beaconatnight's reviews
247 reviews

With this story Poe once again comments on an issue of public concern. In the nineteenth century, conditions in the mental asylums were increasingly regarded as inhumane and influential voices demanded reforms of what they thought were basically prisons for the ill. Against this backdrop, the system of soothing, in which the patients could walk about in the institution freely and were not corrected in their insane beliefs, must have appeared to more progressive minds.

Surprisingly, the narrator learns that the system has recently been abandoned in the French institution from which the ideas originated. What ensues is a long chain of highly enjoyable episodes clearly hinting at the true nature of the events unfolding. I'm sure it's meant to be funny that the many almost completely forthright explanations completely pass him by. Still, a bit like The Sixth Sense or with similar works, it also took me a while to notice the obvious. I love how in retrospect it becomes so very difficult to explain how you could have been so oblivious.

The twist is eventually delivered with full force, revealing the practice of tarring and feathering used in the revolt as well as acknowledging that the patient-turned-doctor was in fact the real doctor. It very well rounds off what is easily the best of Poe's science-fiction stories.

"Von Kempelen and his Discovery" takes up another science once held in serious regard, but which since has fallen from grace. As befitting to Poe's imaginary world of the macabre and horror, alchemy is clad in the arcane aura of maddening intrigue. If you came across the all-powerful formula, the Philosopher's stone so to speak, would it be immoral to keep your discovery hidden and reap its harvest?

The account is written in a highly characteristic tone that mixes astonishment and doubt. The text is rich in allusion and emphasis. The fictional commentary on a fictional work held to be fabricated it strongly reminded me of Jorge Luis Borges, an outspoken admirer of Poe's work. It's given the veneer of authenticity by remarks to the real-world Wolfgang von Kempelen whose automaton Chess Turk was a hoax chess computer (both topics appeared here earlier).

To some extent the story is as much about the discoverer as it is about his discovery. Initially, it seems as if the main purpose is to deprive Von Kempelen of all credibility before the addressed public. The narrator tells us about how he met the man and recites some anecdote that is to illustrate his personality, namely that he had before been accused of being a fraud.

What I love about the story (within the story) is the description of the apparatus whose purpose escapes the policemen. Modern technology set in older days (Poe's own days, in this case) always have these steampunk vibes I find quite delightful. The turn of events in his residence are narrated so vividly that they unfold before your mental eyes. Still, the real surprise only comes at the end when it is revealed what he had hidden there – immense amounts of gold apparently created with formulae found by the lawful intruders throughout the premise.

As the final piece of intrigue, the enigma remains unsolved. Von Kepelen was not willing (or able) to explain the nature of his discovery and all attempts to analyze the findings have failed. I don't know whether the publication fell into the heights of the American Gold Rush, but with its amazing prose and science practical enough to engage the layman, I'm sure it was able to thrill audiences under any circumstances. In fact, they might have been disillusioned about the prospects the endeavor.

"The colloquy of Monos and Una" is framed as a conversation between two lovers reunited after death. Una has only just joined her lover in Eden and her somber mind still lingers on the mortal world. She's most concerned with thoughts that occupied her in her last days on Earth, namely how Monos experienced his final hours.

The narrative he gives in responshttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5388799446e is a romantic essay on the opposition of reason and sentiment. He discusses the triumph of the understanding in the era of industrial revolution and how reason makes humanity its servant in its quest for progress and productivity. Gradually the landscapes are transformed into the filthy mess that makes it difficult to breath. He laments the time when thinkers like Plato or Pascal championed the importance of intuition, when people still fought against the all too human urge of abstracting away from the moment.

In his delirious hours of dying, Monos was given the chance to perceive the world purified from the influences of the intellect. His senses are heightened and his perception becomes perfectly sensual. It's especially her touch in the hour when most gave up on him that was felt ever more intensely. Monos narrative is lacking in detail, though. Little do we learn how perfect passivity can be eternal bliss. Yet, his cultural pessimism appears to express deep concern with the developments of his day and will strongly echo in the philosophy after the Second World War. The themes deeply resonate with me.

I liked the idea of juvenile delinquents being sent on a mission to establish a setting to explore (what I would suppose) the usual YA topics. Actually, even though older readers will certainly be familiar with many of the plot points, I quite enjoyed how all this teenage angst, young love, familial feelings, rebellion against parents and all this played out. I think the SF-setting is also used to good effect, mostly for giving some events some pressure. The attempt to social commentary might also be something appealing to younger readers (even though it might be a bit simplistic).

My main concern with the book is that in a sense there is very little story development. In fact, the story is mostly only going backwards. While we learn quite a bit about the character's past, explaining why their relations to each other are the way they are (mostly already at the beginning of the book), barely anything actually happens on Earth. I'm not sure if developing the character's past is the role of the first novel, while later books in the series go on to explore other domains; but considered on its own, the book is very lacking in many respects. Also, it's very tame in many respects: there are some hints at a character named Graham being capable to up the ante in more gruesome ways, but it is certainly no Lord of the Flies.

While there certainly are moments that evoke strong feelings of disgust (the depiction of the smells!) and maybe even fright, here and there, it is mainly the tragedy surrounding the family's life in their new home that I found intriguing. Because King is so successful in conveying feelings of sadness that it becomes truly understandable why the doctor gets ever more entangled with the evil forces that he does not understand and that lead to his descent into madness and darkness towards the end of the book. Amazing how much can be accomplished by, what is on the surface, such a simple style of writing. Great book.

As a dystopia this is disturbingly effective. Probably all the more so because this is our dystopia, a reminder (if that needed reminding) that societies of the West are not invulnerable to developments that happened in other places. It's strange how you feel so strongly against the authorities in the particular situations, while at the same time it doesn't feel like too pessimistic when Atwood depicts the events leading to Gilead, describing the little resistance that there was. What I loved about the books was how natural the character developments felt, another aspect of how (frightfully) accurate a picture of humankind Atwood seems to draw here. This is the stuff that should be read in schools.

This is about Peter Parker mourning the death of Gwen Stacy by recording the story of their relationship on tape. Unfortunately, the way Peter tells the story there really wasn't any depth to their relation at all, and from the few glimpses that this comic gives us you get the feeling that there is a certain irony in Gwen's attitude towards him. No character development whatsoever. The story also desperately lacks some sort of climax or closure.

To be honest, I expected a lot more from the team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, which is, among other things, responsible for the fantastic Batman: The Long Halloween. I somewhat liked the artwork, or at least how Spider-Man and his opponents look (especially the old Vulture looked pretty cool). But what's with Craven hunting Spider-Man by hiring Spidy's classical villains to kill him? The twist that Craven was behind all that was just ridiculous, not to mention that the attacks interwoven with what is happening in Peter Parker's life seemed just completely irrelevant. Other than this one sentence "I could never get to know you because I was always busy being a superhero" (or something along those lines), so maybe this is the reason why his narration is so impoverished?

This was my first exposure to the Culture universe (and to Iain M. Banks's work in general), but I have to admit that it didn't blew my away. But I also have to admit, that his might partly be my own fault. I approached this book expecting something much more highbrow, elaborating a lot on the setting, exploring concepts, all of what you would expect from some harder form of sf. Instead, for the most part this was an easy to read space opera.

The events of the book are set during the Idiran-Culture War, something that always lingers at the fringes of the narrative, but that never really takes central stage. Instead we follow the shape-shifter Horza whose people are allies with the Idiran Empire and who is send on a mission to retrieve a so-called Mind - a Culture machine which took refuge on a planet called Schar's World. That planet has religious value and is protected by a god-like being allowing neither Culture nor Idirans to enter. I newer quite understood why the Mind is so important to either side (on a similar note: I never quite understood the motivation for the entire war), but Horza might be able to approach because, in the past, he was among the shape-shifters who served as some sort of guards on Schar's World.
After some turbulent events Horza ends up on a ship (is it a futuristic pirate ship?), the Clear Air Turbulence, on which he serves as a crew member (participating in two unsuccessful missions) and, at a later point, he gets control over the ship (initially disguised as its former captain, which he killed). Together with the left-overs of the ship's crew he pursues his original mission of acquiring the Mind.

Emotionally the book is very cinematic, giving you a similar feeling to some blockbuster Sci-Fi flick from the 80s (though it tends to drift off into video game territory here and there). However, it would be a movie in which every set-piece is designed according to an immeasurably verbose description. Really, in any given scence Banks has a clear vision of what is going on in the character's surroundings. In the beginning I quite liked his wordy style, but I have to admit that it seemed a bit tiresome to me after a while.
I wished he would have put as much detail to the characters and their relationships. It gets much better towards the end of the book, but many crew members (or a are very stereotypical and their past, ambitions, are at best superficially explored. This certainly adds to the incredibly high pace of the book, but I would have appreciated a bit more detail here and there (especially with a character like Yalson who becomes more important in the course of the book).
More importantly, I would have loved the book so much more if its events were deeper embedded in the overall setting. The appendix in which Banks explains motivations, technologies, history, important figures, and these kinds of things got me quite excited - it would have been great if that were more intertwined to the characters on which the plot focuses.

There certainly were great moments in there as well. What I really did love was the depiction of the card game. It was cool how it was brought together with impending doom, but what really excited me was the idea of being able to influence your opponent's emotions. The world came so much alive in the way Banks explored the lifestyle-choices made surrounding the game. I so wish there is more stuff like this in the other books!

So, this is one of the books that made me wish you could give more differentiated ratings on here (then it would be a 3 1/2). 3/5 seems like such an average rating, like something that gave you a bit of enjoyment but that you won't think of again. Well, maybe that is my opinion of the book. But I will certainly read some more of the Culture novels, and I wouldn't be surprised if that also somewhat influenced my perception of Consider Phlebas.

From the descriptions on here I was well-prepared for a very hard form of sf. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this book to contain many lighter-spirited moments as well. Sure, the titular story is very technical (and a bit dry), but for me it was made interesting through the amazing world worldbuilding throughout, with the later stories also back-referring to other stories. Some interesting technology and the depiction of alien races (and the foreigner's look on Earth in "Flatlander"), too.
To be honest, I liked the less "physical" stories (the ones after "Neutron Star" and "At the Core") better than what it probably Niven's more popular work. Niven has some interesting takes on familiar ideas like decisions under uncertainty (in "Flatlander"), mental health and responsibility (in "The Ethics of Madness") and evolution (in "The Handicapped"). Actually, espeically "The Handicapped", but also the general feeling, made me think of Lem's earlier works (which is a good thing).

Unfortunately, my German version is missing half of the stories. I should look out for "A Relic of the Empire", "The Soft Weapon", and "Grendel". And I should certainly get my hands on Ringworld!

This book is more like a collection of short-stories, including four adventures 0f the Space Beagle. This episodic character, and also the subject-matter, of the likes of 'Star Trek'. In every story, the crew of the spaceship confronts a different race from the space, upping the ante with every encounter. While the first alien is only a mild danger to the crew, the last being is a danger to the entire universe.

In the beginning of the book, I was excited by the prospect that this would involve the cooperation of different scientific disciplines in order to solve problems (something that I quite liked in Lem's 'The Invincible'). So, at first I that it was cool that the main protagonist is a so-called Nexialist, a disciple of Nexialism (from nexus, 'connection'), the idea of bringing together different sciences for practical purposes. Unfortunately, Vogt only uses these ideas to introduce some form of magic into the story. Rather than being able to coordinate the knowledge of different scientific departments of the ship, the protagonist is more like the all-powerful being, being able to learn everything immediately, controlling minds, and deriving all plot-relevant information from no matter how poor a basis.

What I quite liked was the tension between different people aboard ship. In the beginning, our protagonist is quite eager to earn the recognition he probably deserves, but having to learn the bitter lesson of experience when he realizes that the older and more important men on the ship do not really pay all that much attention to him. In this way, the seed is sown for negative feelings and conflict that are played out throughout the book.
Also the 'Alien(s)'-like fights in the ships corridors are quite decent. I feel like the action scenes could have been more descriptive at times, but the developments are somewhat complex and remain interesting. Also interesting was the abstract second story, in which the protagonist becomes part of some collective consciousness. I liked the idea that, even when there is something like our idea of friendliness (or even friendship) is attributable to an alien race, their means of approaching us might be ambiguous and hurtful.

Rating: 3/5