Monday Book Review

Hello, and welcome back to the Monday Book Review.

Today I’ll be reviewing China Miéville’s newest young adult novel, Railsea.

First sentence: This is the story of a bloodstained boy.

In a world where the earth is covered with endlessly criss-crossing railroad tracks and huge moles and other predatory beasts lurk underground, the newly christened doctor’s apprentice Sham, aboard the moletrain Medes, has found a treasure.

In a derelict traincar, amidst corpses and mole rats, Sham uncovered it: a memory card with photos of the train’s final, fatal, unbelievable find. Sham himself doesn’t understand how significant his discovery is, but he learns quickly that a lot of people are interested.

Rumor-sellers. The Shroake siblings. Pirates. Wreckers. The ferronavy. Even the Medes gets involved for the hunt for the End of the Line.

If you like action, adventure, and intrigue in an unbelievably well-imagined setting, Miéville’s reinvention of Melville’s Moby Dick will surpass your expectations.

April 2012: 4 of 4

10. God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert. Earlier this year, I read the first three Dune books in the space of three weeks or so and decided to take a hiatus before plunging back into the series. The fourth book finds Leto II a deliberate tyrant over his empire; in the course of following his Golden Path, he encounters love, deception, and, above all desirable to his prescient mind, surprise. I first read this book several years ago and have enjoyed it much more this second time–so much so that I intend, finally, to finish out the original series of six books.

Next up: Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. I understand that Frank Herbert’s son Brian composed a trilogy completing the original series from his father’s notes, but I’m not sure whether I want yet to commit to those as well. It appears I might be able to handle Dune books only three at a time.

Best read of April: The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks.

April was 40% science fiction/fantasy, 20% literary fiction, 20% mystery, and an unprecedented 20% nonfiction. Unless one classes The City & The City as mystery rather than science fiction; then mystery and SF are tied.

March 2012: 3 of 3

Stuff I’ve Been Reading: March 2012

10. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. And now for the Classics Kick. I’m a bit dissatisfied with my Barnes and Noble abridged copy of Dumas’s great novel, but I did enjoy the story however much the language may have been diminished. I reserve great fondness for this novel because I remember it as being one of the longest books I’d ever read when I was ten or twelve or so. Not only was it a book I was proud of having read, but I’d even enjoyed the reading of it.

11. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Remembering that I’d liked Howards End when I read it a couple of years ago in graduate school, and seeing A Passage to India on a top 100 novels list, I felt like taking the challenge. It’s about Race, Class, and Gender. It’s about the oppressive colonization of India. It’s about Dr. Aziz, the gregarious Muslim Indian doctor, Miss Quested, the frigid fiancée of a rising Anglo-Indian civil servant, Cecil Fielding, an educator sympathetic to the Indian plight—and what happens in the Marabar caves that destroys the social fabric of the entire province. Everything is interpretable in several ways. A truly Important novel, and one to be read more than once.

12. The Vow by Kim and Krickett Carpenter. I took a brief hiatus from classics to read this true story I’d borrowed from a friend. After head trauma, Krickett Carpenter cannot remember meeting or marrying her husband of two months; nevertheless, their faith and their rediscovery of who they now are keep them together as a couple.

13. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. Narrated by Maugham as a character, this classic of modernism epitomizes a particular style of novel I associate with the Fitzgerald set and the ex-pat scene of the 1920s and ‘30s. After witnessing death in WWI, Larry sets out on a quest for happiness, reading books, traveling the world, and trying to understand his spiritual nature, while Isabel, his fiancée chooses a life for herself that is commensurate with her class and standard of living. Isabel’s uncle Elliott Templeton, a goodhearted snob, is perhaps one of the most shallow and sympathetic characters I’ve read in some time. Readers who find the alienation, disillusionment, and fragmentation of modernist novels unappealing will not enjoy this book, but those who enjoy reading about a world without a center will value the unreliable narrator and finely drawn characters.

14. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. Thanks goes to my friend Connie for the loan of this delightful YA novel about Frankie, a fifteen-year-old girl who blossomed over the summer and has begun to attract the attention of the senior boys at her boarding school. When she realizes that because she is a pretty young girl she will never get invited to their boys-only secret society, she originates a series of pranks that quickly escalate in humor and significance as she explores the disparity between appearance and reality. Both intelligent and hilarious, this book of wit, wordplay, and societal norms will educate and entertain as Frankie discovers just what she’s capable of.

March 2012: 2 of 3

Stuff I’ve Been Reading: March 2012

6. A Gate at the Stairs (40%) by Lorrie Moore. Familiar with some of Moore’s exquisite short stories, I thought one of her more recent novels was a fair gamble at a dollar, but I found it not to my liking, primarily because of the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness style. I left this book in the seat back pocket of an international flight in the hopes that it would entertain someone else more than it did me.

7. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Is it bragging to confess that I purchased this novel in Shakespeare and Company, the famous English-language bookstore in Paris? (Yes.) Having read only Arthur & George, about which I felt ambivalent, I was worried that Barnes’ award-winning newest novel would not be to my taste, but my fears were groundless. Exploring issues of time, memory, character, and the unknowable minds of those we thought we understood, this contemplative novel slowly accumulates emotional weight as the protagonist learns to reinterpret his past.

8. Old School by Tobias Wolff. After I heard Wolff’s stupendous short story “Bullet in the Brain” read aloud on a podcast, I instantly began searching for his work. Old School was amusingly and unintentionally related to The Sense of an Ending in that both had to do with private boys’ schools; but Wolff’s novel is a bildungsroman of an emerging writer and paid homage to several well-known figures in literature. It would be hard to say which of the two I liked better, for I enjoyed them both very much.

9. Wit’s End by Karen Joy Fowler. On the return flight, I thumbed through Wit’s End by the author of The Jane Austen Club which I read many years ago when it came out and of Sarah Canary, a strange novel about journeying through the West in the time of the railroad. This novel, about a woman who moves in with her mystery-writer godmother after the death of her father makes her the last of her family, is a quirky getting-in-touch-with-oneself narrative dotted with eccentric characters and descriptions of California. I left it on the plane as well.

February 2012

February 2012: Stuff I’ve Been Reading

1. The Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth
2. Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
3. True Grit by Charles Portis
4. The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip
5. Heir of Sea and Fire by Patricia A. McKillip
6. Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip
7. Shadow by K. J. Parker
8. Pattern by K. J. Parker
9. Digging to America by Anne Tyler
10. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
11. Dreadnought by Cherie Priest
12. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
13. Memory by K. J. Parker

Since January, I’ve read four trilogies, if you interpret the term loosely. I read three mystery novels by Rennie Airth set in WWI and WWII England. I read the first three books of the science fiction Dune saga. I read the Riddle-Master trilogy by high fantasy author Patricia A. McKillip, and I read the Scavenger trilogy by tragic fantasy author K. J. Parker. The trilogy I liked best as a whole was probably K. J. Parker’s simply because I’m a fan, although Parker’s Engineer trilogy, beginning with Devices and Desires, is still my favorite.

I also read a few stand-alone novels: True Grit is the best Western I’ve read to date; Digging to America has long held the place of favorite novel by one of my favorite authors; classic science fiction The Stars My Destination I picked up on a lark but it pleasantly surprised me. Cherie Priest’s Dreadnought is a relatively stand-alone sequel to her steampunk Boneshaker, though I’m glad I read them in publication order. And Master and Commander is the first of a twenty-odd-book naval series that’s something I might continue reading if the mood strikes me.

Favorite read of the month: Digging to America, because of Maryam.

Sad news: Since July 2011, I’ve now read all eleven books by K. J. Parker. Now where will I get my beautifully described combat and moral nihilism until Sharps comes out in July 2012? *Parker withdrawal*

The Stars My Destination

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

First sentence: He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead.

Gully Foyle is the Count of Monte Cristo in space. An ignorant brute of a man, he vows revenge when the S.S. Vesta ignores his plea for rescue from the derelict ship on which he is the only survivor. When he returns to Terra, at war with the Outer Satellites, he undertakes a scheme to figure out who is to blame, a plan that takes him to prison, to space, and to high society. Along the way, he runs into some of the richest men of the twenty-fifth century, men who have secrets they want kept, secrets that Gully Foyle doesn’t realize he knows.

This book, serialized in 1956, and sometimes called the greatest SF novel ever written, is a pulp classic. It’s got it all: sex, violence, tattoos, poverty and riches, radioactive hit men, telepathy and teleportation, circuses and freaks, femme fatales, and a tragic hero. (And an introduction by Neil Gaiman.) Though certainly a product of its time in its portrayal of some characters, it definitely merits inclusion on any true SF fan’s shelf. Because, frankly, while Gully Foyle isn’t always a hero to emulate, he does some fantastically cool stuff.

Riddle-Master

Riddle-Master by Patricia A. McKillip

First sentence: Morgon of Hed met the High One’s harpist one autumn day when the trade-ships docked at Tol for the season’s exchange of goods.

Patricia A. McKillip’s trilogy, collected here in one volume and with a new introduction, is quite a voyage. The hero, Morgon, is destined to solve the riddle of the three stars on his forehead. Obviously set apart for a grand destiny, he longs only for a peaceful existence on the simple island where he, as prince, possesses a unique communion with his land. Unfortunately, peace is not in his future.

The first book, The Riddle Master of Hed, tells of how Morgon journeys from Hed in the company of the High One’s harpist, intending to make the long trek to ask the High One himself the meaning of his birthmark. Along the way, pursued by enemies, Morgon meets the rulers of the other lands and learns that all is not well in the world.

In Heir of Sea and Fire, which takes place a year later, Raederle, Morgon’s intended, goes searching for him. She learns that she is heir to a different kind of magic, which might be the destructive force that Morgon has been struggling against.

The conclusion to the trilogy, Harpist in the Wind, I found less satisfying than the first two books–I particularly liked Raederle’s story and was sorry to lose her as the protagonist. Most of the time, I was simply confused about who was whom and what was happening, as there’s rather a lot of fighting with magic. When the great reveal occurs, when Morgon finally unravels the riddle of his birthright, I admired the hints that had been dropped along the way but thought that, for all the good adventure, the conclusion might have been accomplished more succinctly.

Admirers of Patricia A. McKillip, Patricia C. Wrede, Robin McKinley, Sherwood Smith, and other authors of high fantasy will like this trilogy. Some, like me, might find they prefer McKillip’s more recent work.