Month: May 2009

The first book in a series lent to me by Stacy. Thanks!

It’s an appealing story about Simon Canderous, who can read the history of objects with a touch. It doesn’t always take intent, which kicks the book off with a bang. As the book goes on, we learn about his employer (the Department of Extraordinary Affairs) and we’re introduced to a few other vivid people.

The plot moves along, and poor Simon gets drug through alleys, slopped in slime, encounters a compelling ghost, raids an upscale cult headquarters, and more. His love life is horrible* [in a book sense: certainly active and compelling from my POV, but anyway…], but things turn around as it goes.

It’s similar to other “White Wolfesque” books– similar to the Dresden Files, and could easily be in the same universe. There are a lot of people who are in on the secret world– an entire Bureau in New York alone. It seems likely to spill out into public knowledge with so many people in the know… but that’s true with just about the entire genre.

In the end, it was a fun book in a sub-genre I typically like– and the power was handled interestingly enough that it didn’t trip my “been there, done that” fatigue.

This book was a very quick read; easy to keep track of even with distractions. I polished it off in a couple of days and enjoyed it. The book seems very tidy–each of the seemingly unrelated threads advances at a good pace and signals ties for later.

The book examines intelligence and self awareness from several angles, including an AI coming into its own and a bright ape that masters representation and communication, questioning exactly what level of intelligence has rights…

The threads are bright and obvious and lack the subtlety of LeGuin in Powers. Despite that, it’s a fine read, clearly the beginning of a series; I’ll keep my eye out for the next.

After hearing about this book for so long, I was glad to finally dig in and try it out. It’s a solid book, with a lot of fantastic elements and near-steampunk technology. The main characters are very well drawn, and his non-humans do a good job of being truly alien. That’s aided by their non-conventional forms– no dwarves and elves, he uses birdmen and ant-headed people instead.

I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more by China Mieville. The book didn’t encourage swiftly reading it and setting it aside, but instead encouraged lingering and inhabiting the world.

A very quick book– I gobbled it up in a few long stretches over the weekend. It has an interesting protagonist– a college student when the war broke out sixteen years ago. It’s an interesting world– several times the narrator mentions that it wasn’t the war that broke the world, it was the crazies that took advantage of the situation.

I noticed myself comparing it to Warday as I read it, noting the differing devastation from each world’s limited war. One big question missing from the Postman was “what about the rest of the world”? At least in Oregon (and the rest of his travels), no other has nation swooped in to pluck the carcass. It looks like devastation was more evenly distributed in Postman world. [Some of the biological warfare is specifically mentioned as targeting East Asia, etc., so it makes sense.]

I liked the characters and the narrow focus of the world. In some ways it seems like “the Postman” has it too easy… but it’s clear that there is a strong interest in the rest of the nation that was just lying untapped. The sci-fi element of the super soldiers was a quirky twist– not really necessary to the book, but it doesn’t detract either. In the end, I enjoyed it– it was another good David Brin novel.