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Jul. 2nd, 2012 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupFeeling much better. It's amazing what a little sushi and some bubble tea will do for a girl. My emotions are very nova-like in that things accrete and accrete and accrete and then they go BOOM! and then things are better (while the accretion cycle begins again).
Yes, I just went all astronomy-analogy on ya'll. I love a good astronomy analogy.
Speaking of, now's as good a time as any to talk about the latest book I read. Or, rather, well, it's complicated. Anyway. I began following the Sword & Laser vlog a couple months ago and I thought it would be fun to read along with their monthly book club. I had hit this point with scifi/fantasy books where I didn't know what was good so I stopped reading pretty much anything that wasn't by an author I already knew and loved/enjoyed. Which is how, back in May, I came to read Hyperion by Dan Simmons. And then, when I got to the end and discovered a cliffhanger, I had to go on and read its sequel/companion The Fall of Hyperion.
Wow, that's a lot of backstory.
In my many years of reading science fiction I've discovered that it comes in, more or less, two general varieties. There's the plot-based science fiction that follows a more traditional story structure, and there's the philosophical-based variety that can have a traditional story but also includes a lot of, well, philosophical meanderings on the condition of life, the universe, etc.
Simmons' books definitely fall into the latter category. There's also a lot of poetry and a reincarnated (literally) poet who might be God, or a part of God. And time travel, with all of the confusion that brings. These books are not for the faint of heart or for the science fiction neophyte.
I'm not entirely sure what I have to say, if anything, about these books. Did I enjoy them? Yes, but mostly in they way that I enjoy anything that's very well-written. I enjoyed Hyperion more than Fall because the former was more character based. It's patterned on The Canterbury Tales in that each of the main character/pilgrims tells his/her story and their reason for agreeing to undertake the pilgrimage that spurs that plot into action. Some stories were more engaging than others, but I enjoyed reading all of them and seeing the universe through the characters' eyes. I missed that in Fall, especially as the plotlines became more varied and increasingly obtuse.
In the end, this isn't a series that I either like or dislike. I don't regret reading it but it's also not something that spoke to me. Its most interseting aspect, for me, was the way it spoke on the rise and fall of civilizations, the idea that to stagnate is to die (see also: Rome). That evolution, both cultural and biological, is a good thing and that to cling to the past is to lose the future. Or some such OTT poetic moral that isn't really the point at all.
In sum: Time travel is timey wimey and not that easy to understand. But if science fiction with a heavy side of philosophy is what gets you going then these are probably the books for you.
Next up: The Stepsister Scheme by Jim Hines.
comments at http://liptonrm.dreamwidth.org/45070.html.
Yes, I just went all astronomy-analogy on ya'll. I love a good astronomy analogy.
Speaking of, now's as good a time as any to talk about the latest book I read. Or, rather, well, it's complicated. Anyway. I began following the Sword & Laser vlog a couple months ago and I thought it would be fun to read along with their monthly book club. I had hit this point with scifi/fantasy books where I didn't know what was good so I stopped reading pretty much anything that wasn't by an author I already knew and loved/enjoyed. Which is how, back in May, I came to read Hyperion by Dan Simmons. And then, when I got to the end and discovered a cliffhanger, I had to go on and read its sequel/companion The Fall of Hyperion.
Wow, that's a lot of backstory.
In my many years of reading science fiction I've discovered that it comes in, more or less, two general varieties. There's the plot-based science fiction that follows a more traditional story structure, and there's the philosophical-based variety that can have a traditional story but also includes a lot of, well, philosophical meanderings on the condition of life, the universe, etc.
Simmons' books definitely fall into the latter category. There's also a lot of poetry and a reincarnated (literally) poet who might be God, or a part of God. And time travel, with all of the confusion that brings. These books are not for the faint of heart or for the science fiction neophyte.
I'm not entirely sure what I have to say, if anything, about these books. Did I enjoy them? Yes, but mostly in they way that I enjoy anything that's very well-written. I enjoyed Hyperion more than Fall because the former was more character based. It's patterned on The Canterbury Tales in that each of the main character/pilgrims tells his/her story and their reason for agreeing to undertake the pilgrimage that spurs that plot into action. Some stories were more engaging than others, but I enjoyed reading all of them and seeing the universe through the characters' eyes. I missed that in Fall, especially as the plotlines became more varied and increasingly obtuse.
In the end, this isn't a series that I either like or dislike. I don't regret reading it but it's also not something that spoke to me. Its most interseting aspect, for me, was the way it spoke on the rise and fall of civilizations, the idea that to stagnate is to die (see also: Rome). That evolution, both cultural and biological, is a good thing and that to cling to the past is to lose the future. Or some such OTT poetic moral that isn't really the point at all.
In sum: Time travel is timey wimey and not that easy to understand. But if science fiction with a heavy side of philosophy is what gets you going then these are probably the books for you.
Next up: The Stepsister Scheme by Jim Hines.
