A Sea of Flowers

Through the SciTech Daily site, a link to "Master of the Enlightenment", Andrea Wulf's review of The Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1765-1820, edited by Neil Chambers.

Sir Joseph Banks was Patrick O'Brien's model for Stephen Maturin, a leading character in the Aubrey & Maturin novels. O'Brien drew on Banks in two ways. In real life, Banks was 50 years old by the time Napoleon came to power in France, and a man of influence in European science. Sir Joseph Blaine, a senior man in British Intelligence who is as interested in Maturin's entomological specimens as his information on political affairs. Mainly, Banks's journey with Captain Cook serves as model for Maturin's use of his position as a naval surgeon as the foundation for scientific explorations.

In the movie, Master and Commander, Maturin has one his scientific raptures in the Galapagos, implying that Maturin could be modeled on Charles Darwin. HMS Beagle was build after the end of the Napoleonic wars, and Darwin's voyage (1831-1836) was specifically devoted to scientific and geographical information. Darwin was closer to Huxley and the practical scientists of the British Empire than to the scientists of the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution.

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Richard Preston recognized a very good story when he heard about Steve Sillett, ninja climbs and the quest for the tallest tree. He told the story effectively in "Climbing the Redwoods", written for the New Yorker (ninja version here), and republished in Best American Science Writing 2006. He has managed to write it again, even better, as a full book, The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring.

Continue reading "The Wild Trees" »

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When Randy and Garth blogged about this list, I copied it and worked through it. The part about marking the ones you loved get interesting. There were books I loved once, but have lost their bloom, and some now seem to have been a great waste of time.

Continue reading "SF Titles List" »

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Randy's point about the fall TV lineup is good. There is so much material, so little time. The days of 3 channels are long gone. I have the same problems with reading material. I have picked up several mystery or thriller titles, primarily serials, out of loyalty to the writer. I see them on the new release or Fast New shelves in the library so I am not throwing cash away on a one time read. I pick them up because the product is predictably entertaining, familiar characters acting in familiar situations. On the other hand, it isn't always that good, and I find myself wondering why I bothered.

Continue reading "Reading List" »

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The Wikipedia entry of the day relates to Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers. I was impressed by the novel when I was 14, less impressed when I was 20, and more impressed today. Heinlein wrote a good story and rendered the didactic and tendentious as palatable. I have never been clear on whether Starship Troopers represented the real stream of his thought, or whether the altered consciousness hippie ethic of Stranger in a Strange Land was closer to his heart.

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The Foxtrot cartoon strips published on several consecutive days starting Monday January 23, 2006 have been a brilliant satire of the publishing industry and Oprah Winfrey's influence and taste.

Continue reading "Raised by Sewer Rats" »

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After The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell's next book was Homage to Catalonia, which was about the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, he published the novel Coming Up for Air, a first person narrative covering a few days in the life, and many years in the memories of George Bowling. Bowling is a 45 year old insurance representative, living in a London suburb. He lives on commission, he travels, he tries to enjoy life. The story is about Bowling's decision to play hooky - from work and from his family - for about a week to visit the once-rural, once-small village where he grew up before the first World War. The story is the story of his life.

Continue reading "Coming Up for Air" »

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In 1936, British publisher, Victor Gollancz agreed to publish a book by Eric Arthur Blair on the imprint of the Left Book Club. Blair had been educated at Eton, but having failed to secure a University scholarship, had joined the British colonial service as a policeman in Burma. He came back to Europe as resolute opponent of colonialism and British snobbery. He was destitute and homeless for a period of time. He became a teacher, an assistant in a bookstore and a writer. His first full book, Down and Out in Paris and London, was published in 1933 under his pen name, George Orwell.

Continue reading "Wigan Pier" »

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The Wikipedia entry of the day for November 29, 2005 is the entry on Cyperpunk, a distopian trend. Another one for the SF fans.

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SF readers, check out this essay in the Boston Globe Ideas section, by Joshua Glenn - Back to utopia. It's mainly about the critic Fredric Jameson, and his views on Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany and utopian ideas in modern sf. More on utopian fiction by Jameson, an essay - The Politics of Utopia.

Glenn notes: "Fans of Dick, Delany, and their ilk warn neophytes not to read too many of their books too quickly: Doing so, as this reader can attest, tends to result in pronounced feelings of irreality, paranoia, and angst". And we thought it was something in the water ...

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Wikipedia's start page lists anniversaries, selected from a main entry listing events on that date in history. For November 7, 2005, the selections from the general November 7 entry include the beginning of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia (it was October on the Julian calendar in Russia), the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940.

For Canadians, the Last Spike in the CPR at Craigellachie BC in 1885. For Canadian nationalists, a song and a poem and links to photos. The National Archives of Canada have a couple of ways of getting the iconic picture, as a gif image or through a link on a an information page. Or see the section on The Last Spike in the Canadian Encyclopedia's entry on the construction of the CPR. The CPR has a different photo on photo history page on its Web site. It is a posed photo of follically gifted men in top hats and tails. For hairy Scots, a note in Canadian history and literature.

Continue reading "The Last Spike" »

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The Elementary Particles is a novel in French by Michel Houellebecq, published in 1998. The English translation by Frank Wynne was published in 2000 and released in the UK as Atomised, elsewhere as The Elementary Particles, and is regarded as a brilliant literary and intellectual novel. Houellebecq was awarded the prestigious French literary award, the Prix Novembre and the 2002 Impac Dublin literary award. The reviewer for the NY Times called it "a deeply repugnant read" for its nihilism and anti-humanistic vision. Others have criticized its obsessive and graphic depiction of sexuality. It supporters praise its flamboyant deconstruction of modern beliefs about love and sexual liberation as pretensions and delusions in a culture of selfishness.

Continue reading "Elementary Particles" »

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Forests of the Night by James W. Hall is to be avoided. I picked it up at the library, hoping for a good story to fill in the long weekend. Hall is an experienced writer with many books to his credit, in the suspense and mystery genre. The quotes on the jacket were positive - but I should have been tipped by the fact that most of them related to his work in general, not to this book.

Continue reading "Crap in the Forest" »

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A comprehensive historical and literary review of the work of Patrick O'Brien - the Aubrey and Maturin novels in the New Criterion by Robert Messenger. O'Brien is one of my favourite writers. This review emphasizes some of the history. I like the novels in which Maturin has the chance to act on his interests as naturalist and explorer. That part of the series was captured in some scenes in the movie version of Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World (which are two separate books in the series, merged into one movie).

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I read a few mysteries and reviewed them at Blogcritics. "Bad Business" by Robert B. Parker - the latest Spenser, and "The Last Good Day" by Gail Bowen, the latest in the Joanne Kilbourn series. I enjoyed them. "Poisoned Cherries" by Quentin Jardine was trashy. I wrote some music and movie reviews too. Canadian folk singer David Francey, the DVD release of the movie "Coming Home".

Continue reading "Early Winter 2004" »

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I finished Larry McMurty's "Sin Killer" and reviewed it for Blogcritics. I have picked up the next novel in that series, but I haven't started it. I haven't finished "The Lives of the Saints". I went to the River Heights Branch of the library to look for one or two books by Earl Emerson and came away with some other books in the display bins, which I read and reviewed first.

Continue reading "Reading List - late October 2004" »

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In the last few weeks, I read a few books - mainly mysteries, mainly recent material. I followed some serials that I already knew, and I started a new series. I tried to write a review of each one for Blogcritics. I don't want to turn this blog into a book review blog, and Blogcritics wants the text so that's where the reviews have gone.

Continue reading "Reading List - early October 2004" »

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I read and enjoyed "The Enemy," the newest novel in the Jack Reacher series of adventure/mystery novels by Lee Child.

My review is posted at the Blogcritics.org site.

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I wrote a review of "Resistance" by Barry Lopez for the Winnipeg Free Press, which was published on Sunday July 4, 2004. This post is a longer version of the same review.

Barry Lopez was honoured for his nature writing with an American National Book Award for "Arctic Dreams" in 1986 and a nomination for "Of Wolves and Men". His talent and power are undisputable. He captures nature scenes with visual and sensory precision, and sheer beauty. His essays, collected in books like "About This Life," explore the beauty and complexity of living in the natural world.

Continue reading "Resistance" »

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Until "American Gods" swept up most of the significant SF and horror writing awards in 2002, Neil Gaiman was known for his work on the DC comic series "Sandman". He was writing for print all along. His online biography provides details for the curious.

The premise of "American Gods" is that the gods of all the peoples and cultures who came to America are still around, and that new gods like Media and Technology are rising. The story is that Mr. Wednesday - the Norse god Wotan - enlists recently released convict Shadow as his aide. Wednesday travels across America, meeting several old gods and trying to enlist them in a battle against the new gods.

The premise that the old gods are still active was explored by other SF writers, like Roger Zelazny, to whom the novel is dedicated. Zelazny explored the mythic gods of India in some of his fiction.

Because Gaiman is a good writer, he devotes himself to the story, and avoids the temptation of displaying his erudition through lecturing characters. He does however demonstrate considerable research into myth and folklore, and acute understanding of the importance of myth in culture.

He carries the story at a decent pace, although his continuing effort to get a dark and brooding atmosphere often carry the story into eddies and backwaters. His characters are unusual, bizarre, grandiose, larger than life. Even the human characters live on surface of the deep pools of an implied collective unconscious. The gods have many human attributes, but their needs and motives are mythic and their actions are wildly unpredictable.

The plot becomes cluttered with too many characters and too many subplots, which interferes with a clean climax and conclusion. Gaiman ends up having to keep writing past the natural end of the story to resolve loose ends.

This book deserved the genre awards it earned. It explores ideas - in this case cultural, sociological, psychological ideas - in an engaged and entertaining way.

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Australian writer Max Barry's second book, "Jennifer Government" is a well-crafted light satire. It could be called speculative fiction or science fiction. It's set in a dystopian near-future in which governments have been downsized and government functions privatized. People take the name of their employer as their surname - Hack Nike, John Nike, Billy NRA, Jennifer Government. Profits rule. Employees are dehumanized and brutalized. There is no respect for quality in work and art - it's a bottom line world, catering to whims of the consumer.

The story starts when Hack Nike, a low level Merchandising agent, is hired by John Nike, the Vice-President of Guerilla Marketing to kill 10 teenagers to give a new product street credibility. He goes to the police who offer to subcontract for him. The story takes off from there. Kids are killed, and Jennifer Government investigates the case. There is a heartbreaking scene early in the book in which she has to ask parents of a victim to fund the investigation. It becomes personal when she discovers the link to John Nike, whom she knew before her career in government.

The dialogue is snappy, the plot lines are tight and well connected. There are moments of ironic dialogue, some absurd comical scenes and a budding romance to carry the story over its dark premises. It's worth reading for enjoyment, and for the satirical commentary on where modern neo-conservatives might take us if they had their way with government and the economy.

It's not great literature. The characters are basic and act for simple motives. Character development is largely eschewed in favour of plot movement.

Barry has links on his web page to a number of reviews and news stories about Jennifer Government. In reading his page, we can see posts and newsletters going back well before the book was released. He used the Web to promote himself and the book before it was released. One of his strategies was creating the Nation States on-line game.

It's hard to say if this book has staying power. It fits into the anti-globalization, anti-corporate movement, and it appeals to people who reject right-wing American politicians. For the time being, it's topical, enjoyable and mildly provocative.

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"White Teeth" was British writer Zadie Smith's first novel. It was critically acclaimed, it won awards and it was turned into a mini-series on British television. We saw it last winter on PBS - Masterpiece Theater. My daughter Claire was caught by the story and bought the book. In looking up Smith on Google, I found a variety of fan sites, literary sites, and book trade sites which mention her work (see selected links at the end of this post). Some of the sites indicate that she sold the book and got a good advance on the strength of the outline and first 80 pages.

Smith writes very well. Her characters are well drawn, distinctive, complex people with interesting impulses, feelings and ideas. The characters carry the novel and tell the story. The social and political themes are presented through the stories of the characters.

Continue reading "White Teeth" »

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