Leafing Through

Children of Men

I just got done reading this book. It wasn't bad. Some of my friends had read it and didn't like it, although I can't remember why. I will tell you one thing though: the ending sucked. It was just too hodgepodge for my liking. I posted the movie poster though because I thought that it was interesting. In the book, it's men who are infertile, not women. I think that it's an odd thing to change in a movie.  However, I just looked at the trailer since I haven't yet seen the movie and it doesn't look like the book at all. It look IRobot-ish.  That movie had NOTHING in common with the book. I'm not even sure why they called it IRobot. Have any of you read Issac Asimov's set of short stories? They're really good. I even LIKED the movie, it just didn't have anything to do with the book.  I think that I'll still see Children of Men.  That was my weekend book.  Next month, I'm going to start to ride the bus in an effort to curb the huge amount of money that I spend commuting, paying for parking (don't get me started on that), and general wear and tear on my car.  The bus finally has a direct route close to my house so it won't take me an hour and a half to ride anymore.  This means that I SHOULD in theory have more time to read. We'll see how smooth the ride is though. I have a hard time reading when the bus is jerking around like it does sometimes.   

Sky People!

             I just finished reading The Sky People, a new sci-fi book by S.M. Stirling. It’s the first of his books that I’ve read and I loved it. I haven’t enjoyed a sci-fi book this much in a long time. I love the old sci-fi, from the sixties, where life is possible on such close planets as Mars and Venus. For obvious reasons you don’t get stories like that anymore. However, Sky People sets itself back in time and gives the reader that great sense of hope of life on planets close enough to travel to. The book was everything that I ever wanted but never got from a Ben Bova novel. It had a tight storyline, believable characters and perhaps best of all: dinosaurs! Now, the ending was pretty loose but you can’t blame Stirling for that. It is my belief that sci-fi and fantasy writers cannot properly end stories. You usually just get a great story and then the sudden feeling of “and that’s that folks”. I can’t think of a single sci-fi or fantasy book that has a good conclusive ending. Even Stephen King, master of story-telling and plot has never ended a story well. Stirling also throws in the requisite amount of humor that I demand out of science fiction, at one point even making a slur against trashy sci-fi novels of the sixties (that made me laugh out loud). Now, I know that this is supposed to be the first book in a series, (you don’t need a crazed fan site to tell you that, Stirling clearly sets up the book that way) but I’m tempted not to read any more because as a general rule I hate sci-fi follow up books. Too often writers get caught up in their own fantasy world and all you get is a character driven book, richer in detail than a Victorian sitting room. While detail and strong characters are a necessity so is plot. A strong plot with good character development has allowed me to forgive a lot of poor writing in the science fiction genre. All in all though, it’s a terrific book and a fun read.