June 2021 Reading Discussion

[Danny McG]

Tonight I begin a re-read of the short stories in The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith

 

[williamjm]

I finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shards of Earth, the first book of his The Final Architects trilogy. I think it's his first book that I would say is outright space opera, it did feel like the sort of story that Peter F. Hamilton likes to write. The 'architects' of the title are moon-sized aliens who have an unfortunate tendency to appear suddenly out of the void and reshape entire planets in what seem like alien works of art, which is not great for the inhabitants of those planets. Decades before the start of the story humanity managed after a long and one-sided war to persuade them to go away but there was always a concern they might come back, particularly for two of the main characters who were veterans of that war.

Like a lot of space operas this largely focuses on the crew of a single ship, in this case a salvage vessel named Vulture God which specialises in work in interstellar space. Out of the four point-of-view characters three are members of the crew, with a final point-of-view for a member of a government agency who deal with what could be called special circumstances. It did take me a while to really get interested in the characters but they did get some good character development as the story went along. The central premise does make for an intriguing story with none of the characters really understanding the threat they are facing. Tchaikovsky has always liked to include some inventive non-human species in his stories and this is no exception with several alien races featuring in the narrative, including an interstellar empire ruled by giant space clams who have attracted a cult of human acolytes who do their bidding.

As the first book in a trilogy it is inevitable that not all will be resolved by the end of the story but the initial story arc does come to a satisfying conclusion that also sets things up well for later books in the series.

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

I finished The Luminous Dead a couple days ago. Well written, spooky story with interesting, if somewhat problematic, characters. Wasn't quite what I was looking for, though. Turned out to mostly just be a survival story that happens to be set on another planet rather than the SF horror I was expecting.

Now reading Nightmares, a recent-ish horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have just barely started The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke (2018) by Andrew Lawler. It seems that the author does not intend to offer a solution to the famous CROATOAN mystery, but rather means to explore its cultural impact.

 

[Danny McG]

Cory Doctorow Attack Surface...a cybertech nerd story so far!

 

[Rodders]

Continuing my re-read of Neal Asher's Transcendence trilogy with War Factory.

 

[Bick]

I finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shards of Earth, the first book of his The Final Architects trilogy. I think it's his first book that I would say is outright space opera…

Similarly, I’m still making my way through Children of Time. It seems to be taking me quite a while. It started very brightly, but after a few hundred pages it’s slowing down and becoming less engaging. I think Tchaikovsky made plot mistakes. But I shall try to stick with it, given I’m about 350 pages in. I’m a bit over the spider chapters though (every second chapter) and while the human chapters are better, they contain no really likeable characters. I’ve read in reviews that many readers say the book was different to their expectations and I’m probably in that camp.

 

[Vertigo]

Similarly, I’m still making my way through Children of Time. It seems to be taking me quite a while. It started very brightly, but after a few hundred pages it’s slowing down and becoming less engaging. I think Tchaikovsky made plot mistakes. But I shall try to stick with it, given I’m about 350 pages in. I’m a bit over the spider chapters though (every second chapter) and while the human chapters are better, they contain no really likeable characters. I’ve read in reviews that many readers say the book was different to their expectations and I’m probably in that camp.

Yes I would agree with your that none of the human characters are particularly likeable! And I'd also agree that the pacing is somewhat uneven. For me the sequel, Children of Ruin, started rather more shakily than CoT but once it found its feet and got going it became more consistent and was a better book.

 

[DeltaV]

A Talent for War 1989 Jack McDevitt

Probably quite a few SF fans here are familiar with both this novel and author. I have mixed feelings for McDevitt: on the one hand he writes xeno-archeaology stories, a SF niche that I quite like, along with settings that are quite imaginative. On the other hand, his protagonists quite often do foolish things that, coupled with unlikely circumstances, require almost miraculous solutions to resolve the plot (accordingly, I’ve given up on McDevitt’s Academy series after reading Chindi).

A Talent for War is the first in the Alex Benedict series, the far-future adventures of an archeologist who sells and trades in the artifacts that he finds. More in the line of detective stories, as Benedict typically finds some obscure object and then ferrets out the mystery behind it. I’ve read both Firebird and Coming Home and while I wouldn’t call them classics, found them both to be nice light reads (although the plots of both occasionally moved ahead due to favorable coincidences rather than nose-to-the-ground detective work).

Seeing A Talent for War in a used book shop, I picked it up for some vacation reading as I have heard of this novel, but never read it. Typical of the other two Benedict stories, Benedict and his assistant Chase do lots of research, chase a few red herrings and find a few dead ends before resolving the mystery. Some people like this, others don’t. I’m ok with it. There are several plot oddities (no surprise there), and the two main characters lack depth (again, not unusual with McDevitt’s writing).

And yet … I found myself quite liking it, much more so than McDevitt’s later stories. And I’ll move into Spoiler mode to explain more (Careful! I reveal the ending!)

Spoiler: A Talent for War - Comments

The historical context is a war between human colonies on the frontier and the alien Ashiyyur, fought 200 years before the time of the novel. Benedict is trying to resolve a mystery involving both the war and something found in a far-off star cluster. That ‘something’ has been covered up by the Confederation government.


First, I’ll briefly mention what I found a bit odd in this novel:

After rediscovering the lost frigate (which has a unique stardrive far in advance of anything known), it is hard to believe that the Confederation would simply just leave it in a far-flung star cluster.

The character and actions of Quinda (rival to Benedict) don’t really make a lot of sense.

Finally the Ashiyyur are telepaths. Apparently able to read the minds of human beings (?), they learn what Benedict is up to and arrive at the lost frigate shortly after Benedict and Chase, for the final showdown. Of course.


And yet, in spite of all that, once I started reading I had a hard time putting this novel down.


As I was reading along, I found myself being drawn to the characters of that war. The novel has lots of excerpts of books, notes and letters revealing the thoughts and actions of several of the leading figures at that time. Very minor historical figures who came and went, now forgotten in Benedict's time. Yet, in some ways, these characters were better developed than the main protagonists.

I found the sub-plot of Matt Olander, “hero” of the lost colony of Ilyanda, and that of the person that killed him, Kindrel Lee, well done. And how Benedict finds out the “rest of the story”. Nothing is ever black or white, just various shades of grey.

Finally, it turns out that Benedict does not actually find out all of the “rest of the story”. The answers to some of the mysteries are simply lost in the depths of time, and are left to the reader’s imagination. Which I don’t mind at all.

(Although, in an interesting twist at the end, another person does indeed appear to find the truth about Christopher Lee, the hero of the great days of the Resistance against the Ashiyyur).

The novel also touches on some interesting themes: is there a "true" history, fact vs fiction in the historical record, and are we better off knowing all of the truth about our fabled heroes? Perhaps many of us do indeed prefer the legends.



Having some small interest in the history of the Napoleonic wars, I could not help but think of some comparisons with our own time (those wars also being two hundred years in our past). It is indeed very easy to see how fragile "true" history is, and how fleeting are the lives of the 'movers and shakers' of any time period.

 

[Vertigo]

A Talent for War 1989 Jack McDevitt

Probably quite a few SF fans here are familiar with both this novel and author. I have mixed feelings for McDevitt: on the one hand he writes xeno-archeaology stories, a SF niche that I quite like, along with settings that are quite imaginative. On the other hand, his protagonists quite often do foolish things that, coupled with unlikely circumstances, require almost miraculous solutions to resolve the plot (accordingly, I’ve given up on McDevitt’s Academy series after reading Chindi).

A Talent for War is the first in the Alex Benedict series, the far-future adventures of an archeologist who sells and trades in the artifacts that he finds. More in the line of detective stories, as Benedict typically finds some obscure object and then ferrets out the mystery behind it. I’ve read both Firebird and Coming Home and while I wouldn’t call them classics, found them both to be nice light reads (although the plots of both occasionally moved ahead due to favorable coincidences rather than nose-to-the-ground detective work).

Seeing A Talent for War in a used book shop, I picked it up for some vacation reading as I have heard of this novel, but never read it. Typical of the other two Benedict stories, Benedict and his assistant Chase do lots of research, chase a few red herrings and find a few dead ends before resolving the mystery. Some people like this, others don’t. I’m ok with it. There are several plot oddities (no surprise there), and the two main characters lack depth (again, not unusual with McDevitt’s writing).

And yet … I found myself quite liking it, much more so than McDevitt’s later stories. And I’ll move into Spoiler mode to explain more (Careful! I reveal the ending!)

Spoiler: A Talent for War - Comments

The historical context is a war between human colonies on the frontier and the alien Ashiyyur, fought 200 years before the time of the novel. Benedict is trying to resolve a mystery involving both the war and something found in a far-off star cluster. That ‘something’ has been covered up by the Confederation government.


First, I’ll briefly mention what I found a bit odd in this novel:

After rediscovering the lost frigate (which has a unique stardrive far in advance of anything known), it is hard to believe that the Confederation would simply just leave it in a far-flung star cluster.

The character and actions of Quinda (rival to Benedict) don’t really make a lot of sense.

Finally the Ashiyyur are telepaths. Apparently able to read the minds of human beings (?), they learn what Benedict is up to and arrive at the lost frigate shortly after Benedict and Chase, for the final showdown. Of course.


And yet, in spite of all that, once I started reading I had a hard time putting this novel down.


As I was reading along, I found myself being drawn to the characters of that war. The novel has lots of excerpts of books, notes and letters revealing the thoughts and actions of several of the leading figures at that time. Very minor historical figures who came and went, now forgotten in Benedict's time. Yet, in some ways, these characters were better developed than the main protagonists.

I found the sub-plot of Matt Olander, “hero” of the lost colony of Ilyanda, and that of the person that killed him, Kindrel Lee, well done. And how Benedict finds out the “rest of the story”. Nothing is ever black or white, just various shades of grey.

Finally, it turns out that Benedict does not actually find out all of the “rest of the story”. The answers to some of the mysteries are simply lost in the depths of time, and are left to the reader’s imagination. Which I don’t mind at all.

(Although, in an interesting twist at the end, another person does indeed appear to find the truth about Christopher Lee, the hero of the great days of the Resistance against the Ashiyyur).

The novel also touches on some interesting themes: is there a "true" history, fact vs fiction in the historical record, and are we better off knowing all of the truth about our fabled heroes? Perhaps many of us do indeed prefer the legends.



Having some small interest in the history of the Napoleonic wars, I could not help but think of some comparisons with our own time (those wars also being two hundred years in our past). It is indeed very easy to see how fragile "true" history is, and how fleeting are the lives of the 'movers and shakers' of any time period.

I read this some 5 or 6 years ago but I never went further with the series, largely because I couldn't get past his heavy use of implausible actions and motives and those appalling characterisations. I recall being particularly miffed with the way Chase was built up as a sassy, tough, independent person but, when things got dangerous, she turned into a scared little girl looking to Benedict to save her. Both annoying and out of the character he'd built her up to be.

 

[williamjm]

Similarly, I’m still making my way through Children of Time. It seems to be taking me quite a while. It started very brightly, but after a few hundred pages it’s slowing down and becoming less engaging. I think Tchaikovsky made plot mistakes. But I shall try to stick with it, given I’m about 350 pages in. I’m a bit over the spider chapters though (every second chapter) and while the human chapters are better, they contain no really likeable characters. I’ve read in reviews that many readers say the book was different to their expectations and I’m probably in that camp.

I agree the characters weren't particularly likeable, I liked the spider chapters more than the human chapters.

 

[Bick]

I agree the characters weren't particularly likeable, I liked the spider chapters more than the human chapters.

I thought the spider chapters were fine at first, when I thought they might be leading to encounters with the humans sooner than they do, but the last couple of spider chapters were boring, frankly. A problem is that there is no continuity of character with the spiders, and no surprises either.

The book is rather bloated too - not enough occurs to justify such a long book. Reducing it 50% would help enormously. This may become a DNF - which I hate to do...

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

Children of Time was a DNF for me, mostly because the human characters didn't seem fully realized and the spider characters seemed more like a fun overextended thought experiment of the author.

 

[Bick]

Children of Time was a DNF for me, mostly because the human characters didn't seem fully realized and the spider characters seemed more like a fun overextended thought experiment of the author.

Interesting, thanks. It does seem to be a book that splits readers. Once you delve past all the 5 star reviews on Goodreads, you actually find a fair few 2 stars that sum up my own feelings more closely. Horses for course, I guess.

 

[Bick]

A Talent for War 1989 Jack McDevitt

I have a far from complete memory of this first Benedict novel, but my feeling is that it is untypical. The subsequent two books in the same series, Polaris, and especially Seeker, are I think stronger from a characterisation perspective, and told from Chase's PoV, which perhaps works better. I rather like McDevitt's work, I must admit and plan on getting back to his stuff soon(ish).