THE BLADE ITSELF*: The First Law: Book One by Joe Abercrombie

Narrated by Stephen Pacey

* Incites to deeds of violence

Continuing my foray into contemporary fantasy I found this book to have nearly the same feel as that of The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan. This is not the High Fantasy of Tolkein populated with noble races of Men and Elves, filled with grandiloquent speech or even, a quest to save the world, but a modern take on a low-tech world populated by mercenary soldiers, noble dolts and snappy dialog. To me that is the hallmark of contemporary fantasy. I must say that I most liked Inquisitor Glokta best of all the characters. The unspoken dialog that runs in his head just before he speaks is quite cynical and so well suited to his character that he becomes likeable despite his loathsome appearance as described I the novel.  This book has other fine characters. Another is that of Logan, the Bloody Nine, a barbarian from the north: brutal in combat, but subtle in the art of leadership. As a first book, this one does everything right: Characters get introduced. We get to know the main political players. And it manages to do it all in an entertaining fashion. I don’t expect the series to plumb the depths of the human psyche, but even that potential is there.

Stephen Pacey is fantastic in this book. He is, perhaps, why I found THE BLADE ITSELF to be so entertaining. He takes the characters Abercrombie has given him and assigns them with voices so suitable that it makes you wonder if the characters were written with his range in mind. 

THE THIRD REICH AT WAR, by Richard J. Evans

Narrated by Sean Pratt

Peace Through Joy Fear

Here is a detailed look inside the inner workings of Hitler’s Third Reich. As the accounts of the atrocities pile up Evans manages to break up the horror by documenting some popular jokes that were circulating at the time. I found this third volume less interesting that the first two that depict Germany’s power grabs and control methods. Their administration of the war is a study in incompetence. It does serve to bring the Nazis down to size, a necessary effort, since before the war they seemed to be unstoppable. This is a lesson in the end result of tyranny. If you don’t nip it in the bud, it will strangle everything you love like Kudzu on an a cherry tree. The Nazis at their height only garnered 34.7% of the popular vote. But they were fanatics easily to roll over the majority. Don’t let it happen here.

I appreciate Sean Pratt in giving a dispassionate rendering. A more emotional account would have undermined my efforts to keep the book on a purely intellectual level. 

READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline

Narrated by Will Wheaton

Gunter Glieben Glauten Globin

This is a very enjoyable audiobook and is a lot of fun. This is the closest thing to time travel that I am ever going to experience. No, this novel does not include the SF concept of time travel. But for someone like me, who lived through the decade of the 1980s, this book brought back so many memories that at times I felt as if I was transported back in time. The novel begins with a first person account of a teenager in the dystopian near future living in the slums and trying to discover a way out. Internet on-line gaming has enjoyed a quantum leap in technology that is not too far from our current experience, and as a result is quite believable. The main character, and most of the inhabitants of the depressed world economy, spend all their waking hours living in this virtual-reality world of the game. He is nurtured, educated and entertained by this virtual reality simulation. The game can be read as a cautionary tale. Real life is so bad that escape into the simulation seems more desirable to most people that they invest all their efforts on this imaginary world while the world around them continues to decline. The protagonist makes sure that we understand that the any view of religion is pure bunk, giving us the now obligatory brief affirmation of materialistic atheism so common in Science Fiction. After this, blessedly brief, diatribe against spirituality and anti-environmentalism is over Ernest Cline gets right to the story. And a great story it is. His virtual reality world will be familiar to anyone who has watched the Holodeck on Star Trek, and in print fiction is is reminiscent of Neal Stephenson’s SNOW CRASH in the way it incorporates a virtual reality simulation into the story. Cline’s VR seems so plausible that one is forced to agree that such a minor leap in technology would almost certainly result in just such an on-line gaming environment as the one in READY PLAYER ONE. He has employed an almost mythical computer gaming programmer that has an obsession with all things of the 1980s. As a result the gamers, who are engaged in a treasure hunt that will make the winner the world’s richest and most powerful man, have to immerse themselves in the 1980s songs, movies and games that the game designer was also obsessed with. In a classic example of transference, the pursuit of wealth and fame has made his obsession their obsession. The carrot on a stick of so much money has altered these treasure hunters into raving Manga fans who listen to the music of 1980s hair bands like Def Leppard and watch old sitcoms in endless hours of marathon watching. It really makes you think about what attracts us to the forms of entertainment we choose to devote our time to. Layered on top of all this nostalgia is a great story; one that is fun and entertaining. With as much research Ernest Cline had to do to write this account so full of 1980s trivia, it is surprising that he did not include the Rock of Ages opening line that I have used to title this review. I kept expecting the line to appear so much that the song was like a soundtrack running in my head all through the novel. Listen to this book and you will understand the connection.

Will Wheaton (aka. Wesley Crusher for you non Trek fans) is the narrator for this book. His performance makes this even more enjoyable than it would have been in print. He is very good at relating all the various character voices, especially the protagonist. This is a great audiobook, in large part because of Wheaton’s voice. I will listen to this again. 

THE PREFECT, by Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by John Lee

A Few Good Things

What is going on here? I don’t know if there is something wrong with me or that Alastair Reynolds is just a very inconsistent writer. I have truly enjoyed some parts of every one of his books, but, except for CHASM CITY, none has kept up the magic all the way through. His other works all seem to get bogged down with convoluted far-future concepts that are so far removed from actual human experience so as to be incomprehensible.  You can listen to them just for those gems but there is a lot mush to slog through to get to those precious stones. I began listening to Alastair Reynolds based on the recommendation of several fellow listeners who had touted him as the modern-day master of Space Opera Science Fiction. They recommended the novel CHASM CITY as the best introduction to his Revelation Space series. And they were right. CHASM CITY is fantastic. It  is the most accessible of all the novels in the series. It is the best written, has the best characters and the most fantastic “sense of wonder” technology of them all. I have now listened to, REVELATION SPACE, REDEMPTION ARK, ABSOLUTION GAP, and now THE PREFECT.. This novel THE PREFECT does have some nice blending of detective fiction with SF but is misses on so many levels. One of the prime characteristics of the Detective Fiction genre are the gritty hard-edged characters. Listening to this book actually affected my mood. My expectations were so high going in that I really needed this one to be great. After the wonderful introduction to Alastair Reynolds that I had with CHASM CITY; I hung in there through the three central novels of the series, and THE PREFECT, thinking that surely there would be a big, big payoff after so much SF world building background. I mean I hung in there for over 100 hours of John Lee whispering in my ear about indoctrinal viruses, Inhibitor genocide machines, processing Cathedrals, inertial inhibitors, Alternate Universes, longevity treatments, baseline humans, Conjoiner Ultras, Time Travel, Cryo-arithmetic engines, and talking pigs, and I wanted some reward. I got bupkis. I believe I can safely say that the best way to enjoy the Revelation Space series is to start by listening to CHASM CITY and then…stop.