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issenlloBooks (instead of fanfic). I know, I'm astonished that I read them, too. But I recently discovered that my library does offer ebooks on loan, even though the selection isn't very wide, which means I can still borrow knitting books and fiction.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman. (ebook)
Surprisingly good, with memorable (and memorably icky) details such as the young male protagonist who digs a worm-like thing out of his foot, a creature out of this world out to eat you, cats (yay cats), the full moon whenever, and the ocean in a duckpond that can be carried in a bucket. He meets a family of women who come from the so-called old country, though which one we don't really know. Themes of friendship, with some thrills. Except the protag apparently forgets all the magic he encountered, which was a bit sad; as though he weren't capable of keeping secrets. Also, it was rather uncontextualised. Usually when a fantasy story talks about the 'old country', one expects a few more details of the 'old country', whether it be Persian folktales, genies in lamps, Boewulvian adventures or (at a pinch) Arthurian quests. I didn't notice much in the way of that kind of context. Or maybe I didn't read it carefully enough. I guess the story itself doesn't suffer too much from the lack. The set-up of the adult man who returns to his hometown and remembers his childhood adventures doesn't work; falls flat really but luckily it doesn't detract from the story itself.
*
The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin (or Cixin Liu if you'd rather, translated by Ken Liu.
The only thing I got out of the nonsensical amount of teeth-gnashing re the Hugos (or wasn't it the Hugos?) was that this book came in for a great deal of praise and enthusiasm. Well, I hadn't read much Chinese science fiction (unless one counts Ni Kuang, but he's Hong Kong-ese...) before so I got it out of the library. This one's a dead tree book, not an ebook.
The translator did a nice job, I have to say, of portraying that China-based society and Chinese sensibility. (It might be interesting to read the Chinese original, and compare.)
What I appreciated about the plot was the suspenseful way it built up, from the protagonist Wang Miao's awareness of strange things happening out there to other scientists, to encountering weird (and scary) things himself - the part about seeing the universe 'blinking' is rather surreal - and then trying to suss out what exactly was going on. The process is a bit slow at times, but overall it worked. The use of a virtual reality online game played by thousands around the world is a rather nifty device, though one does wonder what the Great Chinese Firewall would have made of something like this. The novelty that I found striking was that the alien invasion hadn't yet taken place, yet humans were facing defeat. The protrayal of the aliens, the Trisolarians, especially near the end, was a bit farcical but perhaps that was needed to get across how much more advanced their civilisation was.
Overall, quite intriguing; the pace was steady, if a little glum, occasionally plodding. It's definitely not action-packed; felt passive in parts, to be honest. The weakest part was the semblance of international cooperation between the world powers in response to the alien threat, or maybe it was my cynicism rearing its head. But I can't really see US and British military personnel, NATO, CIA, etc, working in tandem, even if the Martians attack. The historical context worked. For example, the scenes of the Cultural Revolution at the beginning, with the description of the senselessness of violence in that period - for me, they were a giant do-not-want, but they turned out to be useful in understanding the motivation of the characters, so I was pleasantly surprised.
The truly irritating thing is that only the first book is available in English; it's the first of a trilogy. The second and third volumes are available only in Chinese (for now, in my area anyway); I'm not that keen to read it in Chinese because all the sciency, physics-ly, sf-ish terms I've ever learnt are in English. I don't really know what the Chinese terms are. Have put a hold for the second volume 黑暗森林 (The Dark Forest) anyway; we'll see if my poor lamented level of Chinese is up to it.
*
The Maze Runner, James Dashner. (ebook)
Yes, I couldn't stop seeing the movie trailer in my mind too. But the movie trailer was all I saw, so reading the book was a better experience.
In contrast to TBP, there was very little retrospection or rumination on consequences in this book. There was a lot of action that centered around Thomas, the narrator and protagonist and how he solves the mystery of the maze. The weird thing is that the monsters/nightmare creatures, the Grievers, that they encountered were simply so odd that their deadliness felt diminished somehow. I did like the... fellowship that sprang up between Thomas and the other characters, relieving what felt like a rather tiresome series of scenes where Thomas needs to find out what's going on from a bunch of surly and (turns out, for good reason) secretive teenagers.
I could check if the next book in the trilogy is available as an ebook too, I suppose.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman. (ebook)
Surprisingly good, with memorable (and memorably icky) details such as the young male protagonist who digs a worm-like thing out of his foot, a creature out of this world out to eat you, cats (yay cats), the full moon whenever, and the ocean in a duckpond that can be carried in a bucket. He meets a family of women who come from the so-called old country, though which one we don't really know. Themes of friendship, with some thrills. Except the protag apparently forgets all the magic he encountered, which was a bit sad; as though he weren't capable of keeping secrets. Also, it was rather uncontextualised. Usually when a fantasy story talks about the 'old country', one expects a few more details of the 'old country', whether it be Persian folktales, genies in lamps, Boewulvian adventures or (at a pinch) Arthurian quests. I didn't notice much in the way of that kind of context. Or maybe I didn't read it carefully enough. I guess the story itself doesn't suffer too much from the lack. The set-up of the adult man who returns to his hometown and remembers his childhood adventures doesn't work; falls flat really but luckily it doesn't detract from the story itself.
*
The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin (or Cixin Liu if you'd rather, translated by Ken Liu.
The only thing I got out of the nonsensical amount of teeth-gnashing re the Hugos (or wasn't it the Hugos?) was that this book came in for a great deal of praise and enthusiasm. Well, I hadn't read much Chinese science fiction (unless one counts Ni Kuang, but he's Hong Kong-ese...) before so I got it out of the library. This one's a dead tree book, not an ebook.
The translator did a nice job, I have to say, of portraying that China-based society and Chinese sensibility. (It might be interesting to read the Chinese original, and compare.)
What I appreciated about the plot was the suspenseful way it built up, from the protagonist Wang Miao's awareness of strange things happening out there to other scientists, to encountering weird (and scary) things himself - the part about seeing the universe 'blinking' is rather surreal - and then trying to suss out what exactly was going on. The process is a bit slow at times, but overall it worked. The use of a virtual reality online game played by thousands around the world is a rather nifty device, though one does wonder what the Great Chinese Firewall would have made of something like this. The novelty that I found striking was that the alien invasion hadn't yet taken place, yet humans were facing defeat. The protrayal of the aliens, the Trisolarians, especially near the end, was a bit farcical but perhaps that was needed to get across how much more advanced their civilisation was.
Overall, quite intriguing; the pace was steady, if a little glum, occasionally plodding. It's definitely not action-packed; felt passive in parts, to be honest. The weakest part was the semblance of international cooperation between the world powers in response to the alien threat, or maybe it was my cynicism rearing its head. But I can't really see US and British military personnel, NATO, CIA, etc, working in tandem, even if the Martians attack. The historical context worked. For example, the scenes of the Cultural Revolution at the beginning, with the description of the senselessness of violence in that period - for me, they were a giant do-not-want, but they turned out to be useful in understanding the motivation of the characters, so I was pleasantly surprised.
The truly irritating thing is that only the first book is available in English; it's the first of a trilogy. The second and third volumes are available only in Chinese (for now, in my area anyway); I'm not that keen to read it in Chinese because all the sciency, physics-ly, sf-ish terms I've ever learnt are in English. I don't really know what the Chinese terms are. Have put a hold for the second volume 黑暗森林 (The Dark Forest) anyway; we'll see if my poor lamented level of Chinese is up to it.
*
The Maze Runner, James Dashner. (ebook)
Yes, I couldn't stop seeing the movie trailer in my mind too. But the movie trailer was all I saw, so reading the book was a better experience.
In contrast to TBP, there was very little retrospection or rumination on consequences in this book. There was a lot of action that centered around Thomas, the narrator and protagonist and how he solves the mystery of the maze. The weird thing is that the monsters/nightmare creatures, the Grievers, that they encountered were simply so odd that their deadliness felt diminished somehow. I did like the... fellowship that sprang up between Thomas and the other characters, relieving what felt like a rather tiresome series of scenes where Thomas needs to find out what's going on from a bunch of surly and (turns out, for good reason) secretive teenagers.
I could check if the next book in the trilogy is available as an ebook too, I suppose.
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Date: 2015-05-07 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-07 04:15 pm (UTC)