Eden by Stanislaw Lem

THE ODD SPOILER

Here's a good thing about getting a kindle - you can download a stack of science fiction from behind the Iron Curtain which would otherwise be pretty hard to find in Aberdeen.  I've got a job lot of Lem and the brothers Strugatsky to plough my way through now.

First up is Lem's Eden from 1959.  A spaceship crashes on an unexplored planet and the first part is really enjoyable as the crew (known only as "the Captain","the Cyberneticist," etc) try and figure a way out of the upended ship.  Things get a lot weirder when they find a way outside.

Where this book really works is in the unfathomable strangeness of the place and its inhabitatants.  The crew theorise about what they're seeing, but they also know they could be projecting their own human experiences on things they have no frame of reference for.

There's an unsettling mood to much of their explorations, but unfortunately (for my tastes, at least) it never takes a turn for the horrific.  Instead it becomes political.  They finally communicate with one of the inhabitants, who describes a system not unlike communist Poland in the 50s.

This is all interesting stuff, but the problem is there's no plot, or at least no forward momentum.  The exploration of the alien landscape is just that - exploration.  They don't have any specific goals except looking around.  The repair of the spaceship is, again, very interesting, but it does seem pretty straightforward.  I especially liked one bit where the Engineer's having problems moulding a new plastic control panel - something I'd never considered before in SF, but I guess you don't want to be dealing with a lot of bare wires when you're up in space.

I suppose I've got lowbrow tastes, but I'd have liked a bit more peril.  None of the crew are injured (aside from some coughing at poison gas) and you never feel like they're in any danger.  A missed opportunity for some Lovecraftian unknowable terror, but praise at least for the depiction of a truly alien world.

Right, I'll have another couple of reviews soon.  I've finished another two books and I'd better get them done before I forget what they're about.

1493 by Charles C. Mann

The follow up to 1491, which makes sense thematically, if not numerically.  The previous book looked at the Americas before the arrival of Columbus; here we find out what happened next.

Mann reckons 1492 marks the beginning of a new epoch in Earth's history - the Homogenocene.   It's the first time in 200 million years that the east and west hemispheres have had any meaningful interaction.  The New World gets Europeans, Africans, Chinese, smallpox, yellow fever and malaria.  The Old World gets potatoes, corn, rubber, and lots of silver and gold.  It's the start of globalisation, and it changes everything for better or worse.

This book has a wider scope than the previous one, and looks at the impact on China and Africa, as well as Europe, and at the amazing early years of the post Columbian Americas.  Potosi in modern day Bolivia became one of the biggest cities of the world in just a few years, thanks to the amount of silver ore nearby.  Mexico City was similarly cosmopolitan, with Spaniards, Africans, Indians and Chinese living side by side.  No-where like these cities had ever existed before, and they were a glimpse into the future.  Here's a cool fact - there were even exiled samuari in Mexico at this time, making their way by guarding the silver routes.

There's also a great and unusual look at the slave trade, which seems to have been largely fuelled by diseases like malaria and yellow fever.  Europeans just couldn't survive and died in staggering numbers, but Africans had already built up immunities.  This even explains the US Civil War - the Mason Dixon line, which seperates the Southern slave owning states with the rest of the USA, is also the cut-off point for mosquitos.  The Northern states never really had slaves because Europeans weren't dying of malaria there.

We also find out about new Maroon societies formed between escaped African slaves and Indian survivors, mostly in South America.  Many slaves were originally soldiers captured by other Africans, so they had military experience.  Along with Indian knowledge of the territory and ecology, these maroons became hugely troublesome to European plantations.  Even today these people and their histories are largely ignored.

As in 1491, there are plenty of amazing people.  My favourite is Esteban - probably the first African in North America.  In the early 16th century he was brought along with a group of Spaniards to explore the new continent, but soon he became their de facto leader.  He was worshipped as a powerful holy man in Indian villages and his legend grew.  What happened to him is still a mystery, but the best story is that one village worshipped him so much that they cut off his legs to keep him there.  He apparently survived for many years as a captive god, his wounds being tended with great care.

This is a cracking read for anyone who likes Jared Diamond or Felipe Fernadez Arnesto - a mixture of sweeping macrohistory with compelling personal stories.  And, as with the best histories, you're simultaneously hit by how relatable, but how bizarre, the past can be.

The Pythons' Autobiography by the Pythons

Essential reading for the Python nut, and indeed any fan of comedy, but what were they REALLY like, hmmm?

MICHAEL PALIN
This book's mostly stitched together from new interviews and diary entries from the time.  That means Palin's diaries get quite a look in.  Especially memorable about filming the Holy Grail in the Highlands.  Remember when he has to eat mud as a politically aware peasant?   They mixed chocolate in to make it more appealing.  Yum.  Comes across as affable, level-headed, possibly a bit dull, but not markedly insanse.

GRAHAM CHAPMAN
Markedly insane.  Or at least horribly alcoholic, sexually promiscous, unreliable, lazy and with a bit of a cruel streak.  Since he's dead Chapman's contributions come from his family members, long term boyfriend and his own autobiography.  Comes across as pretty selfish and lonely, though he turns it around by sobering up for the movies and becoming an unlikely leading man.  He was even the official doctor on the Life of Brian.  On a Python reunion the 80s the other members kicked over what were supposed to be his ashes, which does sound pretty funny.

TERRY GILLIAM
American.

TERRY JONES
Picture, if you will, Terry Jones.  I bet he's wearing a dress, isn't he?  It's his womanly figure and high-pitched voice I suppose, but back in the day he was considered quite dashing as a man.  With his interest in history, he was the driving force behind the Holy Grail and Brian and directed them both.  Tried to get a sequel to Holy Grail going in the 80s, with the ageing knights of the round table going on crusade.  And no Chapman.  Sounds awful.

JOHN CLEESE
Very tall and very difficult.  Most of the Python friction over the years seems to have involved Cleese.  He bailed on the last series of Flying Circus and was generally pretty hard to get on with.  Accused by the others of being unsociable and greedy, but I do like how he's so serious about the business of comedy.  Most of his big tiffs were with.....

ERIC IDLE
An interesting character.  Very canny with a head for business and a ruthless streak.  Most of the others started writing in partnership (Palin and Jones; Chapman and Cleese) but Idle always wrote alone.  His early life is telling:  his family were pretty poor and his father died, but he went to a brutal boarding school where he was both the school rebel and the head boy.  Always looking out for number one.  Gets a bit of a hard time for exploiting the Pythons, but I also think they were glad one of them knew what was going on.  Wrote all the songs, too, and was dragged up to sing Always Look on the Bright Side at Chapman's funeral.

CONCLUSIONS
It can't be easy for six creative and radical comedians to work together over so many years.  It wasn't all Morcambe and Wise chuminess, but neither was it Steptoe and Son viciousness.  Even between Cleese and Idle there's a deep respect about each others' talents.  And I don't think there's one you can pick out as head and shoulders above the rest, or one who's letting the side down.  Good work everybody!  Anyway, here's Confuse-A-Cat.

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds

Another Reynolds book?  Most of them have had some pretty flawed, though entertaining, and I didn't even finish his most recent - Terminal World.  I was right to stick with him, though: the sequel to Revelation Space is a cracker.

This trilogy is all about the Fermi Paradox - given the estimates on intelligent life in the galaxy, why can't we see any evidence of it?  Is there something stopping civilisations making that jump to interstellar travel?  Something robotic and scary perhaps?

The plot's great. I like the characters and the themes (redemption's a big one) are handled really well.  But where this book excels are in the science and the space battles.  Reynolds' day job is with the European Space Agency and he not only knows what he's talking about - he knows how to communicate it.  Travel between stars, different dimensions, messages from the future and the best way to rip apart a solar system are all dealt with in a realistic way. The military side of things is fantastic too, and the tactics and manoeuvres are really clever and exciting, but again rooted in reality.

There are a couple of odd jumps in the narrative - two thirds in and in the last chapter - where huge important chunks of the story are missed out.  Both sections would probably take up a novella to tell, and they sound like great stories, but it actually kind of worked.  We find out the bare bones of what happens, and the rest is left to our imagination.  I was reminded of the end of the Hobbit where we never see the big battle with Smaug at the end, but we imagine it was pretty cool.

One more book in this trilogy to go - Absolution Gap - and as often with these SF series, a couple of books which come before which I possibly should've read first - Chasm City and the Prefect.  Unlike Peter F Hamilton though, you don't need to read them first to really enjoy this series.  I've abandoned a few science fiction novels in recent months, but this has renewed my faith in the genre.

The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carre

Or, What George Smiley Did Next.  This picks up where Tinker Tailor ends - Smiley's uncovered the mole, but the Circus has been deeply compromised.  Operations are being wound up across the world, and the cousins (CIA) are poised to fill the vacuum.  George is getting increasingly obsessive about Karla at Moscow Central, but is he ignoring other threats closer to home?

This is mostly set in the Far East, Hong Kong especially.  Another Karla operative is uncovered there and journalist and spy Jerry Westerby is called out of semi-retirement to investigate.

There's lots to love about this book.  The Circus stuff is great, especially seeing Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke in the film) back at the centre of things.  You've also got Westerby stirring things up in Hong Kong, and making dangerous detours through Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Rouge, and meeting crazy mercenaries in the jungles of Thailand.

But I didn't enjoy it as much as Tinker Tailor.  When I finished the first thing I did was look up wikipedia to find out what happened.  That's not a good sign.  That's partly because, having checked, the ending doesn't really make sense.  It's like the author just wanted everyone in the same place to make it more dramatic.  But I must take some of the blame for my confusion.

I was listening to this as a book on tape, and I suspect there were some chunks missing.  And I think with something as subtle as this, you really need to have it written down.  I remember quite often re-reading pages of Tinker Tailor to get it all clear in my head - here, it was just gone and I was on the next chapter.

I was also a bit disappointed by the direction it takes.  It's set up as Smiley taking the fight to Karla through his own moles, but that's not what happens.  Instead, you get Le Carre's growing detestation of America (or the CIA, to be fair) which has come to the fore in his more recent novels.

I'm getting a bit suspicious of his portrayal of women as well.  The main female character in this really is a pain in the neck.  The beautiful, tragic victim/whore we've seen a million times.  Then you've got Smiley's pathologically unfaithful wife Ann still lurking off camera.  Peter Guillam manages to seduce a member of the circus, but the only thing we find out about her is she starts off a bit frigid.  The only woman who really shines is Connie.  But then she's old, dotty, drunk and in a wheelchair.  One of the boys, really.

Still, I've got the concluding part of this semi-official trilogy to go - Smiley's People.   I'm not sure  where it's going to go after the end of this one, but I'm still looking forward to it.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Here's the good news.  If you're worried about being a psychopath, then you're not a psychopath.  Jon Ronson's more worried that he's an anti-psychopath: socially inept, low self esteem, and worried about things like whether he's the opposite of a psychopath.

The scary thing is it's not a mental illness.  Psychopaths aren't psychotic.  It's not a disorder listed in the "Big Book of Mentalism" the DSM IV.  It seems more like being a vampire, an android in Blade Runner or the Thing.  It's the old problem of consciousness.  How do you really know someone doesn't feel empathy if they've programmed themselves to act exactly as somebody with empathy would?

Ronson meets one prisoner in Broadmoor, who beat up a tramp and convinced the
authorities he was crazy by quoting Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (which should do the trick.)  But the psychiatrists refuse to let him go, saying faking mental illness is something only a psychopath would do.  He meets a top US businessman who could be a psychopath.  Maybe he's just ruthless.  Where's the line? And how easy is it to abuse the test when you're in a position of power?

There's lots more here beside straight-up psychopathy - there's an examination of the growing medication of children, the hazards of psychological profiling when tracking killers, and the strange case of David Shayler...

He' s the former MI5 officer turned whistleblower who later cropped up as a 911 conspiracy theorist.  Then he went on TV to claim the planes which flew into the World Trade Centre were actually missiles overlayed with holograms of planes.  Then he became a transvestite......then he announced he was the son of God.....and interest has faded since then.

Ronson tracks that media interest, and finds the holographic plane theory was when Shayler peaked - that's when he was the right kind of mad.  Too much becomes banal.  The subtitle of this book is "A Journey through the Madness Industry" and the media, along with Ronson himself, are part of that industry.  There's money in madness, as long as it's the right kind.  Psychopaths, for instance.  They look just like you and me, but underneath they're very different.  What could be more fascinating?

This is a great read - accessible, thought-provoking and unusual - and my first book on Kindle.  I'm liking it a lot.  Very easy on the eyes, the forward and back buttons are intuitive, it's light and it fits in my pocket.  I bought this book for under a fiver and downloaded it in 2 minutes.  Another source has has meant even more than my usual backlog of half-read books, so I'll do another round-up soon.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

H. H. Holmes was one of my favourite serial killers when I was growing up, and I finally got hold of this nonfiction account of his crimes from my mother

Holmes was a textbook psychopath operating in Chicago in the 1890s - just a few years after Jack the Ripper was tearing up London.  A doctor and a conman who charmed women, stole their money and murdered them. 

But what set him apart was the industrial scale he operated on.  He took over a whole city block, rebuilt it and turned it into a hotel designed for murder.  There were airtight vaults where he could suffocate his victims; rooms were turned into gas chambers; and there was a specially built incinerator in the basement to get rid of the evidence.  Many times though after disecting his victims, he merely sold their skeletons to a medical school.  No-one knows how many he killed.

Like Jack the Ripper, HHH was a product of his times.  Industrialisation meant more women coming to cities on their own to make a living.  Their parents would've generally grown up and lived their whole lives in the same small communities where even knew each other.  The coming 20th century meant more freedom for most (especially women) but also more dangers.

But there was another factor which fed Holmes' predatory nature - the Chicago World Fair in 1893.  This became the biggest peacetime event in history and attracted hundreds of thousands of sightseers from across the states and beyond.  The other half of ths book tells the history of the fair, the men who built it, and the huge obstacles in the path of success. Both sides of the story show the different ways in which the world became modern, for good and for bad.

It's a fascinating story, and always told in an engaging manner.  I see Leonardo De Caprio's bought the rights to the book, and Katherine Bigelow's meant to be directing.  Fingers crossed for that.

I've bought myself a fancy-dan Kindle, and I've already polished off my first book on that.  More psychopaths coming soon.....