Archival Review: Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear

Foundation and Chaos

by Greg Bear

Hardcover, 342 pages. Published 1998.  Acquired December 2006.  Read October 2007.

I read all of the books in The Second Foundation Trilogy as they came out, but in 2002, I loaned many of my supplementary Asimov books to a "friend" and never got any of them back, aside from Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear. (I wish I had loaned him William F. Wu's Robots in Time books.) So I've been searching out these gaps in my collection, and I got this one for Christmas 2006.  But acquiring a book means you read it in my worldview, and so this one went on the reading list for another go.  It's an all right book-- like the others in the trilogy, its real success is in sketching out the millieu of Asimov's Robots/Empire/Foundation series more, tying the books together and providing a lot of detail on the politics and organization of the Galactic Empire.  This one also goes through some effort to retcon out some of the stupider bits of Foundation's Fear, like the galactic wormhole network.  But the plot ranges from nonexistent to uninteresting, as everyone is swept up in either psychohistorical forces or R. Daneel Olivaw's machinations.  Which is really par for the course for an Asimov book, isn't it?

Archival Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 9 edited by Dean Wesley Smith with Elisa J. Kassin and Paula M. Block

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 9

edited by Dean Wesley Smith
with Elisa J. Kassin and Paula M. Block

Trade paperback, 384 pages. Published 2006.  Acquired July 2006.  Read October 2007.

I got this book at Shore Leave, back in July 2006, and I finally got around to reading it.  A common theme in this report, I know.  Pretty much on par with previous volumes of the Strange New Worlds series, the standout story was "The Last Tree on Ferenginar: A Ferengi Fable from the Future" by Mike McDevitt, though the one where Reed and Porthos switched bodies ("Rounding a Corner Already Turned" by Allison Cain) was pretty good too.

Archival Review: Sparkling Diplomacy: A Starslip Crisis Collection by Kristofer Straub

Sparkling Diplomacy: A Starslip Crisis Collection

by Kristofer Straub

Comic trade paperback, 180 pages. Published 2006 (content: 2005-06).  Read October 2007.

In this volume, the story really starts to ramp up, with the first inklings of titular crisis coming into play.  This is also the last part of this series of reprints-- before doing a planned third volume, Straub canceled it and replaced it with a new format that included over three times as many strips in a single book, starting from the beginning once again.  And I bought the first volume of this new series, despite the fact that I'd already paid for almost two-thirds of its content-- and I could have gotten all of it for free!  I guess I'm just a sucker like that.

Archival Review: A Terrfying Breach of Protocol: A Starslip Crisis Collection by Kristofer Straub

A Terrifying Breach of Protocol: A Starslip Crisis Collection

by Kristofer Straub

Comic trade paperback, 142 pages. Published 2005.  Read October 2007.

Ask me what my favorite webcomic is, and the answer will probably be Smithson or maybe [nemesis], but of all the daily strips out there, Starslip Crisis is undoubtedly the best.  Always funny, it manages to also have a fantastic over-arching storyline that always keeps you guessing, and a far-out array of characters.  Plus. it's set on an art museum housed inside a luxury warship.  In space.  Even though you can read the whole strip on the web for free, I still shelled out for this collection.  It's that good.

Archival Review: Mystery in Space with Captain Comet, Volume One by Jim Starlin

Mystery in Space with Captain Comet, Volume One

Writer: Jim Starlin
Pencillers: Shane Davis, Jim Starlin
Inkers: Matt "Batt" Banning, Al Milgrom
Colorists: Jeromy Cox, Jim Starlin
Additional Colors: Guy Major
Letterers: Phil Balsman, Rob Leigh, Jared K. Fletcher

Comic trade paperback, 204 pages. Published 2007 (content: 2006-07).  Acquired and read October 2007.

Once I was in the comic book store, and I saw this series called Mystery in Space.  No 2007 book can normally have such an awesome title, and it was all I could do to stop myself from buying the whole series on the spot.  I succeeded in self-control by going home and putting the trade paperback collection on preorder. 

Fortunately, the book did indeed turn out to be quite good-- it's exactly what it says on the tin, a mystery story set in space.  Captain Comet is an instantly likeable protagonist (now I am very tempted to seek out his previous adventures) and Hardcore Station is a good setting (good enough that I immediately tracked down the 1998 miniseries of that title and read it too).  The standout character is Tyrone, Comet's bulldog that has been genetically engineered to be sentient-- artist Shane Davis manages the extraordinary feat of giving him discernible facial expressions.  Looking forward to Volume Two.

Archival Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q & A by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q & A

by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Mass market paperback, 304 pages. Published 2007.  Acquired and read October 2007.

I honestly didn't really have expectations for this book going in, so I was pleasantly blown away by it.  The best of the (so far) three books in the "TNG relaunch" by a long shot.  Keith, as usual, nails all of the show's regular characters perfectly, and all of the new characters are intriguing in their own rights as well.  I look forward to hearing more from all of them.  As everyone has said, the best part of the novel is Q himself-- Keith gets De Lancie's portrayal down on the page perfectly, a feat that only Peter David has also managed, and he also manages to make a coherent story out of everything that Q has ever done to annoy the Heroes of our various shows.  If there's any flaw, it's that nothing happens for half the book, but I admit I did not even notice this until I was doing a mental recap of the "story so far".  An easy candidate for the best Trek novel of the year.

Archival Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash

by Neal Stephenson

Mass market paperback, 480 pages. Published 1993 (originally 1992).  Acquired December 2006.  Read October 2007.

When taking a class on digital narrative in Fall 2006, I came across a reference to Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, which sounding rather intriguing.  But apparently it was set in the same universe as another book, Snow Crash, which occurred earlier, and of course I had to do the whole thing in order.  I acquired Snow Crash as a Christmas present in 2006. 

I enjoyed it.  It has a lot of fascinating concepts (the professor of said course would do well to incorporate it) and good writing to boot, though, I'm not exactly sure why events came to head at the end when they did, but that may have been more my fault than the book's-- I was trying to finish it quickly before it got dark out (I was on a car ride).  The idea I found most fascinating was the whole Sumerian original virus thing-- it reminded me of some of the stuff about "performative speech" I learned about in a course that I took on 'Oscar Wilde' and theatricality, not to mention Paul Auster's City of Glass.  I need to get The Diamond Age now.

Archival Review: The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley

The Haunted Bookshop

by Christopher Morley

Hardcover, 253 pages. Published 2004 (originally 1919).  Read October 2007.

Some time ago (at least three-plus years ago), my friend Christopher's Great Aunt Helen passed away.  His mother was going to donate her books to Goodwill, but allowed us to pick over them first.  Pretty much at random, I grabbed Brander Matthews's An Introduction to the Study of American Literature (1896) and Christopher Morley's Parnassus On Wheels (1917)-- original printings both and the two oldest books in my collection.  I never read the former, but the latter (to both my surprise and delight) turned out to be a charming story about what a wonderful thing books were, a sentiment I can whole-heartedly agree with.  I read it in June 2004 and began searching for the sequel, The Haunted Bookshop, shortly thereafter. 

I'm not sure when I finally turned up a 2004 reprinting, but I finally got around to reading it this month.  It was fun, with a number of good lines, including one that sums up my life, I think: "It saddens me to think that I shall have to die with thousands of books unread that would have given me noble and unblemished happiness."  The plot takes half the book to show up, but when it does, you rather wish it would have stayed away, because it's pretty far-fetched (it ends with the titular bookshop exploding!) and it is far more entertaining to read about the gripping ethical dilemmas faced by sellers of secondhand books.

Archival Review: Doctor Who Classics: The Myth Makers / The Gunfighters by Donald Cotton

Doctor Who Classics: The Myth Makers / The Gunfighters

by Donald Cotton

Mass market paperback, 294 pages. Published 1988 (content: 1985).  Read October 2007.

This book is Donald Cotton's novelizations of his two first Doctor historical stories quite literally jammed together-- the page numbering starts over again and everything.  I'd not seen The Myth Makers (of course, as it's a lost episode), and his novelization of it is good fun, having the Doctor reject the idea of the Trojan Horse as being absurd.  It's narrated by Homer himself, and we get to learn how the man became blind.  The Gunfighters I have seen and found dull, but fortunately the novel is a bit more entertaining, though it sort of drags on at the end.  Much like the television serial, really.

Archival Review: Ahistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe by Lance Parkin with Lars Pearson

Ahistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe

by Lance Parkin with Lars Pearson

Trade paperback, 336 pages. Published 2005.  Acquired February 2006.  Read October 2007.

This chronological guide to every Doctor Who episode, novel, and audio drama came out in late 2005, and I acquired it then.  Of course, like one should with a reference book, I dipped in and out it as I wanted to know things, but I also started a straight readthrough when I first got it.  Somewhere along the line, this stopped, but recently, the news of the forthcoming second edition of the book (which will add in the comic strips) caused me to go back to and attempt to finish from where I had left off, in the 1990s.  The future history of Doctor Who actually makes for enjoyable reading; the various random pieces we've seen over the years fit together remarkably well into a coherent whole, showing as Earth rises, is invaded, falls, creates an Empire, falls, joins a Federation, and so on time and again.