Martin's Booklog

The Eye of the World – Robert Jordan

Published on September 24, 2007

Cover of The Eye of the World

The Eye of the World
Robert Jordan
800 pages
published in 1990

I remember the first time I read The Eye of the World, a year or two after it had been published. At the time I knew nothing about it, but the spine had that weird squiggly sign on it that my local library meant to represent fantasy or science fiction, so I took it off the shelves and started reading. By the time I got past the prologue and on to Rand and his father’s ride to Emond’s Field, I was hooked. And I stayed hooked through the rest of the novel, as well as through many of the sequels. Like many others eventually I stopped following the series when it seemed to have become a neverending story; A Path of Daggers was the last novel I bought, A Crown of Swords the last I’d read.

By that time however I must’ve read The Eye of the World at least a dozen times, rereading the complete cycle every time a new book in the series came out. Especially when I was still supposedly a student, there was many a day when I woke up determined to do some work that day, only to grab The Eye of the World and finish it when it had gotten dark again.

Gate of Ivrel – C. J. Cherryh

Published on September 16, 2007

Cover of Gate of Ivrel

Gate of Ivrel
C. J. Cherryh
191 pages
published in 1976

Cherryh has always been a bit hit or miss with me; some books I’ve devoured in one evening, others have taken me weeks to read, while some I’ve tried but never finished or never tried at all because they didn’t seem interesting enough. On the whole I seem to like her science fiction the most, while her fantasy novels have largely disappointed. It helps that she’s so frikking prolific, having written something like a zillion novels since the mid-seventies. There’s always a new series or novel to try if the last one didn’t satisfy. In this case, it’s Gate of Ivrel, actually Cherryh’s first novel, which I had had in my to read pile for years and years and finally decided to try. After having read a few monsters of books, the chance of reading a book with less than 200 pages was quite welcome. It didn’t disappoint either: this was a fast, exciting read, fairly polished for a first novel, not as good as some of Cherryh’s later novels of course, but good enough in its own right.

The story is either science fiction or fantasy, depending on your views, as the central premise is purely science fictional, — a network of teleportation gates that transport you through time and space left behind by a vanished alien race which needs to be destroyed by a team of Union scientists — but the setting is pure fantasy: a backward planet with a semi-medieval tech level, split in warring tribes and afraid of sorcery and witches. Not to mention that the population is human, but not descended from
Earth.

Sewer, Gas & Electric — Matt Ruff

Published on September 16, 2007Leave a comment

Cover of Sewer, Gas & Electric

Sewer, Gas & Electric
Matt Ruff
560 pages
published in 1997

Imagine if you will, a mid-nineties update of the Illuminantus Trilogy in which the hippie-free-sex-and-drugs crap is taken out and replaced with cyberpunk-sex-drugs-and-ayn-rand, add in a mix of Clinto-era political obsessions (p.cness and all that) and you begin to get a little hint of what Sewer, Gas & Electric is about. It’s a gonzo science fiction novel written by someone you suspect isn’t in the least bit gonzo. It’s partially a parody, partially serious, but not hitting you over the head with how funny, serious or absurd it is supposed to be. It’s a big novel, as it should be, but you can read it in an afternoon or two.

If I’m not mistaken Sewer, Gas & Electric was one of the first ever books I ordered from Amazon, after Matt Ruff had turned up in rec.arts.sf.written and shown himself to be a decent bloke and interesting poster, with several others recommending his books. I read it for the first time sometine in 1998, liked it quite a lot, then forgot about it until I was once again in the mood to read something gonzo-ish and the Illuminantus Trilogy didn’t appeal.

Flashman on the March – George MacDonald Fraser

Published on September 15, 2007

Cover of Flashman on the March

Flashman on the March
George MacDonald Fraser
317 pages including notes
published in 2005

Flashman on the March is the latest novel to be published in the Flashman series, six years after Flashman and the Tiger. This long time between books is worrisome, especially as George MacDonald Fraser isn’t getting any younger, having just turned 81… There are still quite a few blind spots in Flashie’s career Fraser still needs to chronicle and it would be disappointing if he died without doing so.

But let’s worry about that later; for the moment there’s a new Flashman novel and all’s well with the world. Ever since I first read Flashman and the Mountain of Light — the one Flashman novel the local library had in stock after John Ostrander praised these novels in the last Suicide Squad letters page — I’ve always looked forward in anticipation to any Flashman novel I could get my hands on. I’ve never been disappointed, nor was I this time. Flashman on the March is as good as any of the Flashman novels and old Flashie is at his caddest best again.

Reefer Madness — Eric Schlosser

Published on September 11, 2007Leave a comment

Cover of Reefer Madness

Reefer Madness
Eric Schlosser
310 pages including index
published in 2003

When I think of black markets, I associate them with World War II and occupied Europe; not with modern day America. Yet, as Eric Schlosser shows in Reefer Madness, they are alive and well. America’s underground economy may be as big as ten percent of its Gross Domestic Product, though obviously any estimate of by definition hidden economic activities is bound to be imprecise. Nevertheless, it is clear that there’s a huge hidden economy shadowing the official economy. In Reefer Madness traces three different parts of it: the marijuana trade, porn and illegal labour in Southern California. Schlosser’s intention is to use these examples to illuminate the way in which the underground and official economies are linked and how these underground economies influence the country as a whole.

I don’t think he succeeded completely in turning what are in essence three separate essays into a coherent argument. The three aspects of the underground economy he looks at are not embedded in much of a context, apart from a short foreword and a slightly longer afterword, while the crosslinks between the essays are also missing. In theory Schlosser could’ve provided a good overview of how illegal and semi-illegal industries interact with the socalled official economy, as he has an example of an activity vigerously combatted by government and industry alike (marijuana trade), one that’s officially illegal but which is not just tolerated but to a certain extent encouraged (illegal migrant labour) and one which is now legal but barely condoned though financially enormously succesful (porn). Unfortunately however he remains stuck at a semi-anecdotal level, providing a lot data on each of these fields but without the analysis to match it. On their own the essays are quite good, but the book as a whole therefore doesn’t quite gel.