another list of books...

I like lists. I could make a list of pretty much anything and be happy. In my younger days (I’m staggeringly old now) I made lists of favorite songs, bands, baseball players, wrestlers, books, movies, food, etc. Anything, really. Recently I’ve been thinking about making a list of the books I would like to read. This would be different than my list from a couple months ago of the 2008 publications I am looking forward to. This list won’t include the three Elizabeth Bear novels coming out later this year (or Dust, published in January), George R. R. Martin, Scott Lynch, Raymond Feist, Terry Brooks, or any other “major” author who has a publication scheduled sometime in the next 12 months. Rather, this list is going to be of the books which sometimes are a bit overlooked. This is subjective, of course, because the book that I don’t talk about often may be the book that someone else can’t stop talking about. I imagine that most people reading this list will have read (or heard of) some of these books, but this is some of what I’d like to read this year (or next).


Unwelcome Bodies, by Jennifer Pelland. The first (and only) Pelland story I have read is her Nebula Nominated story “Captive Girl” and I was impressed enough that I want to read more of Pelland’s work. While I know that she has several stories available on her website, I would rather hold her debut collection Unwelcome Bodies in my hands. It’s just the kind of reader I am. Once we get past the “major” releases of 2008, I find myself thinking more about buying a copy of Unwelcome Bodies if I have the available funds. Given that I don’t buy many books, I think it says something that I’m even considering spending money on this.

Caine Black Knife, by Matthew Stover. Heroes Die and The Blade of Tyshalle are two criminally overlooked and under recognized novels, and even though Stover is -also- a popular Star Wars author (he’s one of the best), I’m not sure his original fiction gets noticed the way I think it should. This third novel following Hari Michaelson will be a must read the moment it is published. Stover’s blend of fantasy, science fiction, violence, and balls to the wall writing is not to be missed. Stover is likely not for everybody, but fans of the genre (and fans of hard edged writing) should give Stover a shot. Think a darker-toned Scott Lynch.

Territory, by Emma Bull. This is an acclaimed release of 2007, but I know Emma Bull first as the creator and co-writer of Shadow Unit. Because of how much I love Shadow Unit and that Bull’s work there is quite strong, now I want to read some of her novels. I suspect Territory is the place to start.

Soldiers Live, by Glen Cook. It may be unfair to have Soldiers Live on this list because I know I will read the book this year. It is the final Black Company novel. After the goodness of Water Sleeps, my interest in Glen Cook and The Black Company has been revitalized. I just wanted to use this spot to throw a little bit more attention at Glen Cook and The Black Company.

Shadow Matrix, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I have a soft spot in my heart for the Darkover series. Looking back, the writing isn’t that strong, but I have enjoyed the culture clash blend of low tech fantasy with a technologically advanced science fiction society. I have only two Darkover novels left that to read that were at all penned by Bradley and I believe this one was at the most only partially written by Bradley. Still. If there is such a thing as a guilty pleasure in SFF, Darkover is mine.

Fathom, by Cherie Priest. No clue what this is about, but I love her Eden Moore books and I don’t see nearly enough people talking about Cherie Priest. Myself included, I suppose. This is one of two novels published by Priest this year. The other is a more limited edition from Subterranean Press (Those Who Went Remain There Still)

AI War, by Daniel Keys Moran. I first read The Long Run years ago back in high school and the book hit me at just the right time. The story of Trent the Uncatchable was exciting, dangerous, fresh, and fun. But this was the Second book in the Continuing Time sequence. It took me several years to find the first book, Emerald Eyes, and I was very disappointed. It was a rough effort. But then, I found the third book, The Last Dancer, last year and was pleasantly surprised. While not quite hitting me like The Long Run did, Moran kept me glued to the page all the way through. The AI War is forthcoming sometime in the next year or so. I think...and I hope. It's going to be published, right?

Windhaven, by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle. I’ve read every other novel length work Martin has published, so this is a good time to finish up his longer fiction before I go hunt down all of his short story collections so I can get a hold of the stories not published in Dreamsongs. I finished The Armageddon Rag last week and seriously, the man range is breathtaking.



I don't have anything to say about the below books because I don't know anything about them, but I've heard some goodness about the titles. Just don't know anything about the content.

Grey, by Jon Armstrong
Raw Shark Texts, by Steven Hall
The Secret History of Moscow, by Ekaterina Sedia

Exile's Song, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Exile’s Song
Marion Zimmer Bradley
1996


With Exile’s Song Marion Zimmer Bradley returns to Darkover with a sequel to Sharra’s Exile, though set a number of years later. Margaret Alton is the daughter of Lew Alton, the Imperial Senator from Darkover. In Sharra’s Exile we had Lew’s story, but in the intervening years Lew told his daughter nothing about her heritage and Margaret is nearly estranged from her distant father. Instead Margaret is a musicologist, a scholar studying indigenous music on various planets. Along with her teacher, Ivor, Margaret is sent to Darkover and she is initially intrigued by this cold world. She experienced odd flashes of memory which she did not understand and soon after arriving Ivor died, leaving Margaret alone on a strange world which seems to be trying to reclaim her.

Margaret soon meets a cousin and hires a Renunciate to travel to collect the folk songs of Darkover, but between her visions and the hardships of travel, Margaret soon finds herself being pulled different ways as her large extended family attempt to lay claim to Margaret’s heritage. You see, Margaret is heir to the Alton Domain and as an unmarried woman and an untrained telepath, her emergence on Darkover is the catalyst for the troubles of others.

Exile’s Song slowly reveals Margaret’s heritage and her family’s history, as well as the history of Darkover, and throws Margaret into Darkovan politics.

The major issue is with this novel is that Exile’s Song features a half-hearted romance, and despite being the protagonist of the novel, Margaret Alton doesn’t do anything. She does not act. She barely responds to action, except with a refusal to marry or bend to local custom, until resolution occurs at the end of the novel. It seems that Margaret is simply swept along in a world she doesn’t understand and moves from point A to point B with no real intent at all.

Exile’s Song is a typical Darkover novel. It can be read without much understanding of Darkover, and I believe this is intentional. Most Darkover novels are written to stand alone, but that simple fact of standing alone leaves us with clumsy info dumps of detail that the long time Darkover reader will have been well aware of. Had the background been introduced subtly and in drips and drabs to give the story flavor, it might have been more effective, but as it stands, Bradley just throws it all at the reader in big chunks of exposition (throughout the novel). As always, Darkover novels are about the culture clash of Terrans with Darkovans, and any protagonist Bradley presents us with will naturally whether the culture clash easily. The villains are typically Darkovans who want everything to stay traditional with the “old ways” and / or Terrans who want to ruthlessly change everything. The middle ground is where the heroes lie, to protect Darkover while understanding that things can’t go back the way they were and that there needs to be a way to meet the Terran Empire but retain the Darkovan identity.

This novel reads quick and easy enough for a 400+ page novel that should be half the size, but it just is not very good. So little of note occurs in the novel and Margaret is such a weak protagonist that whatever story there is in Exile’s Song feels like a poor reflection of things that have been done before in stronger Darkover novels.

Quick Takes: Raymond E. Feist, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Stephen King

Murder in LaMut, by Raymond E. Feist and Joel Rosenberg: While I am glad that Feist found a publisher for his Legends of the Riftwar series (they had been available only in the UK previously), the two volumes published so far have been disappointments. Murder in LaMut is the second volume, and if I understand how the Legends series works, Feist gives approval and blessing and maybe some ideas on the setting and then the book is written by the co-author. So, really, this is Joel Rosenberg’s Midkemia novel. It exists on the periphery of the main series. Murder in LaMut takes place early in the Riftwar, before the Tsurani had laid siege to Crydee. The novel follows three mercenary soldier who have signed on with the LaMutian forces and they get entangled in the local politics. Because they are reliable and unaligned, they are given missions and jobs that they would rather not have because failure will put the blame solely on the mercenaries. They are set to protect a particular local baron of LaMut, and later to investigate a murder. The novel just happens to take place in Midkemia, and references well known characters (Borric, Erland, Kulgan, Vandros, Guy du Bas Tyra) but these characters do not make appearances. The Tsurani barely do. The focus is on the mercenaries and while they are, at times, interesting characters the story is such a minor key because we know there is so much else going on in the world. Or, Rosenberg’s story is just not interesting enough to hold a reader...even a longtime reader of Riftwar. Honestly, the novel would be better suited as a short story or perhaps a novella. There just is not enough here to fill up 300 pages of text. Very disappointing. The first Legends entry, Honored Enemy, was much stronger (though not up to a Riftwar novel)



The World Wreckers, by Marion Zimmer Bradley: Darkover. A lost colony of Earth from before there was an interstellar Terran empire. Darkover went low-tech and developed telepaths and when the Terrans rediscovered Darkover they found that Darkover wanted nothing to do with the Empire and greatly restricted the level of contact between the planet and the natives. Some seventy years after rediscovery an illegal Terran company, unofficially called Worldwreckers, Inc, has been hired by certain companies to go in and wreck Darkover’s economy and ecology in such a way that Darkover will be forced to petition the Terrans for help and open up the planet for unrestricted trade and industry. Meanwhile, Darkovan telepaths, in particular the Comyn ruling class, are targeted for assassination and the loss of the telepaths could be a killing blow for Darkover because their economy and technology is based on telepath technology. Regis Hastur, ruling Comyn lord, attemps to gather as many telepaths as possible to him – from Darkover and from the Empire, to build a new Darkover and to remain independent. The World Wreckers is a shorter Darkover novel, it moves fast, and is as clunky as the average Darkover novel has been. Zimmer Bradley can be heavy handed with her storytelling, romances, dialogue, and interactions. And yet, The World Wreckers was a pleasant enough story to read. It added very little to the overall scope of the series, though hopefully it impacts later volumes. It isn’t a good book, or one truly worth recommending, but I have been reading Darkover for years and have found enough enjoyment in Darkover that I want to read the rest. Darkover works better as concepts than as actual prose, but somehow the books tend to overcome the clunkiness.



The Stand, by Stephen King: 1100+ pages of post apocalyptic vision. This is the unabridged, expanded, updated, all new version from 1988 which brought The Stand back to its original glory. When it was published in 1978 The Stand was the victim of the publisher’s accountants who required the novel be cut in half for publication based on sell price and projected sales. This new volume gives King’s full vision. It starts with a virus on a military base and from one man spreads to infect a world. The virus has something like a 97 or 99% mortality rate and for the first several hundred pages we are introduced to the spread of the virus, watching towns and cities collapse and see how it spreads, how one person can infect many and how a virus can spread like...wildfire. But some people survive and we are introduced to some of those characters early. Then they gather, through accidents and visions of an elderly woman and the “Dark Man”. What follows is a battle of good versus evil, of the future of humanity and the evil inside us all. The Stand, in this format, is a serious time investment. It also may be Stephen King’s greatest, and most ambitious novel. I suspect, however, that the edition as published might be better than the expanded edition because over the course of 1100 pages I was unsure of when King would get to the point and when the story would advance. But that’s not what the 1100 page behemoth is about, this volume is about fleshing out the characters and making a richer reading experience. It is a rich reading experience, and the 1100 pages are far more focused than 500 pages of Lisey’s Story (for example), but the length and the leisurely time King takes during the middle sections might be a turn off for some readers. That would be a pity, because The Stand in all its full and fat glory is a beautiful post apocalyptic beast of a novel. Well worth reading, though perhaps 900 pages would have really nailed it down.