Imagine a world without Europe. Kim Stanley Robinson did. Or, at least, he killed off all the Europeans, then imagined the world. The Days of Rice and Salt is a history; an alternate history.
Via a series of short stories spanning about one thousand years, we follow the expansion and decline of a variety of cultures, most notably the Persian and Chinese. Japanese, First Nation, and Incan cultures also get Robinson's attention. Africa, except the north, is mostly ignored other than as a source of slaves (no change, there). The stories aren't actually history lessons. The book follows the attempt of a group of souls to attain nirvana through their repeated reincarnations.
How could the world evolve without Europe? What an exciting thought experiment. The developement of industrial revolution brought on by the all-too-ideal natural resources of Europe? The great sea powers developing in the Mediteranean? Wars as populations expanded into the fertile lands of Europe? The possibilities are intriguing. Kim seem to have given it only cursory thought, instead showing how much he knows how the eastern cultures interacted with each other in the east. With the exception of the developement of the First Nations culture, it reads more as a ttrue history. I wasn't expecting a story of Europe but I was expecting a story that didn't ignore such a large geographical area, particularly for the east. Certainly that would have been their "New World".
Nevertheless, the stories are enjoyable and, for me, educational. A bit (no, a lot) long-winded at times with an abundance of detail that makes you skip paragraphs without fear of missing anything.
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Infused with the cleverness that makes Douglas Adam's book a joy to read,
The story follows Richard, a friend of Dirk Gently, who has become a suspect in a murder. Dirk runs a detective agency that is not doing as well as he would like. Both are acquaintances of Reg Chronitis, Cambridge's Regius Professor of Chronology who has a secret. Throw into the mix a girlfriend, a dejected ex-publisher, a horse, couple of ghosts, and an android monk from another planet. This is a Douglas Adams book, remember.
Adams's wit made my face hurt from grinning at times, but it is not consistent. Perhaps Adams needed a rest, but instead of taking a walk along the beach in Santa Barbara, he kept on writing. Chapter 19 in particular was highly misable.
Clever writing aside, Adam's exploration of post-rationalisation, i.e. performing an action then justifying your action, was enough to hold my interest.
There are some superfulous threads. Possible Spoiler Gordon's ghost, while amusing, really doesn't seem to play a role in the end, even though it seems important at first.
TopDisturbing. Disturbing without terror or graphic violence. Disturbing the way Eraserhead is.
This is the story of a recluse young man, Frank, living with his father on an island in Western Scotland (on the Moray Firth?) waiting for his big brother to return. Big brother, Eric, has escaped from an institution for the criminally insane, which would be enough for any run-of-the-mill suspense novel. But that's not enough for Iain. No. Let's make Frank a calculating, cold-blooded killer who, to be fair, he has given up his old ways. Maybe. And Father has his own secret which you know isn't going to be good.
Iain tells the story from Frank's point of view. And Frank relates them rather, ahem, frankly. There is method, and a history, to the madness. Where some authors would rely on tried-and-true ways to explain dysfunction (abuse or witness to violence), Iain has original and wonderful ways to put his characters over the edge.
The Wasp Factory is not high-paced action. But it is gripping. Iain does not substitute substance for style. There are no unnecesary details to make you forget why you want to get to the next page. The Wasp Factory is Iain Banks first novel. The macabre tone returns in many of his later works (Use of Weapons, for example). However, he has lost much of the brevity that makes The Wasp Factory difficult to put down.
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"Gripes from a Big Country", more like. But then, I'm sure Bill would agree this collection of newspaper columns should never have been made a book. Bryson makes it clear in the introduction that he never wished to even write the columns in the first place. For the most part, the columns read like essays written at 11PM for an 8AM deadline the next day. Or, more precisely, they read like essays we all wish we could write at 11PM for an 8AM deadline the next day. No doubt about it, Bryson's writing is a joy to read. Relaxed, fluid, and with a nasty wit. The format of Notes
There's nothing like a fresh perspective to let you see things you never saw before, or saw but did not notice. Bryson, an American who lived in the UK for 20 years, returned to the US in 1995. "You can't go home", is an adage I hold, if not true, at least to be a good guide to what I should expect when returning anywhere after a prolonged absence. The US is just not the same for Bill, and he points out the glaring differences between the America he fondly recalled in the UK and the America that is his new reality. His observations are translated into comments for his British audience to help them understand America. But like "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney", most of the comments are just complaints.
Certainly there are essays that strike chords that resonate with my own feelings. Notes
I wish I could write like Bill Bryson.
TopDysfunctional people on a dysfunctional world.
Self-centred. Troubled. Lonely. Demanding. All these and worse are the characters in Martian Time Slip. But Dick manages to make us feel sympathy for all of them, even while he makes it clear that their problems are of their own making.
Martian Time Slip is about people. It happens to be set on Mars of the future (yet now passed) but could just have been easily set in the Midwest US today, or Africa 100 years ago. Lonely housewives and egomanic businessmen are ubiquitous. It follows the lives of mostly disconnected people whos lives become inter-twined after a suicide. Their common thread is schizophrenia; either in themselves or in family members. But who really are the mentally troubled? The "anomalous" or the "norms"? Rarely have I encountered characters that are as self-centred in their response to other's misfortune and yet Dick relates their responses in a manner that make you feel you probably would have felt the same, and then the shame comes.
While Martian Time Slip has an abundance of character development, it lacks scientific development. There really is no reason for this story to be set on Mars. And Dick doesn't do much with it, either.
Top-- Eric Tittley
Last modified July 18, 2005