Book review: Light

D was kind enough to lend me Light; and while I can't say I thought it a good book, I can't blame him for trying it out; it has many of the trappings of respectability.

There are brief snatches - towards the end - when he is describing trivial things honestly - sand drifting in through a doorway - that I could almost like. But having made that token attempt at liking it, I shall from now on be relentlessly negative.

This Goodreads review says most of what I would say; so I'll assume you've read that.

Philosophically, if the book has anything to say, it is that we are apt, or likely, or might, be stopped by some unknowable wonder; and being unable to respond adequately, we would fail; and fall back upon ourselves (the aliens have done that, and grown us to face it, and the book unable to think of any good reaction ends with Character heading off into the wild, going yee-haw). This doesn't seem like a valuable idea. Unless it is a metaphor for people like Gray's reaction to Liberalism. But I think that kind of subtlety, or analysis, is beyond Our Author.

Another flaw is that the Female Character has to grow tired of her tank, and gets turned into a sparkly unicorn-butterfly princess, and flies off into the night. This too is both unimaginative and philosophically doubtful; the idea that life-of-the-mind is effectively valueless is a poor one.

A token plot hole that annoyed me: Another Character is a serial killer (for no particularly obvious reason; perhaps just to be edgy; perhaps it was fashionable then) and a physicist. But Our Author knowns nothing of physics or academia, so AC behaves as neither physicist or academic. He's also unsatisfactory as a serial killer: although the kills a NPC at a dinner party and leaves her to be found, the police don't even come to interview him. Ditto all his other murders. WTF? This is just carelessness; if your characters are going to kill people in nominally law-abiding present-day society they need to actually be in that society.

Refs

* Book review: the Centauri Device.

Pre-bumps assessment 2024

Following on from Pre-bumps assessment 2023.

Another year rolls round, and it does feel a bit like it this time; rather more "here we go again" than bright perky excitement.

Adding to that, we've been a bit thin on outings, going out two or three times a week and never hitting the dizzy heights of four.

This is reflected in all kinds of ways; we're not as tuned up as we've been in previous years. Our starts might hold up, they might not, but we certainly haven't done enough to iron out the rough spots. And of course for me the years roll round: my 2k is up to 7:31 despite a winter's worth of erging, from 7:26 last year.

We are: cox: Theo von Wilmowski, stroke Harry Bulstrode, Jon Hachett, Conor Burgess, Jonathon Pilgrim, Lars Okkenhaug, David O'Loughlin, Me, Klaus Okkenhaug. No fresh young blood from Kings (though Lars is young and fresh), and JP in for Ralph Hancock at the lastish minute: Andy Southgate in M2 broke thus opening a gap, and Robs menfolk as a whole broke, thus freeing JP. And we're back in Christ's nice Filippi.

That said, our starts are consistently below 1:30 and we don't immeadiately die thereafter. Though I don't think we've rowed the full course: that isn't the plan, one way or another.

Any predictions would depend on knowing the boats around us, which I don't. I'm going to count going down two or less as a success; any bumps up a definite bonus.

Actual

Tuesday: GPS. Harry's GoPro. Grey, stopped raining, river up. Arrived early for warmup on ergs and quick starts together. Good start outside Plough (1:25). Four minute gun just as we came onto station, mild panic but plenty of time. E there to watch. Ever so slightly over-angled at start, but start good, held City much better than expected, got 1 1/4, perhaps 1 length at end on Press, but alas they were by no means slow. But around First Post City got their act together and started coming up, and they got us between the Plough and Ditton.

Wednesday: GPS. Harry's GoPro on my rigger. 6:59 (1:46). Nice Wx. I'm feeling slightly hassled due to my marshalling stuff-ups, but much less nervous than yesterday. Less faff on meet, but did some starts on the ergs. Decent row down, and the race... went all according to plan. Which doesn't often happen at bumps. We stayed on station with City for a while, they took out Press later than I expected, where they got us, and Nines weren't ever a threat.

Thursday: GPS. Harry's GoPro on JP's rigger. 7:02 (1:47). Another nice evening, perhaps even a touch on the warm side. The race again much as expected: in that - alas - we didn't catch Press or even get close; perhaps slightly unexpected was Nines rudely charging at us towards the end, but they did not pose a real threat. If they get encouraged and start their run-up a bit earlier tomorrow we might have to work harder.

Friday: GPS. Harry's GoPro on Theo's back. 7:02. A slightly duff start: we hit the end of the chain, bounced and turned a bit, and a slight wind blew us towards the shore, so that Harry's first stroke got a little caught on the weeds and we went down to bowside (this felt huge at the time but you can barely see it on the video; though it is obvious on Jo's from the bank). We recovered, but one or two more less-but-still-slightly duff strokes got us a not-tip-top start. However, it didn't matter: despite my unvoiced fears, Nines behind us did exactly the same as yesterday and wited until too late. Ahead, we didn't really sniff Press. And after the start we settled nicely, I front-loaded my effortly slightly as an anti-Nines anticipation.

See-also: post on Chesterton site.

Post assessment

And onto Monday morning. The drink has worn off. I spent Saturday doing almost nothing, wandering into town, drinking coffee. Sunday was light too. How does it all feel now? Still good. I can remember how joyful and insubstantial I felt, going home past 3 am, pissed but happy.

Now I look, I realise we were a bit slow this year; my PR is 6:33 in 2018 (1:40; blog); this year's best was 6:59 (1:46). Some of that may be river; there was a decent flow and the river was high.

Looking back, overall: we were a bit light on training, and perhaps lucky that (bar City 3) it wasn't a vintage year on the river; but we did well.

Book review: the Centauri Device

This isn't a good book; I feel inclined to put it that way round, rather than saying it is a bad book. But it is a throwing-unpleasantness-in-your-face sort of book: lovingly detailed depictions of grime and misery. There is some literary quality in there; at least, we're above the potboiler level; and yet the literary quality isn't enough to make up for the grime.

Wiki tells us "The Centauri Device is the third novel by English author M. John Harrison. The novel, originally conceived as an "anti-space opera" would ultimately go on to make a major contribution to revitalising the subgenre and influencing the works of later authors such as Iain M. Banks and Alastair Reynolds." Goodreads, as usual, provides a variety of views. But I couldn't find one I liked, to endorse.

At the end, perhaps to justify the blow-it-all-up ending, perhaps to throw nihilistic politics into the nihilistic mix, we get a weird "what has {socialism|capitalism} ever done for the world" competition, which both lose. As politics, it is naif to the point of uselessness.

He does get a point for describing the camels as "sore-footed, refractory" but it isn't enough.

Book review: Fractal Noise

Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini is a bad book. Ironically I read it because I mistook him for Paolo Bacigalupi of The Windup Girl. But I now discover he is Eragon and so on. That fits much better; the formulaic and entirely flat texture of this book is no match for TWUG but fits well with Eragon.

To get the title out of the way, it is irrelevant. I doubt Our Author has a clue what it means; certainly it plays no part in the plot. And why anyone would bother build a transmitter to broadcast the Fibonacci numbers (or whatever it was) is beyond me. Never mind.

The plot (really, I'm going to assume you don't bother read the book, so I feel no qualms about giving the plot away): after discovering a mysterious makes-no-sense giant massively powerful alien transmitter on a far planet, sufficient excuses are assembled to justify sending down a motley crew of four to travel on foot to go for a look. For lulz, the four are ridiculously ill-matched and authority is poorly defined. "Zones" with no physical reality are defined around the object, so that the book can have convenient chapters as they cross these zones; laughably, at one point the Central Character is surprised that nothing is visible as he crosses the imaginary lines on the map.

The CC is given a heart-rending backstory - which I skipped - to agonise about as he walks; this fails to disguise the Author's lack of writing ability.

In the end, it was exactly as I expected: the CC arrives at the object, and nothing is revealled or discovered. In an appendix, the Author reveals that he originally expected the story to be about 15 pages long; and really, there is no more than 15 pages of thought in this book.

Duplicated review at Goodreads. My Scifi and Fantasy reviews.

Book review: Tenth Planet

Ah Edmund Cooper. Author of the classic Overman Culture. This one is minor, and arguably somewhat similar - waking up in a new culture the origins of which are to be discovered.

But as Goodreads can hardly fail to notice, the novel is grotesquely sexist, even by the standards of its time. If you can read past that, then the story is interesting enough.

One Goodreads review notices something I failed to: that while very early on we have a male-crewed ship with the exception of the slinky Suzy Wu, who appears in revealing attire and is available for "cheering up" the Captain or anyone else in need, by the end Our Captain has reverted to small-town 1950's morality and any form of sexual un-monogamy (there must be a better word) arouses violence in him (admittedly it is kinda necessary for the plot that he be imprisoned, and escape, and so on; but consistency is also needed).

Book review: The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn is by Mark "Red Sister" Lawrence. I really enjoyed the beginning, but found myself disappointed by the end. Goodreads is enthusiastic.

The young-girl-growing-up-in-a-hard-world-with-secret-protectors is a familiar story but quite well done. The always problematic transition to "the real story" is as ever the difficulty, which Our Author doesn't manage to overcome. There's a nice twist at the end, where we find out where the Assistant and The Soldier have come from and why they look a bit damaged. But, time-travel never works.

Consider: Yute reveals to Livira that her rejection at the hands of the examiners was a test of them, not of her. And yet he learns nothing from their failure. Their failure, by the end, we clearly see is going to lead to the humans being locally wiped out by the sabbers. And yet his reaction is to remain on the sides, taking the easy course of being the wise elder who sighs for the folly of the world but does f*ck all to change it.

But the main failure of all the characters in the book - indeed, the book itself - is to realise that their main problem is tribalism; that they're only fighting because they look different; that fundamentally they are all just intelligent-beings under the skin. And so the solution would be to talk. Quite how Yute fails to see this and fails to make even an attempt to do anything about it is a mystery to me - well, other than it would upset the flow of the book, obvs. The reason for the waves of sabbers is only vaguely sketched in, as is whatever economy allows them to survive out in the wastes of dust, and yet be desperate to attack; Our Author is more interested in his Cycles of History that "inevitbaly" lead to alternation, rather than any attempt to make it plausible.

There are echoes of The Library of Babel, except it doesn't quite work like that... individual chambers are large; there are clearly many of them; they clearly don't fit into the physical world; but IIRC none of the characters think it might be infinite. It turns out that the chamber doors are keyed by race, but in an easily gameable way that makes that precaution pointless, but there are only two races... or perhaps we're in a local pocket with only two races. There's no attempt at an explanation of how The Library might work, or come into being. Given that it is a library, and therefore might contain such an explanation, that seems odd. And once you realise it is non-physically-local, it would be natural to attempt to find exits to other worlds; yet no-one tries to do that.

The Exchange is based on the wood between the worlds.

Whatever tech created all this, the current inhabitants are well below it. So we're back in a what's-the-point type situation, whereby all these people and their struggles... just don't matter, in a sense. I'm not sure I expressed that well.

Film review: Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film loosely based on the 1986 novel of the same name by British author Diana Wynne Jones; it's another Studio Ghibli.

And the "style" of Mononoke or Tomoro carries over, pleasantly. Except for the bits of "nice" landscape, which tend to be a bit garish and sickly. The "henchmen" are good, and the bombers, and the castle. Visually I mean.

The story is only semi-coherent; treat it as mood-music rather than a structured narrative (where does Markl come from? Why did the Witch show up in a hat shop? Why does Howl want a moving castle in the first place? And so on).

Apparently it is anti-war, but that's a pretty cheap sentiment.

I did find resonance in the bit where the young girl, having become old, finds that what she really wants to do is sit quietly by the side of the lake.

Refs

* Film review: Princess Mononoke.