Monthly Archives: March 2012

“India Becoming” by Akash Kapur

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Note: I won this book on LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India is a book about India in transition, especially after the economy was liberalised in 1991. It’s written by Akash Kapur, who grew up in India, spent his early adulthood in the United States, and then returned to live in India. His hometown and the surrounding areas and cities have changed a lot, and he talks to a bunch of different people to figure out how their lives have changed. Sathy is a landowner in a village, which was formerly a position of power, but is quickly becoming irrelevant. Banu, his wife, is struggling to balance her career and her family. Hari and Selvi are recent college graduates from small villages, finding their place in a Westernised corporate world. Veena is an ambitious career woman that is flouting tradition by divorcing her husband and living with a boyfriend. There are a few more people interviewed, like Jayevel the cow-broker and Das the Dalit businessman.

The book is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the good; the burgeoning middle class, the proliferation of women in the workplace, the new businesses and construction and culture. The second part talks about the destruction and disarray that accompanied them – for instance, people’s livelihoods and homes getting destroyed, people that are unsure of their place in the new world.

The stories made interesting reading, but I don’t think they were more than a series of vignettes. It’s true that India is rapidly changing. This means that people can aspire to much more than the government jobs that used to be the only recourse in socialist India, and that Western culture is pervasively affecting Indian youth. India’s economic development is completely ignoring sustainability and damage to the environment. There is still enormous poverty, despite more and more people being successful. I think that’s what Kapur aims to show us with all these stories.

I’m not entirely sure why this book left me so ambivalent. I did enjoy reading about the people. I guess I was hoping for more insight or theories about how India might evolve in the future. I already know that there is a lot of change in India, both constructive and destructive, so I didn’t really learn much from the book. I know that we are neglecting our poor, but that we’re also becoming more individualistic and free, all because of globalisation. Kapur didn’t offer any analysis of this – just platitudes about how nothing is what it seems to be like on the surface. He doesn’t offer any answers or suggestions as to how India might achieve a better balance, he just points out the flaws.

The blurb for this book says:

India Becoming is essential reading for anyone interested in our changing world and the newly emerging global order. It is a riveting narrative that puts the personal into a broad, relevant and revelational context.

I don’t think I’d take it quite so far, but it’s a decent portait of a few lives coping with a country that is rapidly changing.

“The Scar” by China Miéville

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After three self-published books, I return to traditional publishing, Miéville and my 25 book challenge.

The Scar is set in Bas Lag, the world of the city-state of New Crobuzon, last seen in Perdido Street Station. Bellis Coldwine, a linguist, is escaping her beloved city of New Crobuzon because of the events of Perdido Street Station (no spoilers, but you’ll recognise some references if you’ve read it) by enlisting as a translator on a colony and prison ship. The ship carries a very disparate group of people, all looking to leave New Crobuzon for various reasons. Then they get attacked by pirates, and recruited to be colonists of an entirely different place – Armada, the floating city.

The world of Bas Lag is incredibly well-realised, and we meet more species and go to far more places than we did in Perdido Street Station. I’ve raved about Miéville’s world-building before, and I will continue to do so in the future. The descriptions of Armada make for spectacular reading – a floating city, built from ships and platforms.

Bellis is an interesting protagonist – she’s an established woman over forty, and I have read very few books that feature people like her. She’s a pretty cold person, but she’s also extremely sad at having to leave her home of New Crobuzon. I wasn’t really sure whether I liked her, but she was certainly a good protagonist. The other characters of the novel were also fun – I liked Silas Fennec and Tanner Sack (in very different ways), and Shekel’s thirst for learning was endearing.

The plot went along at a steady pace, and was pretty engaging. I didn’t see a couple of the twists and turns coming. The ending disappointed me a little bit, because so much was left up in the air.

I have the same problems with this as I have with any Miéville book – it’s a bit cold. I probably would have more to say about this if I hadn’t read The City & the City so recently. Overall, a pretty good book.

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This is book 20 of 25 of my Dec 11, 2011 book challenge.

“Rojuun” by John H. Carroll

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Rojuun is another free fantasy novel that I started on my trip but just finished. It’s set on the world of Ryallon, and features a misfit band of adventurers as they try to make some sense of their lives and accidentally get roped into saving the world.

This book tries to balance both epic fantasy and a lot of humour, and I think it would’ve been better if it had just stuck to one of the two genres. It fails at being a humour book by killing off a bunch of characters to start the story, and the cavalier way that the main characters act afterwards doesn’t reflect that story at all.

The worldbuilding was pretty standard, although I did enjoy some concepts, like the mysterious appearance of the Rojuun. The characters are all Mary Sues, and I had trouble thinking of them as actual people. The writing seemed a bit simplistic (lots of telling and not showing), which also got a bit grating. The romance was also a bit amateurish and somewhat uncomfortable, given the relative maturity of the characters involved. (I also felt the same way about the romance between Siri and the God King in Warbreaker.)

An okay read – I probably only finished it because I’m compulsive about finishing books. I’m somewhat curious about what happens next, but probably won’t get to the other two books anytime soon.

“The Unfinished Song: Initiate” by Tara Maya

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Looking at the cover of The Unfinished Song: Initiate and the author’s name, I figured that this was some fluffy romance disguised as fantasy, and that I’d probably hate it. Then I figured it was free, so why not get it. I’m glad I did.

Dindi is a young girl that is nearing her Initiation. She hopes to be picked to join the Tavaedi, who are highly skilled magical dancers. However, everyone she knows thinks that she’s awkward and unskilled, and that she will never make it. The other main character, Kavio, is a skilled dancer that is exiled from his tribe for a crime that he did not commit. His travel is in the hopes that he will find a new home in another tribe.

This is a pretty short book, and it whizzed by. It is supposed to be the first of a 12-part series, so be warned! It was pretty light reading, but each character was really well fleshed out. Everyone was hiding some kind of secret and seemed to be much more than what they appeared to be on the surface. I was amazed at the distinctiveness of each character, especially given that the book is so short and there were quite a few characters. Dindi was a very lovable protagonist, and I can’t remember meeting any protagonist quite like her. I also enjoyed the characters of Gwenika and her sister and mother. Vessia was fascinating, and I can’t wait to find out more about her. I also enjoyed the little touches of detail given to extremely minor characters like Ula and Great Aunt Sullana.

There were a few romantic undertones in this book, but no outright romance yet. I suspect that I will not like the upcoming romantic bits, but there’s definitely enough meat on this story for me to overlook that.

The world of The Unfinished Song is a fascinating amalgamation of customs that I recognised from very different cultures. I enjoyed how it all worked together, and I was glad to read the author’s note at the end about the author’s inspiration for the world.

There are a lot of questions and mysteries in this book, and a lot of characters whose actions that I can’t quite predict. I look forward to reading the rest of the series to find out!

“The Hand of Andulain” by Aaron Mahnke

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I’ve been on a trip (to the amazing PyCon in Santa Clara, CA) for the past week. It’s the first time I’ve travelled with my Kindle, instead of having to pack a whole bunch of heavy books, and it’s pretty nice! It’s also nice to have access to a whole bunch of fantasy (free Kindle ebooks!) – it’s my favourite genre, and I don’t usually have many unread fantasy books.

The Hand of Andulain is a pretty standard fantasy. In the grand tradition of Frodo Baggins, Rand al’Thor and Luke Skywalker (Star Wars is pretty much fantasy), Bran is a young man from a quiet, pastoral village. He has reached twenty summers, and is looking forward to tending to the family farm, although he occasionally dreams of adventure. But then he saves an elf Eki messenger who is being chased by some Broken (think Orcs or Trollocs) carrying a powerful magical item, and therefore has to run away from home and family, accompanied by his best friend and his wise old mentor (who is more than he seems.) Along the way he meets a pretty girl, fights some bad guys that are hunting him, and learns that he is the only one with the power to destroy the Dark Lord. Like I said, pretty standard.

This is the first book of a series, so it’s a bit clunky. There’s a lot of setting up and introduction to the world. The world is also fairly standard, but pretty well described. I would like to know more about the magic system and the history of the world. The characters are also quite archetypical, although I did like Alae more than most of the other characters – she seems pretty interesting for a servant girl.

Some of the explanations were repeated quite a bit, which annoyed me. The characters constantly realised things about 50 pages after I realised it, and then proceeded to deliver a speech about how exactly it worked. It’s almost like the author wanted to make triple sure that we understood how something was significant to the plot.

Another annoying thing was that there were quite a few typos. For instance, there was “they road their horses” instead of “they rode their horses.”

Overall, a pretty light, predictable and fun read. I’ll probably pick up the next book at some point when it’s out.

“The City & the City” by China Miéville

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The City & The City is the third China Miéville book that I’ve read, each different genres. Perdido Street Station was a steampunk/fantasy, Embassytown was science-fiction, and The City & The City is a police procedural. Each of them is pretty uniquely Miéville, though – his imagination is incomparable, and I love how he dabbles in different genres and manages to retain his voice.

As I mentioned, The City & The City is a detective story, somewhat noir inspired. However, it’s set in the city-states of Besźel and Ul Qoma, somewhere on the edge of Europe. Besźel and Ul Qoma are intertwined cities that are completely independent from each other. The nearest example I can think of is Toll-by-Night and Toll-by-Day in Fly Trap. They are located in the same physical location, but some buildings/streets/locations belong to Besźel and some belong to Ul Qoma. Their culture, language, economic status etc. are very different. Residents of each city are trained to ignore the other city’s sights, sounds and smells. “Unseeing”, “unhearing” etc. are taught to children from a young age. If they break these laws, a shadowy force called Breach descends upon them, and they are never seen again. Tourists and children are allowed some leeway (tourists are deported.)

In this mad world (which is part of our own modern day world), Inspector Tyodor Borlú of the Besźel Extreme Crimes Unit discovers a corpse of a dead woman. However, she turns out to be from Ul Qoma, and seems to have made enemies among powerful people in both cities while investigating the legend of the mysterious, all-controlling third city, Orciny. Borlú can’t resist the mystery and goes above and beyond his duties to investigate this murder.

The worldbuilding in this story is absolutely fantastic. I find it utterly implausible that humans in our current world would put up with the absurd constraints of these two cities, but even so, the world is very well-thought out. I would have expected to have a lot of questions about how the logistics of this worked, but Miéville has laid out a very detailed (and very bureaucratic) world. And of course, there are the obvious unificationists, the hardcore nationalists, the conspiracy theorists, etc. Miéville mentions the myths surrounding the formation of Besźel and Ul Qoma many times, but never actually explains it. I wish that these cities were set on an alien planet (Bas-Lag from his other books, maybe?) or something, the familiarity of our world (email, planes, American embassies) made the cities really jarring.

The murder mystery and the conspiracy were well-thought out and written (although I did suspect the murderer), and I was pretty surprised by some of the revelations (in a “I should’ve seen that! How clever!” way.) I enjoyed the characters, although they seemed to be stock police types from TV shows (with much more profanity.) As usual, it’s hard to empathise with Miéville’s characters – I read the book for the ideas.

I’m still not sure if this book had any fantasy elements – they are hinted at, but I don’t think they were ever made explicit.

The ending of the book left me a bit annoyed and confused – I thought it was a bit of a letdown after the strength of the rest of the book. I don’t want to say more about it, but that’s probably the main reason that I didn’t absolutely love this book.

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This is book 19 of 25 of my Dec 11, 2011 book challenge.

“The Emperor’s Edge” by Lindsay Buroker

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The Emperor’s Edge is the first full novel (the paperback is 319 pages) that I read on my new Kindle, so that’s pretty exciting. I went on a free fantasy novel download spree as soon as I got it, and this was one of the books I got.

This book is marketed as a “high fantasy set in an era of steam.” I really enjoyed the setting; it was a nice change from the usual medieval-inspired fantasy worlds. (Mistborn: The Alloy of Law had a similar world, although we saw the world in its medieval state in the previous Mistborn trilogy.) The protagonist is Amaranthe, an enforcer (police officer) who suddenly finds herself on the wrong side of the law through no fault of her own. She assembles a crew of misfits (also like in the Mistborn Trilogy) to help her find out what’s going on and perhaps help defeat some evil forces.

This was a fun book – it is written in a lighthearted style but still has plenty of heart. The gang of misfits was also extremely lovable – there’s Books, the drunk professor, Maldynado the preening dandy with a heart of gold, Sicarius, the extremely deadly assassin and Akstyr, the sullen ex-gang member teenager that can also do magic. Even though I thought they were all a bit crazy for going along with Amaranthe’s plan, I think that’s part of their characters – they’re all smart people that feel underutilised.

I also thought Amaranthe was a great protagonist. It’s refreshing to have a fantasy novel that has a non-magic user protagonist. Magic doesn’t actually play very much of a role in the story; it’s just there. Amaranthe is the team’s coordinator and leader, but what she’s really good at is managing people and skills, and coming up with ideas. She’s a competent fighter, but what she’s really good at is talking people into doing things for her. She reminded me a lot of Nate Ford from Leverage, both in her role in the team and that she’s an ex-official good guy doing good things using illegal methods. I also liked the fact that Buroker refrained from introducing any major romantic subplots while exploring various characters being attracted to each other.

Another exciting thing about the book was Amaranthe’s plan to save her empire. Let’s just say that it involved economics, which was pretty unusual.

This is a planned six-book series, out of which three are out. I really want to read Dark Currents and Deadly Games right away, but will probably hold off on it until I get through some more books in my pile. I’m looking forward to seeing the universe of the books explored some more – the magic system and the neighbouring countries especially. I was also a bit dubious that these characters will stay in a team, and I think Buroker addresses that in the next couple of books.

“Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein.

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After my Ringworld foray, I was a bit wary of the other two classic sci-fi novels on my list. Finally, I plucked up my courage and dove into this book.

Stranger in a Strange Land starts off well. It appears to be a fun science-fiction story about a human raised among the Martians that returns to Earth and has a huge cultural shock while having to deal with all of Earth’s bureaucracy. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the Martian civilisation and bow it differs from ours, and the plots of the administration to make the protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, sign over his rights. Unfortunately, this part only lasts for the first couple of hundred pages or so.

SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH TO AVOID SPOILERS:

Once Valentine Michael Smith gets accustomed to Earth and its strange ways (or as the book says, once he groks Earth), he takes the logical next step of… starting a cult! Of course, this cult is the right one for Earth’s people, one which teaches them awesome mind powers that means work is unnecessary and also gets rid of jealousy and possessiveness. Everyone has sex with everyone else, except of course, homosexuality is utterly wrong. The highest value in his society is “growing closer” through sex, but men get closer with other men by encouraging the women that they have sex with to have sex with other men. (Presumably Michael’s amazing mind powers prevents sexually transmitted diseases, since he seems to be able to control his body utterly.) And in the end, after he sacrifices his physical form and his cult eats his flesh, he’s revealed to be an incarnation of the Archangel Michael!

END SPOILERS

Okay, so I thought this book was a bit absurd. I did think that it was going to be hard sci-fi, and in my opinion, it wasn’t (although I don’t think that’s what kept me from enjoying it.) Heinlein can write pretty well, as shown by the first part of the book, but the book ended up devolving into preachy philosophical monologues (all delivered by the men, while the women say “I understand now, dear! Can I get you some food?”) The character of Jubal seemed like a Mary Sue stand-in for Heinlein; he’s a writer who writes “bad pulp fiction” but knows that it is trash, but he’s also a doctor and a lawyer and the only person that understands Valentine Michael Smith.

Also, I’m usually very forgiving of old books being representative of the prevailing morals of their time, but still, this book is incredibly sexist. Like I said above, the men always need to explain things to the women, the women spend their days mostly in swimsuits (or later, naked), the women are always concerned about providing food to the men (or are rebuked with threats of “spanking”, all in good fun, of course.) There’s a disturbing statement about rape (“nine times out of ten, it’s the woman’s fault”) that’s said by a woman.

The homophobia was also a disappointment. For a story that preaches free love and “sex isn’t just about babies, it’s to grow closer to people” to be so acutely homophobic seemed like a huge cop-out. I’ve heard this book described as visionary for its message of sexual liberation and anti-bigotry, but then it’s homophobic! I would’ve forgiven it if the topic of homosexuality had not been addressed at all.

I’m glad I read it, though. It’s good to read books I absolutely don’t agree with, once in a while. And Heinlein is still a way better writer than Larry Niven.

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This is book 18 of 25 of my Dec 11, 2011 book challenge.