A Storm of Swords

A Song of Ice and Fire just keeps growing and getting better. A Storm of Swords is the third installment in the George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series, and it is just as powerful and edge-of-your-seat un-put-downable as the previous two.

It has a lot of the same wandering-across-Westeros type journeys as the previous two. People in this series spend a lot of their time travelling from place to place, and the author uses this as an opportunity to develop the background of the story. We still don't officially know what triggered Robert's rebellion, or who Jon's mother is, but hints are being dropped left and right, and you pretty much know what happened.

I'm going to immediately start reading the next book. Part of me just wants to get it all read so I can safely look at the Internet references to the series without getting spoilered*. This is seriously one of those series where the plot twists take you by shock, even though they have been foreshadowed so heavy-handedly. It's not a plot that develops linearly, where you can look at the current situation and figure out where it's going. Characters keep taking sharp, 90 degree turns, sometimes several times within a few chapters, and so it's hard to know what will happen next. Some things you can see coming, but holy crap I was given some surprises in the last half of this book. And every time, you then recall the leadup, and think, "oh, of course this was coming".

Of course, I could just be an idiot. I'm somewhat notorious at missing hints in literature. Allegory and symbolism? I miss them every time.

It's bloody hard to write this Half-Arsed Review(tm) and not put spoilers in. The plot developments cry out to be talked about directly. But I won't, because it'd suck for you if you haven't read it and were going to. So here's some abstracted spoiler-free spoilers (which you might want to skip anyway if you're reading or about to read this book):

Holy crap, why did they have to die? Who thought that guy would end up with that job? Who knew you were such an evil bastard? Did you do that thing deliberately? Wow, you're not actually an evil prick for doing that thing to that guy - you had a good reason. Oooh, he had it coming. Gosh, that's sad how they were that shitty to you. And you, also, are much more of an evil prick than everyone thought. Holy crap, you're back! Oh dear, that's not good news.

Anyways, now I've got that out of my system, my final summary: at least read the first book. If you like this sort of thing, it'll blow you away.

*Also, it'd be good to be able to focus on my PhD studies again.

A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings is the second book in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, and is as good as the first. Again, I was reading much more of it than I expected - normally I read a chapter of my book each evening, but I found myself reading several, simply because I needed to find out what would happen next. It's gotten to the point where it is seriously cutting into my study time. I console myself with the thought that once I've read the four books that have been released so far, I'll settle back into my normal routine.

This book is even more complex than the first - the scattering of the Starks across the continent of Westeros doesn't get any better, and in fact gets worse - as the plot progresses it gets rarer and rarer to find the family that had basically never been apart actually getting to see each other at all. Horrible things keep happening to them, and to everyone else. The war gets deeper and nastier, and it gets harder and harder to see who are the good guys and who are the bad. It's getting easy to see why Martin is having such a hard time getting the later books in the series written; the plot is so thick with hundreds of characters running around causing trouble that is must be bloody tricky making it all fit together while only hinting at and not revealing the overarching plot.

Like the first, it's an amazing book. Weaker in places, stronger in places, but it keeps pushing the tragedy, the anguish, and the horror of a world at war. I'm glad that this time I've got the next book sitting ready beside my bed to start reading tonight, because this is a series that doesn't bear putting down.

A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin, is an astonishingly powerful fantasy epic, following the story of members of the noble House Stark. It's a medieval style fantasy tale, with noble lords ruling over the "smallfolk", and rather cleverly both relates and distances itself from our medieval history by its slight deviations from our world - certain titles and names spelled or pronounced a little differently, differences in religion. Throughout the book, magic behaves like it does in our world - a relic of the past, not really intruding on daily life except in tales.

Where it differs from most other fantasy I've read is the emotional power of the story. The characters, while not overly complex or subtle, bind you to them. When a character is injured, you care; when a loved one is killed, you are stunned, and have to read on to see the aftermath. It's got a lot of the sense of history and depth that The Lord of the Rings has, but with a much more vivid emotional landscape. It's a story for adults, not for teenagers, which separates it from most fantasy.

I picked this up after reading and hearing quite a few recommendations, and seeing some of the press about the television series that is being made based on the series. Even with all the recommendations, I was still surprised by how powerful this book was, and by how often I'd find myself thinking about what twists might come next - how horribly things might turn out for the characters in the story.

And this is a book where things turn out badly. Martin heaps hurt upon hurt on everyone in this story. A character at one point says that in the game of thrones, you win or you die. The game of thrones is how nobles refer to the maneuvering for supremacy among them. And people die, and get betrayed, and betray, and kill. And just when things look as bad as they can get, they get worse. No good deed is left unpunished, and you can't help but feel for the characters, and imagine yourself in these situations, seeing your children and loved ones in peril.

About two thirds of the way through this book (around the 600 page mark), I realised that it was going to end soon, and that it was the first of a series. I kind of knew, but had blithely ignored it. But when the announcement came out that book 5 of the series was due to be released in June, it dawned on me that I urgently had to buy the next book in the series. Annoyingly, the bookshops I checked either had nothing, or had four copies of this book, and none of the rest of the series. I've now placed an urgent order with The Book Depository*, and the books are hopefully flying across the planet to me now. I'm quite bothered by the fact that I now have to read a different book, rather than starting immediately on A Clash of Kings (which I'm not linking to because I'd have to find the page, and there might be spoilers).

* Buy there. Or at Better World Books. Book prices in Australia are absurd.

Attila the Hun

John Man is one of the more readable historians around today. Most historials will at least make an attempt to put you to sleep at one point during a book, but some have a talent for keeping the reader engaged and interested in the subject matter. I read his Atlas of the Year 1000, and Alpha Beta years ago, and so had no hesitation in picking up Attila the Hun.

Most people's knowledge of Attila the Hun is basically: "Barbarian guy, smashed up a bunch of stuff, killed a pile of people". My knowledge prior to reading this book wasn't a lot more than that. In fact, there isn't a great deal of historical evidence about the guy apart from the devastating incursions into Roman territory in the mid 400s AD. John Man acknowledges this, and is quite forthcoming in explaining which parts of his biography are based on historical sources and which are his conjecture. He also is clear about how much he trusts each of his sources, and why. So it's solid history, just without an excess of footnotes - he actually manages to be engaging and interesting when talking about how reliable a given historical source is.

So, it's a biography of Attila. After a bit of historical background (teaching the controversy: are the Huns the same as the Hsiung-Nu who threatened China in the 1st century BC?), and explaining the brief bit of history known regarding Attila's rise to the throne, it really begins when Attila struggles with his brother for the sole command of the Huns. It is at this point really that the man starts to emerge into history, and we start to see details about his negotiations with the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. The Huns build (more by conquest than diplomacy) a huge tribal confederacy across north-eastern Europe, and proceed to try to conquer parts of the Roman world. They manage to devastate the Balkan area of the Eastern Roman Empire, and attempt unsuccessfully to capture Gaul. After this, quite anticlimactically, Attila dies in his sleep, and his empire, more fragile than it appeared at its height, falls apart.

I've long been a fan of Roman history, and it is always interesting to read the histories from the other side of the fence - histories of the peoples Rome conquered, engulfed, or interacted with. Most of the evidence still comes from the Roman side (they were the ones bothering to write histories), but a keen eye like Man's can see through some of the the bias, and build a realistic portrait of the outsider. Attila has always been, to me, one of the barbarian leaders who carved up the near-dead hulk of the empire in its final days; one of the uncivilized men who closed the curtains on the Pax Romana and ushered in the thousand years of uncivilized brutality known as the middle ages. This book shows him to be a little more than that. Not a lot more, but at least a little.

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has a well-deserved reputation as one of the great American novels of the 20th century. It's even classified as a "Modern Classic" on the front cover of the edition I read. It captures superbly an impression of the madness and disillusionment of liberal 1970s America.

It is majestic in the scope of its drug-addled derangement. I don't really feel like I have the words to do it justice. In turns hilarious and shocking, it takes you on a wild ride of the author's trip to Las Vegas to cover a desert race called the Mint 400. The actual race plays only a very minor role in what because the story of a pair of drug fiends lurching though a series of increasingly demented and sordid encounters, while reflecting on the nature of American culture and how the madness of Las Vegas is the ultimate expression of America's true self.

Great book. Great movie too, and a worthy adaptation. Definitely worth reading.

The Fuller Memorandum

Just a quick review this time (I've got important TV to watch) - The Fuller Memorandum is the third of Charles Stross's Laundry novels, and I've mentioned previously that I think the series is awesome. This is as good as, or better than the previous two. It gets a bit darker and more serious. The disturbing Lovecraftianness is getting deeper and more Lovecraftian, and we're starting to see the outline of a long story arc, which will take a few more novels to resolve (is he planning five or seven? His website seems to indicate he's not suggesting there is a longer story arc).

In any case, it's an awesome book - clever, scary, funny, and thought-provoking. Read it now, before shapeless horrors from the abysses of time lurch hideously into your bedroom while you sleep and eat your face.

PS. Thanks, Al (not this Al), for the loan of the book.

1120 books

Well, that was more like it. Another year tracking my literary diet, and this time it was 28 books. More than a book per fortnight. Which totals up to an expected lifetime read of 1120 more books. Even including the fact that 5 of those books were read for my PhD, and I kind of rushed reading two of them (to finish them in December instead of the first week of January) this is closer to what I'd been hoping for. Still less than half Danny's rate of reading, but comparing my (mere mortal) literary intake to his would always be unreasonably ambitious.

A very pleasing outcome.

This coming year I don't expect to get through quite as many books; I'm getting into the serious literature review part of my PhD, over the next six months or so, and will be reading research papers. With any luck, several per week, and when possible (like, not now, when I'm too sleepy) one per night. And also re-reading a bunch of them, to mash more of their knowledge juices into my all-too-flimsy brain.