Review: 1633 by Eric Flint

Here's a follow-up review for the sequel to yesterday's book.

1633

1633 is a fun book, but it's slightly less enjoyable than the original (1632). The basic plotline -- a small West Virginian town is transported to Germany during the Thirty Years' War and must survive and attempt to civilize Europe -- remains the same. A few new characters are introduced, though some of the protagonists from the first book get short shrift (e.g., Julie Sims) this time around.

The book is probably about a hundred pages too long, and it goes into unnecessary detail on the creation of the (new) U.S. Air Force and Navy. Military hardware nuts will love that added level of detail, but for the rest of us, it's superfluous. An inordinate amount of time is spent on the initial flight training of a couple of new pilots and the construction of the first ironclads. That would be fine if, for example, the ironclads ever saw action in the book -- they do not, however. Presumably, Flint will have them play a significant role in one of the sequels. Flint still uses way too many lengthy expository passages for my taste (even more so than in 1632). That's a real weakness.

You get the impression from reading the book that Flint sees 1633 as being just an opening chapter in a much larger story rather than as a coherent, stand-alone book. While many "epic" series suffer from this problem (I hesitate to even begin to compare 1633 to a Robert Jordan book), I do wish that 1633 had been a little more self-contained.

All that being said, 1633 is an enjoyable read, and if you enjoyed the first book in the series, you should definitely take a look at this one, you won't be disappointed.

3.5 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers

Review: 1632 by Eric Flint

1632

This is a fun, though not at all believable romp. I'm a big fan of alternative history, so I was naturally drawn to this book (and the series as a whole) by all the attention it's received. 1632 is definitely an enjoyable book, and I'd recommend it to science fiction fans in search of a relatively light read.

You're going to have to seriously exercise your suspension of disbelief when reading this book during a number of passages, but that's at least somewhat understandable. After all, it wouldn't be much fun if the protagonists all died off from diseases, couldn't communicate with the locals, or found that they couldn't support a modern level of technology using only the infrastructure of a small West Virginian town.

Flint has a couple of bad habits as a writer that really come through in this book: first, it's very clear that a couple of his major characters are his favorites, and these characters are invariably going to make all the right decisions, always succeed at whatever they do, rapidly become accomplished statesmen and military strategists, and are, in fact, moral paragons -- to an unbelievable degree -- even in the face of extremely difficult and unfamiliar situations. And second, Flint's writing style could use some editorial polish. He uses too much exposition (admittedly, the Thirty Years' War is an extremely complex period and requires a great deal of explanation, but there's got to be a better way of pulling it off than this) and he has the bad tendency to reuse trite phrases, sometimes every few pages. This gets annoying at times. The characters (mostly modern day West Virginian coal miners) also use a level of vocabulary and sentence structure that real people just don't use in conversation unless they're Boston Brahmins. People just don't speak in half-page long paragraphs, nor do they use words like "pean" in ordinary conversations.

All that aside, read this book, you'll likely enjoy it if you're at all interested in the "Baen Books" style of light, military-oriented science fiction adventure novels.

I'd also recommend S. M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time series, which is probably a little more engaging than 1632.

4 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers

Two Reviews: Captain Alatriste and Purity of the Blood by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Captain Alatriste

Perez-Reverte offers a swashbuckling adventure of one “Captain” Alatriste, a thug-for-fire, I mean, swashbuckler in 1620s Madrid. Alatriste’s adventure is a straightforward one, and is narrated by his young apprentice, who functions as a kind of nigh-omniscient narrator who tells the tale in his old age. The plot is interesting, but tends to drag between the few sharp scenes of intrigue and derring-do. I couldn’t help but wonder at times if the meandering interludes were little more than filler material, but Perez-Reverte’s writing style takes some of the sting out of that concern. If you are expecting non-stop, madcap escapades, you will be disappointed; Alatriste is a contemplative, melancholic sort with, one imagines, many regrets.

A note on the book's presentation: this is a slim volume with a relatively short page count, a large font, and plenty of white space per page. Perez-Reverte also has a tendency to intersperse his prose with numerous snatches of poetry. You may find this charming, or you may find it tedious. I am somewhere in the middle. The translation is very smooth and doesn't distract the reader.All in all, I recommend the book. It’s an extremely short, light read punctuated by some fun scenes of action and intrigue, though there’s not a tremendous amount of substance here.

3.5 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers

Purity of Blood

This is the first sequel to Captain Alatriste, and is very similar in structure and tone to the original. Most of the characters made their appearance in the first book as well. As with the first book, the plot is a simple, straightforward one. That’s not a bad thing. It takes on a decidedly dark tone (perhaps more so than the original), and Perez-Reverte is certainly not above allowing bad things to happen to good people. Such is life in Spain of the 1620s. Some readers may find the prose too sparse, but it does create a fast-moving read. At times, I found the narrator’s – Alatriste’s teenage ward describing the tale in his old age – mention of events that had not yet happened to be distracting and annoying, but it does provide a sense that this is merely one anecdote in a convoluted continuity.

As with the first volume in the series, this is a slim volume with a relatively short page count, a large font, and plenty of white space per page. Perez-Reverte continues his tendency to intersperse the prose with numerous snatches of poetry. You may find this charming, or you may find it tedious. I am somewhere in the middle, vaguely wondering what the point is. The translation is very smooth and doesn't distract the reader.

I will most likely continue reading the series – as long as I continue finding them in the remainder bin – but just be aware: absolutely nothing unexpected happens in the book.

3.5 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers

Book Meme: LibraryThing's Top 106 Unread Books

The rules:
Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and strike through books you hated. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your tbr list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
* A clockwork orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
* 1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
* Dune
* The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
* Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
* The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Review: Drama City by George Pelecanos

Let's follow up yesterday's Pelecanos review with another.

Drama City isn't bad, it's just not as good of some of Pelecanos' other books. Don't get me wrong, I love George Pelecanos' book, writing style, characters, etc., but I was a little disappointed by this one. Maybe part of my frustration was that I didn't find any of the characters particularly engaging. Lorenzo Brown, the ex-con animal control officer, and his parole officer, Rachel Lopez, are Pelecanos' new protagonists of the book. I thought they were only loosely sketched out, and they didn't end up seeming as "human" or sympathetic as some of his other characters in previous works. Because of that, I was somewhat bored with the novel's pacing; it seems to plod along more than most of Pelecanos' other books.

I won't go over the plot or main characters in great detail, as you can find other reviews that do so at great length. The reader is presented with an almost inevitable outcome for the book -- doom. But that's clearly appropriate for Pelecanos' modern noir style. The book is written in Pelecanos' gritty, street-smart style, and his knowledge and portrayal of DC is as good as ever. He certainly can't be criticized on those accounts.

Having criticized the book at the start, however, I should note that it was an enjoyable read (significantly better than most modern crime fiction on the market) and I fully intend to read Mr. Pelecanos' future efforts. I'd recommend the book to any die-hard fans of Pelecanos or modern crime / noir fiction. Casual readers might be better advised to read some of Pelecanos' other books first in order to truly see how engaging of a writer he can be. I think if I'd simply liked the protagonists a bit more, I'd have rated this one higher; as is, I just didn't care about them enough.

3 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers

Review: Shoedog by George Pelecanos

This is a terrific stand-alone Pelecanos heist novel. I guess every crime writer probably wants to write one of those (I know I certainly do), and this is his.

Shoedog was a fun book. The plot involves a drifter named Constantine who essentially randomly finds himself caught up in a scheme to rob two liquor stores nearly simultaneously. Constantine's fellow ne'er-do-wells are engaging written and the pace of the novel is action-packed. Shoedog doesn't involve any of Pelecanos' other signature characters (Nick Stefanos, Derek Strange, etc.) in a significant way, which is too bad, but the protagonists are interesting enough that you shouldn't mind too much. It is, however, set in Washington, DC, as are the rest of his books.

This was one Pelecanos' first novels, but his writing is still as polished as ever. I actually ended up reading this book after I had read all of his other, better known books and found myself enjoying it more than some of his latest. One very minor quibble: the title is a bit of a misnomer, because the "Shoedog" character is not actually the most developed -- he plays a decidedly second fiddle to Constantine, the protagonist.

The book ends with one of Pelecanos' traditional big finale shootouts, but is still entertaining for all that. I would highly recommend this book to any of Pelecanos' current fans, as well as anyone interested in reading a fun, engaging book about a heist that goes wrong (don't they all?).

5 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers

Inaugural Post: Favorite Authors and Works

So who are my favorite authors and works?

For science fiction and fantasy, my favorites include Jack Vance (his entire opus), Glen Cook (Black Company and Dread Empire series), Iain M. Banks (The Culture), Dan Abnett (Eisenhorn, Ravenor, and Gaunt's Ghosts), and George R. R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire). I am also quite partial to the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, though I haven't liked his other work.

For crime, my favorite author is, without a doubt, George Pelecanos (really nice guy too; met him at a number of book signings in the DC area). George C. Chesbro's Mongo the Magnificent series is right up there though.

For horror and "weird fiction," my tastes run to much of the Cthulhu Mythos by H. P. Lovecraft, though I also like Clark Ashton Smith a lot, as well as earlier Stephen King (pretty much everything through, say, Gerald's Game). Dan Simmons is a favorite as well (his science fiction is good too)

For pulp fiction, my favorite is definitely the Shadow series by Maxwell Grant. I am also slowly but surely acquiring Sax Rohmer (of Fu Manchu fame)'s complete works.

For history, I usually read twentieth century U.S. history (since this coincides with my research), often involving military or intelligence history.

For historical fiction, my favorite author is George Macdonald Fraser, creator of Flashman. The Sharpe's series is not high literature, but it's a guilty pleasure too.

For graphic novels, I generally only purchase ones for which I don't read the individual issues (I read a handful of DC comics), so my favorite ones are the various Hellboy and BPRD titles, Y: The Last Man, and Fables.