Playing Catch-Up

So, blogging time seems to be rather difficult to come by even when I'm not caught up in a whirlwind of school- and work-related chaos. I've been offline for about a month now, actually, just trying to catch up with myself and my household to-do list. Well, today I'm house (and dog) sitting for some friends, and I'm taking the opportunity to post a little something here, just to prove that I'm still around and in the game.

Shamefully, though I was so excited about the Outer Alliance's formation back in September, I haven't really been active on the site at all. However, every time I manage to drop by they have something cool posted. Every Friday sees another GLBT writer spotlighted on the site, and I'm not on nearly often enough to keep up. How do they find these people? I suppose the internet really has made the world a smaller place (though sometimes I get the feeling that everybody interesting lives on one of the coasts or another country all together. The pickings seem a bit slim in this region...)

I recently finished Richard K. Morgan's fantasy novel The Steel Remains, and I hope to pick up one of his earlier SF books before too long. The Steel Remains is an excellent, violent, bloody, and actually pretty funny book featuring a gay warrior who makes no apology for his queerness. It's a welcome change from the flouncy fag best friend/sidekick who dies halfway through the story. I like seeing a gay guy beat the crap out of somebody else for once. The book is by no means perfect, but if you're in the mood for a fun, rough-and-tumble fantasy that maybe happens to include one or two very interesting sex scenes (very well done, coming from a straight man!) then The Steel Remains is definitely for you.

I'm in the midst of reading Adam Robert's Science Fiction and China Mieville's The Scar. The Adam Roberts title comes from a series of literary criticism works, the New Critical Idiom. From what I've heard and from my experience with the series, it's a pretty magnificent collection and well worth the effort of tracking the individual books down. I'd like to get my hands on a few other volumes, such as Magic(al) Realism, Myth, Gothic, Postmodern, and possibly Genre, just because. All of them would be cool to have though, since there's such a high quality of scholarship that goes into each volume. Roberts' book covers the basic history of science fiction and takes a stab at defining the genre, which is something I think has been turning up more and more lately on blogs with much higher traffic than this one can expect (such as Hal Duncan's column on BSCReview). Also, Roberts looks at the role of women and race in SF (using Star Trek and Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness as case studies, so what's not to like?) and also examines the use of technology. I haven't read this last segment yet, and I was honestly a little surprised to see it included, though upon further thought it seems obvious. After all, what would science fiction be without science? My surprise is based mostly on the fact that I simply take science for granted and accept it in whatever role it is presented in, though one of my biggest gripes with the latest Star Trek movie is its misuse of (disregard for) science. But more about that later- it'll be a whole other blog post. I'll probably write more about Roberts' book when I finish it. So far it's been an education and a joy to read, and it's only made me want to read his novel Salt even more than I already did.

Mieville's book The Scar has also been an intriguing adventure. I love his city made of ships- but then his settings always astound me. This book maybe isn't as good as The City and the City but so far it's a worthy follow-up to Perdido Street Station. I'll be reading his YA novel Un Lun Dun before too much longer, and I'll also pick up the leather bound copy of King Rat from the bookstore I work at. It is...very pretty. This guy pretty much rocks everything he tries his hand at.

I'll compile my best-of-2009 list before too long. I may extend it to include more categories than I did last year- perhaps a separate YA category, maybe a non-fiction thing. I already pretty much know what's going to be on the list, I just have to make a few last decisions.

Cory Doctorow, New Arrivals

This entry was originally going to be my paper on Rousseau and Matthew G. Lewis' The Monk, but Blogger freaks out every time I try to transfer the text from my Word document. Maybe I'll upload it somewhere and post the link instead...I had the same problem with a post on mythology I went through the trouble of typing, only to find out I couldn't put it up here. Grr.

So instead of posting my paper, which probably no one wants to see anyway, I decided that today's entry would be a review of Cory Doctorow's YA novel Little Brother. This book was up for this year's Hugo Award, and deservedly so, I think. As you can probably tell by the title, Little Brother pulls heavily (and quite beautifully) on George Orwell's 1984, and would probably be an awesome follow-up to any teen reading Orwell's masterpiece.

I've been on a major kick with this whole "classics-updated-for-the-new-age-of-politics" thing (just ask me how I feel about the incredible Gundam Wing revamp that is Gundam 00) and Little Brother does not disappoint on that front. I just wish Doctorow had written this novel a few years earlier, while I was still in high school and growing up in the shadow of 9/11 inspired domestic fear-mongering legislation like the Patriot Act. I can just imagine the uproar his book would have caused in my little reading circle! I've already been advocating it to several of my friends, many of whom went to high school with me.

Honestly, at first I was a little put off by Doctorow's use of 'hip slang', which occasionally...wasn't that hip. I got a good snicker or two (at at least one moment of "WTF, srsly?") but after a few chapters I didn't even realize I was listening to a 17 year old techie geek speak. All I was aware of was how rocking awesome the book had become once it started really taking off. Doctorow's knowledge and use of technology is both frightening and seriously cool, and kind of makes me want to pick up a computer programming book or two so I can learn how to actually do some of the bad-ass tricks Marcus pulls off in the novel. Also, he managed to piss me off all over again about the U.S. running rough-shod over MY personal rights and privacy. Ooh, I felt 16 and angry again!

The plot summary on Amazon covers everything else you probably want to know. I simply felt the need to share my exciting discovery with the world! If you see a copy of this book, at least pick it up and look it over. It may be one of the best books you read this year.

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In addition to Last Drink Bird Head, I have a copy of Richard K. Morgan's fantasy The Steel Remains on its way to my doorstep. It's shipping all the way from London though (isn't it sad when directly importing something is cheaper that buying it used from a middle man?) so it may be a few weeks before it arrives.

Next review- possibly Max Brooks' World War Z? Seriously, it totally rocks. Or perhaps Greg Pak's and Carmine Di Giandomenico's X-Men: Magneto Testament. Guys, when a graphic novel is good, it's really, really good, and Magneto Testament is AWESOME.