Review: Rx - Episode 1: The Blackouts

I'm a fan of Robert Brockway, Word Puncher and the rest of the crew over at Cracked, so when he announced via his column that he had written a sci-fi story and was releasing it as a serial novel, I was intrigued. Especially so as he'd written several different columns on science fiction in general that I'd enjoyed very much. So it wasn't difficult to plonk down a couple of bucks to try out the first installment of his novel.

Unfortunately, while I can't say my expectations were high for a columnist whose specialty is interesting factoids interspersed with dick jokes, I also can't say that episode 1 of Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity exceeded them, either. Brockway's world of culturally-sanctioned junkies and nanotech and fights staged throughout history thanks to time-travel gas is intriguing, but feels frustratingly incomplete despite numerous info-dumps along the way; there are interesting pieces of this world scattered throughout the narrative, but they never quite cohere into a whole sense of place. Similarly, none of the characters manage to be three- (or in some cases, even two-) dimensional; the most intriguing of them is probably Red, but even he seems to be little more than a blank canvas upon which to project whatever drug effect he's currently under. (A little self-awareness on Red's part with regards to that exact blankness does make for an interesting bit of character development, but it does little to illuminate why, for instance, his supposed ex might have been attracted to him in the first place.) And some more editing would've helped as well; there are a couple of puzzling continuity errors that a beta-reader should have caught.

It might come as a surprise, then, that this episode's best asset is its frenetic pacing - it's a quick read and the momentum of the plot carries you along even as you occasionally wish that you could slow down and get a better idea of what, exactly, it is you're rushing past. With a little more polish, this could be a serviceable sci-fi thriller; with a lot more polish, it could be an outright fascinating world. This particular execution, however, feels more like a bad drug trip than an actual exploration. C-

Review: Rx - Episode 1: The Blackouts

I'm a fan of Robert Brockway, Word Puncher and the rest of the crew over at Cracked, so when he announced via his column that he had written a sci-fi story and was releasing it as a serial novel, I was intrigued. Especially so as he'd written several different columns on science fiction in general that I'd enjoyed very much. So it wasn't difficult to plonk down a couple of bucks to try out the first installment of his novel.

Unfortunately, while I can't say my expectations were high for a columnist whose specialty is interesting factoids interspersed with dick jokes, I also can't say that episode 1 of Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity exceeded them, either. Brockway's world of culturally-sanctioned junkies and nanotech and fights staged throughout history thanks to time-travel gas is intriguing, but feels frustratingly incomplete despite numerous info-dumps along the way; there are interesting pieces of this world scattered throughout the narrative, but they never quite cohere into a whole sense of place. Similarly, none of the characters manage to be three- (or in some cases, even two-) dimensional; the most intriguing of them is probably Red, but even he seems to be little more than a blank canvas upon which to project whatever drug effect he's currently under. (A little self-awareness on Red's part with regards to that exact blankness does make for an interesting bit of character development, but it does little to illuminate why, for instance, his supposed ex might have been attracted to him in the first place.) And some more editing would've helped as well; there are a couple of puzzling continuity errors that a beta-reader should have caught.

It might come as a surprise, then, that this episode's best asset is its frenetic pacing - it's a quick read and the momentum of the plot carries you along even as you occasionally wish that you could slow down and get a better idea of what, exactly, it is you're rushing past. With a little more polish, this could be a serviceable sci-fi thriller; with a lot more polish, it could be an outright fascinating world. This particular execution, however, feels more like a bad drug trip than an actual exploration. C-

Review: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

Wow.

Normally, I tend to eschew the "bestsellers" and "general fiction" sections of the bookstore - not because the titles there are necessarily unworthy, but because I'm more a fan of genre and speculative fiction. I hadn't even heard of this book, therefore, until my husband came across (completely by accident) the beautiful trailer of the movie version that's coming out soon. The trailer left me somewhat confused, but intrigued - a bestselling novel that appeared to consist of stories set in the past, the present, and the future? I had no idea if the movie would be good, but it was certainly ambitious, and I was curious enough about the story to pick up the audiobook.

Having listened all the way through over the course of a week, I still have no idea if the movie will be any good, but the book itself well deserves its spot on the bestseller list. Even though I spent a goodly portion of the book's first half confused as to what, exactly, it was about, I was admiring the author's use of distinct narrative voices, language, and setting to differentiate each story; Mitchell should be teaching a master class in how to establish plot, character, and time period without the infodumping so commonly seen in speculative works. (One story in particular utilizes a combination of English, Hawai'ian pidgin, and various projected slang so as to create a nearly Clockwork Orange level of new language, but it's to the author's and the performer's credits both that, unlike the aforementioned book, I had no trouble understanding it after only a momentary initial confusion.) And having actually visited several of the places in which the story was set, I occasionally got that frisson of recognition that added an additional layer of entertainment.

While several of the individual plots might seem a tad derivative (he even includes a few subtle jabs at their formulaic nature within the narratives), Mitchell understands that his characters are what make the stories interesting, and though none of his protagonists have more than a novella's worth of 'screen time', nearly all of them have richer and more complex personalities than many single protagonists I've met. Additionally, each story ties in with the main theme (summed up nicely in the final paragraphs, which, incidentally, are set in a time period whose fiction favored those sorts of moralistic codas) and additional smaller themes in unique ways. Half the fun of reading is noticing where each plot daisy-chains with the others, in both obvious and subtle ways.

Mitchell may have written that holy grail of fiction - a multi-layered, intellectual novel that offers a complex story with many subtleties to appreciate, but (unlike, say, Mark Z. Danielewski's work) is simple, accessible, and emotionally affecting enough that even a casual reader can enjoy it. The only types of readers I wouldn't recommend it to are the impatient (who may find themselves frustrated by the narrative's slow build) and the terminally cynical; for the rest of us, this is both an excellent read and a fine work that meticulously builds a case for that simplest and yet most crucial rule of humanity: "Be excellent to each other." A++ with cherries on top

Review: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

Wow.

Normally, I tend to eschew the "bestsellers" and "general fiction" sections of the bookstore - not because the titles there are necessarily unworthy, but because I'm more a fan of genre and speculative fiction. I hadn't even heard of this book, therefore, until my husband came across (completely by accident) the beautiful trailer of the movie version that's coming out soon. The trailer left me somewhat confused, but intrigued - a bestselling novel that appeared to consist of stories set in the past, the present, and the future? I had no idea if the movie would be good, but it was certainly ambitious, and I was curious enough about the story to pick up the audiobook.

Having listened all the way through over the course of a week, I still have no idea if the movie will be any good, but the book itself well deserves its spot on the bestseller list. Even though I spent a goodly portion of the book's first half confused as to what, exactly, it was about, I was admiring the author's use of distinct narrative voices, language, and setting to differentiate each story; Mitchell should be teaching a master class in how to establish plot, character, and time period without the infodumping so commonly seen in speculative works. (One story in particular utilizes a combination of English, Hawai'ian pidgin, and various projected slang so as to create a nearly Clockwork Orange level of new language, but it's to the author's and the performer's credits both that, unlike the aforementioned book, I had no trouble understanding it after only a momentary initial confusion.) And having actually visited several of the places in which the story was set, I occasionally got that frisson of recognition that added an additional layer of entertainment.

While several of the individual plots might seem a tad derivative (he even includes a few subtle jabs at their formulaic nature within the narratives), Mitchell understands that his characters are what make the stories interesting, and though none of his protagonists have more than a novella's worth of 'screen time', nearly all of them have richer and more complex personalities than many single protagonists I've met. Additionally, each story ties in with the main theme (summed up nicely in the final paragraphs, which, incidentally, are set in a time period whose fiction favored those sorts of moralistic codas) and additional smaller themes in unique ways. Half the fun of reading is noticing where each plot daisy-chains with the others, in both obvious and subtle ways.

Mitchell may have written that holy grail of fiction - a multi-layered, intellectual novel that offers a complex story with many subtleties to appreciate, but (unlike, say, Mark Z. Danielewski's work) is simple, accessible, and emotionally affecting enough that even a casual reader can enjoy it. The only types of readers I wouldn't recommend it to are the impatient (who may find themselves frustrated by the narrative's slow build) and the terminally cynical; for the rest of us, this is both an excellent read and a fine work that meticulously builds a case for that simplest and yet most crucial rule of humanity: "Be excellent to each other." A++ with cherries on top