Capsule literature reviews

Thanks to my transit-based commute I do a lot of reading these days. I get a good mix in, with both fiction and non-fiction, both mainstream and various forms of geekery.

Below the fold are brief capsule reviews of some fictions I’ve read recently. You’ll find:

• Eon, Eternity and Moving Mars by Greg Bear (sci-fi)
• Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt (sci-fi)
• Hominids, Humans and Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer (sci-fi)
• I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe (mainstream fiction)
• Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (mainstream fiction)
• Miss Misery by Andy Greenwald (mainstream fiction / fantasy)
• On The Road by Jack Kerouac (mainstream fiction)
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (mainstream fiction); and
• The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (fantasy)

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Eon, Eternity and Moving Mars
Greg Bear
Eon and its sequel Eternity take place in a post-apocalyptic future. Moving Mars takes place on a colonized Mars. In a science fiction sense Bear is the best writer I know. His books are full of new ideas and exceptionally well thought-out conjecture about human future. Unfortunately, as good as Bear is at ideas, he’s that bad at writing. His prose is awful. His protagonist is always the same person. If you’re fascinated by “hard” sci-fi (no laser battles), then these are worth treading through. If you’re not, pass them up and don’t look back.

Eternity Road
Jack McDevitt
Road is the story of the next civilization to arise in America. Sometime in the 21st Century a plague wipes out most of humanity and a thousand-year dark age follows. When Road picks up, a band of explorers from a burgeoning society on the banks of the Mississippi sets out to try and learn the secrets of their “Roadmaker” ancestors. I have no complaints. Enjoyed it thoroughly. The characters are appealing, the writing sharp and the exploration of our own nation through innocent eyes intriguing.

Hominids, Humans and Hybrids.
Robert J. Sawyer
A trilogy of novels about an alternate universe where neanderthals evolved to become the dominant species on Earth instead of humans, and the interactions of that universe with our own. These are very quick, easy reads. Got them all done inside of one weekend. Sawyer is rather the opposite of Bear. His prose is just fine; it’s his sci-fi that misses the mark. I was interested in these to see Sawyer’s idea of what an alternate not-quite-but-almost human world would be like. Problem is, his vision is unworkable from the start. I know enough about how civilizations work to know that the neanderthal one shown here would never invent the wheel, much less hyper advanced computer systems and the like. Similar problems abound.

I Am Charlotte Simmons
Tom Wolfe
After reading this novel about an innocent southern girl attending a Duke-like university, I’m left with two thoughts concerning author Tom Wolfe: 1) He is a master writer, exceptionally skillful at making characters on the page real, and 2) He hates people. Excepting a handful of annoying quirks, such as his unceasing use of the word “loins”, Wolfe’s prose is fantastic. Unbeatable. A joy to read. Charlotte is not a classic, however, because Wolfe’s pessimism clouds the story, particularly the let-down ending. More postscript than conclusion, I sighed a giant “so what” after the last page. But if the worst thing I can say about Charlotte is that you shouldn’t expect to find it on your grandkid’s high school curriculum decades from now, then it’s at least worth a read today.

Main Street
Sinclair Lewis
Written in 1920 but with shockingly contemporary political overtones, Main Street is the story of a big city woman who marries a small town doctor and strives to make a difference in the mundane, ultra-personal world of middle America. I found Lewis’ prose a bit dry, but his themes wonderful, rich and (apparently) timeless.

Miss Misery
Andy Greenwald
I was excited to read this book. Here is a novel about the 20s angst of a male urbanite absorbed into the world of blogging and online networking. Opportunities for identification abound. Unfortunately, Misery gets wrapped up in a hokey plot involving the protagonist’s magical body double. I was looking for something personally meaningful, and was instead served a fantasy. I don’t object to the fantasy or sci-fi genres, but this is the wrong place for it. The 20something set is too old for fairy-tale morality.

On The Road
Jack Kerouac
The defining work of the Beat generation. But here’s the problem: I ain’t in the Beat generation. It’s a little bit like watching The Graduate - I know there’s something deep and meaningful here for people my age, but in a different time. Personally, I find it chaotic and unfocused. The constant stream of names, which surely meant a great deal to Kerouac, since Road is suppose to be autobiographical, mean nothing to me without more well developed characters attached to them. The only particularly enjoyable part has been the name-drops of places around the country I’ve been. Streets in Denver, towns in Maryland, etceteras. Overall: I’ve started it twice and never finished. This book is too ADD to hold my attention. Maybe it would work better as a movie.

The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown
Reviewed in more detail here. I found the mythology fascinating and highly enjoyable, but the characters and writing bland. The movie was a disappointment. Rather than fix the characters it lightened the mythology. The result was a movie that was unobjectionable but b-o-r-i-n-g.

The Silmarillion
J.R.R. Tolkien
I list this as perhaps my favorite fiction, but it is far from a normal novel. I hesitate even to call it a novel. Silmarillion is the collected mythology of the Lord of the Rings universe. It is incredibly deep and well thought-out, and Lord of the Rings makes infinitely more sense with this knowledge in hand. Silmarillion is rather like reading Genesis, though. So don’t go in thinking it will be easy. Fun, yes. God yes. Easy, no.

Tags: entertainment