Monday, October 26, 2015

Book Review: The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading this bizarre SF/Fantasy novel — it’s technically science fiction, but it conforms to the conventions of a fantasy adventure novel — and it’s rather fascinating. It was written back in the early 80s when Lord of the Rings and Star Wars had yet to completely overwhelm the genre. It was a time when SF was still a niche pastime in which only weirdos indulged. The Shadow of the Torturer is remarkably weird.

It takes place in a far future Earth (called Urth). The moon is green being shrouded in forests, the mid-day sky is indigo blue as the sun has grown dim, and the characters live in a vast city full of ancient technology and fantastic structures which no one understands or fully comprehends and which may as well be magic.

There are two main parts to the novel. The first is a detailed description of our protagonist Severian as he studies to become a journeyman torturer. This part of the novel is a very involved exploration of the world Severian inhabits. It’s important because the world he lives in is very foreign. It also sets the tone, which is dark. Everything from the sky to what little humor exists is dark. The torturers wear clothes of the color fugilin, which is described as being darker than black. The narrative voice is as dense and oppressive as the scenarios being described.

The second part of the novel, when Severian has started his quest to travel beyond the city, wastes much of that initial world building, unfortunately. It takes Severian the last half of the book just to get to the city’s borders (it’s a very big city) and his adventures seem haphazardly constructed, episodic, and random after the fashion of a mediocre sword and sorcery novel. This was a big letdown after the fantastic build up of the first half.

The book ends on a cliffhanger and the prose and the setting are sufficiently intoxicating that I’m going to give the sequel a try. Despite the missteps in the second half of the novel, there’s really nothing like The Shadow of the Torturer.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Book Review: Tarzan's Quest by Edgar Rice Burroughs


These late model Tarzan books are proving to be consistently good.

Jane makes her first appearance in 10 novels, since Tarzan and the Golden Lion. This is also the first mention of any of Tarzan’s family members in 9 novels, since Tarzan and the Ant Men. I was beginning to think that Mr. Burroughs was trying to imply that there was some kind of separation or that Tarzan had regressed so much to his pre-civilized days that he never left the jungle anymore.

The book starts with Tarzan investigating the mysterious disappearance of young girls in the jungle and Jane returning to Africa by plane. Jane’s plane coincidentally crashes in the vicinity of Tarzan’s investigations. And so commence two parallel narratives that only come together in the action packed conclusion.

Jane is portrayed as a leader and capable jungle survivor, climbing around in the trees, making her own weapons, and calmly staring down a charging leopard with nothing but her hand made bow. It was refreshing to see this side of Jane. Alas, she does revert to damsel in distress eventually. And ERB has a tendency to refer to her as a girl even though she and Tarzan are grandparents.

Though there is a weird epilogue that I suspect will address this issue going forward.

Review: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

I have to start by saying that Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee is a poorly written book. I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird just prior to reading its follow-up. And comparing the two brings the former’s flaws into painfully sharp relief. It reads like a rough-draft. And it turns out that’s all it was.

Never has a book needed a ghost writer more than this newly published collection of anecdotes and flashbacks that spends the first hundred pages flailing around in search of a reason to exist.

The content, however, is rather interesting. First it’s important to realize this book is a rough-draft of a story that eventually turned into To Kill a Mockingbird. There a numerous subtle inconsistencies with the book it turned into. Having said that, it’s fun to read about Scout as an adult. In To Kill a Mockingbird she was a sort of idealized child, like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. Such creations aren’t realistic children, but they are the kind of children we wish were realistic. As a result seeing Scout as an adult with a career and a love life is weird but humanizing.

And that is probably the best thing about Go Set a Watchman, the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird are transformed from platonic ideals to normal people. It’s heartbreaking to see fallings out between Atticus, Calpurnia, and Scout because they have come to us through the decades as icons and saints. That’s also one reason why this book was probably never finished and published before. You can’t give Gregory Peck an Oscar and then reduce Atticus to something merely human.

One of the themes that strikes me most from To Kill a Mockingbird is how we are all stuck living together in the same world, and we have to find a way to get along: majorities, minorities, those who are “colorblind”, and even those who are racist. These themes are more fully explored in Go Set a Watchman, and probably more important as part of our contemporary dialogue than anything we read in To Kill a Mockingbird which is why I wish the book had was actually well written.