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glynhogenThe Accidental War: So last summer, when I went "hm, okay, my brain wants more shit blowing up in space and characters who are assholes" I recalled that Walter Jon Williams wrote some stuff where shit blows up in space and is constitutionally incapable of writing characters who are not assholes. (This is part of the reason I decided I wasn't fond of his stuff back in the '90s. This is a good example of me learning to fine tune my reading list based on current mood.) The first three books are weirdly dated in ways I mostly find amusing, and this one is...differently weirdly dated, I guess. Anyway, I called them Horatio Hornblower In Space (No, Not That One, Another One), which is pretty much how I still have them tagged in my head, and everybody's an asshole (and one of the main characters is pretty racist, too) so they were pretty spot on. In the first one, a war breaks out; in the second, a Jane Austen novel breaks out; in the third, a locked door mystery breaks out; in this one, 2008 breaks out. This all amuses me, because why the hell not. (I find the Jane Austen bit most amusing because I read this within a couple books of Raven Stratagem, so I think the second book in every MilSF series needs to go full Jane Austen for at least a little while; that's now the rule.) So as with so many things, not so much a recommendation as a description of my head space and the book's interaction with it.
Exit Strategy: More Murderbot is more Murderbot. This is a good wrap for the quartet, and I'm impressed again with the actiony bits now being pretty well integrated action-plus-character work, plus the firm and efficient character work with some of the secondaries.
The Serpent Sea: I've decided these are really excellent workout books. (The workout I can, currently, get myself to do a few times a week is sitting on the recumbent bike and reading. This is probably not the best sort of workout, but at the moment I will take "sustainable" and "it's something.") Just kind of wandering around, describing different environments, and some stuff happens and some people work things out and whatever; pretty soothing, put-downable mid-chapter, but not a thing I have any inclination to leave unfinished. I also realized that I think I am using them to reset some of my canine anxiety, because I'm parsing Raksura clawing at each other or whatever as communicative animal behavior rather than (or in greater proportion than?) abusive, and that's where I'm trying to file the ear biting.
Irontown Blues: This makes me kind of sad, because when I was a kid (maybe literally twelve) "Phantom of Kansas" was one of my formative short story reading experiences. I generally liked the shorts, thought Steel Beach had some fun parts but didn't hang together, and recall liking The Golden Globe a fair bit. Red Thunder left me cold (in retrospect, this is probably about when I began moving from "things that are kind of like Heinlein without actually being Heinlein are good" to "you know, let's just skip the things that are like Heinlein entirely"). This one...was a lot of verbiage for very little payoff (and it's not a long book). The updates are small artifacts (small-g google is a verb, fans of GRRM get similar treatment to those of Elvis) that have zero effect besides reminding me that Google was a few days old when The Golden Globe came out. I have even less patience for Libertarians In Space nowadays, especially when it's Libertarians In Space Because They Lucked Into Magical Technology. And this one had a lot of retreads of the parts of Steel Beach that I am most hazy on due to complete lack of interest. Mostly, I am increasingly irked by the whole "it's the same universe except not really." Like...make it the same universe, and if there are sometimes inconsistencies, it's been decades, we'll nitpick and then move on with our lives. Or else make it close but different by authorial fiat (like, Chanur and Morgaine are technically Alliance-Union, but Foreigner isn't? Sure, whatever). But recycling settings and characters, except they're significantly different, is just kind of weird and pointless. So I'm not entirely surprised this one didn't work for me, but still a little disappointed.
Exit Strategy: More Murderbot is more Murderbot. This is a good wrap for the quartet, and I'm impressed again with the actiony bits now being pretty well integrated action-plus-character work, plus the firm and efficient character work with some of the secondaries.
The Serpent Sea: I've decided these are really excellent workout books. (The workout I can, currently, get myself to do a few times a week is sitting on the recumbent bike and reading. This is probably not the best sort of workout, but at the moment I will take "sustainable" and "it's something.") Just kind of wandering around, describing different environments, and some stuff happens and some people work things out and whatever; pretty soothing, put-downable mid-chapter, but not a thing I have any inclination to leave unfinished. I also realized that I think I am using them to reset some of my canine anxiety, because I'm parsing Raksura clawing at each other or whatever as communicative animal behavior rather than (or in greater proportion than?) abusive, and that's where I'm trying to file the ear biting.
Irontown Blues: This makes me kind of sad, because when I was a kid (maybe literally twelve) "Phantom of Kansas" was one of my formative short story reading experiences. I generally liked the shorts, thought Steel Beach had some fun parts but didn't hang together, and recall liking The Golden Globe a fair bit. Red Thunder left me cold (in retrospect, this is probably about when I began moving from "things that are kind of like Heinlein without actually being Heinlein are good" to "you know, let's just skip the things that are like Heinlein entirely"). This one...was a lot of verbiage for very little payoff (and it's not a long book). The updates are small artifacts (small-g google is a verb, fans of GRRM get similar treatment to those of Elvis) that have zero effect besides reminding me that Google was a few days old when The Golden Globe came out. I have even less patience for Libertarians In Space nowadays, especially when it's Libertarians In Space Because They Lucked Into Magical Technology. And this one had a lot of retreads of the parts of Steel Beach that I am most hazy on due to complete lack of interest. Mostly, I am increasingly irked by the whole "it's the same universe except not really." Like...make it the same universe, and if there are sometimes inconsistencies, it's been decades, we'll nitpick and then move on with our lives. Or else make it close but different by authorial fiat (like, Chanur and Morgaine are technically Alliance-Union, but Foreigner isn't? Sure, whatever). But recycling settings and characters, except they're significantly different, is just kind of weird and pointless. So I'm not entirely surprised this one didn't work for me, but still a little disappointed.
