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For those of you who have lives, me esteemed colleague- and one of three regular readers- Mathew Bredfeldt has been aping my idea for the 52 Book Challenge in miniature on his own blog for the past several months. So I figured turnabout is fair play. You take my gimmick, I'll take yours. Next month we'll get on with the same old same old. But now-- we'll just do whatever.
- Round the Moon By Jules Verne:
This book contains one of the earliest cases of the use of the retcon. Not once- but several times. The number of times Verne goes back on things he previously stated as fact is almost appalling. He's obviously bending over backward to make a sequel to 'From Earth to the Moon' even possible. That book ends with the crew being confirmed dead and trapped in orbit never to be heard from again. Here their voyage continues. Only instead of serving as a companion book- the book ends with Nichol, Barbicane and Ardan very much alive and treated as international heroes. It would be acceptable if Verne filled the novel with excitement and adventure. Again, it is about 157 pages of almost raw technobabble. It is very light on things like characterization and plot. Which is a shame because it needed a lot of it to make the story of three guys in a vehicle that can't steer on a course to nowhere seem exciting. He really tries to get the plot going but every obstacle is overcome a chapter later with no real sense of danger. Again, a sense that these characters might actually find themselves in jeopardy might have gone a long way to making the book enjoyable. Technical details are all well and good- even if NASA would eventually prove most of it wrong- but you have to have a story to build around it.
- A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson (Book of the Month):
IWhat makes Richard Matheson one of the most respected names in horror fiction is his ability to make human behavior seem more frightening than the supernatural. He makes spontaneously developing ESP seem less horrifying than the idea of your slightly overweight married neighbor want to boink you senseless. The idea that your babysitter might want to abduct or kill your child becomes more frightening than ghosts. Some of the book is slow paced but it is deliberately so. He wants you to get to know the characters before he does all sorts of horrible things to them. The mystery is rather obvious however I didn't figure out the who and the why of it until I read it. I was too distracted by the domestic unbliss created by the mild paranormal elements that I didn't notice until it was too late. Which is a sign of strong writing. This was a fun little page turner for the darker portion of October and the Halloween season.
The following Star Trek Enterprise book should not be confused with the fourth season episode of the same name. Nor is this the first time a title duplication.
- Star Trek: Enterprise - Daedalus by Dave Stern:
This is a lost away team story in which Trip and Hoshi inadvertently get caught up in a civil war after being rescued by the rebels. And by Trip and Hoshi- I mean just Trip. Hoshi spends most of the book comatose and her name double reversed. Meanwhile Trip begins to fall in love with the rebel's medic who is attempting to treat a mystery illness that incapacitated Hoshi and is slowly killing Trip. The results of this plot are not what you'd expect from Star Trek- particularly the novels which are strictly regulated by licensing agreements. Even though her husband was once a brilliant politician, torture reduced him to someone who could be outsmarted by Lenny from Mice and Men. The way Stern develops this plot still doesn't seem like typical Star Trek. There is another subplot where they rescue a research team who turns out to be a member of Trip's previous assignment. A man who has by all accounts been dead for almost fifteen years. This slowly builds up to a cliffhanger that is a bit of a shocker but completes one story and starts another. Too bad about two typos mangling key parts of the story and the sheer number of show not tell violations in the last two chapters. Otherwise this would have been better than average Star Trek fare.
- The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny:
Why do I keep trying with Amber? Previous experiences with this series were underwhelming yet so many of my friends have loved it. This book is a vast improvement over most of the last few books since it allows the previous volumes to make sense. It only took four books. And that's my problem really. It didn't take four sentences, four paragraphs or four chapters. If you're going to call something a book it should be able to stand on its own two legs. If the first four books were published originally as one 700 some odd page book rather than four 150 page ones I'd be a lot more kind. The story has a beginning- but no middle or end. It is not complete and to really qualify as a book and it should. Furthermore in all of these pages I still don't particularly care for any of the characters- least of all Corwin even though the book practically begs the reader to be on his side. Which doesn't work. That has to be earned and Zelazny has done nothing to move my emotions in that direction. You aren't given very much incentive so there is almost no emotional investment.
- Star Trek: Enterprise - Daedalus's Children by Dave Stern:
The second part of this series is much better than the first. There is one typo (or perhaps Freudian slip) in the book. It says something about the Enterprise stories was toxic to the visitors. I know Stern meant to say stores but a lot of Star Trek fans feel that way about Enterpise. I used to be one of them. There are fewer inversions of Hoshi's name. There were fewer violations of the show not tell rule. As an added bonus almost the entire Enterprise crew has an important part in the story. Even Porthos, who proves to be quite the diplomat. The is a balance between the political intrigue and pure action. There is a little Deus Ex Machina but minimal by Star Trek standards. The real major weakness is that, as a book written during the production of the television series, they had to return the cast and crew to the status quo. One wonders where the books would have gone if this was their new starting point.
Next: Another Star Trek Month
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