Neal Stephenson
Cryptonomicon
[rate 5] Definate definate desert island book. Gar!

To say that Cryptonomicon is as important as Neuromancer by William Gibson isn’t, in my view, an understatement. Both books share themes that are genre busting and, like Neuromancer, Cryptonomicon has suffered because no one knew how to really market it. How do you classify a book that, amongst other things, is a historical detective story spanning 8 decades, a book about the invention of the computer, about code breaking, the birth of the CIA, Nazi gold, the Japanese invasion of Manilla, has mention of D&D, Imelda Marcos, crosses three generations, and has a love story intwined in it as well?

As might be guessed from that rather broad spectrum of themes, Cryptonomicon is not a small book (918 pages including appendixes and footnotes) ^*1* Whilst this is a book coming from a base of cyber-culture, it isn’t science fiction. It steadfastly does not go beyond technology as is now, rather looks back to how we got here.

Stephenson is an author who’s work I always enjoy reading, but who has improved with each book. There are recognisable characters from his other works in this book, and he continues his love affair with Far Eastern culture first detailed in Snow Crash, but unlike that work he doesn’t loose it in the last quarter of the book. The tension remains till the very last page and what I love is that it just ends with no attempt to indicate what happens to the characters.

Pretty much the entire cast of Cryptonomicon’s characters appear in Stephensons next work, the Baroque Cycle, which explores the same themes of power, information, secrecy, money, and war, but in the 17th/18th centuries. Stephenson doesn’t do things by halves – the Baroque Cycle comprises three books all over 900 pages long – but I challenge you not to like an author who gets a ‘Lawrence Prodding Stick’ into a book essentially about computers, or the word ‘bop’ into a historical novel set in the 1700’s.

Endnotes:
^*1*Got to love a novel with appendixes and footnotes 😀

Stella Gibbons
Cold Comfort Farm
[rate 5] Drain the well, there’s a neighbour missing!

So you have spent your teenage years reading the classics, possibly voluntarily, but more likely being forced to for some English class. How do you rebel? Read Cold Comfort Farm. A beautiful, funny, poigniant, deeply twisted book lampooning entire genres. Set in an unspecified period that bears a striking resemblance to the 20’s/30’s, the characters include the heroine with a talent for organising who plans to ‘live off her relatives’, the best friend whose collection of brassieres is desired by a museum, Aunt Ada Doom who saw something narsty in the woodshed, cousin Seth the farmhand who hankers to be in the movies, his mother Judith who has an incestuous fixation on him, and her husband Amos who’s sole ambition in life is to go round the country preaching in a Ford van. I challenge anyone not to have at least a snigger as Gibbons sends up (among others) Hardy, Austen, the Bronte sisters, Lawrence, Coleridge, et al.

Not much more I want to add about this book. The film staring Kate Beckinsale and Ian McKellen is a damn good adaptation and worth watching.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night
[rate 4] I’m not sure if I would recommend this book or not. Fitzgerald is an important author and it does detail the between-war period beautifully with a lyric, depressive, twist, but at the same time I can think of books I would rather read. Bit like Schindler’s List – you’re glad you’ve stuck with it, but one would hardly say it had been a party. Put it this way, it won’t be in my Desert Island list, whilst Cryptonomicon, Pride and Prejudice, and Cold Comfort Farm would be.

I am not totally sure what the fuss is about Fitzgerald. I finally got around to reading the Great Gatsby a few months ago, and finished Tender is the Night just after Christmas after talking to a Fitzgerald-fan (she made it sound good) and, whilst I enjoy his stuff, I think I must be missing something. I did like this though: a great view of 1920’s expat culture in Europe if nothing more. The ending though, I do like Fitzgerald’s endings.

The book is split into three sections, each one populated with the same characters, but seeing them from different angles. Without giving too much away, by the end the characters you think are going to top themselves are doing great, whilst the main protagonist is a washed up heap of scum. Love it!

I made the mistake of reading the introduction, written by a scholar who completely deconstructs the entire book, pulling out the major themes (or what he feels are the major themes) which, ok, is what he was paid to do, but having just read the book and quite liked it, I didn’t want to then read about how it is totally about incest. Looking back at it now, sure, there’s a fairly incestuous undertone, but it is one thing to accept this about a book, and quite another to have your nose rubbed in it.

Michael Chabon
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
[rate 4] Still reading this site. Naughty. Go, read Kavalier and Clay! Now!

I have Jo to thank for pointing this book out to me (for ‘pointing’, read ‘got it off the shelf of the library, brought it too me, and saying “you have to read this”‘). And I am glad she did – this is a highly enjoyable book, though he does kind of owe me an ending. Chabon writes well enough that you genuinely do care what happens to the characters. I was forced to keep reading well past normal bedtime because I didn’t want to leave it at a depressing point. Warning, there are quite a few depressing points.

I really did love this book – I am going to be buying it (or at least putting it on my ‘to buy’ list) which I only do for books I really like. I am not going to say much more about it here apart from why are you reading this crappy review and not the book?!, mainly because I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of it. So, go read it, and then we can have a long discussion about how the ending could have been made better. Damn it, but I want all the characters to be happy! That’s it.

Clive Cussler
Sahara I have no cute graphic for books this bad as yet, but I will devise one at somepoint I am sure. *shudder*
[rate 0]

Time, unfortunately, for a bad review. Don’t, under any circumstances, read this book unless you are a committed fan of brainless adventure novels with plot twists you can see coming from the other side of the galaxy, no suspense what so ever, and a female character you would cheerfully throttle. This is one of the few times I was rooting for the bad guys when they were trying to kill her! No, I am not being too harsh. Even though I wasn’t expecting greatness when I picked it up (totally on impusle and because Matt McConaughey looked fine on the front cover), I admit I was expecting better than I got. This has to go on the list with all of Dan Brown‘s books (novel is too good a word), to be avoided like the plague. To quote Monty Python: “RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!”

I am actually a fan of the film. This book though… If you ever see me with a Cussler book in my hand again, shoot me.

Ray Bradbury
The Illustrated Man
[rate 3.5] This book epitomises the reason I love science fiction so much – in no other genre is it possible to explore so totally the different directions society could go in.

This is a collection of short stories by one of the greats of short-story telling. Some people sneer at short stories, saying that they are a cop out and not proper literature. Not true in my opinion. A well crafted short story can be a gem, making us think of things in a new way, and at his best Bradbury excells at the art. The Illustrated Man, unfortunately, is not Bradbury at his best. Which is not to say that you shouldn’t read it – Bradbury on an off day is still better than the majority of people on a good day – and there are one or two in the collection of 16 that are really rather supreme. It was published in 1952, which should clue you in to the mind-set it was written from. America had recently proven they had the power to wipe us clear off the face of the Earth, racial tensions were reaching critical mass, the space race was just in its infancy, and new technology was appearing on the scene faster than ever before.

The Other Foot: This starts out amazingly. The premise of the story is that in the 60’s, Mars was settled entirely by black people, and, whilst they are making a great community, back home on Earth it’s WW3. Cut to 20 years later and a lone rocket, with a few (white) surviors, lands on Mars, ready to extend the hand of friendship. For Earth has been effectively destroyed and they want to move the remaining hundred thousand or so to Mars to start over. Cue much racial tension, hatred, and reverse apartheid action, for the Martians haven’t forgotten all the Earthlings had done to them and theirs.

Up till the last page of this I was totally hooked, thinking what an amazing tale this was, and how cleverly Bradbury had, by turning the tables with whites being the oppressed, made a clear and powerful statement of the stupidity of segregation and the need for reconcilliation. This has all the makings of a modern day parable I thought to myself. And then, he goes and wimps out. Read it for yourself to find out why, but I closed the book in disgust, went into the kitchen, and wailed at Jo for half an hour about what a chicken Bradbury is.

The Highway: Apparently, The Highway is famous in American/Atomic history circles for being an insightful look at apocolyptic America. I went into it with an open mind and enjoyed it, though it is really short, even for a short story (5 pages), but I wouldn’t say it was amazingly insightful into post-apocolyptic America. The bomb is mentioned once and I am still not certain why the people were streaming north INTO America, but what the hey. For me, the story tells you more about the rich ignoring the poor on their doorstep and how, even when one way of life is wiped off the map, everyone else just keeps on going. The complete surprise and total lack of regret expressed by the Mexican when the American says ‘the world is over’ is beautiful in its simplicity and applicability to todays climate. What do they mean, ‘the world’?

Kalidescope: Got to love those gory, drawn out, death scenes in space. You are given no clue as to what went wrong, no real idea of why these men were in space in the first place, but you don’t need that. The Kalidescope is a wonderfully written piece looking at how people face certain death. The ending is a little corny, but that can be forgiven, because you get a glimpse of a society where space is seemingly travelled by hardened Mormon vetrans (one guy has at least three wives on three separate planets. Brave guy). Yes, the image of space/colonies as the modern Wild West, is now passe but remember – 1952, not so much.

The Man: A space-age collection wouldn’t be complete without at least one tale of the search for God in the cosmos. Patchy writing, good ideas.

Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
[rate 5] I could, and do, read this book over and over again, and it never gets old. So I know what happens, but I still get a lump in my throat at the sad bits, and get all weepy with a warm fluffy feeling at the end. Definately a desert island book.

This is a book that, hopefully, needs no introduction. If you are too lazy to read (shame on you), get your mitts on a copy of the BBC adaptation with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, as it is a damn good version. But back to the book. It tells the story of the trials and tribulations experienced by the two eldest Bennet daughters (Jane and Lizzy), and the course of true love. That’s the surface. The more you read it, the more you realise that Austen had a wicked sense of humour and that she beautifully crafts her characters.

If you’ve seen the BBC adapation, I am sorry to have to break it to you, but there is no wet-shirt scene in the book. Sorry.