seveneves ii

End paper illustration by Weta Workshop

I just finished Seveneves, which was pretty quick reading for me. This book is almost 900 pages, and I'm pretty sure there will be another, and it may even be a trilogy. Neal Stephenson has created a universe with a lot of traction, and at a scale and scope that reminds me of the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov. I'm looking forward to what comes next in this series; hopefully it won't take as long as this book did to come to fruition. Stephenson mentions in the acknowledgements at the end that he had the idea for this story 10 years ago, and it took him 7 years to get it all put together. Research and story development is what took the time.

Stephenson also mentions in the acknowledgements that he worked at Blue Origin, the private space exploration company started by Jeff Bezos, that just recently released the footage of their successful vertical rocket landing. On his website, Stephenson goes into more detail about when he worked there and described the various things he did, saying "...the bulk of my efforts were devoted to investigating possible alternatives to conventional rockets as ways of getting into space." This work ends up being very handy when it came to writing science fiction stories like Seveneves, and I'm sure helped him to develop connections with others in the aerospace industry that he also thanks in the acknowledgements.

What I really like about this story is how Stephenson uses the doomsday event from which this story grows, as a tool that allows us to examine ourselves as a people, or maybe more accurately, as a species. I can't say how he does this without spoilers; what I can tell you is that the future represented in this Seveneves universe is neither utopian nor dystopian, which in and of itself, separates this story from a lot of the SF out there. Stephenson's SF is based on hard science that being developed right now, and he extrapolates our technology out into the future is a way that that lends a realness to the storyline. His writing style is easy to read, and he allows himself to spin off on a tangent to explain or describe something when he needs to and then gets back to the story. Walking that fine line in a novel can be tricky, needing to fill the reader in on what they need to know without boring us with the details is one of those things that he has down.

So yes, read this book. And if I'm right, read the follow up(s) as well. Maybe late this year, early next is my guess.

seveneves

As I begin writing this, I am almost halfway through Seveneves. I'm not sure at this point if this will be the only review I write for this, or if it will turn into a partial review in itself. I guess it should tell you something, that I've decide to write about this story part of the way through. Neal Stephenson knows how to write a compelling story, that's pretty clear, and I've enjoyed the books I've read by him.

Seveneves seems to be a kind of sensation that has blown up the internet. Well, the part of the internet populated by SF geeks, fan artists, and make-it-into-a-movie advocates. I wasn't aware of this until I started writing this review and did a search. Folks seem pretty excited about this book, the artwork on the end papers, and the illustration(s) inside haven't got there yet There is even a companion book written by another author out already. Amazing.

At the halfway point, there are still some things hanging out there that, as readers, we just don't know the answers to. Not least is where the title comes from. I have an idea, but its not clear in my mind yet. And that's not all, but leaving some things hanging is what keeps us reading. Stephenson is great at developing a premise (even if its crazy) and attacking the idea the way science would, digesting the problem, analyzing it, and developing solutions that could work, and then playing them out--along with a host of complications and ramifications that may attend these solutions.

What would we do, Stephenson asks us, in the face of a doomsday event in the not to distant future? His answer: we would do what we could, based on solutions we have already developed, and limp along as these solutions are tested in the real world, with no back-up plan available. How will all come out in the end? We don't know, but Stephenson gives a glimpse of one possible future.

Looks like I'm going to publish this as a two part review. Stay tuned for more.

night villa

I found this one at the library book sale, on the back cover I read, "The eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79..." and that was it. Between the title and those first words in the description, I was sold. Of course, its doesn't take much when you're talking about spending a dollar or so and supporting the library. Its funny, I don't take too many new library books out, I think its because the newer books have two week lending periods, and I don't usually read that fast.

Carol Goodman writes a good story. This one has a little bit of everything. It is not--as I suspected from the little I read on the back cover--historical fiction, although it does have an historical fiction aspect to it. Its a modern day story, but involves archaeological study of the era leading up to Vesuvius, and in particular, the late occupants of Villa della Notte, or the Night Villa.

The Night Villa is a fictional place, but this villa in Herculaneum, and this story in general, is based on the true story of Petronia Iusta, a slave who sued for her freedom from Calatoria Themis. Scrolls were indeed found in a trunk in an excavated building in Herculaneum which describe the Roman court case involving this young woman. She was born to a woman called Petronia Vitalis, who was once the slave of this Roman couple, but who eventually bought her freedom from them. After her daughter, Petronia Iusta, was born, Iusta continued to live with the couple as a servant, and her mother paid for her upkeep. After the deaths of both Iusta's mother, and Calatoria's husband, Petronius Stephanus, Calatoria claimed that Iusta was born while her mother was still a slave, and therefore was still her slave, whereas Iusta claimed she was born after her mother was freed, and was therefore free herself. facinating

It seems clear that Carol Goodman read this story,* and decided that it was ripe for some historical fictionalizing. Good decision. I liked this story, and as I read, I was very taken by the story that slowly emerged from the depths of time, and the twist about Iusta's case was great. Little did I know at the time that it was based on a true story.

There are a series of sub-plots and backstories that also charge this story with a sense of mystery, not least of which is an ancient cult based on the teachings of Pythagoras. whaa?

Yeah, read this book.



* Here's a link to a PDF of a research paper about the Petronia Iusta case written by Ernest Metzger of the University of Aberdeen, The Case of Petronia Iusta. Originally published as E. Metzger, 'The Case of Petronia Iusta', Revue Internationale des Droit de l'Antiquité (3rd series) 47 (2000), 151-165.

elements of style

This is not the Strunk & White version, but the title is inspired by a copy of that book. Elements of Style is a story of the upper echelons of New York socialite society, and what its like to live on the outskirts of that group looking in. One gets the feeling pretty quickly that Wendy Wasserstein knows a little about which she speaks, and if I'm not mistaken has written herself into the story. Her avatar is Frankie Weissman, a nice, well mannered and caring pediatrician who is well know enough to be sought after by the social queen bees, and she takes care of their children.

Frankie's eye is the lens through which we view this twisted group of men and women, but it seems pretty clear that the majority of the movers and shakers are the women, and Frankie has access to their private discussions and plots. And its seems like plots is the right word, for some in any event.

Some have clear sights on moving up the social ladder, and seem prepared to do whatever is necessary to elevate themselves, even at the expense of others. I suppose we already knew that, but its hard to read about it in some ways. As amusing as this book is, and it is funny, its also a little depressing. I guess I'd call it a dark comedy.

Frankie's small group of acquaintances is a loosely knit bunch that all seem to know each other business, but often not directly from one another, but rather through the grapevine of gossip and rumor. There are those that thrive on the rumor mill, and propagate its growth, presumably so that they can feed from it at a later date, and there are others that don't seem to care, and are merely hung out on it occasionally. I've never watched 'Sex in the City,' but from the endless ads and pop culture surrounding it, I think we all know enough about it that I can compare this to that series, with the only caveat that this story doesn't seem as exclusively focused on the women as 'Sex in the City' seems like it is; rather a group of men and women, perhaps 10 years older, with tween age children.

An interesting read, copyrighted in 2006, but is set in New York in the year or so after 9/11. Wendy Wasserstein was an award winning playwright of plays such as The Heidi Chronicles and The Sisters Rosensweig. She died in 2006 of leukemia.

haiku meditations

I guess you could say Haiku Inspirations is a coffee table book, although those are usually larger affairs with lots of glossy pictures. This book is much smaller, more of a gift shop book. You know the kind they sell in museum shops.

Tom Lowenstein seems to know his business and tells the story of the history of haiku in a series of short essays about various well known authors, their followers, the political climate they lived in and the other religious and artistic influences on the form. Victoria James is listed as a co-author.

The book does have beautiful photographs and imagery, including yamato-e (painting), shodo (calligraphy) and woodblock prints. At the end of each 2 or 3 page chapter is a double page spread of 3 haiku some calligraphy (presumably related) on suitable background image.

One of the useful pieces of information I came away with is this feeling of aware; melancholy or sadness that permeates haiku. It's a sadness born of joy it seems to me; an understanding or the impermanence of things. A dew drop is lovely mainly because it is so evanescent. Haiku is meant to capture or at least remind one of these precious tiny moments in nature. Another structural concept is kigo which are season words, nearly always referred to either directly or through any number of key words or phrases that refer to the season. Snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring, for example.

As far as inspiration goes, I guess it worked. Here's mine for winter, preceded by three drafts. I left the drafts because I think they help show the progression for where I started--thinking about my favorite imagery from winter--to where I ended up; a very specific moment in time. The rabbit tracks are fleeting and will quickly be covered over by the snow, the branches dip under the weight of the snow.

[Moonlight and snowfall

Snow rests quietly on the

Evergreen branches] draft 1

[Moonlight shines softly

Snow, slipping quietly from

Evergreen branches. ] draft 2

[Snow in the moonlight

Clinging in soft mounds on the

Evergreen branches.] draft 3

Snow in the moonlight;

A rabbit has left her tracks.

Evergreen boughs dip. 

art forger

B.A. Shapiro writes a fast paced, fun-to-read novel, that doesn't require a lot of heavy lifting by the reader. In fact, there were a couple of minor plot holes, that Shapiro wrote around pretty well. As long as you're not bothered by that, this story moved along at a quick pace.

Shapiro spends some time in The Art Forger talking about both the techniques involved in copying an old painting, as well as the history of the painting, the original painter (Degas) and his patron (Isabella Stewart Gardner.) It was fun to read a story about the history and intrigues (albeit, fictional) of this local museum and its eccentric founder, and to hear about how forgeries may have been done.

Shapiro took some liberties with the history of the museum, its construction, the personal affairs of Gardner herself, the paints included in the collection, and those stolen in the major heist a number of year ago, even the existence of certain relatives and extant descendants. Like I said, it was fun but its harder to suspend disbelieve when the story revolving around such as well-known local personality is stretched this way.

system of the world

The System of the World is the third and final volume of The Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson, and baroque is right. I've never read a story so ornamented, festooned, and gilded as this trilogy. Stephenson seems to have gotten lost in the research of the period, and then in the minutiae of his storyline and its characters. There are letters, secret messages, stories taken from broadsheets, and the text of entire pamphlets and libels, discovered under the feet of the characters as they walked about London in the early 1700s; garlands, embellishments, ornaments, and flourishes, all, to the main story. Stephenson doesn't tell the story, so much as take us there. With all of the stink, coal soot, pockmarks, and horse dung hanging on to us as we wander with him, and learn the details of this story with him. The sub-plots all have sub-sub-plots, and Stephenson juggles them all masterfully.

 

And the cast of characters is enormous; I may have mentioned in my review of the first book that it included a Cast of Characters in the frontmatter. If I hadn't borrowed that volume from the library, I may have gone back to it a few times, as nearly everyone has a title, or two. Just keeping track of the Natural Philosophers alone is difficult enough, never mind the lords and ladies, French, English, German, and other wise, soldiers, pirates, vagabonds, and thieves, clock-makers, counterfeiters, jailers, and executioners. No character is so minor, that we don't learn a little bit about him or her, and perhaps their family.

I was reminded of Herman Melville in some of the detail Stephenson provided, altho I'm happy to report there are few whole chapters dedicated to the history, construction and use of harpoons. Stephenson himself honors two novelists in his acknowledgements--a multi-page affair in the backmatter-- Alexandre Dumas, and Dorothy Dunnett. I don't know Dorothy Dunnett, but I'm going to look her up based on this mention alone.

Not everyone is up for a 3000 page novel, so you need to in it for the long haul. This is a novel form that seems to be designed to entertain, night after night, in the years and centuries before television and movies. I can imagine dark, candle-lit nights, coal fires and quiet reading for an hour or two before bedtime. If you are that type of reader I'm looking at you Chuck then read this book. All three of them.

confusion

I'm happy to report that the second volume in The Baroque Cycle trilogy wasn't just a wavy line connecting the beginning and the end of the story arc. In fact Stephenson "con-fused" two books together to make up this middle volume. If I remember correctly the first volume was made up of three books so The Confusion is made up of books 4 and 5. Contrast this technique to that of The Two Towers for example which follows on the end of the The Fellowship of the Ring by following some members of the fellowship for an entire book before we ever get to find out the fate of the other members of the fellowship in the second half (book four) of that volume. Not so in this case. More or less instant gratification! no lines, no waiting

Stephenson has woven a complex tale that continues to span years, even decades, dogging the varied and often crossing paths of this enormous cast of characters as they move even further afield. This volume truly spans the early world; at a time when circumnavigating the world was still a new, rare thing.

This installment brings us some answers to questions raised in the first volume. Always a preference to endless teasing in a trilogy. But it also makes new connections and raises new questions, so has me looking forward to the last volume, which I've just taken out from my library.

Stephenson knows what a reader needs and moves the storyline forward at a steady rate. The beginnings of the first volume seemed slow but with a story this epic, it's like an ocean tanker, it takes a while to get it going. This is a fun take on historical fiction, and has some of that snarky inserting of modern slang into the mouths of Enlightenment Era characters. But it doesn't seem like Stephenson uses this technique to ignore the history, it feels like he's done the research and there are strong bones holding up this epic farce.

And Baroque indeed! Festoon away, my depilated penman!

quicksilver

I've read a bunch of Neal Stephenson's books, and if there's one thing I know, its that I'll never know what I'm going to get. 

I happened to pick up a copy of The Confusion at the on-going book sale at my library; I've picked up a bunch of books this way, and because they're so cheap (pay what you can afford) I don't spend a whole lot of time pre-reading, or even poring over the dust jacket in most cases. So I guess it makes sense that when I got this book home, and then finally pulled it out to read it, I discovered when reading the frontmatter that it is indeed the second book in a trilogy The Baroque Cycle. Cut to a year or so later (or about a month ago, depending on your perspective) and I finally decide to take book one, Quicksilver, out of the library.

So, is this book SciFi? Information technology based fiction? Pseudo-historical, other-worldly, soft SF? No, its historical fiction, with some scientific leanings.

The story focuses on Europe in the time of Louis XIV, for the most part. The story spans quite a few  decades, from about 1680 to 1730, or so. So far. And there is a fair amount of recounting the historical background of the present era as well. The focus, as far as I can tell, seems to revolve around the smaller characters, who may have done their parts to move the larger geo-political forces around them, and the storyline is followed through their divers viewpoints. see what I did there, with the old-timey spelling of diverse, yeah Stephenson does crap like that throughout. not a big fan of the technique myself So, the scientific bent--even a little code breaking, with nods to the 'original' Cryptonomicon, supposedly written by John Wilkins, an Anglican clergyman and natural philosopher from the period, and the basis for Stephenson's SF novel of the same name--mainly revolves around the members of the Royal Society and their scientific pursuits during the period.

So, there's a lot going on in this story. If I had any negative comment, it would be that its took a little while to get rolling. Now that I'm well into the second book, its pretty clear that the slow build-up is a function of how complex the story is. There are a lot of players, and the names can be as difficult to keep track of as The Silmarillion or The Count of Monte Cristo. Two of my favorites, by the way.

This looks like its going to be a good one. Good so far, and more to come.