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Archive for December, 2011|Monthly archive page


Revelation Space Universe, Alastair Reynolds

In books on December 31, 2011 at 6:49 am

I don’t have a good enough memory or record of what I was reading in the late 1990s or early 2000s to know if this is the truth – but the way I remember it is that after a lull where I had trouble finding any science fiction I was interested in reading I came across Alastair Reynolds’s (official site and blog) Revelation Space and that was the start of renewed love for science fiction!

If you like ‘hard’ science fiction everything in the Revelation Space Universe that I have read is – in my opinion – worth reading (maybe even worth reading more than once…). However, I am pretty much a complete ‘fan’ of this series and it would be absurd to actually trust my opinion – so I guess you should just start reading!

I would consider the books below the ‘core’ novels – I would recommend reading these first and ‘in-order’:

Revelation Space – Amazon
Chasm City – Amazon
Redemption Ark – Amazon
Absolution Gap – Amazon

I think the books/stories below are better read after you have read some of the ‘core’ novels above:

The Prefect – Amazon
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days – Amazon
Galactic North – Amazon

Rating: 5 of 5
First Read Date: Starting early 2000s (most books after Revelation Space just after the US release)

CM


Sea of Glass, Barry B. Longyear

In books on December 19, 2011 at 7:16 pm

I don’t remember seeing Sea of Glass, by Barry B. Longyear, on ‘top’ science fiction lists – or stumbling across it in website recommendations; but I do remember this novel from reading it in (about…) 1990. What I remember is the brutality, terror and a dystopian future world on the brink of war.

The novel follows the life of Thomas Windom – the strange years trapped inside his parent’s home hiding from a population control program designed by a computer in charge of half the world, brutal years at a camp for illegal children, hopeful years on the run, puzzling years linked into the computer as a legal citizen employed by the government and years supporting the system that was (at least partly) responsible for his earliest agonies.

The brutal computer manipulated dystopian future is what I remember from reading it 20 years ago. When rereading it recently I was much more engaged by the issues of faith and fate that the novel explores.

I am not sure why in the past twenty years I did not stumble on and reread this book, it is too good to be absent from top/’best of’ lists! What good luck to have found it again!

Rating: 4 of 5
First Read Date: 1990 (about), reread October, 2011

Amazon – Sea of Glass

CM


String Quartets 2 & 3, Kevin Volans, Balanescu Quartet, Kronos Quartet

In music on December 12, 2011 at 11:05 am

I believe I first heard Kevin Volans‘s (homepage) String Quartet No. 2 – ‘Hunting: Gathering’ in the mid-1990s on a Kronos Quartet CD. While I can not say this was immediately one of my favorite pieces, I will say that sounds from and sections of the 2nd String Quartet have stayed with me – coming to mind at seemingly random times over the years without any conscious effort on my part.

Kevin Volans is a South African composer who studied in South Africa, the United Kingdom and Germany (including studies with the legendary Karlheinz Stockhausen). Hunting: Gathering draws on African source material to create a unique soundscape. In Hunting: Gathering there is not a single moment or section that will overwhelm you – the joy is in the continual sense of journey. The two recording that I have of this work have quite different interpretations – to me it feels like the Kronos Quartet maximizes the lyricism and makes the work more widely accessible, while the Balanescu Quartet interpretation sounds more alien, stilted and perhaps more distant from traditional Western classical music.

It was only this year that I sought out any additional works by Volans – and String Quartet No. 3 was a great find. The work is titled The Songlines after a book of the same name by Bruce Chatwin about a trip to Australia to research Aboriginal Song. It was written as a prelude to the opera The Man with Footsoles of Wind. While Hunting: Gathering seems like a single movement this quartet has quite a few distinct sections, styles and sounds – but like Hunting: Gathering the ideas seem unique and brilliant.

Rating: 4 of 5 (I think you will enjoy either of the recordings mentioned)
First Listen Date: Mid 1990s

Amazon – Kronos Quartet – Hunting: Gathering
Amazon – Balanascu Quartet – String Quartets 2 & 3

CM


Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

In books on December 5, 2011 at 7:31 pm

Norwegian Wood was not quite what I was expecting – the Murakami novels that I have read – A Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Dance Dance Dance, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Sputnik Sweetheart, Kafka on the Shore and After Dark – all seem to me to have some place in the genre of magical realism with a strange, seemingly absurd and often nearly incomprehensible blending of reality and fantasy. While some small parts of Norwegian Wood may have a very slight hint of the magical and absurd, it really does not belong to the same genre.

Norwegian Wood is a story of struggle and love during the late 1960s in Japan. The narrator is Toru Watanabe – a college student in Tokyo. The story follows his life for several years into his early twenties – and thru Toru we learn about a number of his friends and lovers. I have read that this novel was very popular in Japan – but I had trouble connecting with it, perhaps – in part – because I don’t understand the setting? The last bit of the novel did give me an incredible feeling of nostalgia as Toru has his life transformed by love and death – but most of the novel was flat and my reading stretched out over several months… Perhaps a novel left to deeper and more knowledgeable Murakami fans.

Rating: 2 of 5
First Read Date: October 2011

Amazon – Norwegian Wood

CM

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