Mona Lisa Overdrive

         This book kind of really got me hooked on sci fi. I was really interested in the idea of sort of the integration of man and computers and I am an avid Matrix/Blade Runner fan. I love the dark noir sort of setting of the future, it just seems so mysterious and appealing to me. It was a little hard reading this book and not the two other books before, but for the most part it was pretty easy once I got ahold of the backstory. I think the pacing was a little off though, we kept cutting back to Kumiko who did nothing of interest for the longest time. Half the time I just wanted to skip her chapters and go onto Angie's or Mona's. I think the other characters overshadowed her a little too much. I mean a prostitute on doing crystal methe of the future, a Korsakov-induced Slick Henry, and a Loa-ridden pop star against a boring girl with Yazuka father. I really liked what Gibson did as far as voices, almost immediately I could tell which character I was following throughout these switches because they were so distinct.

         The loa themselves greatly added to the story. This is a very futuristic story, we have all kinds of cybertronics going on: headsets, drugs, and all kinds of double dealing. And all of a sudden we add in something very primitive in comparison, the loa. It kind of ties all this new futurism to something very old school. And loa themselves are almost bordering the dark arts. This is voodoo culture we are talking about. I think the loa were a perfect way of sort of voicing the integration of man with the matrix. They are neither man nor machine, I mean they are the closest anyone gets to religion. The people mentioned talking about “Rapture” don't even get close to this.

This book was very heavy in terms of plot building. It seemed to take a long time for the events to unfold, but I did like how they all tied together. What did confuse me time to time was when characters met one another from other chapters and from the scarce description of what they looked like I really wasn't sure who was who. Also, it seemed like all the characters were escaping from something. Mona was doing all kinds of crystals, Angie wanted to find Bobby and leave her glamorous life, Sally wanted to stop being pressured, and Kumiko wanted to find out what the hell was going on. I'd have to say Mona's character stood out the most to me. Compared to the rest of the characters who seemed to move sort of in a linear movement, she was all over the place doing drugs and getting surgery. I agree with what Angie commented about her, Mona was very akin to a child, even more so than Kumiko. She has blinders on and only sees Angie's glamorous life and nothing else, she has total nostalgia about her best friend who is probably dead, and she's just sort of being pushed through life. And plus, the chapter on her doing drugs during the highly intensive battle was a very nice change of pace.

Attack of the Ninja Language

       For me, Babel-17 was a bit too wordy. By that I mean I am a visual learner it was very hard for me to picture some if any of this book's happenings. I'm not much of a linguist so most of the information about language didn't really do much for me. It was kind of like being talked at for 200 pages in another language I didn't quite understand. There was like no visual description whatsoever of what anything looked like and instead the reader was left focusing solely on the speaker's language. I can understand how this was the heart of the story, but sometimes I felt it left me totally in the dark. For example, I had to reread the entire scene where Brass was introduced because I couldn't picture him with the description I was given. I think Delany took too much for granted with his sparse background story while he jumped into a complicated world that was hard to follow. We were introduced to dozens of new characters within just a few pages and it was a bit overwhelming.

        The way the story was written in segments, proved to be very jaunting for me. A chapter would end in one place with something like a space jump and then Rydra would be entangled in a web and it just didn't seem to match up. I couldn't tell how much time had passed at first and I seriously had no idea what was going on. I like being able to read books in one pass but this book required me constantly going back trying to figure out what the hell was going on.  But regardless, I did like the story though, it was just it was sort of the wrong flavor for me, like I got pistachio instead of chocolate.

          Rydra herself ticked me off a bit. It was like she had it too easy. Almost everyone was bound to automatically fall for her. She was a badass, knew all these languages, and could also fight. I felt like she had so much potential as a character but all she really did was get transported to meet more people and have intense discussions about language.  I felt like there wasn't enough of a payoff regarding the Babel-17 language, too.  There was all this building up to this amazing idea and then it was just sort of a letdown when we never got to learn anything about these Invaders or their culture after this really long attempt to stop them. I mean we followed Rydra on this quest to stop them, and we sort of got side tracked and then met this man without a past and then mentally bonded. And then it was over. I felt like the explanation revolving how to neutralize Babel's negative effects was also a bit childish. The answer is just introducing a contradictory idea? Really? That just seems just a bit too easy.

EYE OF THE TIGERRRRRR

            The Star's My Destination reminded me a lot of The Count of Monte Cristo.  Although I’ve never read the book, I’ve seen the modern movie countless times and it really struck a similarity there.  Compared to Bester’s story, Dumas’ story appears quite tame.  Instead of wanting revenge on his best friend, it turns out Gully wants revenge on an entire ship, which he soon finds is the only woman he truly loved.  His refusal to destroy the only thing he loves causes him to fall from his malignant nature. 

            Foyle himself is quite an interesting character.  He’s put in a situation we can understand, he’s left to die.  But this causes the average Joe to become ruthless. We’re not following around the usual antihero who shies at the sight of blood and guts, we’re following a murder, a ruthless man whose movements we begin to support in his lust for revenge.  We’re left supporting him because of his dynamic mindset, he’s a brash person and therefore all he relies on is brash logic.

            “The, Tyger” brought a lot of similarities to Foyle’s character.  The “tyger” is forged like Foyle’s hatred.  He wasn’t a bad man in the beginning.  But he gains this lust for revenge which is branded into him just like his tiger tattoos from Joseph’s clan.  “The Tyger” is all about unanswered question while the mad chase to get to Vorga requires constant questions: where can Gully find the people responsible, what is PyrE, and what are people’s true motives with such a substance.  Also, a lot of this poem in particular has to do with religion.  Did the God who made something as evil as the tyger make something as good as the lamb?  All of this talk of God, while this book claims religion is illegal.  I think Bester hints at an upcoming religious movement.  When Gully picks up the PyrE, it’s a the base of a cross.  I mean, his whole encampment was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to start off.  He then distributes the power of PyrE, makes a final speech after being beseeched by the people like Jesus and then he poofs into outer space. This leads Foyle to another level.  He is no longer on the line with normal human beings.  He goes through a kaleidoscope of time and space seeing things in a different light.  He becomes a godlike figure in the end, having supernatural dreams about mankind.  We are left with an interesting thought left in our brains.  Is the world going to destroy itself?  Will Gully come back an enlightened God?  Will the worlds be saved?

THE COLORS, MAN!

       I've really never run into something like Warbreaker before. While I usually go for the fantasy sci fi, this one was more medieval than what I usually go for. Since it was so long, I kept thinking I'd only get half way but then I just had to know what was going to happen and I finished it. The concept of color was absolutely brilliant.

        I thought it was interesting how it was all tied to religion. I think color was also related to the whole Adam and Eve story. Once you bit into the apple, or had multiple Breaths in this case and were able to do Awakening, there was no going back. Vivenna couldn't return to her original life without color. Usually I don't like an abundance of religion driving a story because I seem to think that it bogs down the story too much. But in this case I think it worked. It really brought a change in Vivenna in particular. I liked watching the sisters change. It seemed that throughout the book, they switched roles. I don't think that it could be done any other way. If Vivenna had been in Siri's place, the book would've ended up completely differently. Siri adopted Vivenna's style of being logical and tactful while Vivenna learned to let go and step outside of her box.

        I loved the bait and switch regarding Tonk Fah and Denth. I was totally under the impression they were good people. I loved their little sarcastic witty banter throughout the chapters. At first I thought Tonk Fah's disappearing animals were because his animal was like a daemon or something from Golden Compass and then it was like no he just murders them and I was like WHAT. I think a little more time needed to be spent when Vivenna realized that she was tricked. I seriously had to read the scene when she found out Palin was dead like three times just to make sure I was understanding what was happening. This happened again at the end when Vasher's true nature was revealed, I was sort of left spinning. There seemed like there wasn't enough time to recover from that much information. And then it just ended and I was really surprised I mean the story led up to this war the entire time and then it was over so quickly I felt like the ends were tied up but it was like everything was crammed together like a train wreck.

        At the same time, there were parts that were way too drawn out. We were constantly brought back to things Lightsong's moaning. I kept waiting for the war to happen, I think it just took way to much to build up to. 500 pages in I was thinking to myself, they're still not fighting yet? There was just so long that it could be delayed before it got ridiculous. And I think it got a little ridiculous. There was a lot of backstory and it did get a bit complicated especially that seriously huge monolith of a paragraph the storyteller explained about the history of Hallandren. It was more like copy-paste entire construction of the universe and it kind of left the reader reeling. Too much information.       

ALL THE COLORS

Humans, Spiders, and Tigers, Oh My!

Originally, I was a little unsure of reading Anasai Boys. I just read The Graveyard Book for another class. I thought it was extremely slow moving in the beginning, I practically wanted bad things to happen to the main character so something worthwhile would happen. When my teacher for that class, Ryan Van Cleave, said that Gainman tended to write a lot of different genres, I decided to give this book a chance. This book in terms of pacing was much faster than the other. While I had to wait for practically one hundred pages for the main character, Bod, of The Graveyard Book to grow up, Anasai Boys immediately cut to the chase: your father is dead. Throughout the book, it was all about lots of action and it was well cut. At first I thought Charlie flying inbetween Florida and London on planes and such would be another 100 pages of boring filler but in almost a page or two it was over and it didn't even seemed rushed, it just seemed normal. And I love following Fat Charlie because he was one of those lovable losers. Everything he did was just so comedic.

I wasn't sure at first where he got the idea of the animal folklore concept. I'm interested in the voodoo gods and that sort of thing so when I thought it had something to do with Caribbean and African lore. I really loved the way the stories were intricately connected. I've never seen a story that was reflected so much. I mean there were the stories of the past the narrator would tell us, the story on the human level, and story on the god level so to speak—where Spider fought the Tiger. It was like the oral tradition of telling stories in African countries was reflected exclusively throughout this entire book.

It was really funny, I actually figured Spider and Fat Charlie were the same person throughout the book. This was probably enhanced by the women both being named after flowers. To me it seemed like Daisy was the fun one and Rosie was sort of the stable one. I think Spider and Charlie's interactions sort of brought together a sort of trade. Spider seemed to calm down a bit in terms of all the magic and Charlie gained confidence and some power himself. It gave a really interesting family relationship as well. Charlie started off kind of ostracized from his father and at the end it was kind of like passing the gauntlet, Charlie was acting just like his father and walking around in his hat. And the life cycle went on when Charlie was talking to mermaids with his son just like Charlie and his father in the beginning.

Golden Compass

         I always meant to read this book but I never got around to it for some reason or another. I really enjoyed Lyra's character. She's not the usual hero who starts out meek and helpless, she's ready for adventure at any time with almost a sardonic tone like when she thinks to herself well I guess I should go rescue Rodger. Most of the main characters: Lyra, Lord Faa, Iorek, Mrs. Coulter, and Lord Asriel were all really strong. I mean, Mrs. Coulter had her Intercision, Lord Asriel had his expedition, Iorek had his brute strength, Lord Faa had that amazing battle speech, and Lyra is constantly thrown in dangers way. It was interesting the way Lyra's destiny was talked of. It was whispered throughout the book that she must do something “without knowing what she's doing” which seemed rather vague to me at first, but then I just realized she was just being herself.

 

        The concept of daemons and how they symbolize a person's character as well as their strengths or weaknesses really caught my fancy. It was interesting to see people's inner emotions expressed on the outside. I also liked the social boundaries it created with the people with the dog daemons as the servants were more submissive while a stronger daemon meant a stronger hold of power. This power was used accordingly. Mrs. Coulter used her power to try to stop Dust. Lord Asriel used power to break down the barrier between the worlds by killing Rodger.

        I was kind of pissed the way the book ended. I mean, I understand it's a trilogy but it just seemed like it happened out of the blue. It didn't seem to fit at all, the story was leading up to her getting to her father and then he wasn't happy but then I thought they would eventually bond over the story of her journey. Apparently not? Don't get me wrong, I really liked this book but I really couldn't fathom her parents at all. When I got to the end with Mrs. Coulter and her father I was just like WHATS GOING ON. I thought I had a good grip of the book and all of a sudden portals were opening and her father turned out to be just as crazy as her mother. Her parents were making out even though they hated each other and Lyra was holding her dead friend and I was just thinking THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY. At this point I was half expecting a unicorn or something to come out of the portal and kill everyone but that didn't happen. It's always possible. There's two books to go.