GRR Martin’s ASOIAF: A Gentle Nudge from New Zealand…

It’s no news that readers of GRR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire have been dealing with the author’s long gestating times between books with varying degrees of patience – or lack thereof, and the not-quite-satisfactory way in which the overall story was wrapped up by the TV series Game of Thrones did little to assuage the readers’ curiosity and their need to see the story and the characters’ journeys developed with the depth they expect from the books published until now.

Over the years some voices have been raised in a less than civilized way, literally demanding the next book in line as if it were their unalienable right, and lately I heard that a silly rumor was being circulated that Martin had actually finished the saga but was keeping the books under wraps as a favor to the TV show, which sounds totally foolish but still needed a public rebuttal by the author.  Which proves that rumors spread faster than a pandemic, and are just as dangerous.

Replying to such absurdity with humor is always the best choice, to the point that playful creations like this one go a long way toward keeping the tone light:

 

 

And that’s the reason I enjoyed immensely this video created by Air New Zealand, which encourages George Martin to find a place where his creativity would flow uninterrupted, inviting him to visit their country.  It’s a delightful way to express the readers’ eagerness to see the next book hit the stands, and it’s full of amusing tongue-in-cheek quips, my favorite being the one about “being nervous as a Stark with a wedding invite”.

Enjoy!  🙂

 

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Review: SIXTEEN WAYS TO DEFEND A WALLED CITY, by K.J. PARKER

 

I received this novel from the publisher through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review: my thanks to both of them for this opportunity.

Sometimes a book surprises you because it turns out to be completely different from what you expected, and in this case that surprise was a delightful one, indeed: I picked up this book on impulse, despite the scant information offered by the synopsis, because that unfathomable instinct that I’ve come to call “book vibes” was strongly drawn to it, and once again it proved to be right on target.

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City is the story of a siege, and also the story of the man defending the besieged city from the unknown assailants who are cutting through the Robur Empire’s territory like a hot knife through butter. Orhan is a colonel in the engineering corps of the Robur army despite being a “milkface”: the Robur, blue skinned and aggressive, have conquered Orhan’s people and look down on them as inferior, unworthy of consideration, the prime targets for slavery and abuse, but Orhan’s engineering skills have brought him to this favored position that allows him a modicum of freedom of movement and independence.

When a few pirate-like sorties against Robur military depots turn out to be a bold move by an unknown enemy, who is able to provision his army and turn the stolen ordnance and weapons against their former owners, Orhan understands that something dire is afoot and manages to close the gates of the empire’s main city before the invaders can storm the walls.  Not a military man by a long stretch (his favorite catchphrase is “I’m just an engineer”), he is however able to shore up the City’s defenses and to give it a chance of surviving beyond the mere hours that would have been the foregone conclusion if the assailants’ ruse had worked – and he manages this feat despite the ineffective short-sightedness of the ranking officials and the social turmoil always brewing under the surface.

Orhan’s success in what looks like a desperate undertaking comes from the fact that besides his engineering skills, which are quite remarkable, he’s a self-declared liar and a cheat, and he knows how to deal with all layers of society acting as a middleman between apparently incompatible parties, as testified by his greatest feat, the truce he forces on the two rival underground factions, the Blues and the Greens, compelling them to work together for the common survival and making them see reason beyond the age-old enmities, at least for a while; he also knows how to turn to his advantage the scant resources at his disposal, paying for them with somewhat counterfeit coins and carrying on through misinformation and double dealing, which seem to come to him as second nature.  A man more attached to the values of honor and integrity would not have managed to accomplish as much, while Orhan’s flexible standards grant him a far wider leeway – and success.

What’s truly amazing in Orhan’s achievement is that he keeps saving the City despite its inhabitants, who keep seeing him as a milkface interloper, an upstart who should know better than to try and rise above his station, and yet they end up being swept along by the man’s sheer force of conviction – and sometimes his fists, when needed.  One of the driving themes of the story is that of racism and rigid social stratification, and despite the lightly humorous tone employed by Orhan’s first-person narrative it’s not difficult to see how the Robur rule has created the kind of social order in which the dehumanization of some strata of the empire has become an accepted fact of life, even by those who are its main victims.   This is an element that plays an important part in the motivations of the invading enemy and in Orhan’s inner conflict once he learns the nature and identity of said enemy: I don’t want to delve deeper into this side of the story because it should be discovered on its own, but it’s interesting to note how the engineer’s apparently carefree approach to the question offers a great deal of food for thought and discussion on the subject of loyalty, even toward those who don’t deserve it.

Orhan’s personality is a deceptively simple one: on the surface, all he cares about is building things, his pride lays in a work well done and one that endures through time, so that the narrative of the siege is carried out in a humorous, self-deprecating tone that belies his true nature and his past history.  In the course of events, we are made privy to the facts and incidents that made Orhan the man he is now, and as the details pile up we begin to understand that there is more under the façade of the “simple engineer”, including something of a mean streak – not that it comes as a surprise, in consideration of his lying and cheating, but some of those instances shed a very peculiar light on him.  Ultimately, it becomes evident that Orhan is an unreliable narrator, not least because he’s the one dictating the story we are reading, and by his own admission he’s not averse to embellishing some of the facts to shine a more positive light on himself. Orhan gives a whole new meaning to the concept of reluctant hero, since he does not seem to mind embellishing some his deeds, but on the other hand he’s trying his best to avoid the trouble that comes from doing what needs to be done.

One of the best features in this book is its narrative quality, a lightly witty mood that’s kept constant all throughout the story and attains that right balance that’s often so difficult to manage and that K.J. Parker handles with no apparent effort. This, together with a steady pace, made breezing through the book a joy, marred only by what seems an abrupt ending, one that left me with too many unanswered questions and a strong desire to know what happened next. It’s the only blemish I can think of in this story that turned out to be so much more than I bargained for.

 

My Rating:

Short Story Review: THE PRESIDENT’S BRAIN IS MISSING, by John Scalzi

 

I stumbled by pure chance on this short story by John Scalzi while searching for one of his earlier books that I missed, The Android’s Dream, and of course there was no doubt that I would read this brief work as well: the title was indeed intriguing, and knowing the author’s penchant for humor I expected to be amused by it – and indeed I was.

Part of the fun in this story comes from my familiarity with shows like The West Wing and its ‘dark side’ twin House of Cards, detailing the dynamics of the White House behind the closed doors the public never crosses, especially where appearances and public image are concerned.

In this particular case however the presidential aides are faced with an unconceivable situation: an MRI scan on the President reveals that his brain has disappeared, and yet the man is still alive and functioning – well, apart from the impossibility to submerge his head in the pool, since every time he tries, the head “pops back up like a cork”.  This is the premise from which the short, hilarious story starts, poking some fun at the intricacies of politics and the dichotomy between appearance and reality: even though the staff’s descriptions don’t give a shining picture of the President – a man who is not exactly brilliant and who won the election because his opponent was involved in a sex scandal during the campaign – they worry about the possibility of a situation they might be unable to deal with, and so they start to search for the cause of the mysterious disappearance, and of a possible solution.

Quick, entertaining and in line with what I’ve come to expect from a Scalzi divertissment.

 

My Rating: 

Review: MINIATURES – The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi

If short stories can sometimes be a difficult medium, because the compressed space they must be worked in often leaves the reader unsatisfied with the way characters and narrative are developed, this collection of very short works from John Scalzi enjoys a different track record: the humorous nature of these stories lends itself quite easily to brevity and they feel more like well-developed jokes than anything else, or like some of the witty posts with which the author delights his blog’s readers.

So here you will find, for example, a mock interview with a very peeved Pluto, whose demotion from the status of planet still burns deeply, despite the abysmal cold in the fringes of our Solar System: the annoyed ex-planet takes this opportunity to vent some of its displeasure toward some old and new adversaries, the scientific community at large and – quite inexplicably – Phil Collins. Just to give you an idea of the tone of these stories, here is a quote directly from the ex-planet:

[…] people start calling me and telling me I’m the newest planet. And I remember saying, I don’t know if I want that responsibility. And they said, well, you can’t not be a planet now, Walt Disney’s already named a character after you.  That’s really what made a planet. Not the astronomers, but that cartoon dog.

Or we can read the advertisement for a very special travel agency that can send its customers into alternate universes, offering various possible scenarios about a certain event: the example used is the death of Adolf Hitler, and despite the far-from-palatable subject, Mr. Scalzi manages to make you laugh out loud with his vision of alternate futures.  My favorite is the one where the time-frame alteration keeps sending the city of Vienna back and back into the past, transforming it into a battleground for competing armies, until

[…] when the time traveling pro-Magyar forces show up, they are slaughtered by everyone else which is tired of all this time-traveling crap, thereby ending the causality loop.

Or again we are treated to a collection of hilariously crazy tweets the author posted to ease his boredom during a long flight, imagining the assault on the plane’s wing operated by a gremlin bent on plunging the vehicle down to earth.  If you don’t think this could be funny (especially in the case of people who are not comfortable with flight), reading this brief piece will make you change your mind.

Each story is prefaced by a few words about its inception and history, and all of them are accompanied by little drawings that complement the story to perfection.  If you want to spend a couple of light-hearted hours in the company of a favorite author, or if you want to discover John Scalzi’s peculiar brand of humor, this is the perfect place to start.

My Rating:

TOP FIVE WEDNESDAY #10

This GoodReads group proposes a weekly meme whose aim is to give a list of Top Five… anything, as long as they are book related.  This week’s theme is:

INACCURATE COVERS

Those books that have nothing to do with the story, or the cover model doesn’t look anything like the actual main character, or it’s a really cheesy cover for a great read!

To say the truth, none of the covers of the books I’ve read in the past few years were really misleading: when I went to check on my GoodReads library, I could not find any that would fit this week’s theme.  So I decided to do a little search for the covers of pulp magazines from a few decades back and there I found exactly what I was looking for.

In those times, garish covers were the accepted norm: monsters from outer space, outlandish aliens and extra-terrestrial landscapes, spaceships of every size and shape – you name it, they had it.

There was one common factor though: the women depicted on those covers were all scantily clad, exotic-looking and either terrorized victims of some evil-doer or being rescued by the muscled hero. And probably had nothing to do with the stories listed in the magazine.   Here are the Top Five that came out of my search:

In the first one, we see the lady on the cover being pursued by some bad guy and/or alien (he’s bald, and back then most aliens were bald…): they must be hovering in space, and both of their heads are enclosed by a bubble helmet, but while the man is wearing a space suit, the woman sports something close to a bathing suit, with a very, very deep neckline.  In vacuum…

In the second cover, our designated victim is stalked by a spidery-looking alien and looking suitably frightened – but no fear! The hero is just around the corner, ready to save her!  And once again, the man is in full EVA suit, while the woman wears a golden bikini. With matching shoes.  After all, you can’t give up on fashion, even in the direst of circumstances!

Third cover – more of the same, with a slight variation: the woman is unconscious, probably terrified by the big-toothed, long-nailed (and bald!!) monster in the background.  Thankfully the hero is carrying her away to safety.  As if we could ever doubt it!

With cover nr. 4 there is a change: in this case the lady is armed and deadly – in the picture she seems to have just stunned or killed the “big bad alien” (he’s green AND bald, to offer some variety, no doubt).  The woman’s weapon is still smoking (do energy weapons smoke at all?) and she looks quite resolute – yes, in her space bathing suit, complete with bubble helmet and spiked epaulettes. Oh, and gloves…

And finally, at nr. 5, another ass-kicking lady, swinging an axe against a many-tentacled monster, while the guy in the background seems to have some trouble defending himself.  The woman is wearing a full-body suit this time, but it seems painted on her, and the conical cups for the breasts look decidedly uncomfortable!

What’s worse, is that there are still some genres where covers with scantily clad people appear in absurd poses: that’s the reason why writers like John Scalzi and Jim C. Hines decided, some time ago, to poke some fun at those covers, while supporting a charitable foundation.  As a “bonus” for this week’s theme, here are both the original cover and the… portrayal by Scalzi (on the right) and Hines (on the left), but you can find more by following the links in this IO9 article. Have fun!

                  

Review: GIOVANNI GOES TO MED SCHOOL, by Kathy Bryson

I received this story from the author in exchange for an honest review.

When Ms. Bryson contacted me about reading and reviewing this novella, I was intrigued by the strange mix of themes offered by the story: humor and zombies. Many would say that there’s very little to laugh about the walking dead, so I was more than curious to see how one of the staples of the horror genre – one that’s very much in fashion nowadays – would fare on a more light-hearted setting.

Giovanni is a young medical student in search of a part-time occupation to shore up his income, as many in his position are pressed to do, and what he ultimately finds is a night shift duty post at the hospital morgue. Our main character is a good, sensitive guy, and his worry in tackling that kind of job is more than understandable – moreover, he probably saw a good deal of B-movies that have done nothing to encourage him, especially since he keeps thinking about his family’s “loving” advice about his choice of career, one that sets both the mood of this story and makes us better understand Giovanni’s mind-frame:

The rest of their family was supportive though (…) They were all supportive. They all told him how proud they were he had gotten into med school, and how hard he’d have to study, how broke he’d be, how he couldn’t date, how he’d have no social life until he graduated, how he’d suffer through residency, and how he’d probably just get fat, grow old, and die alone.

No one could blame the guy for being just a tiny bit apprehensive…

On his very first night on the job, Giovanni must accept custody of the body of an elderly lady that passed away despite the efforts of the medical team upstairs, and even before that happened, he’s been also entrusted with the care of of said lady’s huge, slobbering dog. When in the night Mrs. Harris’ body gets up and starts walking and talking, poor Giovanni’s nightmare is only just beginning.

You will not find flesh-eating zombies here, but just an old lady who seems unable to accept her demise, and this will propel Giovanni on a very strange, mind-bending journey that seems only the first step in a longer one – at least according to what a voodoo-expert hospital orderly tells him: that Mrs. Harris’ case is not an isolated one.

Oddly humorous, filled with comedy-of-errors scenes, this short story is a quick, entertaining read that will give you a new outlook on the whole zombie scenario. And will also teach you how to deal with big dogs suffering from excess salivation. Maybe.

 

My Rating:

Review: MADE TO KILL, by Adam Christopher

Made to Kill is the perfect example for the warning about not judging a book by its cover: although being aware of its existence, I never looked beyond the unappealing (for me) exterior appearance of the book, to inquire what it was about. That is, until the very positive review from a fellow blogger, whose comments piqued my interest.

This book is a curious mix between a classic noir novel and science fiction: Raymond Electromatic (the first name a clear nod toward Raymond Chandler) is a robot, the only one remaining after humanity decided to dispense with mechanical helpers, and he’s a self-employed private investigator – with a side activity as a hired killer. No one could image a more dispassionate, detached murderer than a mechanical creature, and Raymond fulfills this requirement most admirably, also thanks to his peculiar structure, one that requires a daily power recharge and the installation of a new memory spool. This 24-hour limit on Raymond’s storage capacity means he starts afresh every day as a new man – ok, robot – with no recollection of what previously transpired: no guilt, no danger of exposing one’s clients, plausible deniability.

Here is where Ray’s manager comes into play: Ada is a complex computer array tasked with running the office, taking care of the mechanical P.I., finding clients and managing finances. She is quite a character, and another nod toward the chandler-esque typical perky secretary acting as a buffer between her employer and the public. Apart from the human-like noises she emits – mostly puffing on cigarettes or swiveling on creaky office chairs – she’s graced by a quirky sense of humor and a sharp tongue, not to mention a keen business sense that is never clouded by emotional considerations of any kind.  Ada’s voice came through from the book’s pages much more clearly than Raymond’s for me: I enjoyed quite a bit her world-savvy practical approach to everything and the way she manipulates Ray who appears like very pliable putty in her capable hands, or circuits if you want.

The two move in a world that, despite some technological developments like robots, seems still very much anchored in the period between the ‘40s and the ‘50s – or at least this is the “flavor” I perceived from the book, that shares many of the tropes one could expect from a noir story from Chandler himself: dark ladies and shady characters move around in a Los Angeles still very much concerned with the Hollywood star system, and there’s a dastardly plot to be uncovered and neutralized, as Raymond runs through the city in search for clues.  Spies, night-clubs where dubious dealings go on while the music plays and alcohol flows, government agents and undercover operatives – they all make an appearance while Raymond applies his deductive skills to the complicated situation, and the whole scenario makes for a fast, entertaining reading.

My initial enthusiasm for this uncommon story did however flag a little past the book’s midpoint: while my interest remained the same about the story – after all I wanted to know what was behind it all and how the various threads would be resolved – the characters lost a little of their sparkle because of repetition.
For example, one of Raymond’s quirks concerns facial expressions: as a metal automaton, he does not possess a mobile face, of course, so from the very beginning of the novel we are told that all of his facial reactions happen on the inside – the first few times this information makes you smile, as do the offered similitudes for his attempts at a laugh or a cough or any human noise, but after a while and after reading about it a few times too much, the smile slowly fades and is supplanted by mild irritation.  The same goes for Ada puffing on cigarettes or the other behavioral traits she fakes when she wants to sound human. For me, these details are like a nice joke: once or twice it’s ok, but by the n-th time one hears it, it has lost its charm…

Another disappointing element came from the antagonists: even though I understand this story is modeled on period movies and books, I did not like the fact that the chief villain tends to laugh wickedly as he lays down his plans to a captive Raymond: I always wondered why the bad guys have this burning need to explain in full details their dastardly plots to a soon-to-be-killed prisoner. Need for recognition? Childhood traumas? Whatever it is, it always sounded phony to my ears, and here we have that in spades, mixed with that same villain’s endless laugh as he contemplates the upcoming success of world domination.

While I understand these are nothing more than personal pet peeves, I’m sorry that they detracted a little from the enjoyment of this unconventional and amusing book, that nonetheless was a very welcome change from my usual fare and is definitely worth a try.

My Rating:

 

A new post for the 2016 Sci-Fi Experience, an event hosted by Carl  V. Anderson over at Stainless Steel Droppings (follow the links to know more!)