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By Nico Vreeland, on April 29th, 2013  Author: Karen Lord
2013, Ballantine Books
Filed under: Sci-fi
Find it at Goodreads
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
4 |
| Entertainment..... |
2 |
| Depth..... |
5 |
I think my sci-fi kick is officially over. I started reading this book after seeing a gushing post about it at io9, a preeminent sci-fi website. The post was titled “If you want to see what science fiction is capable of in 2013, you ought to pick up this book.” There are other bold claims in the piece (like “it’s a quick, fun read”), but the title is heart of the matter. If this is all science fiction is capable of these days, I don’t want any part of it.
In The Best of All Possible Worlds, there are four races of humans in the galaxy: Terrans, Ntshune, Sadiri, and Zhinuvians. The Sadiri are long-lived telepaths who have explored the universe with their “mindships”—they’re basically halfway between Vulcans and Elves. In fact, one Sadiri clan actually calls themselves Elves. It’s almost stupefyingly derivative, and the world-building is by far the best part of the novel.
The Terrans are humans as we think of them, the Zhinuvians or performers are something, and the Ntshune are… I don’t even know. Partially that’s because the utterly dry and life-devoid prose put me to sleep every time I started to read this book, and partially it’s because it doesn’t matter what the Ntshune are, because they have nothing to do with anything.
The inciting incident of the novel (I actually hesitate to call it a novel, more on that shortly), is a horrible act of genocide, committed by the Ainya against the Sadiri. Specifically, the Ainya blew up Sadira altogether. Which seems to have been a stupid decision, because the Sadiri and their semi-allies the Zhinuvians are the only ones with ships that can reach the Ain. So the Ainya are stranded wherever that planet is, and they literally don’t factor into the novel again, ever. …
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By David Duhr, on April 26th, 2013  [Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds, a shamefully overhyped book (C4 review here), has just come out in paperback and continues to wail for attention: the book sports 11 full pages of laudatory front matter, including snippets from 27 reviews and several dozen blurbtastically purple and inane write-ups from novelists.
Many of these blurbs confuse C4 contributor Dave Duhr, so for the next couple of weeks he will be writing open letters to a few of these blurbers and we’ll run them in this space. Because we’re confused, too.
The first is addressed to Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones), whose Yellow Birds blurb reads, “This is a novel I’ve been waiting for. The Yellow Birds is born from experience and rendered with compassion and intelligence. All of us owe Kevin Powers our heartfelt gratitude.”]
Dear Alice Sebold:
Hi!
I write to you today in the hopes that you’ll clarify for me the first line of your Yellow Birds blurb. When you said, “This is a novel I’ve been waiting for,” did you mean that when you wrote the blurb, you still had not received the manuscript? How long had you been waiting? Sometimes when I order a book the shipping takes nearly two weeks! So I understand your aggravation. But I wonder if it was really necessary to take a public potshot at Mr. Powers and/or his publicist for their tardiness in getting a copy to you.
It’s strange, too, that you would then write the rest of the blurb before receiving and reading the book. Unless you wrote the second and third lines days later, after the book arrived and after (I hope, though I’m not certain) reading it in its entirety? In which case—and this is solely for future reference, of course—I would have recommended expressing the passage of time in some manner. For example: “This is a novel I’ve been waiting for. (Dum dee dum dee dum.) Mail came today, no bird book. (Dum dee dum dee dum.) No mail on Saturdays now, WTF? (Dum dee dum dee dum.) Oh wow it came today! (Dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum.) I have now read a few pages of The Yellow Birds and can confidently say that so far it seems born from experience and rendered with compassion and intelligence,” yada. …
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By Nico Vreeland, on April 24th, 2013 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
Waiting to be Heard, by Amanda Knox. Reviewed by Michicko Kakutani in the New York Times.
I’ve never been all that interested in the Amanda Knox case, but I was intrigued by this review, mostly because Kakutani strikes me as being quite naive here, in that she even reviewed the book at all. In the second paragraph, Kakutani mentions that “the Knox family, which hired a public relation company … soon after her arrest, … have promoted an image of [Knox] as an American innocent abroad who got caught up in the gears of a dysfunctional Italian justice system.” The book, you might be shocked to learn, presents Knox as an American innocent abroad who got caught up in a series of terrible mistakes. It might as well be a press release from Knox PR, but Kakutani treats it as a real account of Knox’s growth as a person. She still ends with a shrug, I’m just not sure why she didn’t start there.
Who is Ozymandias? And Other Puzzles in Poetry, by John Fuller. Reviewed by Nicholas Lezard at the Guardian.
This probably only appeals to a subsection of the reading public, but if you’re one of those select few, a measure of caution: Lezard says the “puzzles” are “infuriatingly complex,” though he later deems it a worthwhile read. If you’re of the school that believes that misreading a poem can reveal its beauty, you stand a better chance of liking it. If that statement made you roll your eyes, give it a miss.
The Democracy Project, by David Graeber. Reviewed by Ben Ehrenreich in the L.A. Times.
This study of the Occupy Wall Street movement was written by an anthropology professor with “anarchist politics, scholarly virtuosity and [a] long history of activism.” That sounds like about the best person to write a study of Occupy.
In brief: Not entirely sure that James Wood and Claire Messud are the “first couple of fiction,” but this is an interesting profile of them. … 30 things to tell a book snob. … The major winners of the LA Times Book Prize are all books we’ve discussed extensively on the Page Count Podcast. … Dwight Garner likes John le Carre’s latest, and recommends a le Carre “starter kit.” …
By Robert Cooperman, on April 23rd, 2013 Author: Charles Harper Webb
2013, University of Pittsburgh Press
Filed Under: Poetry
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
9 |
| Entertainment..... |
9 |
| Depth..... |
10 |
In What Things Are Made Of, Charles Harper Webb displays such a wonderfully quirky, idiosyncratic voice, whether writing about oil-slicked, doomed penguins or puppy love. His poems careen between wild hyperboles, the irony of looking back at youthful indiscretions and unrequited or disappointed love, to the joy he feels with his beloved small son and wife, and his love of old rock bands like the Stones or Led Zeppelin. But there’s always something interesting, fascinating in this collection, something that makes us read and keep turning the pages, to see what new and deliriously strange take he’ll have on the things of this world.
One of Webb’s favorite poetic ploys is to pile up instances and examples until they seem to be almost spinning out of control, taking on lives of their own. It’s an effective strategy to get at the confusion, chaos, miserableness, but also the sheer fecundity of life. …
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By Marc Velasquez, on April 19th, 2013  Author: Mary Roach
2013, Reader’s Digest
Filed Under: Nonfiction, Humor
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
3 |
| Entertainment..... |
4 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
Mary Roach recently released a book that has received rave reviews, has been called both hilarious and informative, and has even earned her a guest spot on The Daily Show.
Mary Roach also has a new book called My Planet, which is a collection of columns she wrote for Reader’s Digest. Despite the promise on the flap copy that Roach will bring to these “essays” the same, “uncanny wit and amazingly analytical eye,” that makes her other books so popular, My Planet, falls far short of being informative, or funny, or even interesting.
Roach’s other books—her well received and well read books—are in-depth and thoroughly researched. Roach’s writing is accessible and witty. Roach’s curiosity is a catalyst for those books, and her subjects are worth being curious about. …
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By Sean Clark, on April 17th, 2013 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
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Harvard Square, by André Aciman. Reviewed by Charles McGrath (New York Times).
I have a soft spot for fiction that takes place in New England and particularly Boston, and so this one, set right near C4′s home turf, obviously caught my eye. It seems like a fairly straightforward literary novel, dealing with class, relationships, and what it means to be an outsider. But the 1970s Cambridge setting and McGrath’s promise of the “slyly comic” have me interested in learning more.
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The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer. Reviewed by Heller McAlpin (Barnes and Noble Review).
Having grown up at one, a summer camp is another favorite setting of mine. This book sounds really good, and Franzenian in scope. If follows a group of friends from their time at an arts summer camp in the 70s all the way to the present, 50 years later. A book this big (in size and scope) takes some real chops to pull off. I don’t know anything about Wolitzer, but McAlpin seems to think she’s up to the task. Put this one in the ‘definitely’ column.
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There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie Ephron. Reviewed by Maureen Corrigan (Washington Post).
I’m not sure if I’m into the idea of a “thriller lite” or not, but the premise of this book (old people are suffering a seeming epidemic of dangerous falls in a low-income area of NY targeting for commercial development) does have promise. The book take place in a fictional corner of the Bronx, but draws on actual persons and events of history, which I like when done well. This one’s just a maybe for me, but worth a further look.
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Quickly: Pulitzer winners have been announced. This standalone story release of a story that didn’t make the cut for Saunders’s last collection, would be more interesting if it was free… Finally a review of a possibly interesting nonfic.
By Sean Clark, on April 15th, 2013 Author: Hannu Rajaniemi
2012, Tor
Filed Under: Sci-Fi
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
9 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
10 |
The best science fiction is the sort that goes out of its way to create an intricate, fully realized world that is both exciting to explore as a reader and comments on contemporary society at the same time. To those ends, Quantum Thief is one of the most successful pieces of sci-fi that I’ve ever encountered. The ideas in this book are dense–it’s certainly not a breezy read–but if you hang with it, the payoff is worth the effort.
It does take some hanging with, though. Many of the ideas and even some of the settings are fairly abstract, and it will take a little while fro the reader to get oriented and be able to understand exactly what is happening where. This is because the book is oozing with post-humanism concepts. It opens in a psychic prison of sorts, where a former thief named Jean le Flambeur is faced with the daily dilemma of either killing himself or being killed by a copy of himself. A roguish girl, Mieli, and her slutty spacecraft (bear with me) spring Jean from prison and take him to a city on Mars called the Oubliette, where they plan to pull off a major (and mysterious) heist.
This is where things really open up conceptually. …
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By Nico Vreeland, on April 12th, 2013  Author: Derek Raymond
2006, Serpent’s Tail (originally published 1984)
Filed under: Mystery
Find it at Goodreads
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
I’ve had a tough time finding a book to follow up my last great read, as is usually the case. I’ve started about half a dozen, but none of them held my attention past fifty pages, until I came across this piece by A.L. Kennedy about the 1984 mystery novel He Died with His Eyes Open, the first in the “Factory” mystery series by the British crime writer Derek Raymond.
Kennedy says, “I’ve read He Died With His Eyes Open twice. I don’t know if I could stand to read it again. Like all of Derek Raymond’s work, it has a remarkable and disturbing physicality.” It’s true. Raymond’s world is a grossly imagined one full of lecherous pub governors, filthy apartments, and sadistically violent criminals, though not sociopaths… his characters have more complex psyches than simply amoral monsters.
For a modern mystery reader, this book might be unsatisfying. It’s relatively sparse on plot, following a lone, unnamed detective in the Unexplained Deaths unit at London’s Metropolitan Police. When a middle-aged drunk turns up messily beaten to death, the detective takes it a bit personally and sifts through the victim’s life to find out why. Luckily, the victim left a long series of journals on tapes (thus the cover), and much of the novel simply transcribes these tapes.
There’s a quote at the end of this reprint from Drive author James Sallis, who calls Raymond’s Factory series “literature truly written from the edge of human experience.” That should give you a decent idea of the kind of book we’ve got here. Raymond’s plot essentially sketches out a straight line, and though there’s a rather absurd reveal at the end, the oomph of the novel comes from the messy lives it depicts. …
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By C4 Staff, on April 11th, 2013  Our April podcast sessions are now up for free download, and we actually manage to stay sober and mostly on task this month. We cover a broad range of books, both new and old, chat about Amazon’s purchase of Goodreads, the accusations kerfuffle around Jane Goodall’s upcoming (maybe) book, and hope that if Jim Carrey does a book tour to promote his new book, he gives all his readings by pretending to talk with his butt cheeks.
No Drunk Review this month (you can look forward to Rob Zombie’s Lords of Salem in May), but we did play another round of of the surprisingly popular Kakutani game.
Subscribe on iTunes here. If you’d rather the direct RSS feed, here you go.
Have any topic or reading suggestions, or comments about the show? Please email them to info@chamberfour.com or shoot us a tweet.
By Nico Vreeland, on April 10th, 2013 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
 The Magic Circle, by Jenny Davidson. Reviewed by Michael Dirda in the L.A. Times.
I’m kind of a sucker for a book that uses games as its central mechanic. They can be really great, or really terrible, like any other kind of book. This one could likewise go either way; Dirda compares Davidson unfavorably to Muriel Spark, but his description of the premise makes it sound darkly fascinating. The Magic Circle follows three bored grad students who make up games that “blur the boundary between reality and ritual — and perhaps sanity and madness as well.” Dirda closes by saying “the spirited plot is allowed to eclipse its fascinating players,” but I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
The City of Devi, by Manil Suri. Reviewed by Adam Mars-Jones at the Guardian.
The City of Devi is a strange-sounding book about a Muslim love triangle between a man, his wife, and his homosexual lover. Mars-Jones says, “Indian homosexuality is enough of a taboo subject that it’s bracing to read about Jaz’s happy days of cruising in Hyderabad.” But, then there’s also a thriller plot involving cyber-attacks and widespread massacres. These elements, as you might suspect, don’t mix very well.
The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Kushner. Reviewed by Ron Charles in the Washington Post.
Similarly to City of Devi, Flamethrowers blends styles and tones, but the latter seems to work better. Charles absolutely raves over this book, calling Kushner “a superb recent-historical novelist.” That recent history is the art scene of 1970s New York, which Kushner blazes across in near-surreal prose.
In brief: Sorry, Joyce Carol Oates, but even this fluffy rave doesn’t convince that your latest rushed-out novel (a ghost story, of all things) will be worth picking up. … The premise of a new book about the CIA seems to be a catalogue of more ways in which the American government breaks its own laws to kill people. … A new nonfiction book, about a time when people didn’t believe that gorillas existed, might be a read-the-review-and-be-done-with-it situation. … Your official overhyped debut literary novel of the month. I just can’t stand another coming-of-age debut. … Another nonfiction book, this one about the science of winning, that you won’t need to actually read after the review.
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