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The Jevlir Caravansary

Category: Books

  • Book: Patrimony

    This is another Pip & Flinx adventure. I have to confess that while I love Alan Dean Foster, who is one of those authors I look for on most trips to the library and every trip to the bookstore, I am getting a little overdosed on these books. The problem is that we have had too many of them in which Flinx searches for his father, tries to learn about his powers, and deals with headaches. They are beginning to seem a bit repetitive. On to the next item I say!

    Well, this book did provide some answers, though I’m not going to say anything to give them away. At the same time, it bears a great deal of similarity to previous books. I wasn’t that excited about the plot itself. I do enjoy Foster’s relaxed way of presenting a new culture, and I enjoyed both planet and culture as described in this particular book. That part will keep me coming back to Flinx and to the Humanx Commonwealth in other forms as well.

    I rate this a 3 by itself, but would raise that to a 4 because of its relatives.

  • Book: Deluge

    This is the third volume of the Twins of Petaybee series.

    To let you know how I felt about the book, let me quote what I said about Maelstrom, the second in the series:

    It is lighter than the Dragonrider series, and I don’t find the cultural background anywhere near as interesting, but the characters are engaging, and the story is fun. That’s a lot to recommend a book, especially since I look for books to read when my mind wants to rest rather than be challenged. I’m glad there are books that fit the bill.

    As I read that now, more than a year after I wrote it, I can only nod my head. That is exactly how I felt reading this volume. It’s why I keep on reading authors like McCaffrey. She can’t always be writing Dragonriders books after all, and once one has done a series like that, everything else is going to look just a bit pale beside it. But this whole series is good fun, even though it’s not all that deep.

    I intend to keep reading both authors.

  • Book: Paradise

    I’ve been reading a lot of Mike Resnick’s work lately, especially after encountering his short story Kirinyaga, and then the book built from a number of short stories set in that world. He’s always an exceptional storyteller.

    With that, I picked up Paradise, currently it appears only available used. I got my copy from my local public library, on which let me make a comment. Support your public library. It’s a wonderful institution.

    Now Paradise is not a book with a theme I would normally enjoy. But this book is interesting and thoughtful and provides a variety of characters to love or hate, or more likely feel ambivalent about. (Don’t even think of mentioning the preposition at the end of a sentence!)

    The lead character is a writer who writes first about the people who have been involved with the early years of human contact on the planet Peponi, which means Paradise in a local language. One thing leads to another until he finally visits the planet he has been writing about and gets a direct view.

    The problems frequently reflect those of colonialism here on earth. I’d like to think we’d have better sense by the time, if ever, that we contact other sentient species on other worlds. Realistically, that’s probably not a very realistic hope. Even more, just what would “better sense” be in this context? There’s a great deal of room for wondering just exactly what each person should have done in this story. Certainly there are many specific things that are either definitely bad or definitely good.

    But even assuming that the exploiters could be kept off a world like this, what would happen with the philanthropists? One imagines that perhaps a Star Trek style non-interference directive (obviously better defined and better enforced than in the series) might be the only answer. No two species would actually meet until each had developed a certain level of technology. But thinking about that leads me to many questionable situations as well.

    Moralizing aside, or perhaps because of it, I really enjoyed watching the various characters work through their situations. Each is constrained by his or her own background and situation, and often there are not nearly as many choices as the outsider, such as a reader might think.

    Now don’t get the idea that this story is made up of philosophizing and moralizing. The story is well told and well worth reading for fun as well as for thinking. Resnick sneaks the thinking into the cracks and you get caught up asking yourself questions, or at least I do, but perhaps I’m strange.

    I strongly recommend this book whether you have to order it used or find it at your public library. Get a copy and enjoy!

  • Book: Kirinyaga

    I’ve already written about two of the stories that form a part of this book, and I’ve also linked to what I consider an excellent review, except that it gives a bit much of the story away for my taste. But I want to make a couple of additional comments because this book is really exceptional.

    I have stated before that I don’t really have standards for some kind of universal “good” or “bad” literature. Rather, there is literature that I like and some that I don’t. I’m quite happy with this being subjective. One of the things I like in literature is engaging characters, folks that you actually care about. If it doesn’t matter when a character dies, or narrowly escapes death, then I’m probably not enjoying the book very much.

    There are quite a number of engaging characters in literature, and most of them are characters that I like. There’s something about them that attracts me. But there’s something special about presenting a character that I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like and making me root for him as the story goes on.

    That’s the case with Koriba, the mundumugu (witch doctor) who serves as the repository for tribal knowledge and tradition on the terraformed world of Kirinyaga. He is, in fact, everything I wouldn’t like in reality. I personally embrace the advance of technology, and am at worst amused by the social changes that tend to go with it. I object strongly when someone can’t pursue their goals and dreams because of tradition. I’m ready to toss out the tradition and let people do what they can.

    Koriba is in love with a set of traditions, and wants to freeze everything at that point, and yet he is so clear about his desires, and expresses himself so well, that I found myself in great sympathy with him, all the while realizing that if I were encountering him in real life, I would almost certainly be one of his enemies.

    I could use every story in this book as the basis for teaching and discussing some concept or another. The story overall points to stress points in the way we handle change and the interaction of very different cultures. The world is full of less extreme examples, but sometimes it takes the extremes to get us thinking.

    This book is certainly deserving of all the awards it has received, and I rate it a 5 myself.

  • Book: Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun

    This is a lovely collection of 28 short stories by Mike Resnick. I blogged previously about getting the inspiration for a devotional from one of them, but I’ve now finished the whole collection. It’s available in a Kindle edition, hard cover, and paperback.

    My favorites were <em>Kirinyaga</em>, <em>For I Have Touched the Sky</em>, and <em>Watching Marcia</em>.   That’s a weird selection, I suspect, but the first two I find particularly challenging.  The concept is simple, but it has very profound implications.  It sets me to thinking what the universe they are set in would be like and how well it would work.

    Novels are great, but short story collections work so well as bedtime reading.  I heartily recommend this one – numeric rating of 5.

  • Resnick Inspired Devotional

    It is perhaps a bit humorous that my devotional this morning, Sticking with the Familiar was inspired by Michael Resnick’s short story “Over There” which I read just last night from his collection Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?. The thought came to me how often we go with who we are and what we do even when all the indications are against it.

    I like short stories, and Resnick has that wonderful quality of writing stories that I don’t entirely like, but are so good that I have to read anyhow. I’m not sure just how to express that properly. I felt that way before about his book A Hunger in the Soul, and he even dropped by to comment and explain, but the thing is there was nothing wrong with the book. In fact, it was superbly written as one would expect of Mike Resnick. Yet I really didn’t like the story.

    In any case, there are any number of short stories in this book that annoy me while at the same time are really wonderful. That may indicate some sort of mental problem. The Kirniyaga stories, of which I’ve read two so far are no fun at all and yet superbly set and written. In case you’re wondering, I recommend this collection, even though it is only available used. There are plenty of used copies. Look one up.

  • And then Brazen Virtue

    I did it again.  I read Brazen Virtue, the sequel to Sacred Sins.  Still enjoyed it, though romance will not become a favorite.

  • Book: Sacred Sins

    My wife introduced me to J. D. Robb, and I have been enjoying Eve Dallas ever since. Occasionally she and I exchange books, though to be honest, our reading lists don’t overlap all that much, either in fiction or in non-fiction. A few days ago she handed me a couple of Nora Roberts books (I’m sure most readers know that Nora Roberts writes also as J. D. Robb), and said she thought Roberts was warming up for the Dallas books with these.

    The first I read was Sacred Sins, which I have just finished. I will read the next book which she also gave me. I don’t like these as well as the J. D. Robb books, and a little look at the types of things I do read would probably tell you why. I’m not long on books with a great deal of characterization, and romance normally has to be kept to a minimum.

    At the same time, this book would make an excellent place to discuss the difference between a mystery, and a romance that has some mystery in it. I think this is a romance with a touch of mystery. The male lead character is a homicide detective, and thus it is natural that police procedure and investigation would be involved. But Roberts doesn’t dwell as much on crime scene issues and the investigation as she does when writing about Eve Dallas, for example.

    The female lead is a psychiatrist, contracted to provide a profile of a serial killer. There <em>is</em> action of the normal crime type, but the <em>real action comes between those two characters, whose nature, background, and training makes them see things differently. They are nonetheless attracted to one another. As someone married to a woman with a very different personality than mine, I can empathize.

    I was surprised by the quality of the portrayal of the thinking of the characters throughout. I was also surprised by the ending, though I thought of it a few pages before it happened and then dismissed it as impossible. As soon as I had done that, it happened. So much for my guessing abilities. I’ll blame it on the romantic nature of the book, and the unsystematic presentation of evidence, and go on.

    I’m not going to make a habit of reading romances, but if I were to do so, this would be the kind I’d go for. I rate this a 4.

  • Book: Cat in a Midnight Choir

    I just finished this book by Carole Nelson Douglas, and as usual I loved it.  Definitely a 4, maybe better.

  • Book: Body Movers

    I could just rate this one a three, and let it go at that, but then I might be unfair to the author.  You see, the book is well written, but unfortunately had the bad luck to hit too many of my pet peeves, not about writing, but about people.  I just plain didn’t like the characters all that much, and sometimes I really don’t enjoy reading books about people I truly would not care to meet.

    Basically, I felt that the action started slowly.  The first half of the book kept me busy disliking the major characters.  It got better toward the end, but I never did warm up to the people. Carlotta Wren’s parents have abandoned her and her younger brother, whom she has raised.  He’s pretty much a 19 year old obnoxious ingrate, and spends his time messing up her life.

    She, of course, being his sister, continues to put up with all this and kind of babies him along, while being threatened by various loan sharks and other unsavory characters.  She is, nonetheless, the most likable character in the book.

    The mystery is good, but it seems to me that the folks in the story solve it rather accidentally, which didn’t exactly excite me.

    If you don’t have the same pet peeves as I do, you may well like this, because the story and the characters are built up quite well.  I do like the technique by which we become acquainted with each person and learn more of the background.  Because of those factors, I will certainly read another book in this series at some point.  I’m just not in a hurry.