Kriptonomicon

By Cherie Priest

When this was  recommended by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing, kept popping up in my Amazon ‘people also bought’ and had an intriguing ‘Big Idea’ post on Scalzi’s ‘Whatever’ site, I bowed to the inevitable and put it on my wish list, where I was kindly bought it for my Birthday.

I loved a lot of the concepts of it; steampunk, zombies, mad inventors, dirigibles, but I found it a little hard going in places, with the character, particularly the kid Zeke hard to get into.  It warmed up towards the end, but the twist I thought I’d imagined turned out completely differently, which is fine (but mine would have been cooler and more dramatic .  There was a lot of dislike for the characters father, with little exposition as to why, same with the husband, which I found a little frustrating; I understand she didn’t like them; but why? Some is explained, but not enough for my taste (Of course, I may have missed it).

The book also failed to address my general issue with Zombie books, and it was acute for me in this one; all the zombies are penned up in old seattle.  Why don’t they float a few airships over the top and pick them all off with rifles?  Figures of 5k zombies are mentioned; a lot certianly, but a few bombs and a regular patrol that shoots all they can see would put paid to that – after all; its obvious they can’t get out.  Like shooting fish in a barrel, as the saying goes.  Granted, I suspect it wouldn’t be that easy, but it would bring the population down to tens that could be cleared by military with room to room searches, even with the Blight.

Regarding that, I did like this concept – it added a whole other atmosphere (literally), and layer of tension.  I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t explained more, but I guess there’s room for a sequel.  Not sure I’d go out of my way to read it, but glad I read some non-Doctorow steampunk, although there seems to be some more on my up-coming reads shelf.

By Charles Stross

Capsule review; Eagerly awaited and doesn’t disappoint.

Slightly longer review; the third outing of his Laundry series, this examines the origins of the Laundry, and the metaphysical concerns of the participants who know that the End Of The World really is nigh, and how they deal with it.  It has demons, mathematics, other dimensions, middle management (good and bad), lethal violins and iPhones (’its at least a class three glamour!’).  Thoroughly enjoyed it, looking forward to going back, rereading it and the previous two and picking up some of the references again.

By Jonathan Maberry

I was between (paper) books, and wanted something light and fluffy to read before what I hoped would be my haul of books for my birthday came in, and was browsing Amazon, and came accros this.  Described as a mix between the ‘X files’ and ‘24′, and with an intro line like “When you have to kill the same terrorist in a week, there’s either something wrong with your skills, or something wrong with the world.  And there’s nothing wrong with my skills”, how could I resist?

More 24 than X files, and more military macho wish fulfilment than needed, the book is enough if a read that I kept through all the way to the end, but not tightly plotted enough that you were ever in doubt of the outcome.  Some good points (I’d love to know the authors martial arts background), but it breaks the rule of good storytelling in that it tells you how great the characters are instead of demonstrating it.  I know that’s a hard trick to pull off, and if done well you don’t even notice, but there weer some passages near the start of the book that gushed about the hero so blatantly that it rather broke my suspension of disbelief, which I never fully regained..

Fun read, but I doubt I’ll be buying more of his books.

By Steig Larsson

I was thoroughly looking forward to this, and indeed, chunked my way through it at a fair old pace.  The media makes a lot out of Salander being the heroine of the book, and while she is, Blomkvist is the real here – a wish fulfilment version of the author, I suspect.  I like the style, being journalistic and just enough aware of itself to be able to twist that at times.  I did feel that this book, while it wrapped everything up with some neat twists (Salander’s father; didn’t see THAT coming), was oddly unsatisfying.

I suspect that Walter John Williams summed it up best, and if you like the stories you should also check out the NYT Parody..

By John Ajvide Lindqvist

The film is an adaptation of the book, I understand. It was the last in a number of Horror books I seem to have picked up, and took me a while to get round to – never quite in the mood.

Once I did, it was certainly a page turner, though – I could hardly put it down.  My word does it emote alienation, however – you end up not knowing whether to root for the hero and antihero, but can’t bring yourself to adopt any of the others either.  I’m not sure that any of the adults had a single positive role model in any of them.

By Ian McDonald

A short volume of short stories set in the same world as his epic ‘River of Gods’, the stories cover life in near future (and increasingly transhuman and singularity) India.  I read this cover to cover on the flight out to Mumbai a few weeks ago (yes, its taken me this long to get round to catching up with my reviews, and yes, it was a long flight!), and I like to think it helped me with the cultural adjustment.  of course, as from what I read McDonald hasn’t ever been to India, that statement is somewhat in question!

As with ‘River Of Gods’ its a wonderful tapestry to tell the stories – very different to the usual backdrop.  He’s written Brasyl also – a novel set in future Brasil (funnily enough), which I’ll definitely have to pickup now.

By Elizabeth Bear

I’ve been on a bit of a Bear bender recently (ahem), and this was the latest in the run.  It was a limited edition from Subterranean Press, in the (I suspect) increasingly likely model of getting readers to pay up front to cover the production costs, and print when done.  Its not what they claim to do, but given the delay in between the pre-order and the delivery its what I suspect.

Anyway, the book is a slimmer volume than I expected – a novella really.  It bears all of her style (sorry), in that it combines (I think) post apocalyptic fiction with magic, steampunk and Arabic culture, and does so so seamlessly.  As always, I could spend a lot more time in each of the worlds she creates, and wished she’d written more in this universe.

I am beginning to worry that she’s working so hard that she is burning herself out however – this is the second or third of her books and short stories I’ve read about a protaganist that’s at the end of her life, world weary, with one last effort before her.