Book Review: Kangazang! by Terry Cooper (Audiobook)
(I must first apologize for the lateness of this review. A series of personal disasters prevented me from writing this review.) Doctor Who fans will be happy to know that Terry Cooper’s Kangazang! is read by none other than Colin Baker — the Sixth Doctor. That alone made me excited to listen. And boy did I have a lot of fun! Kangazang! is a hilarious British scifi comedy with a wide range of amusing characters, hilarious jokes, and plenty of adventure. To put it bluntly: it would be a crime to ignore this book. Kangazang! follows Jeff Spooner, an everyday British man who is down on his luck. His life is dull, his girlfriend disrespectful, and his barber…an alien? That’s right. Jeff discovers one day that Ray Scump, his eccentric and not-so-great businessman / barber, is an alien. When Ray offers to take him on an interstellar journey, Jeff agrees, and the two of them set off on a grand adventure involving aliens, robots, evil galactic empires, and the fabled Universal Remote. I had a blast listening to Kangazang! While I knew from the start that my mind would make comparisons between Cooper’s tale and Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I intentionally set out to let myself have fun with it. And I wasn’t disappointed. Cooper’s humor is unmistakably British and, quite frankly, hilarious. I found myself chuckling out loud a number of times, an act that does not come to me easily when I am alone.* The situations and the jokes are sometimes too ridiculous to avoid laughing at. What’s not to love about the wimpy child of a deceased evil warlord being forced to take over and run a galactic empire, despite knowing nothing about running empires? The fact that he turns out to be too good at it makes for an amusing story. The characters, if the above is any indication, are perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the novel. Each of them is distinct, not simply because they have a different voice, but more accurately because they have distinct personalities, quirks and all. Jeff and Ray are as different from one another as any other two characters. This makes for a cast of characters who are as compelling as they are amusing. Even the villain of the story is given plenty of “air time,” the result of which, as mentioned, is a hilarious play on evil galactic warlords and their less-than-evil kin (there are, of course, many villains, some of whom drag up Ray’s less-than-reputable family history). The mishmash of characters are really what makes Kangazang! work, because the situational comedy that arises from their interactions is precisely what makes this book so amusing. If I have to criticize Kangazang! for anything, it is that certain parts of the novel are predictable or move too swiftly. One of the romantic plotlines, for example, develops too fast, in part because Cooper has a character “grow” suddenly in order to facilitate the romance. While that plotline turns out to be quite cute — in a mushy way — I do think more attention could have been paid to the development of the characters as they embarked on a romantic journey (or as they came close to embarking on that journey). The same is true of other aspects of the story. But it could be that Cooper has left a lot of things out in order to leave plenty to discover in future volumes. If so, I will certainly follow along. The last thing worth mentioning is Colin Baker and the production quality. Cooper’s tale is narrated using multiple voices, voice effects, sound effects, and more. It’s like listening to one of those old radio dramas with all the actors reading out their lines and banging things to make sounds. And it really works. The way Baker reads (the inflections, etc.) and the voices he creates improve the overall product ten fold. I can’t imagine reading Kangazang! It seems right to have Baker read it for me. It seems natural. That’s not to say that reading the book the old-fashioned way would make for a less enjoyable experience. Rather, I think the fact that I was first exposed to the book as an audiobook of such quality gave me an experience that a traditional book cannot reproduce. Despite the minor flaws, Kangazang! is a wonderful listening experience and well worth buying. If you’re a fan of British comedies — Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Spaced, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, etc. — then this is a book for you. Cooper has a knack for humor and I hope there will be more books in the future. If you’ve never heard of Kangazang!, then you need to check out the website and get a copy right away. For 7.99 (in British pounds), the audiobook is really a steal (or 5.99 for the paperback, which is also a steal). You can’t get them that cheap in the U.S. unless they’re on sale or old! All I’m hoping for right now is that Cooper and Baker team up again for some more scifi comedy gold. ————————————————— *(Liar Liar holds the record for hardest lonely laugh for me)
Book Review: Hexed by Kevin Hearne
Finally we have an urban fantasy author writing about something other than werewolves and vampires devoid of their mythological undercurrents. Kevin Hearne’s Hexed takes us back to the roots of all the mythological creatures which have dominated much of fantasy for hundreds of years, but with a welcome change of scenery. Hexed follows Atticus O’Sullivan, one of the last remaining Druids in a world in which all of our myths and religions are “true.” Gods roam the Earth, the Virgin Mary sometimes shows up to help the homeless, and witches wreak havoc. It’s that last group which has caused Atticus a lot of grief. He and a local coven of witches have crossed paths before, and people have died as a result — mostly the witches. But all that is over with now, because a new threat, the Bacchants, has shown up in Arizona to take the city of Tempe for themselves by crashing it deep into the worst of human selfishness and debauchery. And the best allies are sometimes you most recent enemies… I keep saying that I am not an urban fantasy fan, and then I read a really good urban fantasy book like Hexed and have to eat my words. Hearne’s novel is simply a great deal of fun, and it’s also quite refreshing. While many of the stock urban fantasy “creatures” are present here, the novel itself avoids doing the same old nonsense, perhaps because the main character is an Irish Druid instead of a tramp-stamped clone. Atticus as a character is not only “new” — in the sense that his character “type” hasn’t been seen very often — but also fascinating. Hearne writes him with a modest sense of self-confidence, which I found rather endearing. Here is a character who has an extraordinary amount of power, who occasionally gets a little cocky about it, but knows when he’s been outmatched (though he wouldn’t tell his enemies as much, seeing how that would be stupid). Since we’re in his head, however, we get to learn who Atticus is in a very intimate way, a feature that gives Hexed an extra edge. First person is hard to do, too, but Hearne manages it with flare. (One example of “flare” I can’t help bringing up, even if it’s not the best written of Hearne’s near-nerdfests, is when Atticus and Oberon, his canine companion, have a brief discussion pertaining to why a local road is suspiciously like Mos Eisley; if you don’t get the joke, then something is wrong with you.) One of the other interesting aspects of Hexed is how Hearne has taken most, if not all, of the major or memorable forms of religion and inserted them firmly into the real. While Atticus “worships” (though that’s the wrong word) the Celtic gods of his origin, others adhere to a strictly Abrahamic faith (Christianity primarily), while still others stick to their Native American or “dead religion” roots. I couldn’t help finding it endlessly amusing, especially when traditional figures of the various faiths make an appearance in Hearne’s book (such as the Virgin Mary, various Celtic gods, and plenty of mentions of the Norse varieties). Most interesting is what the book suggests about the various human myths: that co-existence is not that far from possible, so long as you accept that a world which takes the supernatural at face value would inevitably present the supernatural as strangely less-than-powerful than our ancestors seem to remember them. Hearne’s world is one in which gods can die, albeit with great difficulty. They all have weaknesses, and many of the gods, true to their mythological nature, play power games to off one another (just as humans do, which perhaps explains why so many of our various versions of mythological faith are about gods and creatures that are suspiciously human in personality). Placing Atticus in the middle of this, in the field of the mortals as opposed to the realms of the gods, lets us imagine (and see) what surviving in a world of vindictive and egotistical deities is really like — granted, with a heavy dose of humor and snark. The only things that presented problems for me as a reader were: a) the way Atticus sometimes presented information; and b) the distinct feeling that there was supposed to be a book prior to this that I hadn’t read yet. The former is a result of the first person narration, which occasionally falls prey to matter-of-fact telling in chapters. Atticus reminds us too often of details we need to know, without attempting to find other ways to convey the same information; these moments sometimes pulled me out of the story, but they also bothered me because they reflect the fundamental flaw of the first person narrator: namely, that presenting information in FP is uniquely challenging if one intends to avoid the pitfalls of telling. The latter is a problem that the publishers should have fixed from the start. Hounded, which precedes Hexed chronologically, should be read first, something which I could only find by comparing publication dates. Some of the events that happen in that book are at play, at least peripherally, in Hexed, and most of those events shape Atticus in ways which become important to later volumes. While jumping into the middle doesn’t detract from the strength of Hearne’s story, I would still avoid doing so in exchange for a better reading experience. But don’t take the previous two paragraphs as a reason for avoiding this book. Unless you dislike first person narration, Hexed‘s main character is a joy to read. Perhaps the only thing lacking for Atticus is character development (in terms of “growth” as opposed to “presentation”). But what I learned about him by the end of the book allowed me to see Hexed for what it is: a darkly humorous game of fiddling with the encyclopedia of myths that have and continue to dominate our modern world. Atticus comes through as a strong character with a fun personality; the
Book Review: Sword of Fire and Sea by Erin Hoffman
Erin Hoffman’s debut novel is a traditional high fantasy romp formed from the ashes of a collaborative project. It’s origins are a bit unusual in a field of secondary world fantasies created by individuals with Tolkien on the mind, and the effort to move beyond the collaboration shows in the development of the world’s magic system, mechanics and all. As a novel, Sword of Fire and Sea leaves something to be desired, but as a fantasy adventure, it hits all the right marks. Vidarian, a reputable ship captain, gets caught up in a complex web of magic-wielding priestesses when he reluctantly agrees to ferry fire priestess Ariadel to a safe haven. There, the priestesses hope, the Vkortha, their mortal enemies, will not be able to find Ariadel, whose abilities might threaten Vkorthan power. But the journey takes Vidarian and his crew through dangerous waters, where pirates and sorceresses await. Yet more shockingly, the journey reveals a destiny that Vidarian never knew he had, one which puts the fate of the world in his hands: in the end, he will have to choose between one future and another, digging through centuries of myth and legends to find the right “choice.” One the interesting things about Hoffman’s novel is its bipolar adherence to the traditional forms of fantasy. While at the heart of the narrative can be found a cliche “chosen one” story in the form of Vidarian, the narrative also takes away the security of knowing what is the “right choice” for the mythical figure. Vidarian not only must choose which future is the right one for his world, but he must also do so without knowing for sure which choice is the right one, all while fending off Imperial soldiers who want to prevent him from making any choice whatsoever and others who want him to choose one path or another. The novel never betrays its answers in this regard, which might help boost it above other high fantasy novels floating out there. But beyond that, Sword of Fire and Sea is essentially an adventure fantasy akin to the adventure novels of the romantic period. There isn’t anything wrong with this, but it is important to recognize. A great deal of the novel is occupied with action: ships in combat, the heroes fighting back enemies of various shapes and sizes, heavy uses of magic, searching for enormous mystical creatures and combating unknowns. Thankfully, the novel avoids the pitfalls of D&D dungeon crawlers. While the characters do have to “collect things” in order to succeed in their mission, Hoffman avoids making such collecting about fighting back nameless, faceless monsters in “secret places” (a.k.a. a dungeon or magical forest). The people involved in stopping Vidarian and Ariadel are the very people one wouldn’t expect to turn their backs, which adds some depth to a novel which doesn’t show itself as particularly “deep” (as most adventure novels don’t, even when “depth” does exist). In many respects, Hoffman’s balance between adventure, manipulated cliche, and character make for a compelling novel that is a lot of fun to read. Personally, I am not an adventure fantasy fan, and I have a very short leash for the trappings of the fantasy genre. But Sword of Fire and Sea navigated those trappings in a way that allowed me to get lost in the excitement. If not for all of the characters being adults, you might expect this story to show up on your young adult shelves, enticing teenagers (and the adults like me who sometimes pretend to be teenagers) with its magic and wonder. There’s something to be said about the way we read YA fantasy, as opposed to fantasy marketed for an adult audience (in which teenagers undoubtedly implant themselves, because they like Tolkien and GRRM too). But that’s something to think about later. The adventurous nature of Sword of Fire and Sea, however, is also where a some of Hoffman’s flaws can be found. While enjoyable, the novel often moves too swiftly, jumping through significant moments of conflict to get the characters to the next “level.” The result is a lack of tension for many important aspects of the novel. Yes, Vidarian often must fight against unusual things, sometimes at overwhelming odds, but his success in these ventures sometimes feels too easy; he rarely sheds blood, or Hoffman allows her characters to escape. One examples involves the fire priestesses, in which Vidarian and his companions learn and ugly truth and are trapped by the Vkortha. Without much in the way of physical conflict, they manage to escape, taking flight in a gryphon-pulled basket that conveniently lay in wait. There are other instances like this; each of them detracts from the worry we should have as readers that something might actually happen to Vidarian or his friends. Of course, things do happen to them, but I would have liked some of the physical conflicts to take part in those “happenings.” Largely speaking, the physical conflicts in Sword of Fire and Sea serve to maintain the adventure narrative. One other aspect of the novel which is given weak treatment is the growing romance between Vidarian and Ariadel. Their relationship develops far too swiftly, the result of which is a strain on our ability to suspend disbelief. Hoffman skips a lot of time early in the novel in order to avoid pages and pages of people walking on the deck of a ship, but more scenes between Vidarian and Ariadel might have helped show how they went from mere acquaintances to close friends to lovers. Without such scenes, the romance comes out of nowhere and Vidarian’s motives for much of the last half of the book lack the power needed to justify his actions. Despite this, however, the book is a load of fun, and it does leave a lot of interesting questions to be answered in future volumes. Unlike some traditional fantasy narratives, Vidarian’s stint as a “chosen one” ends in the first book, hinting that what will occupy
Book Review: “Gates (Variations)” by Larry Niven (from Gateways)
I’m sensing a pattern in Gateways. One really good story, followed by a bad one, followed by a good one, and so on and so forth. Larry Niven’s “Gates” is one of those bad ones. Split between two perspectives — a science fiction writer talking about the singularity/Bill Gates and Bill Gates making the decision to create a virtual world in which he is filthy rich — “Gates” lacks anything resembling plot or character development. In fact, beyond presenting a gimmick, I’m not sure if the story has a point. Is it a story that wants us to buy its premise that the world we live in is a virtual world a la Second Life in which all but Bill Gates and his friends are intelligent programs? If so, Niven has failed to provide a coherent “world” within which we can come to that conclusion. Or is the singularity / Bill Gates section a fictionalized account of the tech icon’s rise to “power” written by the science fiction writer of that previous section? That might be interesting, but beyond the fact that the science fiction writer talks about Bill Gates (from which the title obviously comes), the connection is loose. Then again, perhaps we’re supposed to think of this story as a couple of alternate histories about old Bill. But each “vision” lacks depth. The characters are cardboard cutouts — people we’ve seen before. The stories themselves, if you could call them that (vignettes might be a more appropriate term), go nowhere; we never see the worlds these different characters are talking about, or learn anything about the characters to give us a sense of who they are and what they’ve done to get here. Maybe that’s the point, but there are writers who have approached similar themes more effectively. This story, however, is one I would recommend skipping. ——————————————————————- The above is the continuation of my story-by-story review of Gateways edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull. Below are the reviews of other stories in the collection (which will be updated as reviews become available): “Shoresteading” by David Brin “Von Neuman’s Bug” by Phyllis and Alex Eisenstein “Sleeping Dogs” by Joe Haldeman “Gates (Variations)” by Larry Niven
Book Review: “Sleeping Dogs” by Joe Haldeman (from Gateways)
Haldeman’s addition to Gateways is, thus far, one of the best stories in the lot (granted, by this point, I’ve only read three). “Sleeping Dogs” is another military-related science fiction story set some time after an interstellar war. Flann Spivey is an ex-soldier-turned-futuristic-psychiatrist whose job is to aid people who have essentially become immortal on their journey towards ending life. In particular, he serves other ex-military by helping them recover lost memories — memories, we learn, that were taken away from them at the end of the war. Spivey, however, has also lost memories, and has decided to return to a mining world on which he believes he once fought in order to recover them. I don’t want to say anything else about the story, because, in true Haldeman fashion, nothing is as it seems when it comes to the military. I have long since been a fan of The Forever War, having just taught it in my first college-level literature course, but “Sleeping Dogs” makes clear that Haldeman has a heck of a lot more to say about the military, soldiers, and militarized society — even in his ripe old age. In many ways, I see “Sleeping Dogs” as a mixture of The Forever War and an allegory of U.S. involvement in Central and South America. The Latin flavor to the story and the culture within it attest to this fact. But the most compelling part of the story is Haldeman’s continued reflection on humanity’s pension for warfare and its consequences. “Sleeping Dogs,” provides an afterwards-view of the soldier: Who do they become when the war is over? What do they do with themselves? And what do they do about what was taken from them? The memory loss, consequentially, serves both as a disturbing “evil” that allows us to sympathize with Flann, but it is also a small mercy. Soldiers today go to war and come back with the incomplete scars of things they remember in full, half remember, or have thrust upon them in flashbacks (PTSD). But Haldeman’s vision is both more sinister and reasonable: soldiers return with their scars, but without the memories to go along with them; instead, the best they can hope to find without deep medicated psychotherapy are their military records, which, we are led to assume, are intentionally made inaccurate. The mercy is made readily apparent: only those who have grown tired of exceedingly prolonged life (hundreds of years) might want to know what they really did all those centuries ago in those long-forgotten wars. All this is packed into a single short story, which I found thrilling precisely because it made me think and ask questions. The only thing that bothered me about “Sleeping Dogs” was the fact that Flann Spivey and the world/universe in which he lives are begging for a novel length treatment. Perhaps we will never see that novel, in part because it would be unfairly compared to The Forever War, but after reading “Sleeping Dogs,” I couldn’t help wanting to know more. I wanted to learn about what happened to Spivey after his discovery and the other folks who suffered similar fates. And when we get right down to it, maybe my desire for more is really a good thing after all. “Sleeping Dogs” is one of the best short stories I’ve read in a while. If you don’t have it, get Gateways and read it. It’s good stuff. Real good stuff. ——————————————————————- The above is the continuation of my story-by-story review of Gateways edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull. Below are the reviews of other stories in the collection (which will be updated as reviews become available): “Shoresteading” by David Brin “Von Neuman’s Bug” by Phyllis and Alex Eisenstein “Sleeping Dogs” by Joe Haldeman “Gates (Variations)” by Larry Niven
Book Review: “Von Neumann’s Bug” by Phyllis and Alex Eisenstein (from Gateways)
“Von Neumann’s Bug” (VNB) is occupied with a trope familiar to science fiction fans: the self-replicating machine. In this case, the machine is an alien search drone named Bert who terrorizes a small, middle-class family in an attempt to rebuild itself and escape Earth’s gravity to resume its mission. And it does so by inconspicuously tearing apart a man’s most prized possession: his car. In all honesty, I didn’t much care for VNB. As a humorous take on the Von Neumann concept, it lacked a certain kick that Brin’s preceding story, “Shoresteading,” brought to the anthology. The problem, I think, stems from the fact that the story offers no surprises. Everything the main character doesn’t know are things we do know because we are also presented with Bert’s perspective (and a third character — a military super computer). Even the attempts to paint the main character as mad fall short since nothing of note happens to him; in the end, Bert gets the materials he needs and escapes Earth, leaving the human character to pretend like nothing ever happened. VNB is the kind of story that might have done just fine 80 years ago when the idea was fresh and new, but as a new story (first published in Gateways), it’s little more than a repetition. And that’s really what kills any short story for me: if you’re dealing with a familiar concept, then you have to give me something else to latch onto. Because I have already seen the Von Neumann idea used a dozen times before, I was hoping for character development from the human character. But I never got that. Instead, the story ends with a few minor changes (the neighbors don’t talk to him anymore and he has to fix his car), but overall nothing new. That pretty sums up how I feel about this particular story. Thankfully, the Haldeman short that follows is much better. But you’ll have to wait for a review for that until later. ——————————————————————- The above is the continuation of my story-by-story review of Gateways edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull. Below are the reviews of other stories in the collection (which will be updated as reviews become available): “Shoresteading” by David Brin “Von Neuman’s Bug” by Phyllis and Alex Eisenstein “Sleeping Dogs” by Joe Haldeman “Gates (Variations)” by Larry Niven