I remember reading an Aldiss science fiction novel as a teenager, though I don't remember the title. I do remember his prose was beautifully rendered. I also remember that he was widely beloved among his fellow science fiction authors. RIP, Mr Aldiss.
Obituary Note:
Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
the "grand
old man" of science fiction "whose writing has shaped the
genre since he was
first published in the 1950s," died August 19, the
Guardian reported.
He was 92. Aldiss was the author of science fiction
classics,
including Non-Stop, Hothouse and Greybeard, as well as the
Helliconia
trilogy. His short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long"
was adapted into
the Steven Spielberg film AI. His Horatio Stubbs saga
(The Hand-Reared
Boy, A Soldier Erect and A Rude Awakening) "was based
on his time during
the war in Burma and the far east," the Guardian
noted.
Aldiss received
numerous awards, including Hugo and Nebula prizes, an
honorary doctorate
from the University of Reading, the title of grand
master from the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and an
OBE for services
to literature.
On Twitter, Neil
Gaiman noted
hit me like a
meteor to the heart: Brian Aldiss died on his 92nd
Birthday. A larger
than life wise writer." In the introduction to a new
edition of
Hothouse, Gaiman had written that Aldiss's career "has
recapitulated
British SF, always with a ferocious intelligence, always
with poetry and
oddness, always with passion; while his work outside the
boundaries of
science fiction, as a writer of mainstream fiction, gained
respect and
attention from the wider world."
Natasha Bardon,
Aldiss's editor at HarperCollins, said, "For the short
time I had the
pleasure of knowing Brian, there wasn't a moment when he
wasn't writing
something. His passion for language and literature was
wonderful and he
wielded his skill like a blade. Fiction, non-fiction,
poetry: there was
just no stopping him. Though I came to publish Brian
later in his
career, I feel the luckiest, because it wasn't just the
fiction I heard
about. Brian told the most incredible stories: of days
when he and his
contemporaries were writing books that would become
classics of the
genre, of evenings out among other giants of literature,
and of much
cheekier tales, always told with a smile and twinkle in his
eye. It is with
great sadness that we say farewell to such a beloved
author and I am so
proud I was able to publish him even briefly."
In a tribute,
author Christopher Priest observed
"Aldiss was
by a long chalk the premier British science fiction
writer--that he
was also one of the most versatile writers of any kind
was a fact that
only a comparatively few readers outside the SF field
came to discover.
His work is still, in this sense, to be discovered."
The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old, was recommended by a book lover's website as being similar to A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, so, because I adored Ove, I decided to give this book a whirl. The first thing I discovered was that this is a non fiction book that really is the diary entries (which are like newspaper columns) of a grumpy Netherlands man named Hendrik. Whereas Ove was a work of fiction, Henrik is as real and grimly grumpy as can be. He wields his cantankerousness like a knife, verbally eviscerating nearly everyone in the nursing home except his few friends. He reserves most of his venom for the nursing home administrator and her ilk, who dare to assume that the elderly are brainless and blind to all the nasty things bureaucrats get up to behind the scenes to make them miserable. Here's the blurb:
Technically speaking, Hendrik Groen is....elderly. But at age 83 1/4,
this feisty, indomitable curmudgeon has no plans to go out quietly.
Bored of weak tea and potted geraniums, exasperated by the indignities
of aging, Hendrik has decided to rebel—on his own terms. He begins
writing an exposé: secretly recording the antics of day-to-day life in
his retirement home, where he refuses to take himself, or his fellow
"inmates," too seriously.With an eccentric group of friends he
founds the wickedly anarchic Old-But-Not-Dead Club—"Rule #3: No Whining
Allowed"—and he and his best friend, Evert, gleefully stir up trouble,
enraging the home's humorless director and turning themselves into
unlikely heroes. And when a sweet and sassy widow moves in next door, he
polishes his shoes, grooms what's left of his hair, and determines to
savor every ounce of joy in the time he has left, with hilarious and
tender consequences.A bestselling phenomenon that has captured imaginations around the world, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is inspiring, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny with a deep and poignant core: a page-turning delight for readers of any age. Publisher's Weekly: Delightful and moving, Groen’s novel shares a full year of the eponymous octogenarian’s journal entries, detailing his day-to-day observations, humorous inner monologues, and overall zest for life within a nursing home in Amsterdam. Bored with the daily monotony of life at the center, he decides to keep a journal for a complete year to expose the frustrations, gripes, and groans of his fellow “inmates” and the realities of growing old. Between hilarious quips about life, Hendrik regales readers with the joys of the motor scooter and his decision to relent and wear adult diapers. Hendrik’s good friend Evert—a crotchety old fellow who gets his kicks riling up the other residents—helps stave off the loneliness, but it’s when new resident Eefje arrives that Hendrik feels a spark he hasn’t experienced in a long time. Hendrik, Eefje, and Evert, along with a small group of wily seniors, decide to have a little fun while they still can by organizing the Old-But-Not-Dead Club to plan outings and excursions, including tai chi and cooking classes, and visits to the casino and museums. Engaging and hilarious, Hendrik’s diary gives a dignity and respect to the elderly often overlooked in popular culture, providing readers a look into the importance of friendship and the realities of the senior care system in modern society
Though Hendrik has to watch his friend Evert fall prey to the ravages of diabetes and his girlfriend wither and die from a stroke, Hendrik never succumbs to mawkishness or self pity, he just gets on with life and does his best by his friends. I was surprised that this translation from Dutch created such fluid prose that reads beautifully and never feels anything but familiar. The plot was metered but never slow, and though the ending was abrupt and sad, there was still a great deal of fun in this story, enough so that anyone who has ever felt even remotely oppressed by authority figures will find themselves pumping their fists in sympathy with Hendrik and Evert as they kill the nursing home fish with cake, twice.Having worked in nursing homes and hospice when I was young, I can definitely say that Groen's observations on the way the elderly are robbed of their money and mistreated as well as warehoused until they die is spot on. It's criminal and much worse in America than it is in Amsterdam. Still, I'd give this saucy diary/memoir a B+, and recommend it to anyone who likes stories where the underdogs triumph.
The Demon's Librarian by Lilith Saintcrow was an urban fantasy/romance that was written earlier in Saintcrow's career, so it's not as developed as her later works, such as Jill Kismet and Dante Valentine. Still, you can see where Saintcrow is going with her future female protagonists in this slender volume that packs a mean punch. I was drawn to this book because it was a fantasy about a librarian, and I love libraries and librarians, so I wanted to see what Saintcrow would do with such a quiescent job. I need not have worried. She turns Chess Barnes into a comic book superhero who goes wandering the sewers in search of a supernatural being who is eating her students. Here's the blurb:
When demons are preying on schoolchildren in her city, Francesca
Barnes does what any red-blooded librarian would do—she does some
research and goes hunting. But the books she finds in a secret cache
don't tell her the whole story. Chess has no idea what she's just
stepped into—or just how special she really is . . .Orion (Ryan) is Drakul, part demon, and a loyal servant of the Order. He doesn't expect a motorcycle-riding librarian to be messing around with demonic forces, and he doesn't expect her to smell so damn good. But Ryan's got bigger problems. His partner has disappeared, and the forces of Darkness are rising. Now Chess is Ryan's only hope of finding his partner, and Ryan is Chess's only hope of survival, because the demons now know Chess exists—and that she is the heir to a long-lost power that could push back their dark tide.
If Ryan can keep her alive long enough, she just might be the key to destroying the demons completely. But Ryan doesn't know he's been betrayed by the very Order he serves. And if Chess does, by some miracle, survive, he won't ever be able to touch her again . . .
Though most readers will be able to spot the betrayer miles off, the story doesn't miss a beat with high octane prose and a fast plot. I wasn't too fond of Ryan the half demon, because he came off as too pushy and possessive, but by the end I was on board with a Chess/Ryan partnership. I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to supernatural fantasy romance fans.
The Lost Art of Letter Writing by Menna Van Praag is the second or third book of hers I've read, and enjoyed. The novel isn't completely epistolary, but does have some letters transcribed into each chapter.The protagonist Clara owns a "letter" shop stocked with a variety of gorgeous papers and beautiful pens, which she sells to people who come into the shop needing to write something to someone to get it off their chest. Clara is something of a psychic counselor herself, and when she walks around town snooping on people, she somehow manages to pick up on whatever it is that they need to hear the most, and then she stops by her store, uses a kind of automatic writing and ends up with just the inspirational missive that the person needs to move forward. She remembers nothing of what she has written, but when she is away from her shop for awhile, many of those who have received her letters send thank you notes about how she changed their lives for the better. Here's the blurb:
In a forgotten nook of Cambridge a little shop stands where thousands of
sheets of beautiful paper and hundreds of exquisite pens wait for the
next person who, with Clara Cohen’s help, will express the love, despair
and desire they feel to correspondents alive, estranged or dead. Clara
knows better than most the power a letter can have to turn a person’s
life around, so when she discovers a cache of wartime love letters, she
follows them on the start of on a profound journey of her own.
I loved the warmth and charm of this book, because the author manages to maintain that feeling, though the book contains letters about a heavy subject, the concentration camps of WWII. While the prose is clean and neat, I wondered how Van Praag would manage to keep the plot from derailing with the appearance of the ghost of a dead man's wife and a violinist who becomes obsessed with her. Though the novel gets to be a bit too melodramatic, in the soap opera sense, when it comes to relationships, Van Praag is able to keep things from descending into campy bodice-ripper romance territory. Therefore I think this book deserves an A, and a recommendation to anyone who loves letters and correspondence and magic realism.
A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet is the first book in a new mythological fantasy romance series. The society and world it's based on are traditional Greek society with present gods and goddesses who meddle in the affairs of their chose humans and "magoi" magicians at regular intervals. There is the inevitable sex scenes, of course, and while I appreciate the fact that romance novels have come a long way from the prim Harlequin romances I read in 1973 when I was 13 years old, I still feel something of an ick factor at the pages-long descriptions of oral and regular sexual actions, always using euphemisms for male and female genitals. For some odd reason, romance writers do not find the words penis and vagina sexy. So it's always "hard shafts" and "moist crevasses" meeting in the throes of passion that are always epic and create earth-shattering orgasms. While I can appreciate good sex just as much as the next gal, I wish there were more realistic scenes of what sex is really like, full of moments great and ridiculous, thrilling and embarrassing. No one ever farts in a romance novel, though plenty of alcoholic beverages, like beer, are consumed by the manly men therein. Here's the blurb:
KINGDOMS WILL RISE AND FALL FOR HER...BUT NOT IF SHE CAN HELP IT
Catalia "Cat" Fisa lives disguised as a soothsayer in a traveling circus. She is perfectly content avoiding the danger and destiny the Gods-and her homicidal mother-have saddled her with. That is, until Griffin, an ambitious warlord from the magic-deprived south, fixes her with his steely gaze and upsets her illusion of safety forever.
Griffin knows Cat is the Kingmaker, the woman who divines the truth through lies. He wants her as a powerful weapon for his newly conquered realm-until he realizes he wants her for much more than her magic. Cat fights him at every turn, but Griffin's fairness, loyalty, and smoldering advances make him increasingly hard to resist and leave her wondering if life really does have to be short, and lived alone. Publisher's Weekly: Debut author Bouchet makes a very strong start to her Kingmaker Chronicles, combining a richly developed political landscape defined by the influence of powerful ruling families, meddling gods, and destiny with a broad exploration of the relationship between might and magic in a social context. In a fantasy world where access to magical power is tied to geography and bloodline, Warlord Griffin, second in command of kingdom Sinta, is guided by a oracular dream from Poseidon to soothsayer Catalia Fisa, who’s hiding in a traveling circus from her family history and her magical role as Kingmaker. Griffin hopes to use Cat as a tool in his challenge of the status quo, in which the minority Magoi rule the hoi polloi. Their smoldering erotic burn hits charged love/hate buttons without falling too far into glorifying Griffin’s abduction of Cat, and by the end of the novel, they become a powerful team well situated for the fights ahead. Bouchet writes believable camaraderie, dramatic fight scenes, and moving personal angst, but worldbuilding purists will hate the insertion of the Greek gods into this secondary-world fantasy context.
Though I agree with most of the PW review, above, I disagree with the line about not "falling too far into glorifying Griffin's abduction of Cat," which he does with a magical rope that she cannot escape, and by forcing her to make a binding vow not to ever leave him, on pain of her own death. I felt that this master/slave and dominating male coercing abused female relationship set up a very unhealthy route for Griffin and Cat, and I just didn't buy that she could forgive him that easily and fall in love and move on with their relationship, knowing that he felt his interests and that of his family and the kingdom he conquered superceded her right to have her own agency and make her own choices and be free. It's obvious that he's going to use her powers to strengthen his own family rule, and take over the other countries surrounding his kingdom, but because he's a hot guy and she sleeps with him, somehow it's okay that he uses her, though she warns him that her family will come after her to kill her now that she's out of hiding. This doesn't strike me as a healthy love relationship at all. I smelled Stockholm Syndrome about halfway through the book. Still, the finely wrought prose and the waltzing plot kept me turning pages until I'd finished the book in one sitting. I'd give it a grudging B-, and recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of S&M in their erotic romance tales, as well as frolicking Greek gods.
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