Vinge vs. Willis - The Decision

There is no such thing as a hard and fast rule.  When laws don’t work or we don’t like them we change them.  When the structure of a deathmatch is causing me problems, I change it.  I know…I suck, but it’s the damn holidays and we’ve been so busy that it has been hard enough to keep to the reading schedule without having to post something like five separate reviews for each of these books.  So I’m not going to do that.  I had four additional rounds planned with specific themes that I thought were worth comparing and I’ll try to touch on all of them, but I’m not going to go into the same detail.  I think we’ll find it isn’t necessary…

Round 2: Narrative Shifts

I’d almost call these even except that early on I was only concerned about Kivrin and was seriously aggravated every time Willis brought us back to the Oxford of Dunworthy and influenza and bell ringers.  I eventually came around, but my interest and attention in all aspects of the story never even compared to how how enjoyable every part of A Fire Upon the Deep was.

Round 3: Contagion

You know, Willis did a great job here.  Doomsday Book was just 573 pages of slowly building paranoia over black plague and paranoia.  You wouldn’t think anything could get worse than that kind of constant fear but A Fire Upon the Deep improves on conventional fears of contagion by orders of magnitude.  We’re not talking illness or even death.  We’re talking species wide, planetary, and galaxy-wide slavery and total corruption of the mind, body, and soul.  Oh, and we don’t even know if there is anything that can stop it.

The Decision:

Is it even worth covering two more rounds when my decision is clearly A Fire Upon the Deep?  People who were paying attention at the time can correct me, but I would wager that Doomsday Book only grabbed its share of the title because it is just so easy to like.  Although Vinge, IMHO, produced the more complex story with every character and piece of tech being worthy of their own entire novel (I’d accept a series for the Tines alone), Doomsday Book is so much easier to comprehend and is just so silly, especially when compared to the other seriously heavy shit going around in 1992.  This is probably also the reason it is included on so many lists and was nominated for more awards (including the Nebula which it won).  But of course that doesn’t make it the better book and since I’ve abbreviated my analysis this time, why don’t we check my work.
 Reader ratings (1 to 5 stars) at WWEND seem to support my conclusion:A Fire Upon the Deep AVG Score is 4.33 (125 ratings)
Doomsday Book AVG Score is 4.22 (104 ratings)
 This, however surprisingly, is not supported by the WWEND scores though.  There, Red Mars has an average rating of 4.055 (131 ratings).  I guess I can agree that both A Fire Upon the Deep and Doomsday Book had a wider appeal than Red Mars, but this still causes me to lose confidence in humanity… That being said, I personally think the 1993 Hugo’s should have actually broken down thusly:

1)      Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

2)     A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

3)     Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Nevertheless, in only three rounds, Doomsday Book was "knocked the fuck out!" and we now have the definitive winner of the 1993 Hugo: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge!

The Lies of Locke Lamora Read Along Week 5

The final week of the LOLL Read Along!

This has been an awesome experience for me and there has been so much fun discussion about a book that I wouldn’t have known about if it wasn’t for this group read.  If you haven’t been reading this book with us, you need to pick this up.  It is too good to overlook.

I realized today that I’ve been extremely remiss in my posts.  I’ve always neglected to mention where these questions are coming from for those of you who aren’t participating in the read along.  This is a problem because they come from some really great bloggers and I hope you’ll check out what they have to say if you haven’t already.  This week’s questions come from Lynn’s Book Blog.

The previous week’s discussions:

Wk 1 – Little Red Reviewer

Wk 2 – Dark Cargo

Wk 3 – My Awful Reviews

Wk 4 - SF Signal

This week has been so busy that I actually forgot about the AMA with Lynch on Wednesday.  Man, and I wanted to ask him some stuff…pout.  What’d I miss?!  So, I still have too much to do today and I can feel myself getting sick as I write this so I’m not sure I have a lot of energy to put into this post, but I should be able to participate in everyone else’s discussions more tomorrow and hopefully make up for it.  At least this isn’t the end of the Lynchmob and I’ll be able to come back strong for the second half of this Read Along with Red Seas Under Red Skies.  YAY!

1.       The Thorn of Camorr is renowned – he can beat anyone in a fight and he steals from the rich to give to the poor.  Except of course that clearly most of the myths surrounding him are based on fantasy and not fact.  Now that the book is finished how do you feel the man himself compares to his legend.  Did you feel that he changed as the story progressed and, if so, how did this make you feel about him by the time the conclusion was reached?

I think the ultimate development in Locke’s character was the realization (for readers and for Locke) that he couldn’t live up to the insane myth that had been built up around him.  Struggling with that is what made the end of the book so chaotic and heart-wrenching for me.

2.       Scott Lynch certainly likes to give his leading ladies some entertaining and strong roles to play.  We have the Berangia sisters – and I definitely wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of them or their blades plus Dona Vorchenza who is the Spider and played a very cool character – even play acting to catch the Thorn.  How did you feel about the treatment the sisters and Dona received at the hands of Jean and Locke – were you surprised, did it seem out of character at all or justified?

Man, you stab a guy in the neck with some poisoned knitting needles and think you’re not going to get punched?!  Was I the only one who stood up and shouted at her Chris Tucker style, “You got knocked the fuck out!”

Haha, remember that?

3.       Towards the end we saw a little more of the magic and the history of the Bondsmagi.  The magic, particularly with the use of true names, reminds me a little of old fashioned witchcraft or even voodoo.  But, more than that I was fascinated after reading the interlude headed ‘The Throne in Ashes’ about the Elderglass and the Elders and why their structures were able to survive even against the full might of the Bondsmagi – do you have any theories about this do you think it’s based on one of our ancient civilisations or maybe similar to a myth??

I always enjoy long lost civilizations in books that leave behind technology that we don’t understand.  It recalls Easter Island or Stonehenge.  I don’t know if it is important whether this story was fact or fiction, what seemed important was the knowledge that there are things about the world that we can never understand and that which will always confound our best attempts at comprehension.  It adds a sense of mystery that pervades everything in the book and I thoroughly enjoyed the limited exposure we had to it.

4.       We have previously discussed Scott Lynch’s use of description and whether it’s too much or just spot on.  Having got into the last quarter of the book where the level of tension was seriously cranked up – did you still find, the breaks for interludes and the descriptions useful or, under the circumstances did it feel more like a distraction?

I struggled with it at first, but pretty quickly came to understand the rhythm to Lynch’s writing that made it easier to get through.  That tension-relaxation rhythm eventually worked pretty well for me.

5.       Now that the book has finished how did you feel about the conclusion and the eventual reveal about the Grey King and more to the point the motivations he declared for such revenge – does it seem credible, were you expecting much worse or something completely different altogether?

I was actually disappointed by this reveal.  I felt like we hadn’t ever met him and we really only knew very little about his sisters so I had trouble caring about his history and what happened to him.  I thought Camorr was full of possible Grey King candidates without introducing a new character and on top of that, we had just met the Spider so there were these two characters that we had just met for the first time yet had been so instrumental everything that led up to this point.  On top of that, we had just lost 3 very important characters who all had huge personalities and we were wondering if Locke and Jean could hold it together without getting themselves killed.  By the time he was finally revealed, I just didn’t have room to care about the damn Grey King, who was the supreme ruler of all dirt bags.

6.       Were you surprised that Locke, being given two possible choices (one of which could possibly mean he would miss his chance for revenge on the Grey King) chose to go back to the Tower  – especially given that (1) he would have difficulty in getting into the building (2) he would have difficulty in convincing them about the situation and (3) he would have difficulty in remaining free afterwards? Did anyone else nearly pee their pants when Locke and the rest were carrying the sculptures up to the roof garden?

I wasn’t surprised at all.  But I also didn’t interpret this choice the same way.  It was a given that he would seek out the GK eventually.  He’s pledged his life to ruining the GK’s life and even his desires.  Insomuch as the GK wanted the nobility dead, Locke would do whatever it took to keep that from happening.  This seemed less dilemma of two opposite choices than the first step in his long range goal.

And yeah, that was pretty nerve-wracking.  I was just waiting for one to drop!

7.       Finally, the other question I would chuck in here is that, following the end of the book I was intrigued to check out some of the reviews of LOLL and noticed that the negative reviews mentioned the use of profanity.  How did you feel about this – was it excessive? Just enough? Not enough?

Beautifully profane in every way.  Loved it.  I didn’t think he used it every chance he got

8.       Okay one further, and probably most important but very quick question – having finished, will you pick up the sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies?

Not only am I excited about RSURS but I already can’t wait for Republic of Thieves.  Oh, and I wouldn’t miss the chance to participate in the second part of the read along for anything.