books and books review – Page 91

Players – Paul J. McAuley

Published on November 26, 2007

Cover of Players

Players
Paul J. McAuley
390 pages
published in 2007

Paul J. McAuley used to be one of my favourite science fiction writers. Used to be, because unfortunately he seems to have chucked it in favour of writing crime and thriller novels. Probably for some silly reason as that they sell better. Not that I mind writers trying out other genres, but whereas I devoured McAuley’s science fiction novels, I couldn’t finish Mind’s Eye, the first of his thrillers I try, stopping halfway through and returned it to the library after it had been lying on my shelves accusively for a few weeks. It’s therefore with some trepidation that I approached Players, but I wanted to give him another chance. And it worked, in as far as that I finished this one.

What’s interesting is that Players shares its opening gimmick, a crime in an online game having repercussions in the real world, with Charlie Stross’ very different Halting State, which was also published this year. But whereas Charlie’s novel is set some years in the future and is quite clearly science fiction, Players is set in the here and now and quite clearly is not.

Russia’s Air Power in Crisis

Published on October 30, 2007

Cover of Russia's Air Power in Crisis

Russia’s Air Power in Crisis
Benjamin S. Lambeth
233 pages including index
published in 1999

The end of the Cold War was strange, because it wasn’t the nuclear holocaust we all imagined it was going to be, the final confrontation between the free west and the communist east. Instead it ended with a whimper, not a bang, as the Soviet empire collapses from the inside. With it crumbled the Russian army, which went from being an unstoppable menace to a laughing stock in the space of less than a year. Budgets were slashed, careful gathered stockpiles of weapons were destroyed or sold, units were brought back from Eastern Europe and when the USSR itself split, suddenly not just hte army was split over a dozen different countries, but also its supporting infrastructure of weapon plants, repair depots and design bureaus…

The various new Russian army branches therefore had to meet formidable challenges in the post-Soviet era, perhaps none more so than its airforces. It’s this that’s the subject of Russia’s Air Power in Crisis, which looks at these problems through a somewhat American lens. This is most visible in the constant references the author makes to the role American airpower played during the First Gulf War and the impression this made on the Russians. More subtly, it’s also visible in the assumption of how airpower should be used, in that a proper airforce should be like the USAF and adhere to its philosophy. It speaks for Lambeth that he recognises this tendency in himself, when he discusses what might have been the outcome if the balloon had gone up and the Soviet and NATO airforces had met each other in the skies above Western Europe.

The Shadow Rising – Robert Jordan

Published on October 22, 2007

Cover of The Shadow Rising

The Shadow Rising
Robert Jordan
1006 pages
published in 1993

The Shadow Rising is the fourth book in Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. In my view it’s the point where the series really started to balloon. For a start it’s some 300 pages longer than the previous installment, but the plot as well gets bigger and more complicated. The most common criticism of the Wheel of Time (apart from those who, perhaps unfairly, reject it out of hand as sub-Tolkien crap) is that the story stopped progressing halfway through the series; the seeds for this are sown here. In many ways this is the watershed in the series, between what Jordan started with, a fairly linear story in the Tolkienesque mold and what it ended up being, perhaps the most complex fantasy series ever written weaving half a dozen separate storylines together into an almost coherent whole. This is the first book in the series in which the various plotlines do not come together neatly at the end of the book, nor are intended to.

But this is not the sole reason as to why this is a watershed in the series. The character of the series also changes, from being largely a quest based story to one of a more political nature. Rand al’Thor has declared himself the Dragon Reborn, drawn the sword that’s not a sword and the unfallen fortress has fallen. From now on he has a nation and a army behind him, he has revealed himself to the world and the stakes have gotten that much higher. From now on he can no longer led himself be lead, he has to lead himself. And while his friends may still be his friends, their interests and his may no longer completely match…

The Dragon Reborn – Robert Jordan

Published on October 20, 2007

Cover of The Dragon Reborn

The Dragon Reborn
Robert Jordan
699 pages
published in 1991

The Dragon Reborn is the third book in the Wheel of Time series and as such it does not quite have the worst artwork in the series. That honour is reserved for either the previous book The Great Hunt, with its depiction of Trollocs as humans with curved helmets or the sixth book, The Lord of Chaos, with its incompetent romance novel cover. No book in the series however has what you can call good art, or even art that bears much resemblence to the books its used on. That’s not unusual for any book of course and normally I don’t care too much about what’s on a cover, but the Darrell Sweet artwork on these is just too embarassing, especially when read in public. But never mind eh? It’s still much, much better than reading Dan Brown where people can see you.

Moving on to what’s between the covers, The Dragon Reborn is the last book in the series to duplicate the quest structure of The Lord of the Rings and also the last book in which the various storylines neatly come together in the end. It’s not the end of the series, as the series has no end, but it’s a end. From the next book, The Shadow Rising onward, things would be much more complicated. It’s also a sort of beginning, as this is the first book which is not dominated by Rand as the main character; in fact he’s hardly in it, with much of the action focussing on Perrin, Mat and Egwene/Nynaeve/Elayne in three different storylines, which come together at the climax of the book, just as with the previous two books.

The Great Hunt – Robert Jordan

Published on October 16, 2007

Cover of The Great Hunt

The Great Hunt
Robert Jordan
707 pages
published in 1991

I said so, didn’t I, that Robert Jordan hooks you into the story? Here I was determined just to reread The eye of the World to mark his passing, so why did I immediately reach for The Great Hunt? Because I wanted to read more of course. It had been almost a decade since the last time I read through the entire series after all. Not to mention that the weather has turned decidedly autumnal, always the best season to read a great epic fantasy series.

Now as I understand it, The Eye of the World was deliberately written as a standalone novel, in case the series didn’t take off. So all the plot threads resolve neatly at the end, and the plot itself is fairly linear and straightforward. From The Great Hunt onwards this is no longer the case. The plotlines start to unravel, with the various main characters going their own ways having their own adventures only to come together at the end and with some plot threads continuing in the next book. Unlike the later books though, where the plot threads multiply unchecked and drag themselves from book to book, here Jordan still has a tight grip on things. It’s just more clear that this is a part of a series.

Everytime I’ve read The Great Hunt I’ve had difficulty in getting started, with the first 100-150 pages or so being just pure torture to get through. Absurd of course; there’s novels that finish in fewer pages, but that’s the way it is with fat fantasies. As for why this is so hard to get started, it’s because the main character behaves like an idiot and the plot seems to crawl at first. Spoilers follow.