Lots of writing work happening for me in the new year. I’m finalizing my query and synopsis for Stone By Stone, and I’m starting on a new SF piece, with the hopefully engaging tentative title Forlorn Toys. But this being January I feel like taking stock over some of things I read in 2024 – reading is also part of the work of writing. Here’s my list:

SF Classics

These were to fill in a bit my exposure to important past works.

The Fountains Of Paradise, by Arthur C. Clarke

I read a lot of Clarke in my 20s, notably Rendezvous With Rama and 2001. I decided to read this to reacquaint myself with Clarke as a writer.

The standout things here were first how conflict and peril free the story was. There certainly was conflict, in the form of the protagonist meeting opposition to his ideas for the space tower. But that was so mild, more like being frustrated at work because of a project put on the back burner than the typical clash-of-titans conflict you’ll see in a contemporary SF. And the peril … well, certainly people could have died, but what you really get is Clarke-signature competency bravura, as the protagonist has to MacGyver his way out of a space tower disaster, several hundred clicks above the surface of the Earth.

And the ending couldn’t have been more optimistic: In a few hundred years, every social problem we have seems solved, and we meet cool aliens to boot! I’ll vote for that.

For all the predictability and mildness, it was an enjoyable read.

 

The Man In The High Castle, by Philip K. Dick

Haven’t read much of the legendary PKD, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, again, in my 20s. Now that I am writing, he seemed a particularly important guy to reconnect with.

My take is this book was just puzzling, is best I can describe it. As one of the first and probably the best well-known alternate history SF book, I had high hopes. The book started with interest, albeit a bit slow. I read this last March, so I only recall so much: The guy who is secretly a Jew who wants to make jewelry, the guy who sells antique Americana to the occupying Japanese, a possible Nazi defector and a mysterious plot, plus the couple going to visit the titular “Man in the High Castle”, the in-book author of an alternate history work where FDR lives to be president and the Allies win WWII.

Great setup … then the book just ends. I can’t say what the message was, maybe that all history is fiction.

So, interesting artifact, zero help to me in anything I do.

Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem

Another classic. Before starting this I had read a bit about Stanislaw Lem, and learned he was a philosopher and poet as much as an SF writer. So again, high hopes here.

Alas, I could not finish this. It was just epically too slow, it felt like it took an entire 20 page chapter just to get to the protagonist’s room on the space station. Then what I believed was the core concept, an intelligent planet, just seemed overly trite to me.

I’m sure there was a ton of depth, nuance and meaning there – it will have to fall to others to find it.

 

The Complete Stories of J.G.Ballard, by J. G. BallardI really only heard about J. G. Ballard in 2024, though the FB #Science Fiction group. Who knew that the author of the WWII/Southeast Asia novel/memoir Empire of the Sun was also an off-the-wall SF writer? I chose the short stories with the idea this would be the widest introductory read for this author.

My assessment was mixed. Lots of cool ideas, but the vibe is definitely of its time, kind of a mix of Twilight Zone and PD James. Example: An unaccomplished man, a life-of-quiet-desperation type, discovers he has the ability to cause the death of people just by willing it. First off, this has got to be a super-common fantasy. I’ll admit that I have had it and thought about writing the same concept. The man moves up the corporate ladder by eliminating rivals, then critics, then just future possible contenders. But the man is also increasingly worried about being found out and concludes there is one more death needed to secure his safety, it is … wait for it … YOU, the reader! Prepare for the end! Holy Fourth Wall, Batman!

I haven’t yet finished the collection. Every so often I read one more story.

 

New Guard SF & Fantasy

These were all part of my now ongoing mission, to read more of what the SFF market is buying and publishing today. Well, when I say “today” I mean anything from today to the past 20 years.

Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson

I was a big fantasy reader in the 70s and 80s. Then, The Sword of Shannara came out, I read it, and I lost interest in Tolkien-derivative doorstop-sized fantasy series. But hey, 35+ years have gone by so why not give the genre a fresh look? I had to start with Brandon Sanderson, mainly because I knew what I’d be getting if I read George RR Martin. Mistborn was Sanderson’s second published book; I chose it because it anchors a highly successful 7 book series.

Alas, could not finish this book. Too many tropes: the D&D like setting, evil nobles and cynical but heart-of-gold thieves, a mysterious evil lurking just out of sight. The place where I stopped was a 20+ page section of excruciating detail on the world’s magic system, which in summary is: swallow some shavings of a certain metal, you get a certain power, swallow another metal, you get another power.

My doubtless rosy memories of reading fantasy are about being transported to a new world. Mistborn transported me to a so-so RPG.

The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

My desire to find fantasy that would spark my interest did not end with Mistborn. Can’t remember how I came across The Name of the Wind, probably while looking for best-of lists. When I saw on Amazon this book has over 83,000 reviews, virtually all of them 5-star, I had to give it a try.

Now, to go back to Mistborn, that was a well-written book. There was action, conflict, worldbuilding, etc. It was just not to my taste. The Name of the Wind, however, for me was not well written. The form of the book is, mysterious innkeeper Kvothe has a mysterious visitor to the inn. There’s a fight, there’s drinking, and then Kvothe begins relating his life story. There seems to be no realtime action in the book, its all past backstory. I suppose as the setup for multi-book series, you can try this, relating the life-to-date of the protagonist.

And what a life. If Mistborn was trope-y, NOTW is the Trope King. Please, other writers, never again write how a young boy, off fetching water, returns to find his parents and community all murdered by mysterious, well, murderers. And the pace. The narrator can only relate a week or two of personal history before he’s wracked with sad recollections and has to excuse himself to feed the horses or whatever. I made it to page 190 of 696 (!!!) before I stopped, having to go off and feed my own horses.

What about the 83,000 5-star reviews? It happens that 23 million Americans eat at MacDonalds every day. There you are.

The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate, by Adam Roberts

C’mon, fantasy – you must have some good books, right? I came across Adam Roberts again from the FB #Science Fiction group. Roberts is a writer, seems to me, in the Tolkien-mold: A professor of literature, and clearly writing for himself more than for any market. I chose The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate because it was only a year old, and the premise – 1848 London – intrigued me.

This bet paid off! Roberts deftly invokes the world of Sherlock Holmes, by imagining his father, Vavasour Holmes, working on a case. No spoilers, but other classics of British lit, set in the late 19th century, make appearances here. the actual titular death is by a “demonic locomotive” – remind you of any spectral hounds? The opening sentence firmly tells you what the voice of this work is going to be:

The story of the death of Sir Martin Malprelate acquired, from its earliest telling, a phantasmagorical quality, shrouding the violence of the assault in an embellishment of diabolic spectres and uncanny mystery.

This book will never become a NYT bestseller, which is a shame. Highly recommended.

The Hammer and the Blade: An Egil & Nix Novel, by Paul S. Kemp

Above I mentioned my desire for fantasy books to transport me to new worlds. Well an important sub-genre of that is when the new world doesn’t take itself too seriously. Looking around for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser style books I found a number of folks citing the Egil and Nix series. Book 1 of the series The Hammer and the Blade, did not disappoint.

in summary: Egil, hammer-wielding priest, and Nix, a scoundrel as Princess Leia would describe, make a living as tomb robbers. In one robbery they awaken a demonic guardian. Well, they have their Hammer and they have their Blade – they kill it. Little did they know that the demon was the talisman of a corrupt and powerful wizard family. Wizards want revenge. Hammers and Blades want to avoid that. Poundings, stabbings and drinking ensue.

Also in the never-a-bestseller category, but a fun read. Recommended.

 

Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer

Now let’s look at some SF reading. This was another FB SF group find. The author Ada Palmer, is a professor of history, specializing in the Renaissance period. Too Like The Lightning was her first book. The title is inspired by this quote from Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet ponders whether loving Romeo is a good idea:

 

 

It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say ‘It lightens.’

The author’s knowledge and affection for history is apparent: The 25th century she describes is a world of 5 or 6 regional confederations, in the model of Italian city-states, but at much greater scale. These confederations are all led by technology-centric aristocrats, all with different styles, stemming form the cultural differences region to region. Ok, interesting setup, if a bit abstruse.

Unfortunately, I ended up skimming through vast swathes of this one. There was too much interiority of the main character – I wanted something to happen. Once again, a matter of taste – others may well find this book riveting.

Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

Cyberpunk is a big gap in my SF canon reading. Never piqued my interest, the sub-genre seemed too small scale, too inward looking. Also, being a software engineer for like, forever, I suspected the computer parts would leave me cold. But minds can change and no time like the present. I selected Snow Crash because of Neal Stephenson’s reputation as being a challenging writer.

Challenging isn’t the word I would use, based on this book. After only a few pages the words running through my head were: Glib, Lame, Ridiculous. Harsh, you might say? In the opening pages we learn in this world, the Mafia rule the USA, controlling not only the government but a majority of businesses. the protagonist is a combination hacker, expert swordsman, and pizza delivery driver. Apparently in the future, “30 minutes or less” is enforced by Luca Brasi, so you have to drive fast. It goes on to describe a system that, to the books credit, is almost exactly like Second Life. Kinda cool for 1992, but that’s it.

This thread from Y-Combinator says it all better than i could. A sample:

I greatly dislike Snow Crash: it feels like slogging through Leviticus, plus an astronomical amount of suspension of disbelief.

The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler

In speculative fiction circles this book is constantly cited, as a prescient and gripping story of climate change and decay of the social fabric. Published in 1993, nominated for a Nebula soon after, the book remained a genre thing until 2020, when it became a NYT Bestseller. So, this is a must-read.

After all this build up for POTS I was surprised at my experience of reading it. My opinion: It is not a good book. Some examples: Future southern California is afflicted by human-set wildfires (something which BTW has happened for decades). The people setting the fires are drug addicts. That’s all we are told and the story frankly lays the blame for all that on these anonymous zombie addicts. But why are they addicts? Does no one care? We never find out. Normal people all walk around armed, if they can manage it. Apparently this is to defend against opportunistic thieves. But we never see anything of what drives that: Is it poverty? Rage? What? The world we see is cardboard. There’s bad stuff happening, but why? No one knows.

All we really see in the book is the protagonist, Lauren. She is even more cardboard than the world. Her big thing is she invents a religion, “Earthseed”. Chapters are introduced with writings from her book of this religion. So, cool, I think, this religion is going to illuminate the problems, and then solve them. The prime tenet of Earthseed; Change is the only constant.

But, guess what? This religion has zero narrative impact. Nothing happens because of it. The final 2/3rds of the book is Lauren and a band of stragglers walking north, trying to get to this lake. Every day some flat, slightly tragic event occurs. Then every night, people talk around the campfire. Neither the protagonist, nor anyone else, changes. A few folks die, then the book ends.

I could go on. Here’s a critique that said it all better. Disappointing.

 

Station Eternity, by Mur Lafferty

Ok, now we’re getting back into more readable space. There’s several cool ideas in Station Eternity, by Mur Lafferty. Like, there’s some quality or quality attached to the protagonist such that murders consistently happen in her presence. Another one is a race of highly mineralized aliens that, in the maturity phase of their lifecycle, transform into a living artifact, like a space ship. Ok, it does strain belief a bit that a half-ton creature somehow morphs into a multi-ton spaceship, but the idea is still cool. Then, there’s the symbiotes that all sentient life *except* humans have. Except that is for Mallory, who … dang, I guess I spoiled it.

Net: Clever worldbuilding, good characters, good pace of action.

 

 

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Hmm, where to begin on this book. The capsule: Lesbian necromancers – in space!

Now that I think about it, the capsule is also a pretty complete summary. There’s quite a lot of characters in this book. The premise is, representatives from 5 or 6 necromantic planets meet on this one particularly spoooooky planet to undergo a trial. Aside form the title character, Gideon, those characters are all pretty interchangeable. Then, stuff happens: monsters are fought, puzzles solved, and so on. There’s little discernable point in this action, but it is entertaining.

The ending was, to me, very emo. Gideon, who you come to kinda like by the end, sacrifices herself and it is a big deal for some of the surviving characters, but for the life of me I can’t remember what was the point.

For all that, in at least one way this is an important book, in that it is an avatar of squeecore, a story style that emphasizes delight or excitement, vs. conflict or character growth. For a more in depth definition, see here.

 

Mystery

I’m also a big mystery fan – for a long, long time I read more mystery than SFF. Here’s this year’s selections:

The Wolf and the Watchman, by Niklas Natt och Dag

This is a Scandinavian noir, set in 1793 Stockholm. It was a grim time, especially in cities, and Natt och Dag shows every bit of that. The wolf of the title is Cecil Winge, an educated investigator suffering from tuberculosis; he can die at any time during the book. The watchman is Mickel Cardell, a soldier until he lost most of an arm, now a watchman who spends more time drinking than watching. Mickel happens upon the corpse of a horrific murder, Cecil investigates, and they partner up.

Two things to bear in mind about this book: First, it shows very graphically a lot of the ugliness of 18th century life; sometimes it is a bit like a Salvation Army polemic. Second, the book has an offbeat structure. Midway, whole chapters are devoted to new point-of-view characters and we don’t see much of Mickel or Cecil. At first I wonder, what does this have to do with the murder? But these chapters pay off well in the end, stick with them.

So, this was an engrossing read. The Wolf and the Watchman is first of a trilogy, the subsequent books take place in 1794 and 95. I may pick up the next one, if I get a sense it won’t cover the same ground as book 1.

Blaze Me A Sun, by Christoffer Carlsson

Another Scandinavian noir, I came to this through an NYT recommendation. Summary: A serial killer terrorizes a town, first eluding the town’s detective, then being identified by a chance relationship. But 30 years later the detective’s son, now a cop himself, questions his father’s handling of the case.

This is a somewhat slow moving book, but that’s the point: It is about attitudes and truths that persist over time, and how those are handed from generation to generation. I very much like a hard-boiled, this is my code and I’m sticking with it type of noir (see below) but this was a great change.

 

 

The Hunter, and The Outfit, by Richard Stark

Richard Stark is a penname of Donald Westlake, overall the most prolific American genre writer of the 20th century. His books have been made into no less than 20 movies, including The Hot Rock and Cops and Robbers. I had heard of Westlake but knew nothing about his contribution to the structuring of mystery and suspense fiction until I read Perplexing Plots. So I decided to take in a couple of Parker books, a series of 24 novels (!!) by Stark/Westlake.

A pseudo-intellectual review of this kind of book makes no sense, so I’ll just say this: If you think you might like a world of ruthless yet grimly principled men, women who are scorned, taken advantage of and who fight back with the weapons they have, and where money means more than justice, these books deliver. The writing is spare, witty, and fast-moving where it needs to be.

I’ll be reading more of Parker, not only because I like the mix of premise and voice Westlake created, but also because I’m curious: How the heck do you keep this fresh over 24 books?

 

And The Winner Is …

The genre book I both enjoyed the most, and got the most out of, was …

Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This book, published in 2015, hits all my main buttons for science fiction: Science, in the form of relativistic interstellar travel, uploaded personalities, accelerated evolution and more; Aliens, in the form of earthly spiders who are recipients of aforesaid acceleration; and a Problem, in the form of a collapsed Human Empire, survivors looking for a new planet, and the afore-foresaid spiders, who have the planet and ain’t giving it up. The writing is a bit challenging, requiring the reader to pay attention, which i like. And the structure, which alternates chapters between spiders and humans, kept the anticipation for the next turn in the plot at a high level.

The book is just what-if after what-if, on a scale of millennia.

One thing not in this book: character development. Generally I find flat characters only work for certain kinds of books. In this book, I did not notice or care about the absence in the least.

This book is first of a trilogy. Not sure if I’ll take in the other two, not because I wasn’t sold by book 1, just just because I expect I have a lot of reading ground to cover in 2025.

 

There you have it. But BTW, I did a lot more reading than this in 2024: there were writing-craft books, political books, popular science books, etc. Maybe that will go into another post. That is, if my two ongoing projects, Stone By Stone and the brand new Forlorn Toys, allow it.

Till next time …