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2026年8月6日 星期四

More Absolutes


I reviewed Absolute Batman vols. 1 and 2 around a month ago.  Needless to say it made quite an impression.  It remains my favorite of the Absolute comics that I've read so far.

I recently read more of the Absolute titles, and what you see below are my thoughts on each.  I've ranked these titles from most to least liked.  Here we go!


1. Absolute Wonder Woman vols. 1 and 2 by Kelly Thompson, Hayden Sherman and Others.

Man, there are some great moments in this series.  There are things that bring a smile to your face, and things that feel gratifying.  I found myself very invested in this version of an oft over-complicated character, and I was glad they could give her a fresh start.

With Wonder Woman there are often uneasy compromises between Greek mythology, the modern world, modern attitudes, and a tendency to (over) sexualize the character.  Kelly Thompson obviates any such compromises by putting Diana solidly within Greco-Roman mythology, and by asserting her presence in the modern world as if it were a self-evident fact. 

Steve Trevor, however, seems like a character cut out from a rom-com.  Even so this is a small complaint, and moreover one that could be addressed in future issues.  He only needs some tiny flaw to make him more convincing.

There has been criticism that this title features too much exposition in its later issues.  I'd agree with that.  Some of these later issues do need a little less "tell" and a lot more "show."


2. Absolute Martian Manhunter vol. 1 by Deniz Camp, Javier Rodriguez and Others

Javier Rodriguez is, as of now, my favorite artist.  The story which unfolds in Absolute Martian Manhunter is a little confusing at times, but I suppose that was to some extent the point.  I really enjoyed the battle between the two heavies near the end, and the contrast between John Jones and his alien counterpart is very compelling.

I wonder, however, if the writer didn't paint himself into a corner with this one.  How would it continue?  How would this character/storyline blend with others?  As it is it seems more like a pocket universe within the larger Absolute continuity, and with vol. 1's tale told I'm not sure what more there is to say about the character.


3. Absolute Green Lantern vol. 1 by Al Ewing, Jahnoy Lindsay and Others

I am not now nor have I ever been a big Green Lantern fan.  I always thought his (and it's usually a "his") powers were a little silly.  And don't get me started on all the different colors of the spectrum and the related nonsense.  To me all those differently colored lanterns are just a step removed from the Speed Force so often invoked in more recent Flash comics.

And yet I loved this series.  Volume 1 (I haven't yet read Volume 2) offers a great mythos on which to build future adventures, and even if Green Lantern's mythos isn't quite as good (or consistent) as Wonder Woman's it's still very well thought out and promises many good stories in the future.

I doubt Absolute Batman will be dethroned anytime soon, but I could see Absolute Green Lantern supplanting Absolute Wonder Woman a few issues down the line.  It replaces an old system of magic with a new one, sure, but the new system is WAY cooler.


4. Absolute Superman by...?

I've only read bits of this one online, but what I read seemed very political and heavy-handed.  I may return to it in the future.

I'm not a big fan of Jason Aaron though.  I doubt my opinion of this series will change much upon further readings.


5. Absolute Flash by...?

What a disappointment.  As in the case of Absolute Superman I've only read parts of this series, but nothing I've read has impressed me.  The Flash is my all-time favorite superhero, and I think the Absolute line let him down.

Part of my problem with Absolute Flash is that there is a definite hole in the Absolute line up that could have been filled by this title.  In Absolute Batman you've got VIOLENCE, in Absolute Wonder Woman and Absolute Green Lantern you've got magic, and in Absolute Martian Manhunter you've got a kind of surreal psychology that acts as a counterpoint to what's going on in Absolute Batman.  Absolute Flash could have rounded out this collection by being a more science-oriented title, crafting a more rational/scientific world around a character with impossible abilities.

But no, they didn't do that.  Not really.

Bonus points for NO Speed Force however, at least not yet.  That's a welcome change.


6. Absolute Catwoman by...?

Haven't read any of these.  Could be interesting.


7. Absolute Green Arrow by...?

Haven't read any of these either.  Cool costume though.  There's always something a little silly about heroes walking around with bows and arrows in a world full of machine guns, but hey, maybe the creators manage to make that particular trope convincing.


8. Other Titles

Again, haven't read any.  There are several one-shots and the DC All-In Special which inaugurated the line.

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2026年8月1日 星期六

"The Warlock in Spite of Himself" by Christopher Stasheff (1969)


"'A totalitarian movement, beyond question,' the robot replied, 'A rabble-rouser, no doubt power hungry, who will lead the people to make demands on the government, demands which cannot be met.  The crown's refusals will be used to incite the mob to violence, and you have your revolution made.'

"'Couldn't be just an ambitious nobleman trying to usurp the crown?'

"'Usurpation derives its support from the upper classes, Rod.  No, this is a proletarian revolution - a prelude to a totalitarian government.'"

Christopher Stasheff was a Midwestern author known for blending science fiction and fantasy.  This novel, The Warlock in Spite of Himself, is probably his best known work.  It's also the first book in Stasheff's Warlock of Gramarye series, which consists of 12 books published between the late 60s and early 2000s.  Stasheff passed away in 2018.

In the novel a star traveler representing a galaxy-spanning democracy visits the world of Gramarye, where a group of colonists have established a society modeled on the Middle Ages.  This feudal community is ruled by the capricious Queen Catherine, a young woman new to the throne and her responsibilities as queen.  Our star traveler, seeing in Catherine's troubled monarchy an opportunity to push Gramarye towards democracy, decides to intervene in local politics.

Given its date of publication, many of The Warlock in Spite of Himself's earliest readers drew parallels between the novel and American exploits in Vietnam.  These parallels are, I think, a bit of a stretch.  Yes, the novel's political underpinnings do invite some comparisons to American adventurism in Indochina, but The Warlock in Spite of Himself is a far from politically astute work.  The politics at play in the book are more cosmetic, and concepts such as totalitarianism and democracy are treated in the most cursory fashion.

On balance I don't think this novel is any more timely than Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, a tale The Warlock in Spite of Himself much resembles.  Both books involve a more "enlightened" protagonist transported into medieval times, both books involve this protagonist posing as a magician, and both books involve characters attempting to modernize medieval institutions.  The main difference being that Twain's book is a work of satire, while The Warlock in Spite of Himself is offered with more of a straight face.

Then there's the misogyny, of which The Warlock in Spite of Himself has plenty.  Sure, the protagonist overcomes some of his misogyny in the course of the novel, but there are still several troubling depictions of women and their ability to change (or even influence) events in this narrative, and this aspect of the novel will likely cause most readers to question the author's attitudes toward the female sex.

I wouldn't recommend this book.  I found it hard to get through and less than convincing.  It's not terrible, mind you, but I've read much better science fiction (and fantasy) from the same time period.

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2026年7月8日 星期三

"Illuminations: Stories" by Alan Moore (2022)


"One major problem seemed to be that nearly everyone working in the business - artists, writers, editors and publishers - was a promoted comic fan who though they might know everything about King Bee, had no original or viable ideas of their own that might conceivably alleviate the comic world's near-terminal condition."

Alan Moore is a noted writer of comic books who began writing fiction in the late 90s.  He first came to widespread attention through his work at DC Comics, where he wrote a celebrated run on Swamp Thing, and where he then created the groundbreaking limited series Watchmen with artist Dave Gibbons.  Since his heyday in the 80s he's bounced around quite a bit, penning a number of comic book titles for a number of different publishers.

My personal (?) relationship with Moore goes back to that run on Swamp Thing in the early 80s.  I liked that character prior to Moore taking on writing duties, but it was Moore's innovations on that title that made me a genuine fan.  From Swamp Thing it was an easy leap to Watchmen, another series I loved, but after that seminal work I largely lost track of Moore, only reading a handful of the comics he wrote for Image later on.

This said, I have made jokes at his expense.  A few years ago I came across a quote by Moore, something to the effect of people becoming the thing they dread.  As part of this quote Moore explained that he'd become a wizard, and for years now I've been warning people of the perils of going to bed and waking up as a wizard, encouraging them to guard against such transformations.  This joke only ever lands with one friend who's also familiar with the same quote, but I still insist on repeating it from time to time, as if its repetition will make the reference any less obscure.  "I went to pay for my latte at Starbucks," I'll say, "And damned if I didn't become a wizard once the change hit the counter."

Alan Moore, to put it another way, takes himself incredibly seriously, and he probably thinks that you and I should too.  While briefly researching this short story collection, for example, I ran across an interview with him in which he explains the literary devices he uses in the writing of his stories - in case, you know, the rest of us are too slow on the uptake.  In the interview he seems nice enough about it, but yeah, he is in this respect far from unsassuming.

Anyway, on to the stories.

1. Hypothetical Lizard

This story starts off promising but goes nowhere fast.  I really liked the bit about the "whore of sorcerers" and the procedure employed in the creation of such a being, but the overall narrative is an extremely pedestrian tale of sexual jealousy which fails to utilize an excellent opening.

2. Not Even Legend

One of the better stories here.  A group investigating the paranormal meets and runs afoul of all the spirits which normally exist outside of their investigations.  It's a little like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button meets a detective story.  It works well.

3. Location, Location, Location

A pointlessly sexual story involving a real estate transaction and the end of the world.  I'm really not sure where Moore was trying to go with this one, and I don't think he's entirely sure either.

4. Cold Reading

A psychic gets on the wrong side of the supernatural.  It's a solid story that would have worked well as a horror comic.  Anything more than that would have involved a deeper dive into the characters.

5. The Improbably Complex High-Energy State

One of the most pretentious things I've ever read, and keep in mind that I've struggled through books like Gravity's Rainbow and Finnegan's Wake.  This story is best described as a kind of fantasia (or phantasmagoria) involving entities existing in a quantum substrate.  It tries to be amusing, occasionally succeeds, but I found reading it to be a real chore.

6. Illuminations

An older man pays a heavy price for nostalgia.  This is far and away the best story in this collection, and I assume it leans heavily on the author's memories of younger years.  The ending isn't altogether unexpected, but the various plot elements click together nicely in the end.

7. What We Can Know About Thunderman

This novella is the centerpiece of this short story collection, and serves as Moore's grand statement on the (American) comic book industry.  By turns pointless and confusing, this sprawling... thing really puts the "T" in "turgid."

In case, as Moore is likely to suspect, you're too slow to catch the symbolism, "Thunderman" is a stand-in for Superman, "American" is a stand-in for DC, and "Massive" is a stand-in for Marvel.  Having endured Moore's dismissing vignettes of various figures within the comic book industry, I can understand why more current creators are often so cryptic in their descriptions of interactions with him.  He's probably not a pleasant individual to deal with.

8. American Light: An Appreciation

What's more pretentious than a Beat poem which places various Egyptian deities in the context of San Franciscan history?  Its author supplying footnotes to this same Beat poem for the edification of his less literate readership!  Hey, at least it's short!

9. And, at the Last, Just to be Done with Silence

Don't ask me, I don't know.  Maybe it's about the devil?

Whatever it's about, it's the last story in this collection, and I felt like I'd just completed a marathon after finishing it.  Getting through Illuminations wasn't easy, and I have no desire to repeat the experience through any of Moore's other books.  Alan Moore has certainly written some excellent comic books, but I doubt the rest of his fiction is worth locating.

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2026年7月3日 星期五

Absolute Batman Vols. 1 and 2 by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta (2025 and 2026)


This Batman, described as a "genius of violence" by none other than this comic book universe's Alfred Pennyworth, is a lot more badass than the Batman you're probably used to.

Is he rich?  No, he was born poor, in Crime Alley, where he developed several lasting friendships with people who were, in "normal" DC continuity, his adversaries.

Does he have a chip on his shoulder?  Yes, he does, but for different reasons.  In the Absolute universe his father, a teacher, was killed during a school field trip, and his mother is still living.

Are bats relevant to his becoming a masked vigilante?  Yes, but not in the same way.  Instead of falling into a cave full of bats on his parents' estate, he gets pushed into the bat house during a shooting which leads to his father's death, and he never develops the same fixation on that animal.

Is he an unassuming, normal-looking guy outside of his costumed adventures?  In a way yes, in another way no.  He does work a regular job, but he's also a HUGE individual - hulking even - with an interest in things like poker and boxing.

Is he the world's greatest detective?  Not in the conventional sense, no.  This Batman is more of a strategist ready to get his hands dirty.  What he wages against Gotham's criminal element is more of a war with serious casualties, and he has zero qualms about taking lives in the process.

Does he have a Robin?  Lord I hope not.  The Wikipedia entry detailing his exploits in volume 3 (which I have yet to read) mentions that the Absolute Deathstroke makes an appearance with "an army of Robins" later on.  I sincerely hope Robin isn't introduced as part of a lame attempt to tone this character down and/or make him more "relatable."

How about his rogue's gallery?  Scott Snyder has, I think, made them all better.  Gone are the more cartoonish adversaries of yesteryear, to be replaced by truly terrifying individuals acting out nearly unimaginable levels of trauma.  The Bane of this series is SCARY, and even relatively minor villains such as Black Mask are very sinister.

By this point Absolute Batman represents over a third of the Absolute Universe's total revenue.  I totally get this.  I've read bits of Absolute Superman, Absolute Martian Manhunter and Absolute Flash, and Absolute Batman outshines them all in terms of consistency, attention to detail and sheer badassery.  

It should also be said that volume 2 far outshines volume 1 in terms of awesomeness.  If you've only read volume 1 and wondered what the big deal was, I highly encourage going back and reading volume 2 immediately.  Volume 2 is METAL, upping the ante considerably on all the weirdness hinted at in volume 1.

I plan on reading volume 3 later this summer.  For that matter I'd like to take another pass at Absolute Martian Manhunter (which I enjoyed) and track down Absolute Wonder Woman, which I haven't read yet.  At this point in time DC is BURYING Marvel in terms of comic book sales, and for evidence one need look no farther than the two trade paperbacks discussed here.

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2026年6月14日 星期日

"The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus" by Emma Knight (2025)


"A large part of her wished she could stop caring about whatever it was that had come between her dad and Lennox.  Why this fixation on a past that wasn't even hers?  But she knew why.  She could see how easy it would be to relive her parents' lives without quite choosing to, the way a toboggan finds its way into the pre-compressed path of whoever went before.  She wanted to better understand the route they had taken, so she didn't fall into it by mistake."

Emma Knight is a Canadian author with only this novel to her credit.  Before turning to the writing of fiction she was a journalist and co-writer of cookbooks.  There's talk of The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus being adapted into a television series by MGM Television, but that series is far from being realized at the time of writing.

In the book Pen (short of "Penelope") ventures to Scotland to study abroad.  After doing so she forges a relationship with the Lennox family, a group of erstwhile aristocrats living in a restored castle.  She is immediately attracted to the Lennox's young son, Sasha, but her and Sasha's feelings for one another are undermined by both Pen's father's past dealings with the Lennoxes and family secrets on both sides.

What's a young, sexually inexperienced Canadian girl to do?  Well, if you've read as many of these "chick lit"-type books as I have, you'll know that yes, Pen and Sasha eventually hook up, and yes, all of the family secrets are brought to light in the concluding chapters of this novel.

Just don't ask me what the octopus present in the title is supposed to symbolize.  I'm still not entirely sure.  The Margot character attempts to explain that during her and Pen's outing at the aquarium, but it seems a feeble metaphor, and one not entirely connected to the narrative.

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is a clumsily written book by a first time author.  As such I'd give it a passing grade, but only passing.  It resembles any number of similar books now on the market, and the author needs to either increase her output or start taking serious chances if she wants to avoid drowning in a sea of literary mediocrity.

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2026年6月1日 星期一

"A Memory Called Empire" by Arkady Martine (2019)


"'I appreciate the promptness with which Lsel answered my request,' Eight Loop said.  'It is admirable; that kind of cooperation will only help your people in the future.  I suggest you stick to it.'"

Arkady Martine is the pen name used by AnnaLinden Weller, a science fiction writer and academic specializing in the Byzantine Empire.  She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

A Memory Called Empire was Martine's first novel.  It was followed in 2021 by A Desolation Called Peace, a sequel to her first book.  Both books won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, with A Desolation Called Peace also winning the Locus Award in the same category.

A Memory Called Empire is a murder mystery set against a background of court intrigue and intergalactic conquest.  Its protagonist is Mahit, an ambassador sent to the heart of the Teixcalaan Empire to represent Lsel, the space station on the outskirts of this empire.  Residents of Lsel are in possession of a semi-secret "imago technology" which allows several personalities to inhabit the same body.

A Memory Called Empire reminded me of both Frank Herbert's Dune series and the recently reviewed Ninefox Gambit.  The parallels between the Dune novels (minus the messianism) and A Memory Called Empire will be obvious, but these parallels might simply be a function of the larger histories which underpin both books.  Dune and its many sequels were, in many ways, very Islamic books, while A Memory Called Empire invokes the glory of Byzantium (or Constantinople) at its height.

The resemblance to Ninefox Gambit relates to the two books' plots.  In both books a female protagonist carries a male personality around in her consciousness, and in both books the female protagonists are elevated to the highest circles of power, where they must fall upon their own resources and training to survive.  Where Ninefox Gambit is more focused on the military aspects of empire, A Memory Called Empire is more concerned with the political aspects.  Both books work, even if A Memory Called Empire is a decidedly less visceral affair, trained more on the vagaries of courtly life and ambitious individuals seeking royal favor.

Ninefox Gambit resonated with me a lot more.  A Memory Called Empire is an excellently written book by an author with an impressive command of words, but it's very slow in parts, and could have used more sex and violence to keep the reader invested.  As it is it's a little too cerebral for its own good.

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2026年5月13日 星期三

"Ninefox Gambit" by Yoon Ha Lee (2016)


"She had no idea how to respond to that, so she kept silent.  He was her superior.  He demonstrably knew how to break her.  And yet she was supposed to be able to judge him and kill him if necessary.  How did Kel Command expect a Kel to be able to deal with this?  The fact that he was always present, always watching her, only made it worse."

Ninefox Gambit is the first book in the Machineries of Empire trilogy.  After this trilogy Yoon Ha Lee would pivot to writing Young Adult fiction, a genre which has proven more financially lucrative for her/him/they.

I use the "her/him/they" above because Yoon Ha Lee is a trans man.  Wikipedia uses "he/his," but I'm not sure if the author would agree with how the personal and possessive pronouns ought to be used in his/her/their biography.  No, I'm not trying to get all "woke" here, but in the context of someone's life story these details do matter.

Besides, Yoon Ha Lee's status as a trans man is very relevant to the book under discussion, given that it involves a lesbian (or perhaps bisexual) character living with a bisexual male character "implanted" in her consciousness.  It's not hard to see questions of gender and sexuality explored in Ninefox Gambit, and it's easy to speculate on the author's own orientation with regard to his/her/their gender.

Other pertinent details from the author's biography are his/her/their experiences as a Korean immigrant (or near-immigrant) in the United States, his/her/their background in mathematics, and his/her/their presence at several Ivy League institutions.  All of these details play into the novel, and all of them make Ninefox Gambit feel both extremely autobiographical and extremely metaphorical at the same time.

In the novel Cheris, a psychologically conditioned soldier in the service of a galaxy-spanning empire, is promoted to the rank of brevet general and tasked with the recapture of a distant fortress held by a heretical organization.  As part of her promotion she is outfitted with the consciousness of Jedao, a disgraced general who's there to advise her.  The dynamic between Cheris and Jedao is very interesting, and the inner dialogues shared between the two characters add a lot of pathos to what would otherwise be a very, very dry novel dealing with military engagements and the human cost of war.

Most of this book would fall more under the heading of Speculative Fiction rather than Science Fiction.  Aside from glancing references to mathematical concepts, there's really no way to differentiate the technology in this book from magic, and in place of starships this novel could have easily taken place in a far away kingdom, where characters travel on horseback.

It's an excellent book, however.  In 2017 it won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and yes, in comparison to most of the other first novels I've read this one is truly on another level.  I'll be sure to read the other two books in the trilogy if I happen upon them this summer.  I'm eager to see how Cheris proceeds against the Empire in those other two novels.

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2026年5月2日 星期六

"Interior Chinatown" by Charles Yu (2020)


"'For my friend Fong,' he says, and begins singing John Denver.  If you didn't know it already, now you do: old dudes from rural Taiwan are comfortable with their karaoke and when they do karaoke for some reason they love no one like they love John Denver."

Charles Yu is a Taiwanese-American author and lawyer who lives in California.  Besides Interior Chinatown he's written one other novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and two short story collections.  Interior Chinatown won the National Book Award and was adapted into a TV series.

Interior Chinatown illustrates the life and times of Willis Wu, an aspiring Asian American actor living in Los Angeles' Chinatown.  Typecast in a number of familiar Asian-centric movie and TV roles, Willis strives to become a "Kung Fu Guy," a function within the Hollywood industry that he's coveted since his earliest years.

The novel is written in the form of a screenplay, and in my opinion this format sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.  I wasn't always sure if what was happening was "real" or if it was some kind of metaphor, but perhaps that sort of ambiguity was the author's intention.

I think Interior Chinatown is a good book, though I do have certain objections to it.  In terms of narrative structure it's relatively solid, even if the character's trajectory is a bit predictable.  I enjoyed the author's observations on what it means to be a Taiwanese immigrant in America, though after a certain point one wonders if Willis Wu isn't just feeling incredibly sorry for himself.  Is there a point in wanting a country to love and respect you?  Maybe my saying so is a reflection of my age, but I think carrying around an expectation that strangers - and by extension an entire nation - will understand you the way in which you want to be understood is somewhat pointless.

Does America have a history of discrimination when it comes to Asian immigrants?  Certainly.  But I'm not sure what good it does anyone to regurgitate racist laws from the 1800s, or to expect that the outside world is going to see beyond the handier aspects of one's culture.  That kind of social justice thinking can only be carried so far, and if you're meditating upon it all the time you're probably only causing yourself a great deal of distress.  People are racist sometimes.  Stereotypes exist.  It doesn't make you (or them) any less American.  I suspect it might be better to approach others and their assumptions with forgiveness, rather than seeing in their (sometimes false) assumptions some sinister plot to keep you and yours down.

Besides, it's 2026.  Assuming that society has doomed you to life in Chinatown - or any other ghetto - is too much like playing the victim.  Injustice exists, but if you want something or if you want to be somewhere then it's up to you to go out and make that happen to the best of your ability.  No one's going to give it to you.  You have to go out and take it.

And yes, this "going out and taking it" is itself an Asian-American story, and moreover one we would all do well to remember.

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2026年4月26日 星期日

"Bullet Train" by Kotaro Isaka (2010)


"'True enough,' Suzuki nods, as if he had been expecting the Prince to say that.  'Like I said, that was my own personal feeling on the matter.  But that's what matters most.  I believe people should never kill other people, under any circumstances.  Dying is the saddest thing there is.  But that's not he kind of answer you're looking for.  So,' he continues, his voice suddenly kind, 'there is something I'd like to ask you.'"

Kotaro Isaka is a Japanese novelist widely published in Japan.  Many of his novels have been adapted for movies and TV, the most famous being this novel, which was recently adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt.

If you're arriving at this novel from the movie, you'll probably be expecting some kind of adrenaline soaked thrill ride.  If so you'll be disappointed.  Bullet Train is instead a very philosophical book hinged upon arguments between freewill and determinism, or between good luck and bad.  It hits a few of the same notes as the movie, but the sleek, Hollywood actioner that many know from Netflix is a far cry from what Kotaro Isaka laid out on the page.

If you've read manga like Hunter x Hunter, something like that might be a more apt comparison.  The author does write manga on occasion, and the parts of Bullet Train in which characters are forced to overcome a series of "traps" or dilemmas are much more similar to what characters encounter in the pages of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or YuYu Hakusho.

The philosophical elements at play in Bullet Train have precedents in manga as well.  Consider the weird, philosophical discussions of the Golden Ratio in Steel Ball Run for example, or similarly high-flown plot devices in other series.  I'm not suggesting that Kotaro Isaka merely copied these things from manga titles, but there's a long history of such tropes in manga, and this should be taken into account when reading Bullet Train.

In the novel, as in the movie, several hitmen running conflicting errands are riding a high speed train through Japan.  One pair of hitmen have been charged with returning a Yakuza boss's son to his custody, and also with returning a bag full of money.  Another hitman has been charged with stealing this same bag of money, while a third hitman is trying to kill all of the other hitmen, and so on.  None of these hitman have a clear idea of the larger forces working against them, and all are unaware that a psychopath sits in their midst, a young man who takes great delight in complicating their plans.

As novels go it's not quite riveting, though I did enjoy many of the chapters near the end.  In my opinion this book's a bit too long for its own good, and the constant machinations regarding the case full of money grow tiresome.  I also don't think the "Kimura" character was as fully realized as he could have been, even if "the Prince" is a truly masterful creation.

Were I assigning stars I'd give this one 4 stars out of 5.  It's worth reading, even if it requires a bit of patience.

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2026年4月10日 星期五

"Shakespeare: The World as Stage" by Bill Bryson (2007)


"...and all other London playhouses, with the exception of the Globe, relied on other entertainments, particularly animal baiting, to fortify their earnings.  The pastime was not unique to England, but it was regarded as an English specialty.  Queen Elizabeth often had visitors from abroad entertained with bearbaiting at Whitehall.  In its classic form, a bear was put in a ring, sometimes tethered to a stake, and set upon by mastiffs, but bears were expensive investments, so other animals (such as bulls and horses) were commonly substituted.  One variation was to put a chimpanzee on the back of a horse and let the dogs go for both together.  The sight of a screeching ape clinging for dear life to a bucking horse while dogs leaped at it from below was considered about as rich an amusement as public life could offer."

Bill Bryson's One Summer and The Body were also reviewed here a while ago.  He's good for a quote or two, though I can't think of anything he's written that's really stuck in my memory.  He definitely has a way with words, but in the realm of ideas the books of his I've read seem to fall short.  Maybe he's said more meaningful things in other parts of his extensive bibliography?

Whatever the case, this slim volume introduces what we know and don't know about Shakespeare.  As it turns out we don't know much, but nevertheless what we don't know is enough to take up 196 pages.  This approach to Shakespeare's life is something of a cop-out, but it's consistently engaging and never overstays its welcome.

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2026年4月2日 星期四

"Children of Memory" by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2023)


"They tell each other how great they were and will be, because a fake future's easier to face than the truth of more dead harvests."

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shards of Earth was also reviewed here a while back.  The two books are surprisingly different.

In the distant future a crew of spacefarers visit a colony established on a distant world long before their civilization came to be.  This colony represents an earlier, more primitive strain of humanity, separated from our spacefarers by millennia of unrest, exploration and evolution.  After one of the crew descends to the surface of the planet, events quickly spiral out of their control, and as they race to uncover a still more ancient mystery they find themselves increasingly embroiled in both colonial politics and the planet's troubled ecology.

Children of Memory is a flawlessly written book.  I admire Tchaikovsky's way with words.  He paces the whole thing to perfection, holding back on certain details until just the right moments.  He's a masterful storyteller, and this is not the kind of praise I give out often.

This said, there are a lot of "smart dumb books" in the science fiction genre, and this might be yet another example.  It's hard to discuss the ending of this novel without giving too much away, but let's just say that the book's conclusion hinges upon an artifact left behind by an earlier, non-human civilization, and the way in which the spacefarers are able to manipulate this technology seems implausible.  This aspect of the novel reminded me a lot of the movie Independence Day, in which Earth scientists somehow manage to hack a massive alien spaceship with whatever version of Windows they were using at the time.

The more linguistic/existential parts of this novel are great, however.  I just wish that the twist at the end hadn't been so disappointing.  It's the kind of story that makes a great deal of emotional, if not logical sense.  The future technologies at play in the book are never discussed or explored in any detail, leaving the whole thing feeling somewhat hollow in parts.  Even so, from the vantage point of the little girl at the center of the story this novel is still satisfying, even in the presence of its technical shortcomings.

I'd give this one a slightly higher grade than Shards of Earth.  I have issues with both books, but Children of Memory is much more involving.

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2026年3月16日 星期一

Smartphones, the Internet and the Future


Exhibit A: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (2024).  The author, a noted social psychologist, paints a grim picture of how smartphones, social media and "safetyism" is affecting our youth.  He recommends raising the online age of consent to the age of 16 from its present age of 13, not allowing children to own smartphones until the same age, and creating more opportunities for free play.  He also encourages parents, schools and governments to enact rules and laws that reflect children's physical, emotional and developmental needs in relation to emerging technologies.


Exhibit B: How to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg (2025).  The author, a former British politician and Meta employee, describes the threats to an "open internet," and how these same threats might be addressed.  He details previous government actions to circumscribe the internet, concerns over privacy, concerns over how the flow of data across borders threatens those in power, and strategies which might be employed by both Big Tech and national governments to ensure that the internet remains the valuable resource which it presently is.

My Thoughts: I liked Haidt's book and I agree with it completely.  It's well-researched and chimes with what I've observed as both a father of two girls and a teacher of younger children.  Haidt's book is, if a little dry, very concise and to the point.  We definitely need to give more thought to how the prevalence of screens and the popularity of platforms such as Instagram and Facebook are affecting our kids.  Dumping them in front of an iPad or a phone for hours might seem harmless, but this is actually far from the case.

I liked Clegg's book a lot less.  He makes some good points, but at times his idealism verges on whimsy.  He also spends a lot of time apologizing for Meta, a company he hangs much of his reputation on.  It isn't a good look.  Much of what's in this book was known to me already, and the sources he cites are very haphazard.  He even takes shots at Haidt's book in one chapter, though I think he largely mischaracterizes that other, better work.

Given its title, Clegg's book had two responsibilities, these being: 1) explain why the internet needs saving, and 2) explain how it can be saved.  I don't think that it accomplishes either task, though I do agree with many of the points its author makes.  

I often found myself wishing that Nick Clegg had removed himself from the arguments he makes a little more.  Too much of this book depends upon claims that he knows things simply because he worked at Meta.  It's too much like asking us to take certain bits of evidence on faith.  I have no reason to believe that he was informed of every study Meta ever performed, just as I have no reason to believe that he was always among those (or even informed by those) making decisions at that company.

Unlike Haidt, Clegg also takes forever to reach his points.  He tends to circle around ideas with words, never actually embracing them until far too many paragraphs, pages and even chapters have gone by.  He could have taken lessons from Haidt's more concise, more academically rigid approach.  More of what Clegg writes could be have also been backed up with (solid) research.  Personal anecdotes only go so far toward convincing the skeptical.

Critics have attacked Haidt for creating a "moral panic" along the lines of many such panics triggered by new technologies.  Yet despite these criticisms (which Clegg echoes), Haidt's work stands on its own and deserves the praise it has received.  Clegg's book, on the other hand, is shoddily done (perhaps even ghostwritten), and deserves to be passed over.  He (or his ghost writer) voices valid concerns for the future of the internet, but I'm sure that these concerns have been voiced better elsewhere.

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2026年2月19日 星期四

"Trilobites & Other Stories" by Breece D'J Pancake (1992)


"I walk until I see a stumblebum cut into a passage between two buildings.  He has got his heat in him and he is squared away.  I stop to watch this jake-legger try to spread out his papers for a bed, but the breeze through the passage keeps stirring his papers around.  It's funny to watch this scum chase papers, his old pins about ready to fold under him.  The missions won't let him in because he is full of heat, so this jake-legger has to chase his papers tonight.  Pretty soon all that exercise will make him puke up his heat, and I stand and grin and wait for this to happen, but my grin slips when I see her standing in the doorway."

If you haven't heard of Breece D'J Pancake I'm not surprised.  He took his own life at the ripe old age of 26, and only lived long enough to see a few of his short stories published in magazines such as The Atlantic.  He was a product of West Virginia.

He was trying, I suppose, to be the voice of both his home state and the small town he came from.  His fiction hearkens back to the history and geography of that region, and his stories reveal a measured love for small town people living small, thwarted lives.  His stories are populated by men's men doomed to failure, and by cunning women doing whatever they can to escape loneliness,  poverty or both.  Over them all hangs the agricultural toil experienced by generations, and also a burning desire to either flee from or flee back into this same mode of existence.

Overall I liked this story collection, though there are times when the author strays a little too close to Faulkner territory.  Of course it's hard to be a Southern author and avoid that comparison, but I think that for the most part he manages to do so.

My favorite story was "First Day of Winter," which details the struggle of a poor farmer living with infirm parents.  This story was excellent, and the stories in this collection that aren't excellent were at least very good.

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2026年2月15日 星期日

"The Shining" by Stephen King (1977)


"Something - luck, fate, providence - had been trying to save him.  Some other luck, white luck.  And at the last moment bad old Jack Torrance luck had stepped back in.  The lousy run of cards wasn't over yet."

Stephen King has been discussed here many times before.  Will he be discussed here again?  I'm not sure, but after wading through The Shining I don't have much desire to read its sequel, Doctor Sleep.

And as I bring up Stephen King and The Shining, another figure looms his way into this one-sided conversation, this figure being none other than Stanley Kubrick, who directed the movie adaptation of Stephen King's novel.  

But first, the book.

In The Shining down-on-his-luck writer Jack Torrance (who is in no way, shape or form a stand-in for Stephen King) gets a job as caretaker at an old Colorado hotel shutting down for the winter.  Along for the ride are his wife, Wendy, and his psychic son Danny.  Danny's presence in the old hotel piques the interest of the sinister powers inhabiting it, and this interest, coupled with Jack's troubled past, is the source of much distress between the three family members.

The Shining was an early work for King, and the third of his books to be published, following Carrie and Salem's Lot, both of which were also adapted into movies.*  Carrie and The Shining were very much in line with the late 70s craze for psychic powers, a craze signified by everything from the In Search of... TV show to Project Stargate.

The Shining rode this telepathic wave to the bestseller lists, and its subsequent popularity led to a movie version which hit theaters in 1980.  This film version, though greeted with some skepticism at the time, has since become a horror classic.  It's also one of director Stanley Kubrick's best remembered films.

The problem being that Kubrick wasn't entirely happy with the story as laid out by its original author.  He rejected King's initial draft of the script, and instead rewrote the story with the help of Diane Johnson.  Kubrick, it should be said, wasn't a big believer in the supernatural, and he wasn't fond of King's ending.  His and Johnson's script is more a mix of gothic horror and Freudian psychology, two elements that King was somewhat removed from when writing his novel.**

Kubrick was, moreover, very dismissive of King's book in the interviews which followed the movie's release, a development which rankles The Shining's author to this day.  "Not part of great literature," said Kubrick, who went on to describe the novel as "a very bad book" and also "quite pretentious."

King returned the favor, dismissing the film in his own interviews.  King's biggest issue with the movie is Kubrick's ending, which diverges sharply from what he'd written years before.  I won't divulge either ending out of consideration for those who haven't yet seen the movie or read the novel, but I can tell you that the conclusions of the two narratives are very different.  Kubrick's movie ends in a more nihilistic manner, while the ending of King's story is a confrontation with the unknown and unknowable.  I think that both endings work, but I have to say that Kubrick's ending makes a more lasting impression.

As a novel I found The Shining rather hard to get through, and of the Stephen King books I've read I'd rank it near the bottom.  Like many of King's books it's really too long, and as I was reading it I kept thinking about sentences, paragraphs and entire chapters I would have excised were I its editor.  It's not bad so much as long-winded, and I think the tension it was trying to generate would have been more present if the author had skipped over certain parts and limited the amount of foreshadowing in earlier chapters. 

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*Salem's Lot first appeared as a TV miniseries, but nowadays most people would be watching it in a single sitting.

**There is a section in the book where Jack and Wendy take Danny to a doctor.  After a cursory examination this doctor offers a rational/scientific explanation for Danny's psychic powers.  This explanation, however, is later dismissed by both parents.
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2026年1月22日 星期四

"Four Friends" by Robyn Carr (2024)


"'I'm not taking advantage of him.  I'm sure he's keeping very careful records.  Believe me, when we get to the official splitting of the sheets, all my expenses will be carefully deducted from my side of the chart.  And there will be plenty left." She grinned, 'California law.  No fault.  Community property.'"

Those who've been reading this blog a while are probably questioning my gender, my sexuality, or both.  Let me take this moment to reaffirm the fact that I'm still a heterosexual male who enjoys sports, nunchucks, and vehicles that go fast.  I read books like Four Friends because my wife (who is also heterosexual, if not male) passes them on to me.  I'll read almost anything if given the opportunity.

The author of Four Friends, Robyn Carr, has written dozens of books, none of which have their own Wikipedia entries, and some of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List - for whatever that's worth.  She's been writing books since the mid-70s.

Four Friends follows the personal dramas of - you guessed it - four friends living outside of San Francisco.  There's Gerri, the CPS worker who's recently discovered her husband's infidelity, Andy, a teacher who's separated from an unreliable spouse, Sonja, a personal wellness coach abandoned by her husband, and BJ, a secretive new arrival who is - again, you guessed it - recently single.  What do these four women have in common?  Hm, let me think it over...

Four Friends, it should be said, is an extremely white kind of book for whiter, more affluent kinds of people.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It shows that the author knows her audience.  It's unsurprising as Women's Fiction goes, and you can be sure that by the end of this novel the friendships between the four women are reaffirmed, and that these friendships will last forever.

I'd just like to ask BJ: when you say that's how "they" stay so thin while eating the exotic food known as "sushi," what do you mean by "they," exactly?

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2026年1月10日 星期六

"The Secret" by Lee and Andrew Child (2023)


"The fourth guy was already at the bottom of the stairs.  He turned to face Roberta.  He raised his gun but stayed well out of her reach.  He said, 'I've got to thank you, miss.  These fellas are never going to live this down.  Getting their asses handed to them by a girl?  The fun I'm going to have?  Priceless.  But today's fun is over.  You're a skinny little thing but no one could miss you from this range.'"

This is the second Jack Reacher book to be reviewed here.  I couldn't remember the title of the first one I read (or its plot) without consulting the sidebar, so I couldn't tell you which one of the two books is better.

In The Secret two sisters are out for revenge, killing a group of scientists who worked on a chemical weapons project in the late 60s.  From there enter military policeman Jack Reacher, a no-nonsense taker of names and kicker of asses.  By the time he captures and/or mutilates those who stand between himself and the two sisters the pillars of government are soundly shaken, justice is resoundingly served, and the world is once again safe for democracy.

The publication date is 2023, but The Secret must have been written during the 90s.  Modern conveniences like cell phones, the internet and even laptops are entirely absent from the narrative, leaving our hero equipped with only a phone and a fax machine.  Can you imagine trying to track down people off the grid since 1969 with only a land line and a fax machine?  A quick Google search would have resolved some of the plot points in this book within minutes.

As Jack Reacher books go The Secret is merely more of the same.  Our hero is called into service, he handles shit in the most egregiously violent manner possible, and of course he saves the day.  It's all little more than another heterosexual male fantasy, and I can't fault it for being what it is.

Will I be reading any further Jack Reacher books?  Eh, maybe.  Hopefully I'll find better things to read, but in a pinch Jack Reacher will do.

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