Book Report: The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi

While I read Old Man's War, I would occasionally read out passages to my wife, who shares much of my taste in reading. Once I finished, I read the preview in the back for Ghost Brigades. It looked good, but I'd exhausted my trips to the bookstore for a while and so hunted up another book that was already lying around the house.

Then Father's Day arrived, and I woke up to breakfast in bed (yay!) and a copy of Ghost Brigades (YAY!). I expected a sequel to Old Man's War, and was surprised when only one character from that book showed up in this one. This was less a sequel and more an independent story set in the same universe as the first, much as Pratchett's Discworld books read well independently and even better as parts of a whole. I was a little put off by this, but even so it only took a chapter to entrance me as thoroughly as Old Man's War had. Once again, great action serves only as a frontispiece for a story about personal choice in a setting rich with military and political intrigue.

I couldn't put it down, finishing the last page only two days (each fully packed with other activities) later.

There is another sequel, and I look forward to it.

Book Report: Old Man's War, by John Scalzi

I enjoyed the last Scalzi I read, Android's Dream, very much, so I thought I'd try some of his other work. This one's his first publication and an award winner, so it seemed like a good place to start.

It was. It brought to mind echoes of both Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Haldeman's the Forever War in its portrayal of soldiers and combat. Scalzi brings a warmth and humor to his characters that makes them difficult to abandon even when the story finishes, while the plot was tight and the pacing never lagged.

A great read.

Alone Together: A Tale of Give and Take

Current Reading: How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

Inspirational Quote: "I try to leave out the parts that people skip." -- Elmore Leonard

Faber and Mazlish has made the Current Reading header a number of times. It's not a tough read, but it's an important one. I feel it necessary to take notes, and to read it while the kids are elsewhere doing other things. This slows me down and a book which should only take a weekend has now taken several months.

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I've been a member of Critters for seven weeks. One of my short stories has been through the mill, and I've critiqued six short stories and one long opening novel chapter for other readers.

Give:

Critters serves up roughly 30 manuscripts a week, from which I choose one for critique. As a result, I don't have a large enough sample to draw any representative conclusions.

However...

So far, I have seen work that varies from mediocre to good. I have yet to read anything truly abominable or anything truly outstanding. In my opinion, every piece has had something missing or something not quite right, but then Critters exists because that is the case with every piece of writing and the only way to find and fix those weaknesses is to have someone point them out.

Take:

The effort of writing a critique every week has made me more aware my own weaknesses.

My first story resulted in over thirty critiques, each at least 200 words. That's more than 6000 words on a story just under 2500 words long. That's a lot of reader feedback. Most comments were valuable, confirming weaknesses I already suspected were there. A few were not. They brought up points with which I did not agree. A few other critiques were invaluable. They pointed out flaws of logic, inconsistencies of character and holes in plot that I had completely missed.

In general, I think that if I followed the majority of the advice I received, I would end up with a better, stronger story.

Conclusions:

Although it's still very early in the experiment, I believe the broad exposure to critical readers will have a positive impact on my work. I'm certainly thinking more critically about things than I was before I joined. I find 200 word critiques a little short to receive and a little long to write (I'm aware of the contradiction), but I'm going to continue. My next short story comes up in 3 weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing the responses.

Book Report: Chindi, by Jack mcDevitt

The cover reviews for Chindi compare it to Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, and that is an apt comparison. The major difference is the presence of a plot in mcDevitt's book, something that was intentionally missing from Rama. It remains an interesting stylistic exercise, though, because the book has an almost trip-diary feel: this happened, then this happened, then this happened with each incident of more or less equal weight until nearly two thirds of the way through. Like Rama, the mystery of the spacefaring alien race is never fully revealed.

One point of surprise was the death toll through the book. Numerous characters, many of which seemed central to the story, meet their end by accident or as a result of their own character flaws. I was somewhat disappointed by the end. It provided a satisfactory conclusion, but it retreats from the fairly intimate relating of events through a viewpoint character (mainly Patricia Hutchins, space pilot), to a third-person POV for a grand summary of events that followed the end of the story. It took me out of things at a time when I really wanted to know the emotional/spiritual impact of events on the characters, not just what they ended up doing.

An excellent read with good pace and scientific detail enough to fall firmly into hard SF territory.

Book Report: The Android's Dream, by John Scalzi

I picked up this book because I've come across Scalzi's name a number of times. I've checked out his blog and been intrigued enough to wonder what his work was like.

The first thing that struck me about this book was the title, from the Philip K. Dick story, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" That told me that I was in for something a little unusual, and I always like that. When I read the first bit, in which two people die and an interstellar war almost breaks out entirely because of a nefarious use of intestinal gas, I was hooked. This book is remarkable. The plot twists are absurd, the pace is furious and yet the characters and the story itself never cease to be believable. It is funny. It is packed with action. It is easy to follow, and yet complex.

I had difficulty putting it down, and when I finally finished it, I wished for more.
I don't think there is any praise higher for a book.

Book Report: Archaeology Magazine

If I hadn't become what I have, I think I'd have loved being an archaeologist. I don't mean the "Indiana Jones" kind of grave robber, but the "I divided the field into 1' grids, and I've just unearthed a pottery shard at about the 12th century level" type. There's a thrill to uncovering the leavings of a civilization, wondering what they did and why, how they lived, what kind of people they were, that appeals to me.

Thus, every once in a while I pick up a copy of Archaeology. This one had articles about crystal skulls (for obvious reasons - the tie to the 4th Indiana Jones film), the preservation of Chinese alleys and the caves of Lascaux. As a whole, the magazine balances the accessibility of a "Popular Science" approach with the more rigorous and academic "Scientific American" approach. You can read it as a layman and feel that you're getting a bit of an education in the academics as well.

It's also great fodder for the imagination of anyone looking for non-epic fantasy settings.

In Belated Memoriam... Sorta.

Current Reading: How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

Inspirational Quote: "Quit obsessing. Write well." -- Miss Snark

An oversight on my part that needs to be corrected...

A little over a year and a week ago, the blogosphere lost one of its most treasured resources: Miss Snark.

For those of you unfamiliar with the stiletto-heeled mistress of the clue gun, Miss Snark was (and no doubt continues to be) an agent who blogged anonymously about the world of publishing. It's true that she was not the first to do so (although she was one of the first). Nor did she offer insight that could not be found in other venues (I enjoy reading agent blogs, and a list of some of them is on the sidebar).

No.

Armored to nigh invincibility by her anonymity, Miss Snark dared to tell writers the truths they needed to hear in a voice that brooked no argument and pulled no punches. That it was often done with humor and sympathy for the poor clueless writer was only slightly less important a facet of her genius than the depth and breadth of her commitment to share all she knew about her job and her industry. She didn't attempt to be gentle. She didn't attempt to be kind (thus her nom-de-web). I like to think that, because of these things, her advice (commands, actually) penetrated the thick skulls of a few more writers than diplomacy could have reached.

I came to her blog a few months after it went dark, following a link from Writer Beware. I missed the opportunity to publicly proclaim my joining the devotion of Snarklings, but join I did. I loved reading her posts so much that I went back to the beginning and read everything. Some of it twice. In the course of a little over a month, I learned more about publishing than I had in the previous two decades. I laughed a lot, too, which would have been valuable in itself.

She has left her blog up so that her words might educate others who arrive late, and I'm glad she did. I cannot recommend reading her blog highly enough to anyone with a desire to sell their books. Go forth, ye, and be enlightened.