Speaker For The Dead by Orson Scott Card · 12 October 2007
OK, I lied about the pizza post coming up next. I planned to post about pizza, but when I got around to it I found the site down and myself unable to post. Then in talking to Kim, who is back home safely and overwhelmed by school work put off by her vacation, I agreed to do a post about Speaker for the Dead and let her have the pizza post as the first in her next series. So, pizza lovers, bear with me for a post and you shall soon have your pizza.
Now to speak the death of Speaker for the Dead, which I'm sure must be the absolute most common way to start a review of the book. :) I won't keep you in suspense: I liked the book a lot. As the sequel to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, which I read last year, Speaker does a great job of not simply riding the coat tails of its predecessor and really tells a story of its own. What you get in Speaker is almost something you could read without having read Ender's Game. I say almost because it would be such a shame to spoil Ender's Game so thoroughly with all that's revealed in Speaker. Speaking of spoilers...
Spoilers begin here. Beware, Ender series newbies!
Early on in the book I was disappointed to find out that it takes place 3000 years in the future of Ender's Game. I felt such a disconnect to the events for the first book, which I liked so much. I thought I'd be coming into the sequel getting to live in the same world of Ender I lived in the first time around. This is no The Empire Strikes Back though! What you get in Speaker is a story with a couple of the character's from Ender's Game (mostly Ender) technically in the universe of the first book, but with a plot almost entirely disconnected from that of the first book. While I realized this a few dozen pages into the book, only at its conclusion was I pleasantly surprised to find that Card had done it again and produced a whole new great story in the universe.
The basic plot, as any good summary will tell you, is that Ender has been traveling around from planet to planet at "relativistic" speeds. At each planet he learns about a deceased person, speaks their death as he did that of the race of the buggers, and moves on well within a year. Hence, Ender is now 3000 years old and looks 35. This book begins with the humans' discovery of a new race, the pequeninos, on a planet shared by a human colony. The humans quickly begin studying the newfound species in as discreet a manner as possible (think of Star Trek's Prime Directive here), until the piggies, as they call them, up and kill one of the xenobilogists doing the studying. Ender is called in to speak the death for that killing and, upon arriving, learns that another xenobiologist has been killed. Secrecy surrounds the meaning of these killings and Ender has a bona fide mystery on his hands. Add on to that what is pretty much the only remaining plot element from Ender's Game, the hive queen of the buggers that Ender is carrying around, and you've got 300 pages of more fun reading in store for you!
I'm not going to delve into the central mystery of the book-- the meaning of the murders-- as I don't think that could do much but rehash it for those of you who have read the book and spoil it for those of you who haven't and brazenly ignored my above spoiler warning. Suffice to say, Card makes unwrapping such a mystery a lot quicker work than 300 pages suggests, at least to this reader. His character's are clearly defined, separated, and of interesting makeup, his dialog is smart and realistic, and his plot moves along quickly without lingering long enough to have the reader guessing what's coming next. And while that's the central focus of the book, it wasn't my favorite part.
This is no place to be ashamed of one's sci-fi enjoyment. I'm the kind of guy who likes to take in a good episode or movie of Star Trek. If you're that kind of person as well, or even just know anything about the show outside of that Picard is bald and Kirk talks funny, you'd know that the franchise introduces alien races at a pace that very few others can match. Unfortunately, I think TV is a bit too quick of a pace for the writers sometimes and you end up with what fans refer to as the "forehead of the week". Here, you get a species that is oh-so-alien, but they are pretty much human with pretty much one twist. This happens a lot, and not just in Star Trek.
Well, this did not happen in Speaker. The pequeninos are about as original a species in the sci-fi landscape as I've come across. The book uses its xenobiological characters as a device to go really in-depth into the race of the piggies. The reader gets to learn all about them and the myriad ways they differ from humans, or the buggers if you will. The piggies, while vaguely like humans, differ so profoundly in their life cycle that, after thinking about it for a while, I can't recall any species in any sci-fi that's anywhere near them. Yes, their culture, behavior, technology, and so forth are pretty standard alien fare, but their life cycle is amazing to me. I'm not going to spoil it here, even if this is within a spoiler warning section. Suffice to say, you're in for a really unique treat with the piggies!
Spoilers end here.
OK, so in summary I thought Speaker was great. It didn't survive on good memories of its predecessor, the character, dialog, and plot were spot-on, and it featured one truly amazing alien species that readers have the pleasure of getting to know in depth throughout the entirety of the book. If you haven't read Ender's Game, go read it and then read Speaker. If you've read Ender's Game and haven't read Speaker, I recommend you get crackin'. In closing, a link to a comic from the great XKCD.
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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott · 4 October 2007
Time for math!
I recently borrowed Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland from a friend and gave it a quick read. It was a quick read since the book is only 96 pages long, but still an entertaining diversion for a math lover like me.
Spoilers begin here.
The novella describes the world in which the main character, named A Square, lives. The interesting thing about this world is that it is made up of only two dimensions, hence the book's title. While I found this description a little slow and drab, that may not be the case for someone less familiar with geometry. You see, I'm a computer programmer that intimately deals with geometry for the sake of graphics on a daily basis. Thankfully, for at least me, the author moves on mid-way through the book (remember, this is only 50 pages or so) and gets to the good stuff.
A Square's world is rocked when he comes across a group of one-dimensional beings that live on a line. Compared to the plane that A Square lives on, these poor creatures are woefully limited in movement and extremely naive about the world he lives in. Later, A Square is come upon in the same manner as he came across the one-dimensional beings by a three-dimensional being who, in turn, mocks him for his limited range and knowledge.
Spoilers end here.
The interesting idea for the reader to ponder is that of dimensions. All of us know we live in a three-dimensional world and all of us can conceive of a two-dimensional world (a flat plane), a one-dimensional world (a straight line), and perhaps even a zero-dimensional world (an infinitely small point). We've got our dimensionality down and we look down on those lesser dimensions. However, how do we know there are not four dimensions and we are existing on but a small portion of that world as a flat plane exists only in part of ours, or a straight line in part of the plane, or a point in part of the line? Could the four-dimensional world exist beyond our senses? Can science help us build devices to detect it or even understand it? These questions are all open to the reader of the book, or this blog (hey, look, a comments section!).
All in all, I enjoyed Flatland for the questions it raised. It starts slow, but that doesn't last long due to the shortness of the entire book. I recommend anyone who's interested in the above philosophical discussion to pick up a copy.
Next up (and totally unrelated): Pizza!
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Vampires: The Greatest Stories · 30 September 2007
I've never read a book about vampires before. Actually, I've never read anything about vampires before. I haven't specifically sought out vampire movies, so I haven't even seen Dracula before. Further, I never had any particular fascination with vampires or anything vampiric. This all goes to say that I am a total vampire n00b. A total vampire n00b who has read for you, dear readers, four short stories about vampires and now finds himself writing up his impressions.
As Kim mentioned, she left me a vampire book to read some of and make this post about, which will finish off her vampire theme before I move onto frickin' laser beams fresh new material. The vampire book she left is simply entitled Vampires: The Greatest Stories and it contains 15 short stories that are vampire-related. I started off right: I read Phillip K. Dick's The Cookie Lady and was immediately interested. The story actually had nothing to do with vampires as I knew them. I suppose it featured an effect I would have called, in a video game, vampiric, but I'm not sure that rises to the level of a vampire. Anyhow, the story was quite fine. It reminded me of Roald Dahl's short story writing in Kiss Kiss, which I read earlier this year and enjoyed.
I then progressed on to reading David Drake's Something Had to be Done, which was quite short, and was shocked to find that it too didn't really have much to do directly with vampires. Strange, I imagined vampire books and stories as super-cheesy Dracula-style "I want to suck your blood" action. I'm pretty sure I've even teased Kim about this before. Remind me to apologize. :)
Then I went on to read Roger Zelazny's Dayblood and Tanith Lee's Red As Blood, back-to-back and my experience changed course. The former is pretty vampire cheesy and reads like a fanfic you might find on the Internet. The latter is, quite differently, some kind of super goth statement. Maybe I'm dense, maybe I didn't put in the requisite time to contemplate and figure it out, but I didn't get it. Well, that's my outsider's opinion for all of you seasoned vampire readers out there.
There are 11 more stories in the book, but I'm not going to read them. I really only enjoyed the first very much and, well, I'm far too infatuated with Orson Scott Card's Speaker For The Dead right now to bother finishing off the short story collection. If you love your vampires though, I'll bet this book would be like a bag of warm, buttery popcorn. Next up: math!
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