Martin's Booklog

Looking for Jake and Other Stories — China Miéville

Published on August 30, 2007Leave a comment

Cover of Looking for Jake and Other Stories

Looking for Jake and Other Stories
China Miéville
303 pages
published in 2005

Because of their birth in the pulp magazines of the mid-1920s, science fiction and fantasy used to be dominated by the short story and the novella, long after these story formats had become largely irrelevant in other genres. It was only in the early to mid seventies that the novel finally gained the upper hand on them, but even then there was a place for the short story and the sf magazines as a nursery for new talent. Not any longer, as this China Miéville collection shows. Looking for Jake is his first; it came out seven years after his first novel and five years after the book that made his name, Perdido Street Station. Even more telling, it seems to contain all the short fiction he has written in that time… Clearly, to Miéville at least, writing short stories is not a priority.

The stories seem to reinforce this feeling. Many of them feel slight, little amusements, enjoyed when read but easily forgotten by the next day, as if Miéville wrote them as exercises, scribbles inbetween more important work. Not that this makes them bad stories as such, but they mostly miss the power he packs in his novels. Most of the stories are either horror or “weird fiction”, in the tradition of M. R. James, E. F. Benson, Sheridan LeFanu and the like: not quite horror, not quite fantasy, but stories about strange happenings and all. Not quite my genre to be honest, as these stories always seem to run on rails towards set destinations in my experience.

A Game of Thrones — George R. R. Martin

Published on August 25, 2007Leave a comment

Cover of A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin
835 pages
published in 1996

I’ve always had a weakness for epic fantasy, not so much Tolkien as his imitators, happily reading my way through long, long series of books as thick as my fist: Donaldson, Feist, Eddings, Jordan, I’ve read and enjoyed them all. They may not have been very good, but as long as there was even a hint of a sufficiently epic story, I read them. As long as I could get my kick I was happy. Fortunately, not all epic fantasy is crap these days, as several excellent writers have turned their hand to it. George R. R. Martin is one of them. Until he started his A Song of Ice and Fire series, he was better known as somewhat of a cult science fiction writer, having written some excellent novels (Tuf Voyaging comes to mind) as well as short stories (Sandkings, The way of Cross and Dragon). With this series however Martin moved from being a well respected science fiction and fantasy writer to being a still respected but bestselling science fiction
and fantasy writer. He deserves it, as this is easily the best post-Tolkien epic fantasy series I’ve ever read.

There is a downside however. Writing good fantasy takes time, which means the wait inbetween novels has been long and getting longer. The first one, A Game of Throne came out in 1996, when the idea was that this would be a proper trilogy, three books, no more. Instead the series has become a proper fantasy trilogy: four books and counting. Currently it seems the whole series will eventually be seven books long, but who knows if that remains the case.

The World Hitler Never Made — Gavriel D. Rosenfeld

Published on August 13, 2007Leave a comment

Cover of The World Hitler Never Made

The World Hitler Never Made
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld
462 pages, including index and notes
published in 1990

Alternate history is a subgenre of science fiction, which revolves around asking what if the great historical events of the past happened differently, what would the world look like then? It’s unique in that it was invented twice at roughly the same tinme: in the pulp science fiction of the 1930s, but also amongst serious historians at the same time, independently of each other. Murray Leinster introduced the idea to science fiction in 1934, in “Sideways in Time“, while three years earlier a collection of alt-historical essays had appeared under the title If it Had Happened Otherwise, which contained contributions by such people as Winston Churchill. Much of what appeared in the pulps on this subject was of course the usual science fiction nonsense, not at all related to true history; it was only after World War II that science fiction writers would get interested in proper alternate history stories, rather than stories about visiting alternate worlds, with no resemblance to our own.

The reason is obvious: the Second World War seemed so much the work of an evil genius, Adolf Hitler, that it was very tempting to ask what would’ve happened if he hadn’t existed. At the same time, the menace of the nazis was so clear and the consequences of their victory so horrible that again, it was tempting to ask what would’ve happened if… Finally, there’s also the fate of Hitler himself, who disappeared at the end of the war, allegedly having committed suicide. Because the Russians refused to
confirm his suicide until the end of the Cold War, the road was clear for speculation about what else might’ve happened…

In de Ban van Fortuyn — Jutta Chorus and Menno de Galan

Published on August 6, 2007Leave a comment

Cover of In de Ban van Fortuyn

In de Ban van Fortuyn
Jutta Chorus and Menno de Galan
462 pages, including index and notes
published in 1990

The murder of Pim Fortuyn on May 6th, 2002 was the first political murder in the Netherlands to have happened since the seventeenth century. As such, it was the end of an era, a catalyst for change whose consequences are still being worked out today. Dutch politics lost its innocence that day. Fortuyn’s murdered thought he saved the Netherlands from a very dangerous man, but in reality he only succeeded into making Fortuyn into a martyr, a handy symbol for lesser people to sell their politics with. Though the movement he founded has now almost disappeared from politics, Fortuyn’s legacy lives on.

Fittingly, In de Ban van Fortuyn (which means something like “Captivated by Fortuyn”) opens with the day of his murder and the immediate aftermath of it, before it trackbacks to Fortuyn’s youth and early career, then to slowly move forward through his stormy career, his murder and what happened to his party afterward. The authors are two well respected Dutch journalists who were already following Fortuyn, almost from the start of his political career. The result is a well told history of Fortuyn, sympathetic to Fortuyn himself, if not necessarily his politics, but without losing their objectivity.

The Arms Bazaar — Anthony Sampson

Published on July 22, 2007Leave a comment

Cover of The Arms Bazaar

The Arms Bazaar
Anthony Sampson
340 pages
published in 1977

Anthony Sampson made his reputation through a series of books examining the realities of economic and political power in Britain and the world. His Seven Sisters for example describes the history of Big Oil, while his most famous work, The Anatomy of Britain, first published in 1962 and regularly updated, investigated the ruling classes in the UK. The Arms Bazaar
is a logical extension of this work, setting out the history and current practises of the international arms trade.

Now The Arms Bazaar was published in 1977, in a world very different from the one we currently live in. The Cold War was still more then a decade away from ending, the Soviet Union in fact seemed more strong then ever, while both Iran and Iraq were still ruled by friendly dictators and the Vietnam war was only two years in the past. At first glance then, The Arms Bazaar seems
to be only of historical interest, a current affairs book whose current affairs has long since become history.

That would be wrong however. The world may have changed a lot since 1977, but the realities of the arms trade have remained the same. A book like The Arms Bazaar, which explains the history of the arms trade, its inner workings and how it influences both the domestic politics and the foreign policy of countries like the UK, France and the US, is therefore still relevant. It helps that Anthony Sampson is able to explain complex issues in a way that makes them easy to understand, without simplifying them.