k – Page 12 – Triple Take

Point of Hopes (Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett)

The Plot
In the city of Astreiant, children have been disappearing — and not the sort of children that would be expected to run away to seek their fortune. Nico Rathe, adjunct pointsman at Point of Hopes, is determined that his investigation will see the children found before anything can happen to them. But with approximately zero leads, he’s mostly just poking around and hoping something pops out. Meanwhile, the city is growing more tense and hostilities are starting to break out.

My Thoughts
This wasn’t a book I’d picked out, and I again had a curious reluctance to pick it up and start it. But unlike the last book where that happened, once I got going with it I didn’t really have trouble continuing.

On its surface, this seems like a book I would like very much: I’m a fan of mysteries and I’m a fan of fantasy and this one has both. The surface impression is not entirely wrong, either.

The book’s main character, Nico Rathe, is the adjunct point in the area of Astreiant called Point of Hopes. It’s clear immediately that a ‘point’ is a sort of patrolman and detective rolled into one. But at that point (ha ha) the worldbuilding breaks down a little, and information is not provided as quickly as I desired it. First, I found that I was confused about the geography: I initially thought that Point of Hopes was a town and all these other places mentioned were also towns, all within the country of Astreiant. But that was a mistaken impression. Instead, Point of Hopes, Point of Dreams and so forth are actually neighborhoods within the city of Astreiant which is in the kingdom (queendom) of Chenedolle. I didn’t figure this out until about halfway through the book, at which point some things started making a good deal more sense.

There was also confusion with vocabulary. Now, it’s the prerogative of fantasy writers to make up new words for their new worlds, and I have nothing against that. The danger of made-up vocabulary, however, is a failure to adequately define a term in context. The authors mostly avoided this pitfall with one glaring exception. The world ‘point’ seemed to refer to the policemen, locations, the charges which were being filed and was just flung around far too freely for me to keep track of its meaning. The point at the point made a point on the point to pointy point point.

Setting these issues aside, the mystery gets underway quickly, with Rathe interviewing people to find out more information about what’s going on. As his investigation stalls, tensions begin to rise within the city, and the cityfolk let their fears dictate their actions — they become suspicious of outsiders and inclined to violence. It’s mostly due to this that Rathe encounters the unemployed soldier Eslingen and decides to use him as a mole within the household of someone his boss’s boss has decided to finger as a suspect in the disappearances.

The mystery continues at a very slow burn until the last quarter of the book when the pace picks up, some vital information is finally shaken loose, and things race to a conclusion. While I found the final confrontation anti-climactic, it didn’t seem inconsistent with anything that had been established earlier in the book and was all right.

My main lingering complaint after the end of the book was a definite lack of information that was conveyed about the world. It was clear from the details that did emerge the authors had done some thinking about the world and how its mechanics operated. But they were very stingy with their revelations! For instance, we are told throughout the course of the book that in this world, astrology is real, and the stars of your birth can have a significant impact on your odds of success or failure in certain professions. But though this was actually a major plot point, I still felt, by the end, I didn’t understand precisely how this worked.

There are also hints that homosexuality, particularly among the young, is accepted and even encouraged. There are indications that inheritance in this world is through the female line, with daughters being the first to inherit. The world is fairly equal, most likely as a direct result of the inheritance laws not requiring men to assure themselves of their sons being fathered by themselves. Ghosts are real. But none of this is detailed or explored — it’s all just an aside.

There is a sequel, which presumably would expand on the world and provide a deeper look at some of these issues, but I think this book could have been made better by the inclusion of just a little more time, a few more pages, put into explaining the setting.

In Short
As a mystery, it wasn’t bad. It worked a great deal like other mysteries set in the distant past (Death Comes as the End), in a distant location (Rowland’s Sano Ichiro series), or in an alternate Earth (Garrett’s Lord Darcy series). In other words, the mystery itself was not really ‘fair’ in that you couldn’t necessarily solve it before the investigator due to a lack of information about the setting — but on the other hand, the solution was not convoluted because of the lack of need to obscure the clues. As a fantasy, I felt like the worldbuilding had clearly been done, but that information wasn’t conveyed to the reader in as much depth as I wanted it. It was a slow read, but I did like it.

Memories of the Future, Volume One (Wil Wheaton)

The Plot
For many shows, the first season is a season of finding the right voice and settling in; of characters who are still in development and premises that are still undergoing revision. This was the case for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wil Wheaton, a cast member, revisits his memories of the making of the first half of the first season, evaluating the episodes from the perspective of 20 years.

My Thoughts
When I was very small, I had an irrational prejudice against certain shows and movies. I quite liked Star Wars, but I was anti-Indiana Jones, anti-TOS, anti-Doctor Who and anti-Battlestar Galactica for reasons I can’t now remember.

All the same, I don’t remember protesting at all when my dad took myself and my brother to see ST4 at the movie theatre. The rarity of such an outing cannot be overstated: I can’t remember a time before or after (until we became near adults) that my dad willingly took both of us to the movies by himself. I assume my mother had flatly refused to see this movie and my dad, not willing to appear so very selfish as to head out and see it on his own, decided we would be reasonable camoflage. And really, if you had to pick a Trek movie to which you should take two elementary school kids, ST4 is the one. By osmosis, I knew enough about the characters to identify them by name, but very little more than that (the significance of the end of the movie, where the Enterprise-A is revealed, was lost on me.)

Somehow, in between viewing ST4 and the arrival of TNG on television, I became a fan. Not of TOS (that came later still), but of the idea of Star Trek. I was SO EXCITED there was going to be a new one. I was worried (and cynically sure, even at age 11) that it would soon be cancelled. There were girls! Three of them! and a kid! (A boy, sadly, but I will rant about that later) and the guy from Reading Rainbow! By the time TNG ended, 7 years later, I was about to leave for college, I was an unabashed fan of all things Star Trek, Doctor Who, and I’d found a few sci-fi authors to follow as well.

Star Trek, and especially TNG, was a big part of my life for a lot of years. I watched it faithfully: new episodes, which were in first-run syndication, could be viewed at four different times during the week on a couple of different channels (five, if you count the station that only came in with much squinting and tinkering with the antenna). Older episodes were rerun at 6pm and at 7pm every weekday night. And I tuned in about 99% of the time.

Wheaton, who, as people (everybody?) know, played Wesley Crusher on the series, divides his thoughts on each episode into two or three sections. The bulk is found in the synopsis, which will be familiar for anyone who frequented Television Without Pity back before it went all to hell. Wheaton does not spare the snark in evaluating the success of these early episodes, and with his insider knowledge is often able to put his finger on the exact problem, be it the writers, the director, or the powers that be.

At times, I think he was a little hard on both himself and the writers in his reaction to Wesley in these episodes. It’s a fact that Wes annoyed a lot of people, but his presence also served a purpose — he gave kids watching an entry point, a character with which to identify, and helped to create a new generation of Star Trek fans. As an 11 year old, I didn’t find him annoying, and I found his behavior perfectly reasonable. The show lost something when Wheaton made his departure, and even though the later seasons were far stronger than the first two, I still wish there had been a better resolution for the Wesley character before Trek went off the air. (With all the time travel that was going on, he could totally have showed up on Enterprise…)

I also liked his insider’s view of the episodes, the bits he remembered from production and encounters with the guest stars. This is the kind of stuff that you don’t usually hear about (Wheaton has written several production diaries in the past couple of years when he’s guest starred on other shows, and this is the same sort of thing.) It also helps to drive home the work that’s involved in the creation of these shows that appear magically on our televisions. I know I can’t be the only one who has a difficult time thinking of acting as hard work requiring lots of training and effort, and as he’s done before, Wheaton really brings that side of things to life.

In Short
The whole idea for this book was brilliantly conceived, and I really hope that rather than stop at season one, Wheaton continues through and does the rest of the seasons in which he was involved (plus the handful of episodes where he was a guest after he stopped being a regular). I’m a sucker for snarky show recaps, especially ones as well done as these. Could have spared a bit of the OMG the writers! It was all the writers! [who made Wes obnoxious!] but overall this was great and I can’t wait for the next one.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Seth Grahame-Smith)

The Plot
Fifty-five years ago, the British Empire was faced with an uprising of the non-colonial sort: the dead were walking and they wanted brains. The scourge continues unabated, but life has adapted to cope with the continual threat. The five Bennett sisters have all been trained to fight the menace, but their mother would like to see them well married as well. Enter Mr. Bingley, a single young man of good fortune who has just moved into the neighborhood.

My Thoughts
When this book first came out, I resolved not to read it. The original Pride and Prejudice is my favorite book of all time, coming as close as any book has to my idea of perfection: lots of witty, interesting characters saying pithy things to one another and a happy ending to boot. I love it well enough to hate the vast majority of sequels Iâ€™ve tried, because they simply couldnâ€™t live up to the original, or they took liberties to which I objected.

At any rate, my resolve weakened against PPZ. The author had kept a great deal of the original text, and the juxtaposition of zombies with the social machinations of the original might be, as one of Austenâ€™s characters would put it, exceedingly diverting.

The premise is this: about a half-century before our story opens, zombies suddenly began appearing to menace the living. They are witless creatures, not impossible to destroy or even to distract, but doggedly determined in their quest for brains. Zombies seem to have two sources: the already dead may rise again, and the living may be infected by exposure (such as being bitten). In response to this, the army has mobilized, and also the general citizenry has begun to train and arm itself. Even women have received some training, including women of quite high station. The opening of a new economic door to women has seemed to have an effect on society: crudeness and innuendo is more common and there is a great deal more violence.

Itâ€™s clear from reading that the author has put at least a little thought into how this situation might change polite society. Unfortunately, in many cases it seems to have been very little. Itâ€™s hard to tell whether this is meant to be a “serious” retelling of the story or if itâ€™s just meant to be a silly parody. Different rules apply in the latter case, but just enough effort has been made to maintain the integrity of the plot and story that the argument falls flat — this is not the literary equivalent of Scary Movie. And that makes it all the more galling in the cases where it’s abundantly clear that something has been inserted only because Grahame-Smith just couldn’t resist and not because it made sense in either the original or the re-imagining.

I get the sense, too, that the author didnâ€™t have a great deal of respect for(or understanding of?) some of the original characters. In several places, Austenâ€™s original text is included, but the speaker (or writer) is not the same as the original book â€“ and yet theyâ€™re using the exact same phrasing. This is just sheer laziness on the part of the author. The work is almost bookended by the two of the most egregious examples of this: first, where Caroline Bingley takes over some of Darcy’s lines in an early exchange with Elizabeth, and then at the end, where a letter originally sent by Mr. Collins is penned instead by Colonel Fitzwilliam. In neither case are either pair of characters in any way similar and so the reassignment of words is out of character even within the context of this new book.

Similar problems arise when Austen’s text is revised for no apparent purpose beyond dumbing it down for the modern reader, something which happens at multiple points. A single example here will suffice to illustrate the danger of this.

Original:
“No. It would have been strange if they had. But I make no doubt, they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me.”

Zombies:
“No; it would have been strange if they had; but I make no doubt, they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be ashamed of putting an old woman out of her home.”

In the original text, we refer back to Mrs. Bennett’s refusal to admit that the entailment of her husband’s estate makes sense or is legitimate. Further, we have a joke: of course the entailment is pefectly legal, that is the entire problem. In the Zombie version, even though there is no zombie-related information conveyed here, the text is altered: the joke is removed and the reader is not reminded that Mrs. Bennett is ridiculous or of the inheritance situation, but instead is apparently meant to feel bad for her.

There are examples of this sort of careless editing all through the text, toning down the snarkiness of the dialogue and the narrator in some sort of misguided quest to make it more simple. In many cases, these changes cause anachronisms to creep in.

In addition to these changes, there are still more points of fail.

The illustrations: These are just awful. The clothing, which is not particularly mentioned in the text as being different in most cases, is just odd looking. Not at all correct for the time period or even sensible allowing adaptations for fighting and training.

The “Oriental” stuff: I’m not even sure where to begin with all of this. Lady Catherine with ninjas is, I’m sure, the vision that made the insertion of all of this stuff irresistible. And I wouldn’t object to it all overmuch (I leave it to someone else to complain about the potential Racefail aspects of it) were there not such a big deal made about Chinese training versus Japanese training. Because even to my non-expert eyes, it was clear to me that the author was making a distinction he was not prepared to follow through with: Chinese-trained Elizabeth fights with a Japanese sword, there are random bits of Chinese culture at Darcy’s supposedly Japan-inspired home, and so forth. If the author was actually Jane Austen, one might suppose these cross-contaminations were a subtle jibe, but unfortunately, based on the rest of the book, Grahame-Smith is incapable of such a thing.

In Short
This was actually a very clever idea, and I think it could have been very good, with just a bit more effort expended on research and editing. Unfortunately, as it stands, this was definitely a failure, as a parody (not enough liberty was taken) and as a true rewrite (it was too slap-dash and sloppy). I don’t quite regret reading it, but I definitely won’t ever be reading it again, nor will I be picking up the next book, even though it’s to have a different author.

More Information Than You Require (John Hodgman)

The Plot
John Hodgman continues his neverending quest to provide the world with all possible bits of information, an effort begun in his first book, Areas of My Expertise. In More Information Than You Require we learn the secrets of the presidents, the secrets of the mole-men, and the sad history of the weather in Richmond, VA.

My Thoughts
I can no longer remember precisely how John Hodgman came to my attention. I have to assume that it was during his first appearance on the Daily Show and yet I did not read his first book until September 2006, so I think it cannot have been. I do know that before I knew he was he, I had heard him on This American Life and enjoyed some of his tales.

In any case, I have been a fan for several years, though I cannot claim the distinction of having discovered him when he was not yet a Minor Television Personality.

Hodgman’s humor can be very dry at times, and some times becomes a little to surrealist for me to find it very funny. On the other hand, sometimes he’ll come out with something so freaking clever that you can’t believe it. Overall, there’s a good baseline amusement factor here, periodically interrupted by some excellent stuff.

And now, in honor of the book, the list of thoughts I compiled as I read:

First, the hoboes; second, the mole-men; third, ???. I spent some time considering this important question and can only speculate as to the answer. Perhaps a race of creatures living in the air? Futuristic aliens?
While I found the list of mole-men generally more interesting than the prior book’s list of hoboes (why YES I did read EVERY SINGLE ONE), there were a number of the names which confused me. I am interested to see if anyone else had the same question I did.
Rap-Around. Ah, Rap-Around. If Hodgman was truly on this show, I now regret having missed it. Because, of course, I grew up in range of the Boston stations, and I remember this show well. Or, rather, I remember the ads for this show well, along with the opening. I seem to remember it coming on around noontime on a Saturday, signalling the disappointing end of morning cartoons and the beginning of an afternoon of televised sporting events. These would begin with the channel being changed from Rap-Around to Candlepin bowling.
The story about him and his girlfriend in Portugal is very sweet. I’m afraid I have nothing witty to say about it, but I wanted to mention it anyway.
All through the book Hodgman does a truly excellent job conveying his (I believe) genuine bemusement at his sudden celebrity. The story of his visit to the Apple store was truly priceless; I can completely picture the scene and I laugh every time I do.

In Short
Anyone who read Hodgman’s first book and enjoyed it will certainly feel the same about this one — as the page numbers indicate, it is a literal continuation and he is in good form here. For me, this one was even better than the first, because I am a nosy twit and I enjoyed the more personal sections this book contained. I’m looking forward to the third volume at which point all useful knowledge will have been recorded and we can pitch the whole reference section of the library to replace it with endless copies of these three books. That is all.

Patience and Sarah (Isabel Miller)

The Plot
It’s 1816 and Patience White is a spinster whose father saw to it that she’d not be dependant upon the charity of her brother after his death. With food, money and a place to live assured, she should be content and able to enjoy her life, but she is restless. She finds herself interested in one Sarah Dowling, a daughter of a man with only girl children who has been trained up to be his “son”. The two form a plan to move away together, but Patience loses her nerve and Sarah attempts to go west (from Connecticut to upstate New York) without her.

My Thoughts
I’m going to try something different this time and write a running review as I make my way through the book.

I’ll be upfront: I was reluctant to read this book in the first place, but eventually capitulated. So I had a prejudice against it from the get go. This was not improved upon seeing the book’s cover, which for some reason turns me off utterly. The image is not actually that awful — two women, presumably Patience and Sarah — in somewhat cartoony form, standing next to one another. It generated instant hate in me and destroyed any possible urge to want to read the book.

So I didn’t. Eventually putting it off added its own block to my resistance to reading it and it became extremely difficult to pick it up. I finally forced myself to do so by bringing only it to work with me and reading it during my meal break.

The book thus far is decidedly mediocre. I venture to say that had this book not involved two women, it would have been long forgotten and weeded from any library collection. But it does and so achieves a status I’m not sure it really deserves.

Patience and Sarah inhabit an intensely chauvinistic world, where women have little value other than as baby machines. Their opinions are neither respected nor sought and they are made old before their time with repeated childbearing. The menfolk around them seem aware of the strange difference in status between men and women, mildly puzzled by it, but not especially driven to fix it. The women seem aware as well, but again, have no interest in fixing it. I’m sure this is a true description to some extent, but something about it just feels… off. Almost everyone around them seems beaten down and lifeless — Patience’s sister-in-law Martha, Sarah’s mother and father — unable to take joy in anything at all without the assistance of Patience herself.

Patience and Sarah find each other seemingly by chance. I found the development of their relationship to be too quick for my taste. First they’ve barely met and then suddenly they’re going to run away together and Sarah is enduring multiple beatings from her father because of her flaming passion for Patience? Eh. (Let it be said that I find this sort of goings on in heterosexual relationships twinky as well.) Perhaps it was meant as some kind of lame Romeo and Juliet metaphor (see previous comment about heterosexual twinkiness).

In any case, because they know each other hardly at all, they end up essentially breaking up over a misunderstanding (now there’s a plot I love. Not.) and Sarah sets off on her own disguised as a boy. Except that she doesn’t really have any idea of what ‘setting off on her own’ entails and she ends up wandering around western New England with a Minister who apparently has a weakness for young men. Huck Finn she is not.

Eventually Sarah returns, having failed at accomplishing much of anything, and Patience, who mysteriously has been allowed to work as a school teacher (this also struck me as odd; it had been my impression that the teaching profession as staffed mostly by young women was a post Civil War innovation) decides that they are going to get back together. By this point I was finding it really hard to muster any sort of interest at all in their doings, so their subsequent naughty make-out sessions at Patience’s house did little for me.

As the book continued, it seemed more clear that their relationship, while it may have had physical attraction, didn’t really seem founded on any sort of rational basis. They still hardly knew one another at all, and there was very little mutual respect or trust. One or the other of them seemed to be constantly in a panic that the other was no longer interested in them or would be mad about some random deception. Which deception would never have been necessary had they been actual friends who had real conversations.

That they had started to develop this sort of by the end of the book was good, except — it was the end of the book.

In Short
I didn’t go into this book with a good attitude and the book didn’t manage to erase my prejudice with its sheer awesomeness. The relationship between Patience and Sarah was poorly developed and I never managed to find myself concerned about their well-being or their eventual success in life.