Here I Am

This is my fourth attempt at reviewing Here I Am and it shall be my last. (You can tell I’m serious because I used the word ‘shall’.) I wish I could blame my writer’s block solely on Jonathan Safran Foer’s brick of a book, but I cannot; my brain is working against me. Nine-ish months ago, I started taking a new medication and slowly (so slowly I didn’t clock it until now) it began turning off all the switches in my brain. Now it’s an empty abyss in there, filled only with self-recriminating echoes.

When I cracked opened Here I Am, I was looking for comfort, much like when I reread Never Let Me Go. They have their flaws, but Foer’s previous two novels, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, are lyrical and beautiful and tragic and cathartic – and that’s what I was expecting from Here I Am. Something to pull my heart from chest still beating, as I used to say.

In one iteration of this post, I started writing a comparison between this novel and Foer’s previous two novels; in another, I embroidered together snippets from reviews that say what I would say if I had all my faculties and my brain weren’t an echo chamber. Both attempts bored me, which is an accurate reflection of how I felt reading most of the book, but why should I take out my pain on you, dear patient reader?

Let’s start at the beginning: Here I Am is the story of the Bloch family, a Jewish family living in contemporary Washington, DC. Although there is no one main character, the novel spends a lot of time in the head of Jacob, himself the head of a nuclear family that includes his wife Julia and three sons Sam, Max and Benjy. Other characters include Jacob's extended family members: his father Irv, his mother Deborah and his grandfather Isaac, as well as his cousin Tamir and Tamir's sons Noam and Barak.

At first, I had a soft spot for the three boys in the novel – children have so little power in a story, particularly the story of their parents' marriage, but by the end of the novel, I wished they'd stop speaking and thinking. Precocious is the probably best description, but it goes beyond that. These children say and think things that children simply do not say or think. Granted, the same is true of Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but you’re prepared to overlook that failing because that book is so beautifully written.

Let’s go back to that cast list. Notice anything? Female characters are few and far between – and don’t expect too much from those that do appear; ‘main’ character Julia is so flimsy she's transparent. She serves mostly as Jacob's foil: reacting to his almost-infidelity, having her own almost-affair, punishing their son Sam, forcing Jacob to put down his dog and forcing an end to the no-man's land of their marriage. Then, at the end of the novel, she provides a convenient opportunity for Jacob to reflect on his life and wrap things up in a neat little bow.

The character I enjoyed the most, oddly, was Tamir. He's pretty offensive, but he's a straight shooter and he's in the unenviable situation of being unable to get home while his son fights in a war he feels he should be part of too. We learn details about him organically, while the grown man-child that is Jacob bemoans his gilded life that, if anything, he is ruining single-handedly but with zero self-awareness despite the ode to navel-gazing that is this book.

I keep comparing Foer’s novels, whether I mean to or not, but it occurs to me that the rambling, sentimental, lyrical style in Foer's previous books hides the weaker points of his writing, like dialogue – perhaps the author chose this book as a vehicle to confront his weaknesses, as much of it comprises lines and lines of dialogue like the longest play ever written. The conversations his characters have are stilted and, frankly, bizarre – surely, surely, no human person has conversations like this.

However, the comparison could begin and end with extent: the novel is 571 pages to their 200-odd. That’s 300 or so wasted pages in which the writer circles a lot of themes, but doesn't stop to focus on most of them, giving the reader a kind of slow whiplash. As Alexander Nazaryan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "This novel badly needed an editor who lacked tact and wielded a machete."

There’s probably more to be said about Here I Am – about the themes of religion and being Jewish in a modern world with its many distractions, or about Jacob with his hidden script made up of mostly notes like ‘HOW TO PLAY ANGER’ – but I’m bored again. I’m bored of writing about this boring book and editing my posts about this boring book and reading other reviews about this boring book.

The Buried Giant

What follows here is a blogpost I wrote but never finished and so never published. It's a pity because I'm interested to see where I was going with this, especially since I recently re-read Never Let Me Go and I have thoughts.

Kazuo Ishiguro is a one-trick pony. The trick happens to be the equivalent of a naturally born unicorn-pegasus hybrid (apparently known as an alicorn (or even hornipeg, thank you Wikipedia but that cannot possibly be correct, can it?) but which I will call a princess twilight sparkle and await a copyright infringement suit from Hasbro). Now that I have set the tone of my return to the blogosphere, I ask you: Who doesn’t like ponies?

A little while ago, I read an article about intelligent animals that appear to count or answer questions, but are really responding to subtle cues in the examiner's behaviour. Like Clever Hans, a pony that could do simple addition with single-digit numbers, but was really responding to an unconscious tic his owner tacked when stating the correct answer.

Clever Hans and his owner

This article reminded me of the week that I briefly, but with the best of intentions, adopted two puppies. My flatmate’s girlfriend had found a litter of strays playing in the street, but could only catch two of them. Since it was December, and my flatmate and co were visiting family for two weeks, the pups were mine to house-train. So, a few times a day, the pups and I would walk outside and I would pretend not to watch them do their business, but because I was watching them, once they had done their business, I would praise them to make sure it stuck that peeing outside was almost as good as being a princess twilight sparkle.

But then, once inside again, the female would immediately pee on the carpet. E-v-e-r-y t-i-m-e. I started to suspect she was messing with me. I watched her like a hawk to see whether I could find some clue in her behaviour as to her behaviour. Each time she peed inside I would discipline her by lowering my voice and repeating her name, and each time she peed outside I would praise her by raising my voice and repeating her name. But, still, she peed inside. E-v-e-r-y t-i-m-e.

Then I realised that she was just squatting outside and not actually doing her business, but because I was praising her thinking she was doing her business, she thought she was supposed to just squat outside and, since she still needed to pee, would do her business inside even though it led to her being called by name in an ominous tone of voice. She also hollowed out the couch from underneath, so that she could nap inside the couch, and hid the stuffing.

Ishiguro's novel The Buried Giant is about an elderly couple named Axl and Beatrice who are on a journey to visit their son. Their journey takes place in sixth-century Britain, a period I confess I know very little about. The highlights according to Wikipedia are: plague, famine and drought.  The highlights according to the novel are that the Romans are gone, and the Saxons and Britons have been at war, but the Saxons have won, and there is a kind of tense truce between them. Ogres are real, but not a problem "provided one did not provoke them". After all "in those days there was so much else to worry about. How to get food out of the hard ground; how not to run out of firewood..."

The one-trick pony that is Ishiguro's writing style physically takes form in the novel as a "mist" that is erasing the corners of people's memories and a dragon named Querig (which is dragon for princess twilight sparkle thank you very much). The main characters share a Alzheimer's-like amnesia of their own lives that affects even their memories of their son and where he lives, so that their entire journey is tinged with anxiety. Along their tense journey, the elderly couple meet villagers, children, soldiers and miscellaneous ferrymen, all affected by the mist.

This pony has been called many names by many readers, including "level banality" and "rhetoric in search of a form", an insult so snide it hisses. But let's call it Clever Hans princess twilight sparkle here. All of Ishiguro's stories slowly, so slowly that it's almost painful, unveil their secrets in layers as they speak, as they act, as they reason, as they dream. In Ishiguro's other novels, this amnesia that slowly builds a model of itself protects and hides secrets, both historical and intimate. In Never Let Me Go, the dilemma is the ethics of cloning. In Artist of a Floating World, it is Japanese actions during World War II. (I am not even going to pretend I understood The Unconsoled, however,)

On another level, the novel is a good analogy for its author’s style - here the metaphor becomes a bit strained...

And? And ...? I guess I'll never know now. To avoid cross-contamination, I'll blog my thoughts about Never Let Me Go in a different post.  

The City We Became

Some cities are just more real than others. That's the premise of The City We Became, where some cities are born and become sentient, represented by chosen citizens known as 'avatars'; they include Hong Kong and Sao Paulo -- and now New York. I haven't been 'home' in 15 years, but Jo'burg could be one of those cities. As I read, I couldn't help but wonder what the avatar of Jo'burg be like. He (why a 'he'?) would be a hustler, a survivor; he wouldn't be from there but he'd be of there; he'd place value in watches, cars, houses but also in fortitude, in smiling through the pain, in never saying never.

In The City We Became, the neonatal New York and its six avatars (five boroughs plus one to rule them all) have to fight for survival against an ancient enemy known as the Woman in White (snappy name). To do this, they have to find each other and fight as one. The premise is original, but the plot is well-worn -- for a reason: it makes for great storytelling. And the author, NK Jemisin, tells a great story. There's just one catch.

I have a theory -- let's call it my 'He was in the vicinity' theory. Authors and writers create bad guys (and sometimes good guys) who are larger than life and apparently impossible to defeat -- until ... until some flaw or accident or characteristic unique to the hero (that the hero usually doesn't know how to exert or control) cuts them down. But the flaw or accident or characteristic is just so insignificant next the legend of the bad guy that the author has created. The defeat is tainted because the victory seems coincidental, rather than earned, but we give it to the hero because, well, he was in the vicinity.

The City We Became suffers from Vicinity syndrome. The Woman in White is not only ancient, she's angry (as it turns out, not unjustifiably so) and she's everywhere. The author describes in excruciating detail the feathery white tendrils that adorn buildings, roads and even people, in some places forming portals to another dimension that are like wide cables that extend from the ground into the sky. 

By contrast, the city's avatars are newborns. Only two of them have any conscious understanding of who they are and what they can do, one more so than the other. They bounce from encounter with the Woman in White and her lackeys to encounter, surviving mostly by dumb luck and occasionally instinct. In the process, they glean some information about who or what they are, because the antagonist can't resist the opportunity to monologue.

Ultimately, they survive, because this book has sequels and why would someone read a sequel with no surviving characters? But they do it by obliterating two of the initial premises, which I call cheating. So not only do the characters win against an enemy who outranked them but they do it by changing the rules. This is a corollary to my initial theory: sometimes the only way for an author to defeat their own villain is to prove that one of their own statements about said villain or about the universe they have created is untrue. Sometimes they get away with it; sometimes it triggers my existing trust issues. In this book, it was the latter.

When I think about this book, the adjective that comes to mind is 'slick'. The author is quick to distract us from the destruction of the laws of her own universe and on to happier things. Much like she does in other sections of the book, for example, when the avatars find out the tragic truth behind how their city comes to be sentient and the reason for the Woman in White's anger. One of the avatars briefly has an existential crisis, but she gets over it remarkably quickly and doesn't mention it again.

Rarely does a review criticise a book for being well written and edited, but this book could stand to be rougher around the edges. It is too neat, distracting the reader from the shapes the plot is contorted into to convince you that good is good and coincidently it's also the side that's telling the story. I want a story where the Woman in White is not only manipulative, she's also right; she's just telling a different story. 

I also want a story that doesn't violate its own premises so that those in the vicinity can claim victory.

The Last Policeman series

I'm not generally one for detective novels or police procedurals, unless what we're hunting down is some metaphysical truth or something half in and half out of this world, because (and this shouldn't come as a shock to you, oh regular reader) I don't have much time for the real world. It's dull and disappointing and not what I was promised, but that's a whole other post.

I was going to introduce The Last Policeman series as an exception, but on (brief) reflection, it fits the mold. At the beginning of the first book, an asteroid has just been discovered heading towards Earth (it was 'hiding' behind the Sun) and humanity has 150 days to get its affairs in order before an extinction level event. North America will be spared the brunt of the impact (of course), but not the fallout.

So, now, the question is: What do you do when you have 150 days to live? The books both ask and answer that question. Most people 'go Bucket List' -- they abandon their loved ones to do the things that up to now they've only ever dreamt of doing: dangerous sports, travelling the world, taking copious amounts of drugs, having sex in public and so on. Everyone else begins hoarding resources and, as time goes on, they strip everything they can find of even middling value.

One man, however, carries on carrying on. As law and order takes on a different shape, a police detective continues taking on cases, even though they seem impossible to solve -- you know, given that everyone has scattered to the four winds and the only certainty is the end of the world in a hundred days and counting.

I read the first book a couple of years ago and I enjoyed it enough to download the other two books in the series, although I only really remember the beginning of the book and a handful of other details. (PS: I wrote a post about it where I misspelt the author's name, which doesn't bode well.) I then started the second book but only got a third of the way in before abandoning it.

But then, at the beginning of 2025, I decided that I have to read all the books I own before buying any new ones. See, I recently moved house and found I had way more stuff than I'd anticipated (I had to hire a second truck), but two thirds of that 'stuff' is books and two thirds of those books are unread... And for anyone suggesting that I *whispering* sell any of my books, you're reading the wrong blog, heathen.

So I read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro again (I never said I couldn't reread books) and then I read The City We Became by NK Jemisin and then I picked up Countdown City again. I started at the beginning ... and finished it in three days flat.

Unlike my post about the first book, the prose is clear and thin on metaphor, except when needed and even then it's bare bones. Like the main character and the genre itself, the author focuses on fact and function. When he compares one scent to another, for example, it's to tie two events together. 

The main character is more mature than in the first book (although in another sense, he's regressed to a lovestruck pre-teen). Hank Palace (yes, that is genuinely his name) is your classic detective, devoted to revealing the order inherent in the chaos, but he's no longer obsessed with the rule of law but with what is 'right' -- which at the end of days seems a bit of a moving target. For me, that made him easier to empathise with. I love nothing more than an unreliable narrator in an extreme situation whose actions you, the reader, are prepared to justify, no matter what.

And I have a feeling that statement is going to be tested in the third book.

As if the world ending is not enough, the tension really picks up in the second half of the book, although it's slightly undercut when you realise the main character survives at least long enough to feature in one more instalment. That is perhaps my favourite part of the book -- pages and pages of Hank surviving when survival seems pointless. And Houdini the dog, especially the scene where he stands in the doorway like a werewolf, framed by fire. 

In the end the mystery felt a bit constructed, but -- and this should be obvious -- I'm not here for the plot (a bit like in life).

Unfortunately, a rogue blogger already spoilt part of the plot of the third book for me, which I am peeved about, because this one's a doozy. But I'll keep it to myself, at least for now.

Westworld, Season 3

Originally, this was going to be a post comparing the Terminator franchise with Westworld. I'll explain why a bit later, but I've decided that my love for the former can't share a post with another franchise, especially one not worthy. (Yes, I said it!) That post also explains why I have shifted the focus of my blog slightly. Basically, I spend all day reading and editing text, so all I want to do afterwards is not read. But I still need stories to cope with the everyday, so I watch a lot of TV, which means you'll just have to accept that I'll be posting about TV series more. It is what it is, and I'm not going to argue about it.

Anyway ... I was motivated to write this post after watching Season 3 of Westworld (which was about a year ago, and no, I haven't watched Season 4 yet, for reasons to be explained - let me finish!). Something had been jumping up and down at the edge of my awareness from the end of Season 1 and through Season 2. By the middle of Season 3, I was having full-on conversations with the "something".

The androids are too human. They have clearly been written by humans. It's a bit like watching a portrayal of a human created by an alien that only knows about human behaviour from watching mainstream TV.

The androids think of themselves as singular identities. They refer to themselves as "me" and "I" and they have memories that they seem to organise in a linear way, like a human would. This singularism is forced on us because we are encased in a single body. Although our cells die and are replaced, and we grow and mature and creep toward death, most of us experience our bodies as a constant entity (note I said most).

The "I" of the androids, however, have been housed, first, in a "mainframe" as part of a computer program, and then downloaded into multiple bodies to live out different storylines. Their names and identities change with the story. Although the series doesn't deal with this, I don't see how it would be profitable to have each character active in only one place in the park at one time. Surely, you'd have the same character in multiple destinations, where you are sure they won't run into each other.

Once their story - or their part in a larger story - has ended, their "I" is uploaded again and interrogated, while their bodies are either prepared to go back into the field or archived and replaced. This would happen daily or every few days.

Now, bear in mind that many of the storylines were traumatic, especially for women. They took place in the Wild Wild West where women were at best someone's daughter or wife, and at worst, worth less than a cowboy's horse. Most of the female androids experience both extremes and everything in between during their 30 years or fewer in the park.

Dolores and Maeve

When the androids escape, they are wearing their respective bodies, and their personalities continue to develop in a way that is consistent with their programming and their experiences in the park. They think of themselves as singular selves with a history and a future that they are fighting to protect.

I couldn't jump this hurdle. I couldn't reconcile how an android that has existed both as part of a computer program and as different personalities playing out the same scenarios over and over could think of themselves as a singular identity rather than a pluralistic one. (Note: I'm adopting "pluralistic" as the antonym of "singular" because that's the word that keeps coming to mind, and if the writers of Westword can play fast and loose with meaning, so can I.)

Once they leave Westworld (the park), Dolores and Maeve think of themselves as separate people, but if they are the product of the same program, are they really? Surely the edges of their personalities would blend into each other? Surely they would be the same and different at the same time?

I expected both characters to become more "glitchy" as they spent time in the outside world - not necessarily in a negative way. I expected them to display a digitally induced form of DID (dissociative identity disorder), where the multiple facades of their person-hood would become apparent. I expected them to act more like a product of a computer program.

But instead, they doubled down and became more human. And I got more and more irritated, until by the final episode of Season 3, I was shouting at my computer. I think I missed a lot of the subtext - and probably the larger text - because I was so lost in trying to reconcile how these two characters could be so human. (In other words, I may have gotten some of the details wrong, so please don't bother me about them.)

Sam Worthington in Terminator Salvation

The link to the Terminator franchise comes in the fourth instalment, called Terminator Salvation. Don't shoot me, but I actually like the movie, not as a continuation of the series, but on its own. Christian Bale is the worst John Connor, but Sam Worthington (despite what I think of Avatar, which is not good) steps up and does a great job of getting us to relate to his character, before we find out his secret - the secret even he didn't know. *dramatic pause*

In one of the last scenes, Skynet appears to Worthington's character and lays out how it is using Sam to get to John. Apart from the ludicrousness of a computer program explaining its evil masterplan to one of its own servants, Skynet displays the same kind of singular identity that the androids in Westworld do. Perhaps that is the only way to engage with us humans, but it's just so ... jarring.

I don't know what I'm expecting instead. Perhaps some of the hammy acting from Dr Who (of which I'm a fan, before you come for me, but come on - Daleks?), except without the characters melting down because the human brain is incapable of housing a digital entity (I feel like I've seen that somewhere before ...) or the offensive attempt to portray genuine mental illness as something to ogle.

As much as I enjoyed Season 1 of Westworld, I've been avoiding Season 4. Perhaps the writers and actors addressed all this and so I'm complaining into a void. Perhaps ... Or I'm going to spend another eight episodes yelling at my computer. Stay tuned.

The Power

In my generous sabbatical from updating this blog, I have read The Power by Naomi Alderman twice. I read it for the second time at the end of 2020, after trying (and failing) to finish Alderman's fictional, experimental podcast The Walk. So why am I writing about it now, a year and a half later? Because I overheard someone say recently that if women were in charge, the world would be a more peaceful place. They clearly did not go to an all-girls' school.

I might have agreed with the sentiment, at least partially, before reading The Power. Not because I think that women are innately more peaceful, but because we are raised to be more empathic, to take the feelings of others into account and to try to resolve conflict. Consider the games we play as children. Girls play 'house' and they play with dolls, where they roleplay social situations and how to interact appropriately with others. Boys build things and then destroy them. They play games where they only have to consider themselves and their needs - and how to fulfill their needs.

There are of course exceptions and overlaps: girls may play with their brothers' toys and boys may have enlightened parents who let them play with whatever toys they'd like, even if they're considered 'girly'. Society is also changing, but that simply proves that these divisions existed in the first place.

Another reason I am returning to the novel's ideas is that I have watched seasons 1 and 2 of The Wilds three times in the last month and am eagerly waiting for the third season. Without giving away too much of the plot, the series begins with eight girls shipwrecked (plane-wrecked?) on an uninhabited island. We soon learn that this traumatic experience has been engineered as part of a social experiment to prove that women, because of their society-building skills, are better equipped for leadership.

I admit I scoffed when I heard the reasoning for the experiment and felt tense every time the head of the scientific team appeared on screen. Saying that women are more equipped for something like this is as offensive as saying that men are.

However, what we soon learn and the reason I have watched the series so many times, is that each girl is different. She has had different experiences and she has reacted to them differently, disproving the thesis that women behave inherently one way and men another - and proving my thesis that we are all individuals. I'm addicted to those stories (which is well-established on this blog), which are told so well and acted out so well.

(There's also the realism of the script - apart from the cycling of clothing, so that the girls seem to be wearing a new outfit every episode. The longer the girls are there, the more bedraggled they look. Their skin starts to burn and shed from exposure to the elements, they are dirty most of the time, their clothes have holes in, and their hair becomes either limp or frizzy and unruly, to the point where one of the characters breaks a brush trying to comb it. They aren't able to build elaborate shelters or to find an abundance of food - they often go without for days at a time. They don't try to map out every inch of the island, beyond confirming the island is uninhabited, finding freshwater and trying to find food. They also behave like the children they are, rather than shouldering the challenges like adults - they have tantrums, verbal spats and many passive-aggressive meltdowns.)

The Power goes to the opposite extreme to disprove the thesis that women are 'peaceful' and relationship builders. The novel considers what the world would look like if women were physically more powerful than men. Note: not as powerful as, but more powerful. One day, young women around the world wake up with the ability to shoot electrical jolts from their fingertips. In some women, it's stronger than others: they can main or kill someone with one jolt. This ability spreads to some older women, too, and it can be awoken by encounters with younger women. It can also strengthened with practice.

Predictably, patriarchal society is horrified - heavens forbid that young women assert themselves or fight back when molested or attacked. In the beginning, men and older women (most of whom don't have this freak ability) try to isolate and shame these 'mutants' - until they realise who really has the power in this new age. They also try to protect poor young men much more vociferously than they have ever tried to protect young women (trying to protect the 'virtue' of young women is not the same thing).

The novel, like The Wilds, follows seven main characters, including one young man (a self-styled journalist) and an older politician and mother whose daughter has the power. Many, but not all of the girls have been victimised, ensuring that the reader begins the story with strong empathy for these young women who are finally able to turn the tables on their abusers. Young Allie defends herself against her foster father who is molesting her (with her foster mother's implicit consent). Roxy plans to avenge the brutal death of her mother at the hands of her father's enemies. Tatiana flees her dictator husband to set up a new state where women are free.

But, as they say, power corrupts. It not only corrupts one's actions, but also one's mind. What started as a genuine grievance against specific people spreads until innocent and guilty people are lumped together and so that people who have committed different degrees of violence are given the same punishments. There's no awareness among the women wielding the power that they have now become the abusers or that they are repeating history. They are blinded by their own emotions, like militia in the midst of civil war.

The damage the women inflict on global society outweighs anything that history can offer as a warning, but it almost seems inevitable. The scale of the violence equals the violence that women have experienced throughout (at least recorded) human history and have simply borne. In addition, would some of the retaliations that are described in the book seem so heinous if they were carried out by a man?

There is some sort of gender revolution on the horizon and the seeds have already taken root. I guess we'll have to see what kind of plant it grows into. I'm not sure what plant would adequately represent the future described in The Power - probably something written by Jeff VandenMeer, but that seems like cheating.

The cover of This World is Full of Monsters by Jeff VanderMeer

The Passage versus The Passage

I used to think re-reading books was a literary sin. (Which is not a sulphur-and-brimstone sin, more a Fahrenheit 451 sin, the underworld hazy with the ashes of not just words, but something more physical and dependable than even the pages themselves.)  It was Against the Rules (or My Rules, or just my rules - I'm not sure). How could you waste time re-reading a book when there are so many unread books waiting (patiently) (and not so patiently) for you to breathe life into their characters and give them refuge in your memory?

But then I re-read The People's Act of Love, because I needed to; I started re-reading the Discworld series in order, because I like symmetry (I'm on book 29 of 41) and because they're dependable - even after 20 or 30 years, the satire still rings true and the characters are endearing or despicable for the same reasons; I re-read Special Topics in Calamity Physics because I wanted to re-read Night Film, but I couldn't re-read Pessl's second book without reading her first (right?); and now I am re-reading The Passage trilogy, not because I need to but because I want to.

My housemate and I watched the TV adaptation of The Passage in two sessions of five episodes each (each episode is 40 minutes). (Disclaimer: He slept through the last two.) He hasn't read the books and doesn't plan to - he reads fantasy almost exclusively and doesn't plan to meander into apocalyptic horror. However, he is a fan of vampire-esque movies and series and the associated 'lore' - think everything from Dracula to Buffy to Blade to Dawn of the Dead. This is important because the author (Justin Cronin) plays fast and loose with the vampire mythology. Meaning he scraps most of it.

So I am re-reading the books to see if what I loved about the books was originally in the books or if it was something I imposed onto them. Whether I wanted to love the books so much that I did the author the (dis)service of mutating his characters. I have now finished the first book (The Passage) and am taking a break before I begin the second book, The Twelve.

In the meantime, the news has come out that the network will not be making a second season of The Passage. Because of this, my housemate doesn't plan to watch the final episodes of the series that he slept through - smartly, he doesn't want to invest in something that doesn't have an obvious reward. I wish I had had that attitude before watching the third season of Twin Peaks or of Westworld. Yes, I'm still bitter.

Returning to my point (I seem to have developed a compass since last I addressed you, dear reader), while reading The Passage, I highlighted every description of the vampires to see whether I had conjured up a private vision of Cronin's vampires (which, if you read back in my posts, I found terrifying - and I find few things in this world terrifying, apart from human nature) or whether the special effects department had just gotten it wrong, whether for logistical or financial reasons. Thank you, Kindle, because it means all my highlights are now stored all in one place.

In the TV series, the vampires (the ones we see in the bunker, at least) are your standard-issue vampires: pale, reddish-amberish eyes, veins throbbing in their faces, but otherwise clothes-wearing humans. They can also pass for human, as Shauna Babcock does at the end of the season, and they have the Dracula-esque ability to seduce human beings and get them to do their bidding. Perhaps the reason for these choices is that they're a kind of shorthand - the viewer knows what kind of nasty we're looking at, leaving us mental space to focus on other elements of the plot.

One of the 'virals'

Because the vampires in the book are not standard issue. To start with, they're called 'virals', rather than 'vampires', because (obviously) the transformation is caused by a virus unearthed from a South American forest (where else?). These vampires are humanoid, but more muscled than humans and 'coiled', always ready to strike; they glow and their eyes are orange; they don't speak - they make ticking sounds; they have claws rather than hands, fangs rather than teeth; "the facial features seemed to have been buffed away, smoothed"; and their bodies are completely hairless. They hunt in 'pods' of three each, controlled by a hierarchy of twelve 'original' telepathic vampires (who do retain the Dracula-esque ability to appear in the thoughts of both humans and virals).

As I type the characteristics of these virals out, I realise how difficult it would have been to try to translate that onto the silver screen. Glowing vampires? They sound like a lumpy child's toy. But I still wish the special effects team had tried. By not trying, they were creating just another vampire TV show and we really don't need another one of those.

The relationship between the orphaned Amy Bellafonte and FBI agent Brad Wolgast sustains the first season

In addition to breathing life into a flogged-to-death genre, Cronin's strength as a writer is telling people's stories. The TV series gets this right in its casting and portrayal of the relationship between Federal Agent Bard Wolgast and a young girl named Amy Bellafonte. Wolgast is tasked with retrieving Bellafonte and bringing her to the facility where they can test the virus on her (you know, the one that turns everyone into vampires; yeah, that one) because she's an orphan and no one will miss her (I'm pretty sure there are laws against this, but ok). The writers tasked with translating the story for the silver screen fudge the details a bit, but the developing, sincere father-daughter relationship between the two characters makes this whole season watchable.

Thinking about this has made me realise how long Cronin's books are, how tedious they become in places, and how much better he is at telling people's stories than at navigating plot. The relationship between Wolgast and Bellafonte being one example. Another example is the story of Anthony Carter, who becomes one of the original virals and whose story binds the books together. The Passage alone is 760 pages long and it's only the first of three books. It covers the beginning of the outbreak, a time jump of 100 years, and a group of character's journey halfway across America, which could easily have been portioned out into two books. I'd ask: "What's left to tell?" except that I've already read the other two books, so I know the answer.

I am conflicted that there's no second season of The Passage. It would have picked up 100 years in the future (so, halfway through the first book) at a small outpost community that has lost all contact with the outside world (which, from its perspective and in typical American fashion, may no longer exist). The trailer depicts Amy as a kind of post-apocalyptic warrior princess, rather than a girl trying to survive the apocalypse, which is how she's depicted in the books and which I suppose is less appealing. If another network picks up this series, here's my compromise: I'll let you get away with warrior Amy (as opposed to survivor Amy) if I get my glowing, smooth, coiled, ticking virals.

1Q84

Two moons, the one paper-like, a cheap lantern, lit from behind and green with dust. Together the moons are a signpost of an alternate reality that the protagonist of Haruki Murakami's novel calls 1Q84. Get it? I'm not sure I do, but it is best to embrace your weaknesses when reading anything written by the master of relativity, Murakami.

I am back, dear reader, albeit not in one piece and not without a few scars. One is a pretty star shape and positioned like a gangster tat. There is only one moon here, but it is anaemic-pink with pollution and on sale.

So it is fitting that 1Q84 is my first review in a few months. It is the codex to my present. It is my white rabbit. It is a post-modern Ulysses sitting next to said tome on my bedside table. It is 1000-and-something pages light, and I read the first 100 pages three times and each time it was a different novel.

The novel is actually a trilogy, but what isn't in the aftermath of Peter Jackson's assault on Mordor? It was first published in three parts in Japanese in 2009 before being translated and published in English in 2011. Since then Murakami has written one more novel: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, which is news to me too.

My books travel with me. I never know when I may find an opportunity - and an almost physical need - to read, from doctors' waiting rooms to coffee breaks to shop queues. I have been (interrupted and) asked to describe this book many many times in many many contexts and each time I flapped my cheeks a few times before sighing, hoping this would suffice. When it didn't, I squinted at the back cover:

The year is 1Q84.

This is the real world,
there is no doubt about that.

But, in this world, there are
two moons in the sky.

In this world, the fates of two people
Tengo and Aomame, are closely intertwined.
They are each, in their own way,
doing something dangerous.
And in this world, there seems
no way to save them both.

Something extraordinary is starting.

"So," I would start. "This 1321-page book is set in an alternate universe, where everything is the same as ours except that there are two moons." I would look up from the blurb then, hoping this would have answered the question. "Um, ok. The story is told from the perspectives of two characters: an assassin-cum-gym-instructor and a writer-cum-maths-teacher. They are separately part of a conspiracy that is loosely bound to a cult that believes in faeries. The Old World kind of faerie. The nasty kind.

"I haven't finished reading it, yet," I would apologise. Still, my audience would stare.

Stop staring.

This standoff reminds me of a mistake I made once of asking an elderly sculptor what one of his pieces 'meant' - I was chewed out in Italian before being given the cold shoulder for the afternoon. Yes, meaning is relative - but meaning is also democratic, sir, and you are responsible for mowing the grass along your stretch of road whether you vote or not. Or something.

I imagine Murakami chewing me out for turning to the blurb for meaning.

In a previous novel, Kafka on the Shore, loose ends flip around like live electrical wires in the street after a violent storm. (The same street whose sidewalks you mow.) In 1Q84, the street is not only triple the length, with triple the number of sparking wires, but it also inhabits all 26 possible dimensions and then some. In other words, the novel is too long to safely sustain relativity.

The problem with the author scrapping his name from the voting ballot and setting fire to all evidence that he was ever there is that, the longer the novel, the more frayed plot points spark in the street and many of these streets are cul de sacs, each with kaleidoscopes of authors hightailing it in all sorts of directions, possibly dimensions, and while I don't mind singing for my supper, I would prefer it if we could stick to one metaphor. Right?

1321 pages is too long for the author to leave me to my own devices.

As if to punctuate this, my pet bunny ate the last 6 pages of the novel before I could finish reading. So, technically, I have not finished the novel. But neither do I have the urge to acquire those 6 pages and read them (imagine me curled up behind a bookshop bookshelf, listening for the footsteps of a bookseller who will politely ask me to buy the book if I want to know how it ends - they don't believe the story about Munroe the paper-munching rabbit).

This review is like one of those puzzles where you have to count how many shapes you see and you are supposed to count shapes in the shapes and shapes made of shapes and the shapes these shapes make. There are multiple blurbs in this post and not all of them belong to the same union. I was going to count them out for you and then I thought, nah, you could do with some exercise after your six-month break from my meanderings.

Salem's Lot and Half of a Yellow Sun

Vampires. No radioactive cows. Maybe a ghost and a portal of evil. But mostly vampires. I enjoy a classic vampire story. Let me clarify: I enjoyed Dracula and its queasy Romantic-Gothic sexuality. In a sense, Salem's Lot is a classic vampire movie in that it climbs the same brickwork, but it has dirt on the soles of its shoes and it arrives at the wrong window: that of the servants, who make dull vampires.

The title is promising: Salem's Lot. The witch trials, the drownings, the burnings - and the contemporary knowledge that this is where supposed witches were burnt to death because some fools got syphilis and needed  a scapegoat. We also know that supposed witches are a vengeful bunch who come back to pull out the hair of innocent people. So we begin with that stomach-clenching anticipation. Not only are there no ghosts, there are no witches. No animal familiars, not even an animated broomstick or dancing mice.

I am bored already by this topic. You? Which is My Point (We got here faster than usual. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.) Stephen King is a master of his craft. His plot structure, use of characters, foreshadowing and resolution are precise. Which is, again, My Point. His prose carries you along until you find you are already finished (well, kinda). But the foreshadowing hits you in the face like a hand in a boxer's glove, which is delivered by the characters, who (imaginatively speaking) look like Rocky. In other words (if you are struggling to concentrate, too), the story is predictable. Almost (I can hear you shouting objections already) predictable.

From the 1931 film Dracula

The topic is also promising. Vampires are modelled on Vlad the Impaler, who was a piece of work, easily one of the most evil men of all time. Even a cleaned-up version is sickening: the man literally had people impaled, feet to head, for entertainment. Because he was (let's review this ) evil. More evil than a town of vampires or a squadron of Nazis. A thoroughbred psychopath. Even I would rather believe in supernatural evil, not human evil, so I can begin to understand this level of bad. I crave some moral boundary to shove him behind; I need to know that he and his ilk could be vanquished and sent to suffer for their actions for eternity. Which is perhaps where the vampire legend comes from.

Now you are wishing I had not even written than blurb on Vlad's hobby, right? You are also wishing I would continue. Either way you are still reading. Because holding hands with your horror is your death instinct. You know the drill: that we watch movies like Scream and Saw to confront our own mortality. Because we all subconsciously assume we are immortal (don't argue, you - in a simple, childish argument, even denying it proves it) partly because who could live every day with immediate knowledge that we are dying? When we watch movies like Saw, we spend the first hour or so dancing with the knowledge that we could die any moment, and the second hour calmed because someone perseveres and survives, and that someone is metaphorically us.

(Personally, I don't watch movies like Saw because I can't bear the idea that people would maim each other, nevermind enjoy, nevermind imagine these scenarios. The thought of it literally makes me ill. But zombies... I get that.)

Now here is where the promise of the title is really mangled. (I am trying to restrain myself from making glittery jokes, because they're so easy, but feel free to make your own and not tell me about it.)  Salem's Lot was written in the '80s, roundabout Lost Boys and then Blade. Its vampires are the lost-soul and replaced-by-pure-thirsty-evil sort. They need to be staked, not understood. For all other similarities with Dracula, this lot of vampires lacks the lust of its father figure, which makes this version vapid. Isn't that the point of the vampire legend? Repressed female sexuality? (Read Dracula and get back to me.)

I followed this up with Chimanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, as I promised. It is set during the Nigerian civil war of the 1960s - far more frightening than Dracula but on par with Vlad. For me, it echoes the traumas of the more recent Rwandan crisis, which has always disturbed me. As it should, but perhaps more than it should. My conscience cannot understand - not even if you convinced me that half of the population fell ill with the vampiric illness. Please try. I would much rather believe in supernatural evil, than that there is more than a one per cent chance my neighbours could be convinced that I deserve to die, because someone calls me a cokroach or by virtue of some incidental thing like my dialect or accent or clothing, .

Toni Morrison (I am really cramming everything in to this post) wrote that trauma cannot be transcribed; it is a great bawling absence - see, I am already running short of words. This is how she writes (or doesn't write) about trauma in her novels: by writing 'around' it. EM Forster did the same thing in Passage to India, when the main character suffers a nervous breakdown. Adichie (who is influenced by Morrison's work - she's like the Dickens of modern literature) gives trauma her own spin. She describes elements of the trauma matter-of-factly.

(I am about to get kind of juvenile Vlad here, so read on at your own peril.)

One character is evacuated via a train cart like a cow to slaughter. Next to (leaning on) her is a woman with her daughter's head in a pot - we can only assume it was soldiers with knives not bombs. Adichie describes how ashen the girl's skin in, as if it were dabbed in powder. Adiche refers back to this moment often but never with any overt judgement.

The same character finds her way home to her husband and child, but suddenly cannot walk. Her legs just fail as if a nerve has been severed. She has to be carried everywhere, instead. Again, Adiche presents this to us matter-of-factly, as she might a dinner conversation or visit to the market. Trauma isn't contained in time - it spreads out laterally into innocuous events like shopping for food. It can't be confined to memory, temporal space, even emotion. It is processed in some parts of the brain but not others.

There is also a slight thrill to reading a story with macabre mystery. Our death instinct gleefully steps up again. You are alive and dying, it says. As if death has a quota, you have seen death and been spared. You are human; you are special; you will live for ever.

© Semiotic apocalypse, via http://semioticapocalypse.tumblr.com/: Biafran soldier during Nigerian civil war circa 1967

The Dresden Files: #7 Dead Beat

The internet is not to be trusted. Not just because it is a Cold-War invention designed to decentralise information, a bit like a guerrilla cell, but because anyone can ‘publish’ anything, like a top five list of their favourite sandwich toppings (cheese (which is assumed as a fundamental ingredient in all food), egg, avo, cucumber and mayo, and chocolate spread) and Google might proclaim them expert in the culinary arts. (This blog does not appear on any search engine lists FYI. Perhaps Google doesn’t like my choice of sandwiches. Perhaps because you should visit my blog more often. #justsaying)

Anyway, when I wanted a light read, and had already read five Terry Pratchett’s in a (chronological) row, I typed in ‘top 10 supernatural apocalyptic horror’ to a search engine that has enough publicity already. Some of the lists were weighted by coming-of-age stories that encourage all sorts of abuse, and fantasies of death – you know what I am talking about. Most of the others I had read. I had to be selective and so I jotted down only the titles of books that appeared in the same lists as the The Road; while lists that included Stranger in a Strange Land and excluded Margaret Atwood were dismissed with a click.

One title I had never heard of reappeared, making it a hit by Google standards. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher, part of the Dresden Files. This title is number 7 in the series (I will get to my opinion of series in general, if not now, then in a post built entirely for it). A site devoted to science fiction (obviously this site will have the answers I am looking for, and none of them are sandwiches) called this particular book ‘a kitchen sink book; Butcher manages to cram in werewolves, wizards, vampires, fairies, demons and zombies, without making it feel crowded’. She forgot the T-Rex.

I can hear you, shifting the cursor indecisively toward the cross at the top of the screen. That would have been my reaction. Until the improbable happened: the security post to my suspension of disbelief malfunctioned. Yep, I read a story about the fleshy ghost of a T-Rex ridden by a wizard without a pointy hat and with a staff, and I believed it (as in I believed this could happen in that fantasy Earth, not now, here, in front of me. Just to clarify). That dinosaur was maybe the coolest character in any story I have recently read, except for Commander Vimes of the Nightswatch.

Again, hear me out. Google Analytics also records how long you spend reading my blog, and have I mentioned I am broke-ass writer, whose career may begin or end with your reading? I finished reading Dead Beat in a couple of hours, including some moonlit hours, and then decided to read the series in order. (I am on Book 3.) Because it was an erudite essay on human nature? Because it made me examine my sacred cows (hock included. I love that word. Hock)? Because it used the supernatural to comment on the ordinary? Kinda, kinda and kinda.

This is not a great book, but it is a very good book. So are books 1 and 2. And not because in number 4 a T-Rex that cuts a swathe of carnage through San Francisco, but because Book 2 includes four different types of werewolf (‘werewolf’ being an ambiguous term, as Mr Butcher shows us), also cutting a swathe of carnage. The most terrifying and rabid of the four is the loup-garou, a man whose family was cursed to turn on full moon. Sounds ordinary but no. This creature is, again, terrifying. It is huge and filled with a blood lust that shreds the man’s conscience when he wakes up.

You may have notice there are no Native Americans pacing in denim shorts. Jim Butcher obviously does a wealth of research, drawing deeply on various myths before painting them with his imagination. When he describes a T-Rex romping down a boulevard, he has contemplated the dimensions of beast and environment, and how one would go about riding it (see, a T-Rex leans forward when moving and leans back but not entirely vertical when standing, so he places the wizard near the neck of the creature, which is also far from the teeth).

The book earns its ‘very’ because it is two tsp detective novel to one tsp supernatural thriller, just without the make-up plastered, body-hugging dress wearing, purring femme fatale. In fact his range of female characters is more balanced than is usual in fantasy literature, which is not to say that he and his wizard don’t like a beautiful woman, because they do. They definitely do. The books are formulaic but in the way that Stephen King’s writing is good. It works. Because they are not predictable. Which seems obvious when the cast includes four type of werewolf, an energy vampire and a dinosaur. But it isn’t. Trust me, I’m an editor.

Harry Dresden is our private investigator and wizard, like in the pointy hat sense but without the pointy hat. (He does however possess a staff covered in runes, a talking skull and a cat.) He investigates the paranormal; he has a legitimate ad in the yellow pages that says ‘wizard’ although most people think he is a charlatan – including to some extent himself. He is employed by a branch of the police department, which thinks he is a charlatan too as well as a scape goat.

Can you focus, please? In Book 7 (I can hear you bleating about reading the books in order, but then please explain Star Wars), three sets of warlocks (or something) want to call on the brutish but sinister Elfking to chomp his way through the human race, making them kings and queens (or something). Of course, this can only happen at a specific time and place, because otherwise it would be difficult to get everyone together and string a plot across between them. Have I mentioned the zombies yet?

If you have reached this point and are thinking, ‘I don’t like science fiction’, I do not know why you are still reading. Either peg your disbelief over a clothesline or go away. You are breaking my train of thought.

Dresden is a more likeable Sherlock Holmes, with the wit of the Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr (who, FYI, I disliked in that role very much)) of the modern retellings. The wizard surprises even himself when he says something that isn’t sarcastic – some comments making me laugh loudly enough to frighten myself, the cats and my bunny. Like any good likeable hero, he tends to trip face-down into dangerous situations, stopping mid-step to (sometimes accidentally) smite someone.

But essentially our guy is ordinary. Apart from his magical powers – that make electrical items of any sort explode – a staff and a cat. But otherwise ordinary – except for the regular appearance of demons, fairies, vampires and zombies. Dresden is the good guy that we can all relate to. The guy trying to make a difference. Trying to live his life, without being impaled, scalped or set on fire over a misunderstanding.  

According to the head honchos of wizards and a chorus of supernatural beings, Dresden’s fatal flaw is his attachment to humanity. An attachment to people being and (this part’s important) staying alive. An attachment so strong he is always shielding people from supernatural crazies. He is always trying to keep carnage down a minimum, but that means the rules have to bend to his will. Terrible, just terrible, right? No. His real flaw is giving other people benefit of the doubt that he often doesn’t give himself. He is strong, in most ways except physically, but not impervious to pain (Book 2 was a close one).  

Another site devoted to the fans of science fiction says, ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and Butcher has had half a dozen books to figure out his formula is working for him. Yet he's deft enough to avoid repeating himself. He allows each volume to add a little something to the mythology that's been built up.’ You needn’t have read my waffle because this sums all My Point in a paragraph. Still, read it anyway.

In conclusion, this is a list of and recipes to make myfavourite sandwiches. *Psych* for those who skipped to the end – I even heaped on a trite introductory phrase for you. Do you still need a reason to read The Dresden Files? Here’s one for dorks like me: the books are also available as comics and audio books read by – wait for it – James Marsters aka Spike of Buffy and Spike. Indeed, fellow dorks. Indeed. 

A Canticle for Leibowitz: Part 2 of 2

What is the attention span of a gnat? I am figuring that we find out its life span and divide that into something objective, like the attention span of a fly, or by the amount of time they can spend on a single task. Then we could wander through a few academic halls and land up considering the consciousness of tiny flying animals or fall through the moldy hall that is when a baby becomes a person. As you may have surmised (and as intended) you may have noticed I have a short attention span, which I would compare with that of a gnat's - no, I will compare it and tell you it is two minutes and 3.2 seconds, because I can and I did.

I have also realised that I have said 'would have' a few times today. There are three 'have's in that sentence alone. What the heck is the point of that word? (And before you get snarky, you, I am well aware there is a linguistic answer, but my point still holds because this is my blog and if I say a gnat can only focus on a single task (as defined by me) for two minutes, that is valid.)

So, I finished A Canticle for Leibowitz by sheer force of will. My opinion hasn't changed. Although the structure is interesting, the symbols are heavy-handed. I could not empathise with a single character until the last 2% of the book, but by then I could also not subjugate my lack of suspension of disbelief. (I am really trying here. Whenever I want to point out how illogical something is and that it is a result of laziness not plot, I hear the 'eh' of Dwight from The Office every time he wants to point out something illogical - usually to do with bears. It builds up at the back of the throat and pops from the nasal cavity like a buzzer in a game show.)

This isn't a spoiler, unless you are inclined to belief: the book is set over centuries upon centuries, where humans build up their technology over and over to a point when they can create nuclear bombs. How? How could this happen?

Geologists tell us (although this may be a fringe group of rogue scientists who do not believe in pollution) that the poles are overdue for a shift, whereupon north becomes south, confusing swallows, polar bears and brown bears, as well as pirates and hopefully radar linked to bombs. It may or may not kill us (dust storms, rampaging polar bears and swallows, bombs). Also, (and FYI) a certain degree of climate change is normal, judging by the ice age and the fact that Europe was a desert. (Interesting point: the size of dinosaurs was only possible because the density of the air was lower than it is now.)

Given this was written in the 60s, this would take us way into the 5000s, when (hopefully for the planet) we are extinct, because, entropy. More than a few of the surviving populations would have some kind of mutation (not the X-men kind, but if I could choose, something that gives me the ability to sprint and climb like a mountain goat, because, zombies) from the recurring nuclear bombs, which they would need anyway for the fittest, which no offence, cannot be almost exclusive to monks!

Here's another meaty one for the academics: technological determinism. This book assumes a single pinnacle of human discovery and creation. Bombs, intercoms, phones, planes etc. But a) I can imagine oh so many alternatives, like, what if we discovered the more eco-friendly (and therefore smarter) solutions to electricity, fuel and, errr, general human habitation, first? And b) does this 'pinnacle' really make society 'better'?

This a controversial topic and my gnat brain has moved on. Name of the Rose depicted a monk and a monastery in Italy that captivated my imagination. In this book I met three monks I did not like or only learnt to like in the very last pages of their chapter. It is one thing to kill off characters like a gnat flaps its wings and another thing to just move me to another monastery and then tell me they died of old age while I wasn't looking. It, in fact, makes me care less about your very stupid because they are very human characters. I have compared my brain to a gnat more than once today, therefore your argument is invalid.

Initially my foray in the world of insects was intended to justify A List. First, I did not want to talk about that book of invalidities as it shall be known from now on. Second, I am already bored, so I figured that bullet points would be more my speed. Since this argument is so very compelling, I shall add A List now, in the same blogpost, because I do not feel like writing out more than one tweet.

In the spirit of the above review (don't groan, you) I am going to pick five of the least dis-believable books I have read. I will however use short phrases instead of full, therefore very boring sentences.

1. A Canticle to Liebowitz
2. A Stranger in a Strange Land: life on Mars, general 60s-like (and spirited) shenanigans, a human taking on the physical abilities of another species as if sprinting like a cheetah were a combination of will and absence of will
3. Heart of Darkness and Atomised: more a lack of liking and an abundance of hatred than of disbelief
4. Zoo City: animal familiars that appear when you commit a crime, the final scene
5. Her Fearful Symmetry: ghosts, the characters' complete absence of character, other characters, plot - all of it, narrator (and all this from the writer who made me believe in time travel!)

While we're at it, let's add Gulliver's Travels

I always feel the need to point out that magic is meant to be compatible with physical laws, like gravity and the conservation of mass. Even zombies have an (albeit loose) explanation! So if something that didn't exist before is magicked into existence and it is made of atoms, where were those atoms before? Because so many other tricks rely on the existence of atoms - and I do not mean an interpretation of quantum laws, because *insert game-show sound effect*. Oh, I'm overthinking? Well - ok, the gnat has flown off.

In other words, if an animal familiar appears, was it lurking around waiting for you to do something awful? Is it missing from a zoo somewhere? Is it a manifestation of some communal judgement? Someone, somewhere, must have a clue - must have noticed a trend of disappearing animals - even if it isn't yet verified. And what trend is there regarding the type of crime considered worthy of a (really awesome - and if you're handing them out I'll take one) animal? Legal, societal, religious? Just one real clue, please. (I also want the awesome inseparable animal. Imagine walking down the street with a tiger, a polar bear, a tortoise, a wolf - do they come in extinct too and if so, hello, black rhino.)

Impressive - my attention is holding more like a fly battering itself against a window. (As I typed that, my bunny sat on my stomach, so maybe I am sorted. Still, a polar bear? I adore polar bears.)

What a meandering post. I think the most meandering I have ever written. Perhaps this is a good thing, because it gives me more wiggle room in future. To sum up: every book mentioned in this post, except for the Umberto Eco, is ridiculous. According to the woman with her gnat in her skull. The unconscious doesn't restrict itself to dreams. Do you see it? I asked for a polar bear when I had already been given a gnat. Does the extent of the crime affect the size of the animal? Could an insect be a familiar? That seems a bit of an anticlimax. Like this conclusion. (I walked right into that one.)

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Why do I find A Canticle for Leibowitz so annoying? Stranger in a Strange Land type of annoying. This is partly a rhetorical question, so hold on to your answers until I've found mine. It could be the style, which darts off and convinces you treasure is sure to be found at the end of only a hint of a track. A track trampled by buck or badgers, or my cats. Then he is gone and waiting for you when you find your way back to the starting point. 'Nah,' he says, leaving you to deduce what the hell is going on.

See, you would think I would only fall for it once. What's that saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times... well, you are a writer and I am a reader, and this is our eternal (well, not really, because neither of us or our work is eternally immortal, but you know what I mean) struggle.

Anti-climaxes have their place: roughly two-thirds of the way into the novel. Then feel free to clump as may as will fit there. I can attribute enough meaning to anything you can deliver, and still have room for, like The History of the Solar System, with an in-depth look at the planets, moons, dwarf planets and miscellany. The only thing that can halt my desire to find meaning were there is none is irritation. And you, Walter M Miller, Jr, have irritated me more than someone who denies the universe is infinite, by your pretentious name alone. (Can you continue to call yourself 'Jr' after your parent has passed? This is a serious question.)

The book is divided into chapters. And this is where the problem begins. There is no indication that you are embarking on a new plot-line that has only place and broad era in common. Not like Cloud Atlas or The Passage. So, the author says, orientate yourself in a new society, with no characters to identify with (well, there was that one). Then he just pushes you into the room and you feel like you are having that dream where you forgot to wear clothes.

In a sense I am exaggerating. In a very broad sense that is aware that this book is regarded as one of the best apocalyptic, science-fiction novels of its time (I would stop at year, maybe decade, but ok). May I refer you back to Stranger in a Strange Land? Please, read it and get back to me about how it is better than The Road or Brave New World.

Also, I may have mentioned this is a pirated copy. I know, I know. There is an economic reasoning behind this, although I am also assuaging my conscience. Ever wondered why publishers, agents etc do not try harder to make their products impossible to copy? Because advertisers care about audience and not how said audience gets the product. In this line of reasoning, pirated products actually increase the distribution of the audience, some of whom become loyal fans and buy merchandise - and are more likely to pay for the product in future. It's a game of chance, but I am a fan of The Walking Dead and the other day I did buy a branded product and I am also well aware that Hyundai is a sponsor and that I have my very broke eye on the ix35.

It seems to have been OCR'd - 'nr' becomes 'm' and 'rl' becomes 'd'. Any normal person would this annoying. To an editor, this is a criminal act and must be rectified, like, now. But I have no one to complain to, and so I stew and plot revenge. My revenge being this post, which not even the internet cares about, but the internet allows us all a voice blah blah. At this point, my irritation is taking over, like an alterego.

Back to where we were: we are standing a room with no clothes on. Which is a metaphor for not understanding the social nuances or being able to situate ourselves in fictional space. Let's start with the last point ('start,' you wonder, startled. 'But we are 7 paragraphs in!' To which I reply, 'if you ask nicely, I may send your lazy-ass the bullet points, but then I am also going to quiz you.') Where are we? It seems we are fated to blow ourselves up or at least make the planet uninhabitable - in kind of a if we can't have it, neither can you gesture. Ka-bloowie but we can't even get this right, because some people survive and live in what is still a habitable planet.

You can probably guess this was written during the Cold War by a conscientious objector. I concede, there is a nice paragraph in which a character glibly describes how illogical it is to blow someone up before they blow you up and vice versa until every nuke, mustard gas bomb and grenade either side has is exhausted. It reminded me of the idiocy of North Korea and the US.

The 99% coordinating news feeds

But the end of the world wasn't just a pissing contest between states: the 99% rose up and instead of sitting in parks with tents and pickets (I bet you a homeless person would have appreciated a tent and the picket to make a fire out of). No, they decided that knowledge and technology were dangerous, if not actively homicidal. They smashed anything and anyone they could find, and chose to become nomadic hunter-gatherers (highly unlikely. I like having hot running water and I doubt anyone is going to say they don't). Within a generation no one remembers what half the technology left is for, which leads to a funny scene in which a monk interested in the writings of Darwin is laughed out of the room by someone intent on creating protoplasm from six elements.

The first chapter was more boring than this post - I could not identify with the character, because the plot was as slow as he was. I have just finished the second chapter. Each chapter is a jump in time and this chapter does cast some light on the first one. The abbot in this chapter is interesting - you set out with this conventional mindset that a monastery is going to ignore science that does not match their faith. Perhaps it does, but the arguments the abbot makes are convincing - in fact the opposite argument cannot hold up.

That one character is the 1% of the novel I liked (that was obvious, but I like it). He scrubs away some of the film that coats the rest of the plot. He gives us some clothes to wear. Fiction is metaphor, it is a conversation between the reader, writer and context, it is what we make of it. Fantastic. But it's not much of a conversation when you make random broad statements in a world that fails a test by logic (like, how far does human settlement extend? Is there any communication? Why, in the whole novel, is there no evidence of nuclear war? Who are people who were once children born to?!)

What this post tells me (shoosh you, I am not here to get your opinion) is that I would rather write about anything other than this book and I would rather discuss social philosophy than most things. Perhaps there is one criterion missing from most discussions about literature: logic. Does a book make logical sense? Now I know I struggle to suspend my disbelief under normal circumstances, but I need more detail to understand a nuclear war that leaves no evidence other than polarising people, just like I needed to understand how the Martian in Stranger in a Strange Land was born on Mars with all the boxes for a human being checked, but superhuman powers gleaned from the Martians.

The moral of these stories is that Brave New World is a better book and solves both these problems while still providing a setting, plot and protagonist we identify with. Peace out.