Making Money bt Terry Pratchett

This is book #5 in the Hugo project, though I would have read it anyway.

Making Money is the latest volume of Pratchett's Discworld novels. It is set on a flat world which rests on the backs of four elephants, who stand on the back of the giant turtle A'Tuin as it flies through space. The series began as a parody of other fantasy novels, but has settled into solid, thoughtful stories about people, both good and bad.

In Making Money, we rejoin Moist von Lipwig, the main character of Going Postal. The Post Office is now running smoothly, his ferocious fiance Adora Belle Dearheart is out of town, and Moist is getting bored and restless. Lord Vetinari, the ruler of the city, decides that Moist needs a new challenge, and puts him in charge of the Royal Bank and Mint of Ankh Morpork.

We meet several common Pratchett characters, including a villain teetering on the edge of insanity, a cold-blooded killer with an incongruous name, eccentric wizards, an Igor, and two geniuses who don't relate very well to humanity. While I enjoyed the novel, these characters are all getting awfully familiar. We've seen them all before.

One of my favorite characters is Mr. Bent, the head cashier at the bank. He's a serious man who takes numbers very, very seriously. Here is one of the first things we see of Mr. Bent. and the scene where I first warmed to him:

"Mr. Bent strode across the floor until he was under the big, solemn clock. He glared at it as if it had mortally offended him, and snapped his fingers, but a junior clerk was already hurrying across the floor with a small stepladder. Mr. Bent mounted the steps, opened the clock, and moved the second hand forward by two seconds. The clock was slammed shut, the steps dismounted, and the accountant returned to Moist, adjusting his cuffs.

"He looked Moist up and down. 'It loses almost a minute a week. Am I the only person who finds this offensive? It would appear so, alas. Let's start with the gold, shall we?'"

I think that this is supposed to be an indication of how eccentric Mr. Bent is, but it seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that I am also an accountant. Numbers need to be *right*. Other people may think that approximations are okay, but in accounting the numbers have to be right. And if I'd noticed that the clock was losing time, I would adjust it, too. Perfectly reasonable.

The bank, of course, is going through some hard times, and Moist spends a lot of time running around and shouting. I enjoyed the book, but would place it in the second tier of Pratchetts: it was a fun read, but not one of my favorites.

The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun

Lilian Jackson Braun writes silly mysteries about Jim Qwilleran, a retired newspaper reporter who inherited billions and moved to a small town in northern Michigan, and his crime-solving cat, Koko. She wrote three of them in the 1960s, and then resumed writing them in the 1980s. They've been quite popular, and there are now 29 of them, I think. I think I've now read all but the most recent, but it's hard to be sure because they're all a lot alike.

I used to like these, back when Qwill lived in Detroit and worked as a reporter. I thought the series went downhill when he unexpectedly became a billionaire, and each volume grows more and more ridiculous. At one time, they were actually mystery novels. They have since evolved into a detailed account of Qwill's social activities, and occasionally someone dies in the background.

Qwill lives in the town of Pickax. He doesn't care for money, so he put his inherited billions in a trust, called the K Fund, and enjoys spreading the money around. He also writes a twice-weekly column for the local newspaper, which I believe the K Fund owns. He's a local celebrity, and everyone admires his moustache and stares in amazement when he rides his bicycle.

Pickax, you see, is a special town. There is apparently something in the water which makes everyone an enthusiastic organizer of community events with absolutely no critical thinking skills. Qwilleran, himself, has been infected with the affliction, which causes him to react with enthusiam to absolutely every stupid suggestion anyone makes.

Polly: Let's go to a restaurant dressed in plaid and tell them we're celebrating an obscure Scottish holiday.
Qwill: Sounds like fun.

Friend: We've decided to use peonies for the theme of the sesquicentennial parade. As you know, peonies have a long and distinguished history. You can write an article all about it for the paper, and get your information from the local Peony Society.
Qwill: Sure. Love to.

Hixie: Qwill, you can reprise that one-man show you did a few years ago that everyone in town has already seen. It'll be great.
Qwill: Okay.
Hixie: You'll do thirteen matinee performances at the Opera House, which is mysteriously available without me bothering to check the schedule. Everyone will love it!
Qwill: Good idea. Sounds fun.

Wetherby: Qwill, I'm having a pizza party in honor of a young lady I'm interested in, and we need entertainment. Can you come recite some limericks?
Qwill: I'll be there.

Old lady: Qwill, we're auctioning off kittens as a fundraiser for the animal shelter. We've decided that it will be so much better if we name all the kittens after famous people, but since all of our brains were eaten during the zombie infestation last year, none of us are capable of thinking of any names. Can you do it for us?
Qwill: I'd love to, and of course the K Fund will match any contributions people make.

I kept expecting a conversation like this:
Hixie: We've decided to recreate the Great Fire. The plan is to burn down the entire downtown. We'll get school children involved, and it should really bring in the tourists. It'll be fun!
Qwill: Good idea. And the K Fund will pay for the reconstruction.

What is wrong with these people? They keep coming up with hairbrained schemes, and of course the whole town jumps in with enthusiasm and it's all a great success. Pickax in no way resembles any small town that actually exists. It's like some kind of fantasy of a city-dweller who's never examined small town life a close range.

This may sound odd, but I thought this was a very immoral book. You see, partway through, a character suspects that someone is being poisoned, and she writes a letter to Qwill explaining her suspicions. She tells him who did it, and how, and why. Qwill repeatedly sets aside the letter and never gets around to reading it...until after the poor victims have died. Then he opens it, and sends the police after the bad guy. But if he had read the letter when he received it, and acted on it, the victims probably would have survived. And Qwill doesn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt or responsibility. If it were me, I would have been beside myself with remorse. But not Qwill. He appears to have not even considered that he might have saved the folks. But, hey, he wrote a nice article about them after they'd died, so that's okay, right?

No. It isn't. Not to me.

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman

Book #4 in the Hugo project. The protagonist is a total, unlikeable loser, and it felt like we were just going through the motions to set up the story. Started skimming at page 30, gave up on page 45.

Keeping it Real by Justina Robson

This book #3 in my attempt to get caught up on the interesting works published in the US in 2007.

Keeping it Real is set on an alternative Earth where something went very wrong, and opened up rifts that connect to other planes of existence where magical races live. The human world is known as Otopia; the elementals live on Zoomenon; the elves live in Alfheim; demons live in Demonia; Thanatopia is the land of the dead; and the fairies live in Faery. Relations between these different races are sometimes strained, especially with the xenophobic elves.

Our protagonist is Lila Black, special agent. She was a human agent sent to Alfheim, and was sent home in pieces. She was pieced back together into a cyborg super-agent, and she is still a wreck, physically and mentally. Now her agency has assigned her to act as a bodyguard for an elf who has become a rock singer in the human world. I have to wonder why they would do so, as she was patently not up to the job. This is the first of a series, however, so I suppose that more will be revealed in later volumes. The people who have been threatening her elvish ward are very, very dangerous, and she is forced to go back into Alfheim to try to save his life.

This book reads a bit like a mish-mash of War for the Oaks, A Kiss of Shadows, and Tam Lin, with cybernetics thrown in. And somewhat kinky elf sex, which doesn't particularly turn me on. (Mild spoiler alert: I loathe the idea that severe mental and emotional trauma that persists through years of therapy can be fixed through good sex with a hot elf. Yech.) The text flows quickly, and I gulped it down in a day. I'm not sure I'll bother to read the following volumes, though. This is much better stuff than most of the (insert supernatural creature here)-shagging novels I've read, but I just don't care for that subgenre.

Brass Man by Neal Asher

This is the second book in my effort to read the interesting newer books so that I can knowledgeably nominate works for the Hugos next year. I bought this book last winter, but didn't get around to reading it until now.

Those who follow my blog are aware that I am an Asher fan, so of course there was an excellent chance of me liking this book, and I did. It concerns the further adventures of Ian Cormac and Mr. Crane, characters who appeared in Asher's novel Gridlinked.

The novel is set in The Polity, a vast space empire run by giant AIs. It reminds me a bit of Iain Banks's Culture, except that The Polity isn't a utopia. The AIs are vast, knowledgeable, and mysterious, but not quite omnipotent. Unlike the Culture, there is crime; and life, though longer and safer than here on earth in the present, can still be very dangerous in The Polity. The androids (here called golems) are obviously physically and mentally superior to humans, and the big AIs that run starships or planets are vast and inscrutable to humanity. As a result, many humans opt for modifications, such as augmentation that increases their mental abilities and allows direct communication with the AIs, simply to try to keep up. The relationship between AIs and humans is explored a bit more in this book, which I found interesting.

I had a little trouble getting into the book, though, because I was obviously missing some backstory. Gridlinked is the first book in this series, and Brass Man is the third. The second book, Line of Polity, hasn't been released in the US, and Brass Man seems to build on that book. Unfortunately, I haven't read it, and so I was a bit at sea at first. Additionally, I read Gridlinked in 2003, and my memory of the details are a bit hazy.

The two main characters of Brass Man are Ian Cormac and Mr. Crane. Cormac is human, a super-agent for the Polity. He's a tough bastard, but really isn't terribly likeable. Mr. Crane, the Brass Man referred to in the title, is a homicidally insane golem. Oddly enough, Mr. Crane is a much more sympathetic character than Cormac, and by the end I was rooting for him.

As well as Cormac and Crane, the book has space battles, acid-spitting monsters, and a knight on a quest, as well as lots of gross parasitic critters. I probably won't nominate this one for a Hugo because it doesn't work very well as a stand-alone, but it was a lot of fun.

Another One Gone

Robert Jordan, author of the best-selling Wheel of Time series, died yesterday. He had been diagnosed about a year and a half ago with amyloidosis and cardiomyopathy. We all knew that his days were numbered, but I had hoped he would survive longer than this.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I am going to be attending Worldcon next year, which means that I am able to submit a Hugo nominating ballot. I really haven't been keeping up with the current works in the genre, so I've set myself the task of getting caught up on some of the more promising-looking books that have come out in 2007, so that I can nominate knowledgeably. The first book I picked up was Heart-Shaped Box, because it was the only one on the list I compiled that was available at my local library (it's not the only one they have in their collection, merely the only one on my list that wasn't already checked out).

This book got a lot of good buzz when it came out last winter. I'd heard it was an absorbing, well-written page-turner. It also doesn't hurt that the author is Stephen King's son. I won't bother to finish it.

In short, it's horror. Well-written, but very much not my thing. I'm not sure why it was getting attention in the sorts of places I hang out online, as it definitely isn't science fiction. Unless, of course, it turns out that the vengeful ghost is an alien, but I doubt it, and have no intention of finishing it to find out. I could probably do a fast skim and polish it off pretty quickly, but life's too short to waste reading books that don't turn me on.

Sweater Frustration

I've been working on a sweater off and on since last winter. I finally (almost) finished it, and after stitching it all together and blocking it into a wearable shape, I wore it today. It doesn't fit.



As you can see, it's trying to slide off my shoulders. I keep pulling it back up, and it keeps sliding down. This is because it's way, way too big across the neck and shoulders. The shoulder seams are hanging down over my shoulders, and that makes the sleeves too long, and the whole thing makes me really irritated.

I've been pondering what I can do to make this work, and have decided that there's no good way to fix it short of taking the whole damn thing apart again and ripping back and re-doing the back of the sweater. This does not make me a happy lady, but after spending all this time on it, I don't want to end up with a sweater that doesn't fit right and makes me mad every time I try to wear it. It needs to be right, and to make it right I'm going to have to do something time-consuming, tedious, and annoying. So be it.

Bother.

Socks #3

I finally finished my third pair of socks. I've lost the label, so I don't remember what kind of yarn this is, but I like it. I was looking for work-appropriate colors, and came up with this. Now, if I could just find some nice black yarn--but first I have some orange and some green to use. The pattern is from More Sensational Knitted Socks.

The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks

The State of the Art is a collection of that Banks wrote in the 1980s. It was originally published in 1991, and has been recently reprinted by Night Shade Books. I was quite excited when I saw they were printing it, because this volume has been hard to find until now. In fact, I preordered it from the publisher, not realizing it hadn't been printed yet, and then complained to them when it didn't arrive pretty quickly. Oops. I was excited about it, and couldn't wait for it to arrive.

As often happens, though, it got set aside to read later. I've been reading it a bit every day on my lunch breaks, which works okay with story collections. The volume contains six short stories, a novella, and a chapter of gobbledygook that exemplifies Banks at his gibberish-writing worst. The collection finishes with an essay about The Culture. I really bought the book for the title novella, "The State of the Art," which features an encounter between The Culture and Earth. I will get to that a little further on.

To be fair, I will lay out my biases up front: I am not much of a fan of short stories. I vastly prefer novels over story collections or anthologies. I like Banks's work, but not all of it. His work is sometimes brilliant and absorbing and incredibly cool, but he has also written several books that I couldn't stomach and gave up on (Most recently Feersum Endjinn, which I abandoned for the third and final time).

That said, I mostly enjoyed The State of the Art. The stories and interesting and kept my interest from day to day as I was reading them in little snatches. I particularly liked "Descendant," which is a rather interesting story about the relationship between a person and an AI. And then there is the title story, "The State of the Art." Several of Banks's novels feature a vast space civilization known as The Culture. They have relationships with many other space-faring nations, and observe and contact others who may not yet be space-faring. It is a sort of socialist utopia, run by giant AIs who mostly act to everyone's benefit. The people of the Culture have a life of ease and comfort, whiling away the time with hobbies and parties. It might perhaps be assumed to be set some time in the future, but in "The State of the Art" it turns out that they exist now, elsewhere in space, and that we of Earth are not part of the Culture.

In the novella, a Culture exploration ship is observing Earth and send agents down to observe and experience life on this planet while they consider whether to contact us or leave us alone. The members of the crew have great fun with popular culture, especially science fiction. They think Star Trek is a hoot. It was a sort of entertaining story, but I was able to predict the ending. It was also marred by a John Galt-like 7-page rant about how awful Earth is. It was too long and quite tedious, which was probably exacerbated by the fact it was narrated by a character I dislike. (Sma, who also appeared in Use of Weapons.)

What struck me the most about the collection was how very much it *felt* like a collection of the eighties. It has been said that science fiction is not about the future, it is about current times. And the mood of the collection reminded me of that time: the cold war, fear of nuclear annihilation, pissing and moaning about how awful everything is. One story, in particular, is specifically about an event that happened in the 80s; others merely carry the flavor of the times, and in a rather dreary way. I wonder how it would read to a young person who doesn't really remember those times.

Overall, I'm glad I read the collection. However, I think it is only necessary for completists.

Renaissance 2007 take 2

I had so much fun at the MN Renaissance Festival the first time that I decided to go again on Labor Day. I recruited a friend and spent a very hot and sweaty day out among the crazy people. I always go in costume, because I think it's more fun and you're less likely to be pulled up on stage and humiliated, which is a big bonus. However, it's been years since I wore my old Rennie costumes, and most of them don't fit that well anymore because I've lost some weight. I wore an old bodice that used to fit well, but now it's a bit too big, and it was sort of frumpy and annoying--my bosom was headed far, far south instead of being supported, as it used to be when I filled the bodice out more completely. Nevertheless, I'm not sorry that the clothes are too big, I just resolved that I need to make some alterations before next year.

This time I got to see a couple more of the shows. I've always liked the Dew Drop Jugglers, even though their show remained unchanged for years. They just make me smile. One of them, Jeff, retired this year, and was replaced by a fellow named Reynaldo. The show is completely different now, and I really enjoyed it. In fact, I laughed until my face hurt. That doesn't happen very often.

The Tortuga Twins, on the other hand, just annoyed me. I've seen their show a few times, but it's been years. I've never much enjoyed shows that humiliate members of the audience, and I'm growing less and less tolerant of it as I get older.

Breakfast was half a popover, slightly burnt. Lunch was a crepe filled with turkey, bacon, tomato, and cheese. The food was good, but the wait was really annoying. I topped that off with gelato (mmmm, mango gelato). I drank plenty of fluids, and still came home exhausted and a bit sick from the heat. I had a good time, though.

Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger

Storm of Steel is the memoir of a young lieutenant in the German army in World War I. He begins early in the war at age 19, and continues until he is gravely wounded in 1918 and is awarded the pour le Merite. Junger kept a diary during his time in the army, and first published the work in 1920. He polished it a few times over the years, and the version I read was apparently he last revision, which came out in the 1960s (Junger lived until 1998).

Storm of Steel is a remarkably unsentimental account of the war. Junger's friends drop dead all around him, and he is wounded multiple times, but the only time he gets very emotional is when he visits his gravely wounded brother in a field hospital. I don't think that Junger was actually unemotional, he just doesn't choose to share those feelings in his account. Likewise, he says little about his family or what he does on furlough; Junger keeps these things to himself, and limits his account to what happened in the field. He describes life in the trenches and the villages they lived in, the gas attacks, the barrage of artillery fire, and hand to hand combat against the British and the Scots. The German army rotated their troops up and down the line and frequently sent them back out of the direct line of fire for a reprieve, so the men were regularly on the move. Further, Junger began as an enlisted man, then worked up to NCO and then lieutenant, and periodically went off for training. He also was wounded several times, and so was sent back for weeks at a time to recover before returning to the line.

Because Junger was so often on the move, I think that a map would have been useful. He names the villages in France and Belgium where he stayed, but they are mostly small towns and the names mean nothing to me. I found the work actually started a bit slowly, but it builds as Junger grows more experienced and experiences worse and worse fighting. The storm of steel referenced in the title is actually late in the book, when there is a major offensive and Junger and his men surge forward into the British positions and the fighting is very hot. By this time, the transformation of Junger from a naive and patriotic young man into a hardened killer is complete, or nearly so:

"Then I saw my first enemy. A figure in brown uniform, wounded apparently, crouched twenty paces away in the middle of the battered path, with his hands propped on the ground. I turned a corner, and we caught sight of each other. I saw him jump as I approached, and stare at me with gaping eyes, while I, with my face behind my pistol, stalked up to him slowly and coldly. A bloody scene with no witnesses was about to happen. It was a relief to me, finally, to have the foe in front of me and within reach. I set the mouth of the pistol at the man's temple - he was too frightened to move - while my other fist grabbed hold of his tunic, feeling medals and badges of rank. An officer; he must have held some command post in these trenches. With a plaintive sound, he reached into his pocket, not to pull out a weapon, but a photograph which he held up to me. I saw him on it, surrounded by numerous family, all standing on a terrace.

"It was a plea from another world. Later, I thought it was blind chance that I let him go and plunged onward. That one man of all often appeared in my dreams. I hope that meant he got to see his homeland again."

Storm of Steel depicts many gruesome events, but it is all true, and it objectively and unblinkingly relates the experiences of the men who fought in the war. I found it a very absorbing and worthwhile read. Recommended.