Book Reviews

Servant of the Empire: With the thick book and the small font, you really get your money's worth. I've raved about this series before, and I've little to complain about - this series is so good I bought it. I think it's the best of the Midkemia/Tsuranuanni series.

Pavane:

This book by Keith Roberts was published in the "Del Rey Impact" series, which was created to spotlight important/influential/well-written books that changed the landscape of the literary world, but somehow escaped notice. From my experience of this book, perhaps it's better that the book escaped notice, and remained buried in a rubbish heap. I'd bought this book at a book fair at Scotts after a tip off from He Who Must Not Be Named on gamebooks - and indeed, I got #5 of Virtual Reality - Heart of Ice, there. I was intrigued by the blurb on the back of this work of alternate history, where Elizabeth I'd been assassinated in 1588, and in the 20th Century, Mother Church reigned supreme, and technology was restrained by her. The title is perhaps a reference to "Pavane pour une infante defunte" (and I still don't know the difference and relationship between Faure and Ravel's Pavanes).

Terrible book.

Let's read a review. And now let me savage it.

"This remains a remarkable novel, beautifully written and unexpected in its working out. The characters come fully to life. The hints of mysterious elements working in the background add a special resonance to the book. The book asks interesting questions about the working out of history -- and if it suggests answers that a reader might not agree with, it does not compel agreement, but rather it compels thinking. It has been rightly regarded as a classic of our field from its first publication, and these new editions provide a fine occasion either to discover it for the first time, or to reread it once again."

"The story often relies on image s like this to carry it, the events are not always clear... Many readers like this nebulous narrative style: PAVANE has been called "Moody, eloquent, elegaic", and an F & SF reviewer said "the novel has that lyrical meaning that is so easy to feel and so hard to explain"."

Each chapter of this book is but loosely connected, and the disparate threads do not link up very well, and do not sum up to give a coherent impact or conclusion. The book makes no sense, utterly, and even when I struggled to find out what was going on, I came out clueless and got a big headache. The book's self-indulgent rambling, indistinct plot and meta-physical leanings, with little consideration for the reader, makes it a torture to read. Perhaps the mysterious elements were too mysterious for the likes of me.

I suppose if I could bring myself to read it again, which I'd do after hitting myself with a big stick and sniffing freshly ground black pepper, I might understand it a bit more, but I just want to hide this book somewhere and never see it again. After reading a review or too, it makes more sense, but I'm still perturbed.

Alexander - Child of a Dream:

This work of historical fiction (as opposed to alternate history, ahem ahem) by Valerio Massimo Manfredi has been recommended by a few of a more erudite nature, and I finally got down to reading it a few months after my sister bought it for me from W H Smith Great World City. The author is a historian turned author, and it shows. The book is not overly flamboyant, but instead has clear (ahem), vivid and complete imagery. Few liberties are taken with history, unlike the Evil that was Gladiator (2nd Century Roman Cavalry having stirrups was the least of the historical blemishes in that movie. I will not even cry out to the heavens about that hogwash involving letting the Senate take back control of Rome). Perhaps the only gripe I have with this book is the translation - one wonders why, to convey the idea of making love, the translator, Iain Halliday, chose to use the word "fuck". Perhaps that is a word understandable to a modern readership, but I don't think it a suitable word to use in a historical novel detailing events taking place in the 4th Centruy BC (I refuse to use that Politically Correct "Before Common Era (BCE)" nonsense).

Aside: On fantasy books, I recently vented some gripes about David Eddings. Being lazy to transcribe them for the entry, I'll just post the full comments:

EDDINGS SUCKS
ALL HIS BOOKS ARE THE SAME
AND HE SOUNDS LIKE A SELF INDULGENT iDiOt (emphasis added) IN THE RIVAN CODEX

I PICKED UP THE REDEMPTION OF ALTHALUS AND IT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME AS HIS OTHER BOOKS

DIE DIE DIE

To think I bought many of his books

Raymond E Feist is nice. Except with Nakor he became too self-abosrbed and self-indulgent

the Empire series rules!

David Eddings is the soul of cliched novels. Hell, in his "formula for writing fantasy books", he even LISTS THE ELEMENTS ALL FANTASY BOOKS. AHEM. "Should" have.

Still on books: I think Fabio is out of a job. It hasn't been the fashion for him to pose with some long haired girl on trashy smut novel covers for some time already - now the trend is just to place innocent-looking objects on the cover, or alternatively just print the author's name in bold print - DANIELLE STEEL is much less ambiguous than seeing Fabio groping someone.

I still remember the time Life! had a feature on Romance Novels, where I first found out more about Fabio and stopped knowing him as "that guy on romance novel covers", and I took the 2 page pullout to school to terrify my female classmates with. My grand plot of taking a lurid romance novel with an explicitly illustrated cover to the RJ canteen, sitting down and then shrieking hysterically as I read it never came to pass, unfortunately. Maybe I shall get beaten up by Hokkien Pengs as I attempt to carry out this death defying stunt... in my cookhouse!