Feed‘s appeal is a dangerous, slow, and creeping infection: you likely won’t recognize that it has its hooks in you until it’s too late, and at that point you’ll be too far gone to care. In its early stages you’ll pick up the book every so often to read the next chapter, intrigued by the ease with which Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) has created these characters and given you a look at what it might mean to live with a real zombie apocalypse. The midpoint of the infection is your last chance to cut your losses, as the curtain lifts on the real story of the book and intrigue and conspiracy begin to unfold before you.
There’s an exceedingly brief threshold in which you might be able to put down the book, and then the late-stage symptoms set in. You will put off other work and be made upset by anything that comes between you and finishing. Your only goal, at that point, is to make sure that you’re able to follow the rest of the story to its conclusion. The last hundred pages are a rush, an excellent demonstration of a dramatic climax at its finest, and they’re irresistible. Almost as soon as I had put down the book, I was already putting the next two on hold at the library.
Heck, I even did something else I haven’t done in ages and started reading the sample opening from the beginning of the next book, where it hid in the after-material. I strongly suggest that you indulge yourself and give the book a try. For those of you who want to hear more about the book, read on below…
Usually by the time that I hit book five of a series, I need a break. I’ll feel a little tired of the author; I’ll have come to expect their turns of phrase, I’ll know some of the ways in which they think, and I often have some inkling of where the story will go before it ever gets there. Tired isn’t quite the right word, but you get the idea. It’s right around then that I start looking at other books longingly and prepare to binge my way through a different series.
But John Scalzi has completely avoided this predicament. I mean, sure, maybe I expected some of what was coming from Zoe’s Tale, but that’s mostly because it covered a lot of territory that I had already read in The Last Colony.
Where am I going with all of this? Here: The Human Division is great, and I want more. In fact, I want to see the next book in my hands as soon as possible. I accept that this might take some time, as I am certainly aware of the frustratingly slow pace at which stories are often written, but nevertheless. This series is exceptional, and reading it feels a bit like I imagine being sucked out of an airlock must feel. Except that the frigid void of space is actually a deeply engrossing series of story lines, and you don’t end up boiling your liquids out through your pores while freezing at the same time. Ok, look, the analogy was a bit forced, but these books will grab you and pull you along mercilessly with all the force of an explosive decompression, only freeing you once you’ve come out the other side.
Treat yourself to a good time and read this series, you won’t be disappointed. Would you like to know more?
We now return to our scheduled review of Scalzi’s book Zoe’s Tale, the “odd one out” in the series started by Old Man’s War.
Zoe’s Tale is the parallel novel that accompanies The Last Colony. I’m impressed that Scalzi even attempted to write a second book covering much of the same temporal territory, and I’m even more impressed that he was able to write something that stood on its own despite the fact that I already knew (almost) exactly what was going to happen.
I understand that some people (like my friend Ben) don’t like Zoe’s Tale as much as they like the other books in the Old Man’s War universe. And I can see why: if you were looking for a totally new story, Zoe’s Tale isn’t the place to go. On the other hand, if you are just looking for a good read and are ok with covering some ground that you’ve already been over before, Zoe’s Tale is perfectly solid and enjoyable. My opinion of the book may be influenced by the fact that I didn’t have to wait for it to come out and didn’t have to wait for the next book in the series; there are a number of failings which instant gratification will fix.
But I don’t think it’s fair to call the repetition in Zoe’s Tale a failing. Maybe I just feel this way because I’m impressed by Scalzi’s ability to weave a second story in behind all the elements that I already knew, but I really do think that Zoe’s Tale is quite excellent. Scalzi manages to take a story that I’ve already heard before (right down to many of the essential details, and occasionally even the conversations) and offers it back up in an exciting fashion, following a character that I’ve only ever seen moving around on the sidelines before. It’s great. Also, damn, what a climax.
Enough of generalities! Let’s get down to some specifics, shall we?
I really should have written this review last week. I’ve been on a Scalzi kick, and finished The Last Colony last Wednesday. Then I started and finished Zoe’s Tale on Saturday, and started The Human Division Saturday evening. I’m afraid that things have gotten more than a little jumbled in my mind at this point. That said, I’ve still got enough details in order that I can tell you for certain that The Last Colony follows in the footsteps of its predecessors and offers up a fabulous read.
Also, I know that it shouldn’t matter to the book itself, but John Harris’ cover art for the book is just gorgeous.
I shouldn’t be surprised that I went through The Ghost Brigades in one day. After my experience of reading Old Man’s War I should have expected this compulsion, the need to rush headlong through the story as quickly as I could, even to the point of ignoring my friends and the rest of the world. All of the nice things that I said about John Scalzi’s writing last time still apply. This book is easy to read and hard to put down, and when I finished it I was left wanting more. Fortunately, my friend whom I’d been ignoring sympathized with my plight and had a copy of the next book in the series ready to loan to me. So, of course, I stayed up late reading more of that.
Right, series: in my review of Old Man’s War, I think I somehow failed to mention that it was the start of a series of books. The Ghost Brigades is the first of several sequels, but while it builds on the setting established in Old Man’s War and even features some of the same characters, its story builds off in an entirely new direction. It reads like a standalone story, but if you really want the full experience I strongly suggest that you read Old Man’s War first. There are interlocking complexities that become readily apparent as you continue the series, and you’ll benefit from reading the books in order.
My verdict, once again, is that you should get your hands on this book with all possible haste. Right after you get your hands on Old Man’s War, of course. For more of my thoughts on the story, read on below…
I’m delaying my game-system flavor post again due to overexcitement. You see, I finished Old Man’s War yesterday and I just had to share my thoughts with you. In case you were wondering, I also started Old Man’s War yesterday. What can I say about this book that hasn’t already been better put by Cory Doctorow and Ken MacLeod? I suppose I’ll start with, “I was silly not to read this ages ago, because it’s really damn good.”
Seriously, this book has been sitting on my reading list for years, ever since my brother Nate suggested that I should read it soon after it came out in 2005. At the time, I had no idea who John Scalzi was or why I should like his work, and the title and concept simply didn’t grab me. Apart from the prodigious numbers of recommendations I had received telling me to read the book (and my growing infatuation with Scalzi’s writing), not that much had changed as of yesterday. Then I opened the book and read the first few pages, and boom, I was gone.
I really should have expected that something like this would happen again, given how I felt about Agent to the Stars and Redshirts, but I was once more taken by surprise and pulled right into the deep end. I barely came up for air, and dove through the book in the course of several hours. The short take? Read it. My more considered opinion? Read on…
Ok, so I was planning to post a piece today on game-system flavors, but then I just kept writing and writing. It turns out that that piece is going to be a bit longer than I’d anticipated. Instead, I’ll give you an easy one: Cordelia’s Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Ostensibly the first set of stories in the long Vorkosigan series, I came to this book only after I’d already read a number of the other stories. I feel that I benefited from the prior experience, and would recommend that you start elsewhere as well. Not because the stories in Cordelia’s Honor are in any way bad, but because some parts of them are harder to engage with when you don’t already know and like some of the characters. I feel like I had a deeper understanding and appreciation for the characters that I met because it wasn’t the first time that I’d met them, even though the events that I read about were obviously happening long before anything else that I already knew about.
My quick opinion before I get deeper into talking about the book? Read it. In fact, read all the Vorkosigan books. They are very hard to put down once you start, but at least they come in manageable, more or less bite-sized chunks.
I hear you like adventures. How about books that come complete with steam, airships, weird science, and doomsday devices? Frank Chadwick’s new book The Forever Engine delivers action and adventure with all of those things, and good characters too. Even better, the story follows an active style very similar to what I’ve come to expect from John Ringo, but without the moments that make you want to yell “Oh John Ringo, no!” The main characters are competent, sometimes preposterously so, but they generally feel like whole people in a way that happens less often in action/adventure stories. Already sold? Go read the book! If you’re not quite convinced, try reading a little more…
I’m sorry, but this post will have spoilers. If you haven’t read Lord of the Rings by now, I can’t be held accountable. They are public domain now, metaphorically, and I will talk about them freely. We all know Darth Vader is Luke’s father, we all know King Kong dies at the end, and we all know Frodo takes the ring to Mordor.
I haven’t been able to put my finger on it for a long time, but there’s something that has disappointed me about The Hobbit’s movie interpretation, under Peter Jackson. This isn’t the “it’s not the book, so I don’t like it” mindset. I know what that’s like. Tolkien and his work were defining, both to the genre and to my young mind. When Lord of the Rings came out, everything about it disappointed me: the exception of Tom Bombadil and Saruman’s scenes in the Shire, the changes to the gates of Moria scene, and so on. Even when the movie perfectly mirrored the book for the first 10 minutes, I held it up only as a sign that I was about to be disappointed.
But I enjoyed the movies. I never once was at any threat of falling asleep. When Legolas stabbed an orc with an arrow, sure, part of my brain said “you can’t stab an orc with an arrow”, but most of it said “DUDE, DID YOU SEE LEGOLAS STAB THAT ORC WITH AN ARROW?” When Gandalf stood up to confront the Balrog, my heart rose up into my throat with suspense: would he survive? When Frodo was seemingly killed by a troll, my pulse jumped, even though I knew the mithril reveal was coming. When Boromir was shot full of arrows, my internal monologue screamed: no Boromir! Get up! You can do it! I could literally do this all day, because Lord of the Rings was a well designed movie. It had drama, it had pacing, it had a tone, and it was real. Did I like everything about it? No. Was I disappointed with my vision of the book as a rubric? Yes. But it was good.
The Hobbit has none of these. The Hobbit is a different book than Lord of the Rings. While The Lord of the Rings was inspired by Tolkien’s experience in World War I, and you can see it everywhere. Ultimately, Lord of the Rings is about the suffering that war brings on all people, but especially on those who are not the heroes. The commonfolk, the hobbits, have to simply soldier on in the face of insurmountable forces. It is epic and serious and grim. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is a children’s adventure book, with a lighter tone, more whimsical enemies, and a very fantastic, simplistic quest: find the dragon’s treasure. There are no earthshaking consequences, just an adventure.
In the very first chapter of The Hobbit, Bilbo begins worrying about the dwarves in his house: not why they are there, not about his potential adventure, not even about the dragon, but whether or not they will chip his plates. To one who is familiar with fantasy, this may seem a silly worry, but this is the tone of The Hobbit. Bilbo literally cannot comprehend the idea of his adventure, and so he focuses on what is real to him, the plates. Many viewers have fixed on this particular scene from The Hobbit as something they particularly hate:
But it is exactly this scene which sets the tone for his adventure. Bilbo is a reluctant adventurer, and what he brings to the adventure — the very reason why Gandalf wants him on the adventure — is his sense of quiet responsibility and attention to details and consequences. On the other hand, the dwarves are basically mocking him for focusing on something so unimportant given the context.
A scene later and we have the famous troll scene, with dwarves tied up and who has to save them? Why, who else could keep the trolls distracted until sunrise but Gand — Bilbo? It is here where we first see Peter Jackson’s inability to understand the themes of The Hobbit — although it’s not the first time he’s committed this crime of stealing Gandalf’s credit and giving it to a hobbit; he had Frodo solve the gate of Moria riddle as well — Bilbo at this point is not an agent in his own adventure, but rather an experiencer.
After their capture by and escape from the goblins, when Bilbo emerges from the Misty Mountains with the ring, the dwarves — in the book — are considering leaving him, whilst in the movie they are mourning him. Yet again, this sets the tone difference. Bilbo is not a protagonist, at least not yet. They continue running — as a group — from the goblins until the giant Eagles rescue them.
And there you have it: that’s the whole of movie #1 of The Hobbit. No need for Ratagast scenes to sec the background, no need to actually foreshadow Sauron, no need for any of the epic backdrop that Peter Jackson attempts to instill upon The Hobbit. This is precisely the cause of the 3-part nature of The Hobbit movies: the attempt to make something epic out of something that is simply put, just an adventure. The dwarves cannot simply float into Laketown, they must be brought in by the descendant of the archer who is destined to kill Smaug, while simultaneously being oppressed by an evil king. The Dwarves can’t be looking for gold, but instead, just the Arkenstone (although it should be noted in the book that Thorin is fixated on the Arkenstone in a way that the three Hobbits are fixated on The Ring, a clear sign for Tolkien’s belief that power corrupts).
It is all this that made The Hobbit so much more interesting than other fantasy novels: it was never about destiny, or only one person. It was about small, unimportant people making brave choices. Thorin is not the hero because he is the descendant of the king, but instead, Bilbo is the hero by his choices. Bard doesn’t need to be the descendant of a legendary archer, he is just simple captain of the guard, and so on. Peter Jackon’s rendition loses this low-born, everyman’s quality to The Hobbit, and replaces it with an overly epic interpretation.
But the overly epic also overcomes the very tone of the novel. The Hobbit is a children’s book, with bad jokes, silly villains, and is essentially a kid’s adventure. There are moments where this childlike comedy pops through, such as the video above, the barrel scene, the trolls and goblin’s nature, and so on, but then it is immediately replaced with an epic and serious scene that leaves you wondering which tone is out of place.
Overall, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit fails to deliver a coherent movie in tone, and imposes themes onto the book that were never present, leaving an all-around awkward patchwork. This, combined with his penchant for drawing every scene out 30 minutes longer than it ever need to be, makes The Hobbit a movie to be slogged through, not enjoyed.
I read this book in halting installments; not because I couldn’t get through it quickly, but because I read each section as it became available, starting two months before its ostensible publishing date. I don’t know whether that says more about the book or about my love for the series started by Eric Flint‘s 1632. I can say that I would certainly recommend this one to anyone else who has enjoyed the previous books in the series. Read on past the break to find my more nuanced thoughts on Iver Cooper‘s 1636: Seas of Fortune.
Fistful of Wits 