firecat

The Constant Gardener by John le Carré

John le Carré often writes about conforming, compromised men who are inspired by the love of a woman to fight corruption and otherwise do brave/humanitarian things. This one is set in Africa, mainly Nairobi, and the corruption involves international pharmaceutical corporations. The man is Justin, a British diplomat. The woman is Tessa, his wife, an aid activist.

Is it based on reality? The author's note (which was not included on the audio CD) includes the following statement: "As my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, (in which a number of people were murdered, others killed with experimental drugs, and governments and universities corrupted), I came to realise that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard."

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Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Narrated in a pretty deadpan style by Elliott Gould. I would have preferred a narration that did a better job of distinguishing the characters' voices, but it worked OK.

It's racist (which I found especially off-putting at the beginning of the book) and sexist (which I expect from early hard-boiled-PI novels).

And the language is so, so beautiful. And most of the characters are smart, and clearly drawn, and their motivations make sense. And Chandler requires you to draw inferences and work at figuring out what's going on. I sometimes listen to audio books while doing other things, but I wasn't able to do that with this book because it's so information-dense.

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The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson


Alan Sklar's narration is a little heavy, but adequate.

The first part of this book examines the process of scientific advance through the lens of an 1854 cholera outbreak in London. Johnson's research seems thorough and complete, and he does a good job of explaining relevant concepts and facts. From time to time he stirs in a narrative-style story of the outbreak and the two men who were studying it.

He uses this whole to discuss how science advances in fits and starts as new theories compete with old, established ones. I thought this part of the book was fascinating because I see the same process going on today. Johnson also does a good job of describing the role of chance in the story of the outbreak and its solution. (E.g., the solution would not have been found without the intervention both of a medical man trained in anesthesiology and of a clergyman who understood the neighborhood that was affected.)

Another of Johnson's themes is the nature of urban living and urban planning. He describes the patchwork of services, individual laborers, technological advances, and economic realities that made up London's inadequate refuse disposal solution, and explained how understanding the transmission of cholera led to the development of modern sewer systems.

The final third of the book is Johnson's ode to modern cities and human progress. It's not grounded in research the way the historical narrative was. I wasn't very impressed with it and didn't finish it.

In the part I did listen to, there is a lot of "gee whiz" about how the Internet will let you look up your nearest coffee shop and how dense urban living is good for the environment and for population control and for human interaction and progress. I have heard those ideas before and mostly agree with them, and he doesn't present anything new from my point of view, nor does he do a careful job of providing supporting evidence for his arguments.

He also goes on about how squatter cities are really where things are happening these days (apparently drawing on Robert Neuwirth's Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World). I don't know much about this but it seems he glosses over the infrastructure problems (and concomitant pollution problems) such cities have in order to talk about how they are cool because they have multi-story buildings and nightclubs and lots of (*ahem*) economic opportunities.

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The Dragon in the Sea by Frank Herbert



Everyone know Frank Herbert as the author of Dune but a lot of people don't know that he wrote a number of other excellent novels.

The Dragon in the Sea is a science-fiction submarine-battle psychological thriller. It was written in the 1950s and for the most part it stands the test of time. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the modern submarine-battle thrillers like Das Boot and The Hunt for Red October owe it a debt.

It's not just a battle story, it's also a compelling depiction of the ways men function in conditions of pressure and uncertainty.

Psychology geeks who know a little Freud and Jung will probably get more enjoyment out of this book. Some of the psych theories might seem a little silly and dated now.

The audio version is narrated by Scott Brick. I think he overacts some of the narration, and he gets the accent of one of the crewmembers wrong, but overall he does a good job.

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I listened to the Audible Modern Classics edition, well narrated by Victor Levine. I especially liked his characterization of the Blue Fairy Godmother.

This book is set in WWII Germany, post-war New York City, and a prison cell in Israel. It has no science fiction tropes. I did not find any of the characters particularly likeable (but that's true of most Vonnegut for me).

A line from this book is one of the favorites in my quote file, and it sums up one of the themes of the book:

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

This book is evidence that Vonnegut is one of the great American writers. He has the gift of making hope out of emptiness and simplicity, something that many people assume only Zen Buddhist masters can do.

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Goodreads.com posted to my Facebook status line when I added this book, and my friend supergee commented that he didn't like the book. I asked why and he wrote "Not sf, crappy characters, dumb moral."

I agree with point 1.

I also somewhat agree with point 2 (see above) and it puzzles me why Vonnegut's "crappy characters" don't bother me the way some writers' crappy characters do. I think it has something to do with how Vonnegut's protagonists mostly aren't emo, and/or how Vonnegut's writing style is definitely not emo. (I'm contrasting it to my reaction to Dan Simmons's Hyperion, which has some tremendously emo characters which are punched up because the writing style can be pretty emo.)

I don't know what supergee thinks the moral of the book is; the closest I can come to a moral in it is what I quoted above. I don't think that's a dumb moral, although I'm not sure I agree with it. (For me, it might be a prescription that I tend to over-follow. I have a hard time pretending, and it limits me in some ways.)

A Case of Conscience by James Blish

I listened to the Audible Frontiers audio book, well narrated by Jay Snyder. The book was written in 1958 and won a Hugo. The audio book includes an amusingly snippy foreword by Blish in which he defends the ways he chose to imagine how Catholic doctrine would change 100 years in the future.
( spoilers )

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I listened to the Audio Frontiers audiobook narrated by Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, Jay Snyder, and Victor Bevine. All the narration was competent-to-good, except for Allyson Johnson, whose narration annoyed me.

I have one major beef with this book, which is that the ending doesn't really wrap up the story. (Apparently the sequel, Fall of Hyperion, provides a proper ending.)

Hyperion is a set of six tales wrapped in a larger plotline about seven pilgrims making a journey. Toward the end of the book all the stories start to converge into one complex story. That's what's best about the book, in my opinion.

In this book and the other one I've read (Children of the Night), Dan Simmons does a really good job of creating "cranky, cynical old men" characters. This book has six major such characters and a few secondary ones, and they are all very distinctive. Simmons does less well at creating female characters. This book has one female character who has her own narrative, but her personality and motives don't feel as distinctive to me as those of the male characters, and neither do the personalities of the secondary female characters.

Simmons is well-read in literature and mythology and he does a good job of integrating this knowledge into the book.

Simmons's writing makes use of horror tropes designed to evoke strong emotional reactions. Those tropes don't work particularly well for me for some reason.

I also think Simmons sometimes doesn't do a very good job writing about romantic relationships. (He does better writing about primarily sexual relationships.) Sometimes the characters' motives for getting involved or staying involved aren't clear; in this book, I especially felt that way about the tale with a female protagonist.

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Here's what I just posted to audible.com about Aegypt (Unabridged) by John Crowley, narrated by the author

5 stars out of 5

slow, meandering, and beautiful

Crowley develops his stories slowly with lots of detail and writes beautifully. His writing and ideas are meant to be savored and pondered. If you like the idea of listening to a 15 hour and 29 minute poem, with another poem inside it, then you might well like this book.

Crowley narrates the book himself, in a flat middle-American voice, with a quirky, slightly self-conscious manner. The narration worked for me. I found his voice easy to listen to, and his reading gave me more insight into what his artistic intentions are. But the narration isn't going to please everybody.

I wrote it this way because the current top review of the book is extremely negative. Some folks on audible.com really don't like slow-to-develop stories, and some folks are fussy about narrators. (Me included, on that last one.) I wanted to describe the experience of listening to the book in a way that would appeal to someone who might enjoy it, and deter someone who might dislike this kind of book.

This is the first in what I hope to be a set of reviews/impressions of media I've consumed...I figure if I'm going to spend so much time on audiobooks, paper books, and movies, other people might as well know what I thought of them.

I just finished listening to The Cold Moon by Jeffrey Deaver, narrated by Joe Mantegna. I enjoyed it a lot.

( Cut for length and minor spoilers )