Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Well, I guess by now you're feeling the full effect of that Hunger Games hype.  I finished the second book last week, but since there's not a hell of a lot I can say without giving you SPOILERS, I thought I'd wait until the movie was out and give it a compare.

First up then - Catching Fire.  I guess it's not too much of a SPOILER to suggest that maybe Katniss Everdeen survives the Hunger Games.  And The Man isn't too happy about the way she did it.  The first half deals with the victory tour of the districts - how the events of the first book have sparked the beginnings of revolution, and how the Capitol deals with it.  The second half and we're back in the Hunger Games, but this time with a different arena, different traps and - of course - different contestants.

The good news is it's still really good.  Perhaps the first half is a little unfocussed, but I preferred how the Games panned out in this one, especially when it looks at how unrest in the outside world changes what happens in the arena.  It kept me guessing throughout about what would happen next and it sets everything up nicely for the (inevitably disappointing?) final book.

So...the film version of the Hunger Games.  It's all in there, although the survivalist aspect is taken down a notch.  The actors are good - Jennifer Lawrence in particular, but Woody Harrelson also reins it in as their drunken mentor Haymitch, who survived the games years ago.  Also props to Lenny Kravitz for looking great in gold eyeliner, Stanley Tucci for having big blue hair in a ponytail, and Wes Bentley for rocking some first class facial beardage.  The bizarre fashions in the decadent Capital are really well portrayed, and I liked how the focus often shifted to behind the TV cameras, rather than staying on Katniss all the time.

But the big failing is the action.  I don't mind them taking out some blood spurts to get it a 12A or whatever, but it's succumbed to the post-action disease which seems to be the law in Hollywod these days - "all action should be filmed by shaking a camera six inches from people's faces."  Awful, but still worth watching.  Worth reading even more.

Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy

The end of the Roman Republic is one of my little obsessions.  I blame Rubicon by Tom Holland for so effectively bringing to life such characters as Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Cato, Cicero.  Giants all, but the biggest and most fascinating is Julius Caesar.  The perfect product of the Republican system, and the man who destroyed it.

An early anecdote to highlight his coolness - in his teens Caesar was taken hostage by pirates.  He became firm friends with them, urging them to raise the ransom and promising to come back and kill them all when he was released.  My, how they laughed....

He rose to power in a pretty standard fashion - by borrowing and spending money wildly, although Caesar was wilder than any other.  Politics in the Roman Republic was a high risk game.  Everyone was out for himself, and there were no political parties, so the whole thing operated as a network of patrons and clients.  Favours owed and called in at the right time.  Caesar gained a reputation as a good friend to have, and became peacemaker between the two big rivals: Pompey, Rome's greatest general and Crassus, Rome's richest man.

And when he wasn't making friends with the most powerful men in the Senate, Caesar was in bed with their wives and sisters.  It almost seems like a compulsion for him.  And if we know about it more than two thousand years later, you can bet they knew back then as well.   Somehow when he did end up stabbed to death, it wasn't over a woman.

So Caesar was at the centre of everything, but there was a problem.  War and politics weren't seperate worlds at Rome.  The only way to pay back your debts (apart from attempting a coup, like the notorious Cataline) was to be named a governor and, ideally, win a war.  He went to Gaul, took advantage of some tribal tension and ended up ruling the whole of modern day France in just a few years.  The people back in Rome loved him - and many of the other senators grew to hate and fear him.

I'm still a little puzzled by exactly how the Civil War started.  The senators, led by his former son in law Pompey and pious "voice of old Rome" Cato wanted to stop him running for consul, or having a triumph through the streets, or both.  But Caesar had a battle hardened army who fought for him, not for Rome. So he crossed that Rubicon and the die was cast.

What really struck me about the Civil War was how Caesar used generosity as a weapon.  He was amazingly merciful to those who'd taken up arms against him and could credibly paint himself once again as the peacemaker.  He cursed his bitter rival Cato for taking his own life before Caesar could forgive him.

He ruled as dictator (but not a tyrant) for just a few years, and most of the work he started was unfinished.  He did invent the leap year though, so kudos for that.  But he wasn't careful enough to avoid being seen as the man who would be king.  Romans didn't like kings, and his successor Augustus was much smarter in the way he handled it.  He kept the apparatus of republicanism, but in reality turned it into a monarchy.   Meanwhile Julius Caesar was made a god.

I admit this book was sometimes a bit of a slog to get through - Roman names and positions are very complicated, and I drifted in and out of many of the military campaigns - but it was well worth finishing.  Not just for getting a clearer picture of this awesome man, but for the other players and the world they lived in.  Expect more Roman stuff pretty soon - I can't get enough of it.

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

Vinge is kind of a big deal in the science fiction world.  He coined the term singularity in this paper which was hugely influential among fellow writers as well as the tinfoil hat brigade.  I'd never read any of his stuff before, but this book is fantastic.

It sounds corny, but he's literally put a new dimension into SF: The Zones of Thought.  The idea is intelligence and technology don't work at the the centre of the galaxy.  Those are the Unthinking Depths.  Further out is the Slowness where Earth lies.  Beyond this is the - well - Beyond.  Here's where you hit science fiction paydirt.  Faster than light travel, instant communication and millions of alien civilisations living and interacting in this narrow strip around the edge of the galaxy.  Beyond that is where it gets interesting.

This means when ships travel deeper, it's got the feel of a submarine battle.  They slow down, technology stops working and they can't talk to anyone further up.  It's also a neat explanation for the Fermi paradox - any aliens which are advanced enough to make contact with Earth are thousands of light years away in the Beyond, zipping about like Buck Rogers.

I also love the deep time in this book.  It's way in the future but humans are still a pretty young player in the Beyond.  Their mythology doesn't come from Earth, but from a jungle planet further out called Nyjora where humanity built itself back up from the dark ages to space travel.  They often talk about chivalry in the Age of Princesses, and the steam engines of Nyjora during the industrial revolution.  They know about Earth - theoretically - but it's this second history of humanity which is their frame of reference.

And this is all backstory for something even better - a first rate fantasy novel on a planet of gestalt sentient aliens.  Each "individual" is a pack of dog-like beings whose individual members aren't themselves sentient.  As well as a fascinating look at how an intelligent lifeform like this could operate, it's also a great adventure story, with human children learning about the world and some proper villains up to no good.  Like something from a Nyjoran fairy tale.

I've already got the follow up to this -  A Deepness in the Sky which is set thousands of years earlier, and there's a direct sequel set on the same planet which is just out called Children of the Sky, but word is it's a bit disappointing.  I'll read it anyway.

I owe a review of the big Caesar biography I've been listening to for months and have now finished (he dies) and I should soon be finished another Le Carre and the second Hunger Games book.  My light blogging of late I'm going to blame on Murakami's 1Q84, which I read two thirds of and couldn't be bothered finishing.  What went wrong Haruki?

Wild Summer by Stephen Richards

Alright, declaration of interest first.  This author is in fact my stepdad, and I got a sneak preview of this because I was proofreading it.  Last year he and my mum spent most of the year in one of these big RVs travelling around the USA.  Most of the time they just stayed overnight parked outside Wallmart and the like.  So far they've managed to avoid being shot by the urban youth.

I already had a read through of Steve's first volume - Tornado Spring - but it was a pretty rough draft so I didn't review it here.  That book included the buying of the RV, trawling up the east coast from Florida and running away from a tornado in a supermarket carpark.

This volume picks up in the Chicago area as the pair take up the second leg of their trip - across country into Yellowstone Park, then over into the Pacific North West and a brief brief detour into Canada, before heading down the coast to San Fransisco.

You've got some great descriptions of the landscapes and the mood all along the way, from the weird vulcan phenomona of Yellowstone to the mile upon mile of flat farmland in the Midwest to the romantic mist covered coastline of Washington.  There's also plenty of wildlife along the way - bears, whales, elk and trout.  Lots of trout.  And salmon.  In fact, there's lots of fishing in general, but these are probably my favourite bits of the book, and I'd be hard pushed to describe myself as a keen angler.  What makes these sections work is that the action is clear and exciting and the passion shines through.

Another aspect I really liked was the practicalities of getting a big RV across America.  What can go wrong, how you can fix it, how to drive up and down inclines without destroying your brakes.  Not stuff you usually get in a travel book unless it's for comic value, but I found it interesting.

Book Three - Desert Winter - will be out soon.  Luckily I feature in this final volume so I know it can't be all bad.  But it does mean more proof reading for me.  Errant apostrophe's are my vampires and all must be destroyed.   Arghh!

You can get all these in paperbacks or kindle on ampurlife.com for a dirt cheap price.  Yeah, that's right - shameless plug.  Suck it up, freeloaders.

Right, now I've got three books about the same trip written by my mum which I need to check the punctuation on....

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I got this book free at the cinema when I went to see a ropey Taylor Lautner movie, so they're clearly touting it as the new Twilight.  Except it's really not.  It's a grimy, downbeat and less insane version of Battle Royale.

It's set in Northern America quite a bit in the future.  The former US is split into twelve districts (the 13th has been destroyed (or has it?!)) all ruled over by the iron fist of the Capitol, located in the Rocky Mountains.  As penance for a rebellion decades ago, every year a boy and girl from each district have to fight to the death in a massive booby trapped arena.  And everyone has to watch.

The survival and killing are handled without histrionics.  These kids already live a hellish existence, so they handle it better than we would.  What's also done really well is the reality TV aspect.  The central character Katniss is always aware when her actions will be heavily featured in the highlights show.  She knows how the producers will be fashioning a narrative around the senseless slaughter.  And since sponsors can parachute items in at massive cost, it's always in her interest to be the star of the show.

A reality TV show where people kill each other is hardly a new idea, but this is the best I've seen it handled.  The world's built up very well so the satire never seems heavy handed or stupid.  It's strangely classical - people have Roman names, the country's called Panem and the sacrifices are very reminiscent of myths like the Minotaur.  It certainly doesn't feel like "America of the future."  What's also helpful are the details which show us the huge difference between the serf-like existence in the districts and the high tech wonderland of the Capitol - the taste of food, the smells, the feeling of being clean for the first time in your life.

It's going to be hard to sell this as the new Twilight.  Ok, it's got a female teenage protagonist and there's at least the beginning of a love triangle (which unfolds nicely, and is integral to the plot) but there's not much else you can make a connection with.  The movie's out soon, so we'll see what kind of mess they make of it.  Perhaps Taylor Lautner's in it.

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

When I was a nipper I used to go into John Menzies, pick up an Agatha Christie with an intriguing cover, and see how much I could get through before the staff started sniffing around.  I must've read at least the first few chapters of quite a few that way.

I think this could've been one of those, because I remember the set up well, but not the denoument.  It's the first Miss Marple novel, and I do marginally prefer her to Poirot, though they're both pretty great.  It has the classic opener - kill off the most detestable character whom everyone's got a beef with. Then throw in some red herrings, then a few reverse red herrings.  By the end your head's buzzing, but the solution was right on front of us all along.  Of course.

What I always like in these books is the attention to detail in the plotting.  Things are revealed in the correct order and at the end it's like a clockwork apparatus with everything in the right place.  Realism isn't the goal, but strict internal consistency.  But it's Christie's view on human nature which is the secret ingredient.  She seems to understand what drives people, whether to love or to murder, and I always find the characters interesting and convincing.  She also has a dark sense of humour, and understands that a passion for murder, which she shares with her readers, is perhaps a little unhealthy.

Not my favourite of her books, but I've got plenty more for the kindle now when I want the literary equivalent of a KFC.  Hmm, now I want a KFC.

Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

The follow up to this, but with an even more annoying title.  Luckily it's still a great read, with lots of myths busted, patterns teased out and sacred cows turned into burgers.

For instance: pimps generally do a good job.  Prostitutes who use them on average make more money per week and are safer than those on the street alone.  In fact, the figures suggest they do a better job than US estate agents.  I also learned working girls have different tariffs depending on the colour of the client's skin.  I knew it!  See, this is why God wants me to punish them.

There's a fascinating section on altruism, kicking off with the Kitty Genovese murder - a famous case in New York which 38 people apparently witnessed and did nothing to stop (also where Rorscharch got his mask, Watchmen fans.)  The authors then look at the history of economists' games like Dictator, which suggested that people were a lot kinder than thousands of years of history and common sense would've lead us to believe.  The lessons learned from both these stories are pretty amazing.

The book also has a nice bit of controversy - anthropogenic global warming.  It looks at the issues from an economist's point of view and compares it to the manure problem of the early 20th century, which was solved by the invention of the internal combustion engine.  Several potentially easy fixes are suggested, often to do with pumping sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, but the authors question whether fixing it as an engineering problem is the real goal of Al Gore et al.

The main lessons in this book are the same as in the first one, but no less salient for that.  People respond to incentives, but not always in ways which are easily predictable.  And, perhaps more importantly, never take the pronouncements of vested interests at face value, whether they're from politicians, the media, or filthy lying whores.