September Reading Round-up

This month was mainly marked by two books, Kevin J Anderson’s Hopscotch and Frank Herbert’s High-Opp. I did also read issue 62 of Aurealis.

Let’s start with Hopscotch. The concept behind this is really intriguing; basically at some point in human evolution we gain the ability to swap bodies with each other, which makes the old adage of ‘live a day in another person’s shoes’ seem rather quaint – shoes? Bah, I was in their feet. The possibilities with this are huge and unfortunately the book tries to cover a lot of them.

It follows four orphans as they leave the orphanage and enter this brave new world. They each have their own paths and the stories wind their own ways, overlapping only in characters for the most part. At first it was like reading a series of interrelated short stories and I was enjoying that, but as the stories began to spin out I kept waiting for more to happen. So while I did enjoy it, Hopscotch could have been much better I feel. It explored too many ideas, the main characters were always too angelic and not enough actually happened. Which I didn’t expect from Anderson, although I admit the only other things of his I’ve read so far are his Star Wars works and the Crystal Door trilogy he co-wrote with Rebecca Moesta.

Herbert’s High-Opp was an early work, previously unpublished. It seems he wrote a number of works before Dune which no-one picked up and now the Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert team are making them available. Whether this is a good thing or not I’m not prepared to say; High-Opp had an intriguing idea but felt rather under-cooked – especially the ending.

It’s essentially a dystopia where the world is now governed by ‘opinion polls’ – fancy that. The extreme version of what we’re dangerously close to in reality does make for a good dystopia in the classical sense, but here it becomes more a question of cloak and dagger revolution. It does feature an advanced form of social psychology similar to what Asimov uses in the Foundation series, where behaviour and historical events are predicted; again it’s not explored much and is more a way for Herbert to push a political line – as is the end of the book. It wasn’t a bad novel, but it certainly wasn’t great either.

The stories in Aurealis #62 were Remnants by Dan Rabarts and The Leaves of the Manuka Tree by Phillip W Simpson. The first was a fantasy story that reminded me a lot of C A Smith in many respects; there was a king who’d lost his kingdom seeking an ancient artefact in a desert and even a necromancer. But I don’t think Smith would have had the family connection this one had. So I really enjoyed that one, the second one I did enjoy but not as much. It was more science fiction as it was far in the future and had a super soldier but it was wrapped up in Maori tradition, which was interesting in itself. However, it was very cut and dried and I just didn’t really connect with it.

I also started some books including book three in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, it may be some time before I finish that though especially with NaNoWriMo looming large and the birth of my son not long after that. My ebook at the moment is Cory Doctorow’s Pirate Cinema which I’m having very mixed feelings about, more on that next month.

Keep dreaming!

Flights of Discovery

So, I have been on a plane – twice. It’s actually quite exciting in its way, seeing the world below; Sydney at night became colonies of fireflies and the clouds in the daylight were mountains of ethereal wisps floating on shadows above the ground. Take off isn’t great on the neck however. Not much to say about airline food, they were only short trips. The tea is pretty average, but QANTAS did give us a very nice biscuit.

My holiday was a relaxing and fun week during which we covered a lot of ground exploring the beaches of the Northern Rivers, driving through some villages and dropping by Nimbin for some shopping. There’s also a very good local art gallery there I recommend to anyone passing through. Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is also well worth the time to explore, say hi to the tree kangaroos for me and watch out for the dragons. Seriously, during the week we saw so many water dragons – at my aunt’s house there were little ones we’d watch over breakfast, running about a stone wall, waving at each other and catching ants, and a bigger one who dropped by one evening; and there were more of them in Currumbin and South Bank, Brisbane where we made friends with one.

I also had the chance to explore numerous worlds, starting with those of Lord Dunsany’s Book of Wonders; a delightful series of very short stories in the manner of fairytales but with a modern twist, I strongly encourage discovering them for yourselves; they’re public domain, quick to read and absolutely charming. I also caught up with the last four issues of Aurealis, which gave me plenty of worlds to discover. I won’t say every story was my cup of tea but they’re all different and give something for everyone – and no I’m not remotely paid to say that. It’s Aussie fiction and done through love for the literature not for monetary gain so check it out and support local writers.

On that score, no I am not about to be one of those writers. My two recent submissions have been rejected; however, both came back with very encouraging and constructive comments. So, while a touch disheartened and disappointed, overall it was a positive experience and will hopefully produce better work. Which is what I must do some of now.

A final thing, an idea for some theatrical evenings has occurred to me embracing both the darker and the more absurd sides of my writing and their short natures. Watch this space. In the meantime, keep exploring!