and science fiction is an exploration of possible futures rather than a prediction of an actual future, but Pohl and Kornbluth's depiction of one of those potential futures is uncomfortably close to present day reality.
There are some nicely drawn characters, and a realistic look at the hazards of battling powerful vested interests -- while there is a happy ending, it comes at a price. The novel is short by today's standards, but a good read, and well worth hunting down a copy at a reasonable price.
The second volume of the long-running manga series sees it settle down into the general series theme, with flamboyant art thief Eroica and uptight NATO intelligence agent Iron Klaus finding their paths repeatedly crossing, sometimes as opponents, sometimes having to work together. Set in the Cold War Europe of the 1970s, it shows a pair of characters who are on opposite sides of the law and very different in personality, but with some surprising things in common. Alas, one of those things is not sexual orientation, and Eroica's romantic interest in Klaus is destined to remain unrequited, providing the source of much fun during the series.
And there's plenty of fun to be had. The stories are completely over the top, in the same way that the Bond films are over the top -- camp, very funny, and with plenty of action. In this one, Eroica and Klaus have a shared interest in a Greek shipping tycoon. Eroica wants to steal an art treasure, and Klaus wants to stop a KGB agent's honeytrap operation. This leads on to a second adventure in which Klaus is trying to protect world leaders at a meeting which just happens to be just down the road from Eroica's castle -- and for perfectly rational reasons, Klaus ends up ordering Eroica to strip and hand over his underpants... But when they're forced by circumstances to work together, they make a very good team.
Flawed but likeable people, they're enormously entertaining to watch, as are the secondary characters. Both men have a team of minions, not all of whom are quite what their masters would wish for. This volume introduces Agent G, Klaus' gay cross-dressing agent who has a crush on Eroica.
There's also an independent story to fill out the page count, about a strait-laced young German man sent on a cultural exchange visit to a tiny island nation with a very strange navy. There's not much plot, and there's an awful lot of froth, but it's a quick fun read with a serious point underneath the fluff.
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Torchwood: Slow Decay by Andy Lane
JulesJones, May 14, 2008
This is one of the trio of tie-in novels released for the first season of Torchwood, and is set early in that season, after Gwen's settled in but before Cyberwoman. Tie-in novels can disappoint, but this is a solid story that's well-written and that fits the Torchwood universe well; a dark tale about the things that come through the Rift and their misuse by the locals. It's actually better than the first couple of tv episodes, because the sex and violence is used to good effect in the story, rather than feeling as if it's tossed in just to see how far the show can go in a post-watershed slot.There are two interweaving plots here. The main plot concerns an outbreak of killings involving cannibalism, and their link to a very dubious weight-loss clinic. The team's hunt for the solution is given added urgency when Gwen realises that Rhys has taken one of the clinic's pills. The minor plot concerns Tosh's research into a series of alien devices.
There's good exposition and world-building, and I think this book will work for someone who hasn't yet seen the show. The characterisation's not that deep, but it's not bad for an early tie-in where even an author who's a fan or involved with the show's production wouldn't have had much to go on, and it's accurate. With one exception there's not much reference to specific events in the tv series, and even the exception is blended in nicely as something that will be simply a character quirk to people who haven't seen the relevant episode.
The book focuses strongly on the relationship between Gwen and Rhys (and does so very nicely), but generally doesn't neglect the rest of the team. There are some decent bits for particular characters: Tosh gets a decent word count, even if she spends it being girl geek as usual; there's a good storyline for Owen where circumstances force him to interact with an attractive woman as a person, rather than just a shag. On the other hand, Ianto's barely mentioned; but when you do see him he's spending a lot of time lurking in the remote archives and discouraging other team members from wandering into them, which is appropriate for this point in his storyline, and he gets some good interaction with Tosh.
Physically, it's a hardcover with a perfect-bound book block, which is what you'd expect at this price point for a hardback. It's solidly constructed with no loose pages, and there's a good cover design which links in with the other two books in the set. Designer Lee Binding's done a nice job with stock art here.
Slow Decay is a good read for both the plot and the characterisation, and I expect I'll be re-reading it soon. Well worth the money.
Pandora in the Congo by Albert Sanchez Pinol
JulesJones, May 10, 2008
I got this book as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer programme, and probably wouldn't have picked it up if I'd simply seen it in the bookshop. But the description in the ER programme intrigued me, and I'm glad I read it.It's a multi-layered pastiche and parody of the old pulp African adventure stories, with two interlocking stories set early in the twentieth century, narrated by one of the protagonists as an old man late in the twentieth century. As the novel opens the narrator, Tommy Thomson, is scraping a living as a young man by ghost writing pulp adventure stories. He's frustrated by the need to pander to the extreme racism and disregard for facts of the pulp market. He loses the ghost writing job, but is offered the chance to write a true African adventure story -- ghost-writing the story of a man who is awaiting trial for the murder of his two employers on a gold-hunting expedition in the Congo.
Tommy is drawn ever deeper into Marcus Garvey's story. It's very like the pulp adventures he's written before, but with one twist -- this time it's a tale of brutal and amoral English aristocrats abusing first the black Africans and then a strange race of underground people, white but not entirely human, with a low-class servant who is the flawed hero. This tale of derring-do is interwoven with the story of Tommy's own life over the course of the years he writes Garvey's story, interrupted by his service in the First World War. Tommy thinks of his own life as boring and humdrum, but it's an enchanting read with some fascinating secondary characters.
There are multiple levels of unreliable narration, so things aren't quite as they seem. Part of the game is deciding who is unreliable and how far, and the author plays fair in the end. In the meantime you get a cracking read, with a lot of homages to other works.
I enjoyed the book a great deal, but I did have some minor problems with it. There are a lot of anachronisms, a couple of which threw me out of the story (in particular, singing "God save the Queen" in court at a time when a King was on the throne). These felt like mistakes by the author rather than being deliberate. One of the signals that part of the story is unreliable simply doesn't work if you're used to reading science fiction or magic realism. If you're an sf fan, switch into mainstream reading protocols when you're reading this book. And be warned that there is some gruesome imagery which might be a bit much for some readers.
One particular point -- this is a translation of a novel written in Catalan. Translations vary a lot in quality and can sometimes feel stiff and lifeless, but this one is excellent. It flows very well and is a joy to read.
Enormous fun, and well worth the time.
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
JulesJones, February 24, 2008
I'd been hearing good things about this book for a while, so when it was mentioned as one of the incentives to sign up for Tor's new online promotion material, I went straight over to give them my email address. The link for the OMW download arrived just before lunch. I didn't intend to read it then and there, but flicked through the file to make sure it had downloaded properly. Had my attention snagged by some of the dialogue in the first chapter. Decided to read the first chapter while I was reading lunch.I read the whole book. It's *that* good at getting you to turn the pages.
It's a Heinlein pastiche, primarily influenced by Starship Troopers but with significant nods to some other books, particularly Space Cadet. But it's an original and interesting riff on those themes, not a knock-off. Here it's not the young men but the old men who go to war, and there are some well thought out reasons as to why.
The basis of the book is that the Colonial Defense Force has rejuvenation technology, and if you live on Earth the only way you can get access to it is to sign up to be a soldier when you turn 75. One-time only offer, use it or lose it. Nobody on Earth knows exactly what the technology is or does, because part of the sign-up deal is that you are declared legally dead on Earth, and can never, ever return. Oh, and you're signing for a term of at least two years, and up to ten -- and while little detail comes back to Earth about the colonies, it's clear that soldiering is a risky business.
John Perry's got nothing to lose. He and his wife made the decision to register as potential recruits when they turned 65. She's dead now, and there aren't any other ties strong enough to hold him to Earth. So he enlists in the old man's war, and finds out just what's out there on the other side of the sky. It turns out to involve a lot of hostile aliens and a multi-way battle for territory that can get very, very nasty indeed.
Perry's a decent and likeable man, and it's fascinating to watch him go through the process of being moulded into a soldier. While this is military sf that makes no bones about it sometimes being necessary to fight to live, it isn't a lazy glorification of the military. You could equally well read it as a subtle critique of unthinking glorification of the military. There are some significant moral issues raised in a quiet way and simply left there for the reader to think about if they notice them.
There's a good and funny look at what it means to be old, followed by an exploration of what happens when a mind with 75 years of experience gets a new body that's not just fifty years younger, but seriously tuned for performance. And there's some thoughtful discussion of identity and what it means to be human that makes the book more than just a romp. But it's also a very fine romp, and enormous fun to read.
I do have a couple of criticisms. Perry is both smart and lucky, as befits an action hero, even a 75 year old action hero. But his rapid rise through the ranks and special shininess edge a little too close to blatant Mary Sue territory in places. Yes, it's a pastiche of the pulp style, but it broke willing suspension of disbelief a couple of times, at least for me. And I found the ending a little too abrupt, feeling as if Scalzi had simply run out of story for now. However, there are two more books in this universe, and I was left wanting to go out and buy them.
(There is also one specific issue which bothered me a *lot*, but it bothers me for personal reasons which won't pertain to most readers -- see Nicholas Whyte's detailed post on the Bender episode: http://nhw.livejournal.com /642176.html plus the discussion in the comments thread for why that scene is the way it is and why some of us still think it comes over as a bone tossed to the more rabid "peaceniks are dumb" milsf fans. Lots of spoilers.)
If you're a Heinlein fan, this book's well worth reading. But it works in its own right as well, whether or not you've ever read any of the books it's influenced by. If you're looking for some milsf with some decent science fiction speculation, this one's worth a look.
(1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
JulesJones, November 28, 2007
Pohl and Kornbluth's's sharp satire of the consumer society and corporate corruption of government is as relevant today as when it was first published 50 years ago. "Gladiator at law" describes a possible future for the 1950s in which the working and middle classes are kept under control by the threat of losing their job and with it their tied housing--and the unemployed masses are kept quiescent with bread and circuses, Roman style. Reality tv may not have gone quite as far as the entertainment for the proles depicted in this novel, and science fiction is an exploration of possible futures rather than a prediction of an actual future, but Pohl and Kornbluth's depiction of one of those potential futures is uncomfortably close to present day reality.There are some nicely drawn characters, and a realistic look at the hazards of battling powerful vested interests -- while there is a happy ending, it comes at a price. The novel is short by today's standards, but a good read, and well worth hunting down a copy at a reasonable price.
From Eroica With Love Volume 2 by Aoike Yasuko
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1-5 of 9 nextJulesJones, May 1, 2007
The second volume of the long-running manga series sees it settle down into the general series theme, with flamboyant art thief Eroica and uptight NATO intelligence agent Iron Klaus finding their paths repeatedly crossing, sometimes as opponents, sometimes having to work together. Set in the Cold War Europe of the 1970s, it shows a pair of characters who are on opposite sides of the law and very different in personality, but with some surprising things in common. Alas, one of those things is not sexual orientation, and Eroica's romantic interest in Klaus is destined to remain unrequited, providing the source of much fun during the series.And there's plenty of fun to be had. The stories are completely over the top, in the same way that the Bond films are over the top -- camp, very funny, and with plenty of action. In this one, Eroica and Klaus have a shared interest in a Greek shipping tycoon. Eroica wants to steal an art treasure, and Klaus wants to stop a KGB agent's honeytrap operation. This leads on to a second adventure in which Klaus is trying to protect world leaders at a meeting which just happens to be just down the road from Eroica's castle -- and for perfectly rational reasons, Klaus ends up ordering Eroica to strip and hand over his underpants... But when they're forced by circumstances to work together, they make a very good team.
Flawed but likeable people, they're enormously entertaining to watch, as are the secondary characters. Both men have a team of minions, not all of whom are quite what their masters would wish for. This volume introduces Agent G, Klaus' gay cross-dressing agent who has a crush on Eroica.
There's also an independent story to fill out the page count, about a strait-laced young German man sent on a cultural exchange visit to a tiny island nation with a very strange navy. There's not much plot, and there's an awful lot of froth, but it's a quick fun read with a serious point underneath the fluff.
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)