Review: The sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Being a sci-fi fan, I don't really know why I haven't read this book earlier. It's a classic one.

The Sirens of Titan is very well written, I enjoyed the unmistakable style of Vonnegut. His satiric voice is famous, and is a trade mark of his stories. His choice of words is very good.

Using important subjects, for example religion, the book mocks at the human nature, which sometimes can take strange curves.

The story is funny, and often surprising. Vonnegut don't spare the characters, he gives them hard time.

I suspect that there were more hidden messages behind the front story, which I couldn't really grab. By one hand because I'm not good in deciphering symbols, sometimes I have trouble finding the hidden message between the lines. And by the other hand because the book was written in 1959, in a completely different era, with different problems, different world and all.

Still, there is something strange about the Sirens of Titan I cannot put my finger on - is it intentional? - so I gave four stars.

Zelda Pryce: The Razor's Edge by Joss Llewelyn

Zelda Pryce is a young talented security expert, who uses arcane machines in her work. When she accepts a job to test the security of the British Museum she finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy against arcane objects. If these objects would disappear, thousands would suffer, even die, because arcane devices are widely used, for example as prosthetic limbs.

Zelda joins the French secret agent alchemist, racing against time to find the dangerous person behind the misuse of the Checkov Gun, Occam's Razor and other magical devices. A talented thief also appears and helps them time after time. They travel from London to Rome, and from the Castle of Frankenstein to the Taj Mahal.

The story is entertaining, and I found the arcane devices interesting. They are based on real objects, persons and theories, and they moved my imagination.

Axis by Charles Wilson

I enjoyed Spin, the prequel of this book, and I was looking forward to read Axis. The story is interesting. It picks up the storyline 30 years after Spin ends, and it is about the alien race who caused Earth's spinning. Scientists try to establish a connection by altering the DNA of a child, who - according to the hopes of the scientists - would be able to "speek" with them.

While the idea is compelling, I was disappointed at the end. I felt the book unfinished. The whole purpose of the story was to pave the way to the big event of the connection with the aliens. But I never learned what happened when the superboy entered the gate and finally met the aliens.

Most of the time I enjoyed Wilson's writing, but several times I skipped paragraphs, because I found them only ranting.

The Name of the Wind

This is the first book I read from Patrick Rothfuss, and I defenitely will read more. The story is very entertaining, and well written, I could see the the whole plot unfolding in front of my eyes.

The characters are deep, well drawn, without any cliches. For me the most important about characters, that their acts are based on their emotions, thoughts, earlier experiences. So nothing sudden an unexpected happens, nor they have attributions only for the sake of the story. Rothfuss did it well.

I enjoyed the world building. It is so detailed, that I had the feeling like reading a real story, not a fiction. The places were well described. I was not overwhelmed by the history, but always got enough information to be able to place what was happening. The magic, mithology and arkana is worked out well, make sense, not overdone.

At the beginning I thought it flowed slowly for my taste, but then I realised that every event had its importance, and was referred to later. I was sorry when I arrived at the end, and decided to buy the next book in the series.

Where is the pure genre?

I recently read the novella titled His Name In Lights by Patty Jansen. It was refreshing. This is the review I wrote on Amazon:

Real science-fiction story. This is what came into my mind reading this novella. I'm tired of novels I read lately, mixing romance, paranormal and SF. His Name In Lights is a refreshingly original sci-fi story, reminding me of Asimov's robot novels. It raises questions I'm not sure ever would be answered, like: what makes us human, our body, our soul, or both together?; what is the relation between creator and creature?
The story has some aspects reflecting to the desire for political power, which is again, an attribution the mankind cannot get rid of.

I was thinking about the phenomenon I see in more and more books: mixing sci-fi with fantasy, paranormal with sci-fi, romance with paranormal, and so on. I member of the Goodreads and The LibraryThing community, and I received several books for free in exchange of reviews. Some of them were good, some others were average. There were some of this "mixed genre" type books, and while I did enjoy reading them, I could not get rid of some strange feeling.

When I considered one aspect of these books, I didn't find it compelling enough. They were not really sci-fi. They were not really paranormal. They were not really romance. Something was missing, those things which make you say "aha!" or "ooh!". You would think that when all of the aspects are put together, they compose a complex and interesting story. Strangely, it didn't work for me as it should have. I think it's because non of the genre lines were exploited in great depth, like you do writing a pure genre book.

Maybe it's just me, remembering the pure sci-fi books of old days. This is why I enjoyed the book His Name in Lights more.

Change in content

I started this blog to post my book reviews, but decided to strech it a little. I will write about other subjects too, mainly writing - learning to write, that is.

I consider myself a wannabe writer. I started to take writing seriously a year ago, and I'm reading a lot about it, practically everything I can put my hands on. Fortunately valuable sources are available online. I wrote a few short stories, and I'm working on my first novel.

So here I am, learning how to write compelling stuff.

The Dragon and the Lotus by Joseph Robert Lewis

Author: Joseph Robert Lewis

Description: As a child in Kathmandu, Asha was bitten by a dragon and gained the ability to hear the souls of all living things. Years later in India, she uses her strange gift and her training as an herbalist to save people possessed by ghosts, poisoned by legendary beasts, and tortured by the cruel doctors of Ming. And to fight the occasional bear or tiger, of course.

With the help of a beautiful blind nun and a sleepy little mongoose, Asha confronts both victims and predators, including the man who stole her childhood and killed her lover. But when she journeys into the west, Asha discovers that there are fates worse than death and there are human monsters that can only be defeated by a woman with the strength of a dragon. (From the author's web site.)

What I think:

This book takes us to interesting places, interesting time, and interesting alternative reality. For people sitting at home (I mean the country we leave in) almost all the time, Asia itself is an exotic location. I like to learn about foreign cultures and people. This version of the alternative Asia even more exciting.

The book consists of separate stories about Asha and Priya wandering through the land to heal people. First I was not comfortable with reading the separate stories, they seemed not connected, except that they were adventures of the two women, of course. But later there came the connections, references to experiences in the previous chapters, memories of past events, returning characters. And finally the book became a complete story.

Dragons are always compelling. They are big, dangerous (at least most of the time), dreadful, it seems impossible to defeat them. It is also the case with the one in this story, and the way it is defeated is very interesting.

This whole soul-hearing thing is amazing. The way Asha hears the "sound" of living souls is well worked out. During their journey, the two women met with people with very strange illnesses, and Asha had to find cures unheard of.

There is one thing I should mention what I didn't like: I found the dangerous acts short. The reader usually eager to get to the point, and to know what happens, yes. But before the climax, the reader loves to be delayed, and bite the nails in suspense what happens next. So I would like to fidget a little more before the victory comes.

Rating: four stars.