Jenny – Page 35

Review of Fast Times at Fairmont High by Vernor Vinge

SFFaudio Review

Fast Times at Fairmont High
By Vernor Vinge; Performed by Eric Michael Summerer
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Publication Date: 2 April 2013
[UNABRIDGED] – 3 hours

Themes: / near future / virtual reality / young adult / techie /

Publisher Summary:

In a near future where wireless mind links and wearable computers blur the line between artificial reality and ‘real’ reality, it’s final exam time at San Diego’s Fairmont Junior High. Juan Orozco and his friends have a killer idea for their off-line project. But can a bunch of 13-year-olds really figure out the secret of what’s going on at Torrey Pines Park?

As this is a novella, it’s quite short. I just couldn’t get into it. The technology in it was interesting, but that was about the only part I found enjoyable. It’s about a bunch of middle school kids at a high-tech school.

The main character Juan has been convinced by his friend to partner up with Miriam, a girl he doesn’t know for their “offline” project, where they aren’t allowed to make use of net that is even more prevalent in their lives as it today with today’s smart phones.

I’ve been told this is set in the same world as Rainbows End, which I haven’t read (link goes to SFF Audio readalong). Mr. Vinge does set up an interesting world, even if this particular story isn’t very interesting, so if that’s true, maybe I would enjoy that novel better.

The reader, Eric Michael Summerer, was alright, but nothing special. His accent for William kept reminding me of George Takei.

Review by Rob Zak.

Review of Attempting Normal by Marc Maron

SFFaudio Review

Attempting Normal
By Marc Maron; Read by Marc Maron
Publisher: Random House Audio
5 hours, 34 minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Themes: / memoir / comedy / humanity /

Publisher summary:

People make a mess.

Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could find—minor-league hoarding, Viagra addiction, accidental racial profiling, cat fancying, flying airplanes with his mind—but nothing seemed to work. It was only when he was stripped down to nothing that he found his way back.

Attempting Normal is Marc Maron’s journey through the wilderness of his own mind, a collection of explosively, painfully, addictively funny stories that add up to a moving tale of hope and hopelessness, of failing, flailing, and finding a way. From standup to television to his outrageously popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Marc has always been a genuine original, a disarmingly honest, intensely smart, brutally open comic who finds wisdom in the strangest places. This is his story of the winding, potholed road from madness and obsession and failure to something like normal, the thrillingly comic journey of a sympathetic f***up who’s trying really hard to do better without making a bigger mess. Most of us will relate.

It seems like most people spend all their time cultivating various masks to hide behind, but Marc Maron has made a business out of taking his off, and getting professionals in artistic fields from comedy to film and music to do the same. His trick is to reveal his own flaws and past mistakes and make people feel OK about being human so they can relax and open up too. This is why his WTF podcast is so popular, and why he has such a loyal fan-base, and why his interviews are some of the most interesting out there.

In Attempting Normal, he says that one of the beliefs that shaped his life is that “People want to share but they usually don’t” – because they are afraid they will be judged, or seem weak, or out of fear that others won’t have the capacity to carry the burden of what they have to say. In his book, Maron says, “But all that stuff is what makes us human; more than that, it’s what makes being human interesting and funny. … We’re built to deal with shit. We’re built to deal with death, disease, failure, struggle, heartbreak, problems. … The way we each handle being human is where all the good stories, jokes, art, wisdom, revelations and bullshit come from.”

His book is a collection of autobiographical stories about how he has personally handled being a fallible human. He talks about his mistakes, drug problems, neurotic episodes and failed marriages, and he describes odd encounters with creatures such as hookers, stray cats, comedy road pirates, and Conan O’ Brian. What links all his stories together is that universal story plot: humans, who are really weird, get themselves into shit, deal with it, and climb back out. It’s a book about accepting the darkness and pain, struggling through, and keeping hope. It also has some profound wisdoms: “Bedtime is the worst time to start an argument because all the drama unfolds while you are wearing your underwear. Being angry in your underwear is a hard thing to pull off.”

It’s always awesome to hear people telling their own stories, but Maron’s narration is particularly good as he has beautiful timing and an open, free-flowing style thanks to years of working as a stand-up comic. He also has that hard-edged vulnerability that pro-comedians learn to do so well.

One of the things I appreciate about him, and which comes across heavily in this book, is that he loves the art of comedy not just as a form of entertainment but for its role in society: a way for people and for the culture to release tension. He says comedians are “like all artists, masters of the mathematics of relief.”

I also really dig his empathy for the human condition. He’s a dark character, but he has built up this amazing understanding of humanity that he uses to draw people out in interviews and to reflect on his own experiences. I learned from this book where it comes from: he has an insatiable curiosity for information about human psychology and philosophy, and even though he claims his obsessive collecting of books (from Plato and Spinoza to Hunter S.) is mostly pointless, I think it’s what gives him that ability to see the deeper truths in any situation.

“I can’t read anything with any distance. Every book is a self-help book to me. Just having them makes me feel better. I underline profusely, but I don’t retain much. Reading is like a drug. When I’m reading from these books it feels like I’m thinking what is being read, and that gives me a rush. That is enough. I glean what I can. I finish some of the unfinished thoughts lingering around in my head by adding the thoughts of geniuses, and I build from there.” (Mark Maron)

This isn’t a book about a huge celebrity or particular topic – it’s just an honest and humble conversation about how we’re kinda weird, kinda funny, and in the end only human.

Posted by Marissa van Uden

Review of Deathworld 2 by Harry Harrison

SFFaudio Review

Deathworld 2: The Ethical Engineer
By Harry Harrison; Performed by Jim Roberts
Publisher: Brilliance Audio4 hours [UNABRIDGED]

Themes: / gambler / psionic abilities / planetary worlds / planetary colonists / slavery /

Publisher summary:

In the first Deathworld, wily interstellar gambler Jason dinAlt managed to survive on Pyrrus, a planet that seemed to be at war with its own people. He also stopped a deadly feud between two groups of those people. In the second volume of this trilogy, Jason finds that keeping the peace is even more difficult than ending the war. He is also becoming increasingly annoyed with the superior attitude of the natives, including his girlfriend, and this leads to his taking a very big chance. He allows himself to be arrested and taken away from the planet to show that he can take care of himself. He soon regrets that decision after crashing on a planet where the people are quite primitive and he is made a slave. Now he just wants to escape and get back to Pyrrus, but finds that it takes all his cunning and physical prowess just to stay alive. Harry Harrison gives us another fast-paced yet surprisingly thought-provoking story in Deathword 2: The Ethical Engineer.

Deathworld 2: The Ethical Engineer is the second in Harry Harrison’s Deathworld trilogy, which follows the interplanetary adventures of professional gambler Jason din’Alt. Although the plot picks up pretty soon after the first book left off, it doesn’t feel like a sequel as much as an interlude from the Pyrran saga. There is very little to link the two books other than the presence of the protagonist who is immediately taken off world away from the characters of the first book. However, the story itself is full of pulp fiction-y goodness and centers on a brand new, slightly less deadly world. A primitive world that seems to have regressed since it’s initial colonization, a majority of the people are slaves to brutal tribal chiefs who lead a never ending search for food in a barren wasteland. The more powerful chiefs, as uneducated and greedy as their people, each own one aspect of the technology that remains from more advanced times. But their refusal to work together has left the world with limited resources and a stagnated intelligence. A possible commentary on the dangers of rigid corporatism, the world structure explores a backward approach to invention that deconstructs advanced ideas into their most rudimentary parts, much to their detriment.

This sort of simplistic, one-dimensional thinking also plays into Jason’s new antagonist Mikah who is a member of some sort of universal police force that imposes a very strict moral code on everyone around them. He sees life in perfectly defined right and wrongs with no room for the moral relativism Jason is so fond of indulging in. Initially arresting Jason because of his gambling, he spends most of the book in mortal danger due to his refusal to bend his moral code and frequently hampers Jason’s attempts to rescue him for the same reason. His frustrating behavior quickly makes Mikah into one of the most annoying characters ever conceived and I spent most of the book wishing Jason would just leave him behind. In most respects, Mikah acts like a robot with no capacity to learn, change, develop, or understand anything not in his original programming, so that even though he is ideologically opposed to Jason, he’s not a very interesting adversary.

Jason, on the other hand, actually manages to both develop and regress in this book. In addition to a knowledge of gambling and weapons and his psionic powers (none of which he uses in this story), we find out he is rather conveniently a skilled mechanic and electrician. Unlike this last book, he actually has a good reason to be entangled in this plot since it was a consequence of his lifestyle choices but by ignoring his psionic powers which were so vastly important before, he was become a more generic character. This isn’t helped by the fact that exposure to the morally upright Mikah has no more effect of him than he does on Mikah. In the end, nothing has really changed except for the bloody wars he probably will have left behind him.

As far as the audio goes, it is the same wooden narrator as the first book and so not one I would recommend. But overall, it’s the kind of enjoyable light reading meant for a rainy afternoon and is short enough that it won’t take you much longer.

Posted by Rose D.

Review of Oz Reimagined

SFFaudio Review

Oz Reimagined
Edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen; Performed by Tanya Eby and Nick Podehl
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
11 hours [UNABRIDGED]

Themes: / fantasy / wizards / dorothy / oz /

Publisher summary (paraphrased):

The ultimate anthology for Oz fans – and, really, any reader with an appetite for richly imagined worlds… Some stories are dystopian…Some are dreamlike…All are undeniably Oz.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

“The Great Zeppelin Heist of Oz” – Rae Carson & C.C. Finlay
“Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust” – Seanan McGuire
“Lost Girls of Oz” – Theodora Goss
“The Boy Detective of Oz: An Otherland Story” – Tad Williams
“Dorothy Dreams” – Simon R. Green
“Dead Blue” – David Farland
“One Flew Over the Rainbow” – Robin Wasserman
“The Veiled Shanghai” – Ken Liu
“Beyond the Naked Eye” – Rachel Swirsky
“A Tornado of Dorothys” – Kat Howard
“Blown Away” – Jane Yolen
“City So Bright” – Dale Bailey
“Off to See the Emperor” – Orson Scott Card
“A Meeting in Oz” – Jeffrey Ford
“The Cobbler of Oz” – Jonathan Maberry

I didn’t pick this book to review out of Oz-Nostalgia, since I only have very vague childhood memories of reading the original L. Frank Baum stories, and these memories were nearly bleached out of my brain completely when I was in my twenties, because I worked in an electronics store that played The Wizard of Oz movie on a seemingly infinite loop. Despite that traumatic experience, I wanted to read this collection because I love seeing how different authors’ voices, experiences and imaginations can flavor a similar story concept; and because I remembered the best parts about Oz were the scary parts – the Winged Monkeys, the Wheelers, the mean witches – and so the idea of darker, more adult perceptions of Oz really appealed to me.

The collection was even better than I expected. The tales were so eclectic and interesting I never got tired with being in Oz and even ended up downloading the original stories once I’d finished so I could revisit the world. The Oz Reimagined stories include everything from murder mystery and psychological drama to dystopia, urban fantasy, and cyberpunk. The tones of the stories are also varied, with some taking a darker view and dealing with themes like aging or death, and others leaning more to the whimsical, colorful and cute.

The narrators, Tanya Eby and Nick Podehl, did an amazing job with all the different voices and styles of storytelling in this collection. When I clicked back through the audio to remind myself of the stories, I could tell which story was which right away just by the narrator’s cadence and tone. They managed a huge range of voices. I especially adored the voices of the pathetic lion and bitchy Dorothy in “Off to See the Emperor”: I listened to that one twice, both for the good writing and entertaining narration.

The authors in this collection range from rising stars to old pros. The stand-out stories for me were Seanan McGuire’s “Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust,” which was a beautiful tale with equally beautiful use of profanity (I love artfully used curse words); Tad William’s “The Boy Detective of Oz,” which is set in his Otherland computer-simulated world and which stars the fascinating glass cat; Dale Bailey’s “City So Bright,” about a working-class munchkin who polishes the wall for a system he realizes is completely corrupt; and Orson Scott Card’s “Off to See the Emperor,” with two of the intelligent and yet naïve child characters that Card does so incredibly well.

As Gregory Maguire says in the introduction, these are “postcards from the beyond,” and every writer has different experiences and points of view to share. I thought it was an awesome collection that took me on a little trip and reminded me why I enjoyed the scary, weird and colorful world of Oz when I was kid.

Posted by Marissa van Uden

Review of The Mongoliad: Book One

SFFaudio Review

The Mongoliad: Book One (Foreworld Saga #1)
By Greg Bear, Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Mark Teppo, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo, Nicole Galland; Narrated by Luke Daniels
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Length: 13.25 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Note: I received this audiobook as a complete package with a prequel, Sinner, included. This review only covers The Mongoliad: Book One, as I reviewed Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad separately.

Themes: / mongoliad / martial arts / fantasy /

Publisher summary:

Fusing historical events with a gripping fictional narrative, this first book in the Mongoliad trilogy reveals a secret history of Europe in the thirteenth century. As the Mongols swept across Asia and were poised to invade Europe in 1241, a small band of warriors, inheritors of an ancient secret tradition, conceived a desperate plan to stop the attack. They must kill the Khan of Khans; if they fail, all of Christendom will be destroyed. In the late nineteenth century a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados provided Sir Richard F. Burton, well-known expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, a collection of long-lost manuscripts to translate — the lost chronicles of this desperate fight to save Europe. Burton’s translations were lost, until a team of amateur archaeologists discovered them in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste. From the translations and from the original source material, the epic tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.

The Mongoliad: Book One is a different sort of book. It pretty much violated all of my typical “rules” for a book, and I still find myself wanting to read on, to find out what happens in The Mongoliad: Book Two. I’m not sure the book is really a 3-star book, but I think it’s unfair to rate a book 2 stars but say that I want to know what happens next.

For those who don’t know, “The Mongoliad” was a bit of a “multimedia experiment” started by Neal Stephenson and some of his science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction friends. The end product, the volumes in the main story as well as the side stories, was a collaborative effort by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, and others. Originally published on the web (though the site seems to be more or less inactive now, with the authors stating that the published works are the preferred versions), it was originally intended to be a joining of authors and various media types for different forms of story-telling. Though it seems to often be sold/pitched as a fantasy novel, the story is much more historical fiction with some fantastical elements than pure fantasy. While that may frustrate some, it was just fine for me; I loved The Baroque Cycle, after all. The story weaves fictional tales using actual events from the Mongol invasion of Europe.

The Mongoliad: Book One is comprised with a few parallel story lines. Set in the Middle Ages, the two primary story lines are that of a group of knights on a quest (including Raphael, who we met in Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad) and that of an adviser/guard to a Mongol Kahn. Through these “main” story lines, there are some side-stories in the novel, including some flashbacks as well as a plotline surrounding some of the brother-knights who are not on the quest but are left to keep the Mongol invaders “occupied” (including Andreas, who we also met in Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad. The fact that I’m describing this so poorly is a testament to the first major issue I had with the book, an issue that is probably only an issue with the audio version: there are a lot of names, and a lot of names that sound the same…so it can be extremely confusing to keep them all straight when listening. The second major issue I have with the book is related, that because the stories go back and forth, it can be easy to get confused as to who is who when switching between stories, especially if it’s been a day (or more) since last listening. Luke Daniels, the narrator, did a good job with using different voices for each of the characters. But if you couldn’t remember which one was the adviser and which was the slave, then the voices didn’t help much. One other note on the narration: Luke Daniels is a good narrator, one who adds to the story without adding so much that it’s distracting. That said, in addition to the confusing names, there are also flashbacks and stuff in the story, and it was hard to figure out when the story was a flashback and when it was just moving on. I suspect a print edition may have been more obvious.

While I’m on the topic of “confusing characters,” another major issue I had with the book was that it felt like it was in desperate need of an editor. This may be a factor of “too many cooks in the kitchen” or maybe it was just the contribution from each author wanting to ensure the setup for the other authors was clear…or maybe it just needed more editing. It’s not the first of Neal Stephenson’s books I’ve said this about (*cough* Anathem *cough* Reamde *cough*). Interesting plot-relevant sections would be bogged down with–or worse, broken up by–seemingly interminable character- and world-building sections. I don’t mind world- and character-building, but I felt like it could have been done much more organically than it was done in this book. Here, it was either story or it was non-story world/character setup. It would have been much more fulfilling to learn about a feature in a town by seeing a character interact with it instead of a half chapter describing the looks of the buildings. Also, this was a book heavy on battle descriptions…descriptions that didn’t really matter to the overall plot/story arc except to say “the good guys won” or “the bad guys were defeated, but not without good guy casualties.”

This leads me to the final major issue I had with the book: it didn’t end so much as stop. Not only does it end in the middle of a fairly interesting scene, but none of the story lines are wrapped up; they are all left hanging. I hope that before I go onto The Mongoliad: Book Two, I can find a good synopsis online or a cheat-sheet to remind me of who was who and what happened, since I’m going to be listening to a (very different) book before I move onto the next book…and that’s the funny thing. I’m definitely going to listen to the next book (and probably the third book). I like the characters. I want to see if the knights will be able to complete their quest (if true history is any guide, I suspect they will), and how some of the side-quests turn out. I care about the adviser to the Kahn; he doesn’t seem like a bad guy, even if the guy he’s serving isn’t a great leader. I would like to see how some of the mystical/spiritual elements play out in the actual story. So, despite my significant frustrations, possibly because I do really like historical fiction, I’m going to continue with the series. I’m not sure this book is for everyone. I’m not sure that audiobook is the best way to consume the books. But despite its flaws, I actually want to know what happens next, so onward I go…

Posted by terpkristin.

Review of The Stand by Stephen King

SFFaudio Review

The Stand
By Stephen King; Read by Grover Gardner
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publication Date: February 14, 2012
ISBN: 9780307987570
37 discs – 1 day 21 hours 36 minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Themes: / good versus evil / super-flu / post-apocalypse /

Publisher summary:

Stephen King’s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published. A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of -flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

I know, I just listened to Stephen King’s Carrie and now The Stand. I’ve found that reading one King book begets more just about every time. There’s something to these tragic characters that you need more and more of.

Now, I have to tell a quick story on this one and I promise this will (probably not) be the last time I tell it to intro a review for a Stephen King novel. This is THE novel I hated so I figure it has to be told here if anywhere.

A number of years ago, I was in Borders and that tells you it was a least a couple years ago. I hadn’t read Stephen King before this time, but you can’t help being an avid reader and reading King, it’s bound to happen at some point, he’s way too prolific. I was looking through his section and I decided I would either buy The Stand or The Talisman as I’d heard very good things about both. There happened to be a guy in the same section and I asked him to make the call. He enthusiastically pointed to The Stand and thus it was purchased. I was in the middle of a huge fantasy binge at the time, making up for lost time I guess since I was never a huge reader growing up. I had read The Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia and a number of other fantasy books, but it was always sporadic at best and this was a HUGE binge I’m telling you.

I had just finished The Riftwar Saga and loved it immensely. I had The First Law sitting on my shelf and waiting to be read, calling to me even. But I was determined to read this book everyone was talking about – The Stand by Stephen King. I started reading and it was compelling enough. The super-flu, or Captain Trips was interesting and it was obviously creating this world change, but the characters were almost too real. I didn’t really like any of them, maybe Nick Andros (and how do you not like him?) and it seemed to drone on and on without anything really happening. Yes, there were the coughs in the theater, the slow spread of the flu is documented ad nauseum, but at 300 pages in, I still felt like nothing was ever going to happen.

I figured, if I’m not enjoying myself at 300 pages, then when am I ever going to enjoy this book? So I stopped. This was no easy decision, let me tell you. After all the praise, I don’t even think I’ve ever heard one poor word said about this book, I had to keep pushing and 300 pages in is really a lot since I can drop a book now after 50 to 100 pages without any qualms whatsoever.

Somehow, a couple years later I was drawn into Stephen King’s world again. This time it was The Dark Tower series with the good folks at Goodreads. Everyone seemed to be reading this series a couple years back and so I jumped in. I didn’t love the first book, but it has some great moments. The second book made me rethink my whole opinion on King because it blew my mind in so many ways. The third and fourth are two of my top ten books I’ve ever read, so you know I got to thinking about my problems with The Stand and how this fantasy fan couldn’t get into it.

Thus, the reread or more like “retry.” This time, things were completely different. I loved it from just about the first page. The way the super-flu spreads is genius – one accident leads to the cough that’s heard around the world. Then we have the characters. The first time, I could hardly stand any of them. But this time, I absolutely loved them. It was simply genius to put them in situations that seemed monumental to them at the time and you just know it’s about to become the smallest thing in the world. The girl who has to tell her parents she’s pregnant, the guy who’s just had his first hit on the radio and blows all his money, the guy who works at a failing factory, the kid who just got beat up and robbed. Simply genius.

Then there’s the “bad guys” who aren’t even all that bad, who in fact have plenty of redeeming qualities, but who happen to be on the other side. Again, genius. I can’t stop using that word.

And for some reason none of this clicked the first time I attempted reading The Stand. I do have some theories, so indulge me if you would.

I don’t think I was read for King and all his King-ness. You’d think after having read George R.R. Martin I could take brutal reality, but that was more an exception at the time from all my other non-realistic heroes and villains reading that I just wasn’t ready for this kind of reality.
I didn’t really get the fantasy part of the book. I KNOW! The fantasy fan doesn’t get the fantasy! What is the world coming too? But I didn’t get it at all. We had this very realistic situation with very real people and then all of a sudden there’s this “walking dude” who embodies pure evil and even sparks some supernatural events. It just didn’t gel for me at the time and started to pull me out of the story. I knew this was considered a fantasy novel, but that wasn’t the kind of fantasy I was remotely comfortable with so it didn’t work for me at the time.
The characters. I don’t know if I’ve grown a lot as a person since then (I like to think I have), but the first time I thought Frannie was just being a brat and Larry was completely dumb. Now, I can’t even believe I thought those things of some of my favorite characters. Frannie’s giggling in awkward situations alone should have made me love her! But how else would you deal with such a situation? It was so great, I didn’t even realize it.

M-O-O-N. That spells didn’t even realize it.

Needless to say, I’m very happy I gave The Stand a second try. This is one amazing book that’s constantly compelling, especially witnessing the birth of a new civilization and the interactions of some of the greatest characters I’ve ever read. Really the only problem I had was that it felt a little too long and drawn out and that’s got to be the expanded version. For me, if there’s ever the choice between more editing and less, you should really go with less. I feel like a great book was made a little less great by adding back in what was cut in the first place. But then again … money!

I know that was the longest way in the history of anything to say, wow, what a good book. From the rise of the super-flu to the dawning of a new civilization and the ever-overshadowing and always looming confrontation, this was one epic read. Not for the faint of heart (or even close – The Kid, just think of The Kid!), but definitely an experience not to be rivaled.

Grover Gardner is just about the perfect narrator for this story. He has just the right amount of twang to his voice for the multiple southern accents and it’s gruff enough for the subject matter as well. There are plenty of characters in The Stand and he nailed every one of them.

4.5 out of 5 Stars (very highly recommended!)

Posted by Bryce L.