I read this short novel from start to end in under a day. Osamu Dazai writes from the point of view of a sociopathic young man who cannot seem to understand the human condition and fears all people around him, mostly because he expects to be found out at every moment. The title of the book can be translated in several ways, the English one relates to the protagonist's feelings of losing one's humanity, while the literal translation reads as "disqualified from being human", implying a societal judgement. Imagine a Japanese version of The Stranger, by Albert Camus, and you get a good picture of the plot and feel of the book. Both books were written in the same period, more or less, but while Camus probably imagined the character, many believe Dazai was talking about himself - he committed suicide soon after.

No Longer Human is the second best rated Japanese book and was adapted in movie and manga. It is difficult to imagine those being better than the dry accounting of the inner turmoil of the character, starting as a little boy who devises "clowning" as a method of passing the test of humanity, outwardly fun and good natured and inwardly terrified of being discovered as a fraud and punished by the society of strange human beings that he cannot understand or empathize with. I highly recommend it.

I have been watching horror movies since I was six and read books of all sort through the years, but rarely have I seen something so truly scary as Daemon. Daniel Suarez manages to convey terror not by upgrading the villain, but by making it mundane. The daemon is not an all knowing Artificial Intelligence that takes over the world, but a stupid game engine run by a logic tree. The ease with which something like this could be created makes the book truly terrifying, particularly for me, who has actually thought of the weakness of humans when faced with decisions and pondered a world where machines make the decisions not because they want to rule us, but because we don't want to choose.

But there is more to this book than its subject. It is actually very well written and that is remarkable considering it is Suarez' first book. I will read the sequel to Daemon, Freedom™ as soon as I can. I loved the attention to detail, not a descriptive boring series of useless trivia, but a close focus on what makes people tick and how technology falls into place to fill the gaps that our failings leave. On the cover of the new book that Daniel Suarez wrote there is a quote that I feel is totally true: he is a true heir to Michael Crichton.

Another book that can easily be found in audio format on Librivox and YouTube, Creatures of the Abyss (also known as The Listeners), by Murray Leinster, is a slow mid 20th century sci-fi that reads as a cross between Jules Verne, H. P. Lovecraft and one of those books about people drinking and falling in love on boats in South America. More Verne, though.

The thing that made me continue listening to it was its way of depicting the mentality from back then. Written in 1961, it tells a story of people who, faced with extraordinary circumstances, first evade formulating a theory in their own head, for fear of contravening their own set view of the world, then - forced by events - they do allow themselves to formulate a theory, but keep it to themselves for fear of ridicule, even when they see other people considering the same things, then they proceed to test those theories by themselves and only then share them with others. Compared with the modern culture of sharing half formed thoughts before they can constitute complete phrases, it is quite different. It is also fun to read about people that think Venus is a large ocean planet, as is Jupiter, with a gravity four times that of Earth.

However, while it was interesting in a sociological way and good as a background for other activities, its slow pace might feel excruciating for the casual reader. More than half of it is more about boats and sailing and catching fish. The science fiction part is slowly creeping into the story and the climax is in the last chapter alone. Maybe my association of the book with Lovecraft is strained, as the only commonality is touching on tentacled abyssal creatures that might appear disturbing to human sensibilities and certainly the elements of horror are very rare in Creatures of the Abyss. The book does feel more real, though, as it goes through this slow process of examination of evidence and formulating hypotheses and testing them before jumping to conclusions. It depicts the beginning of the modern era of scientific thought, back when it was respectable and desirable to be thinking like that.

Bottom line: Slow paced, but very well written, you should at least try it, since it is so readily available. You can even listen to it right here, on this post.

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Another great Star Trek novel placed in the Kirk era, Star Trek Prime Directive keeps the reader/listener on the edge of their seat. It starts with a disgraced Kirk, a scattered crew and a scrapped Enterprise. It shows the dark, bureaucratic side of the Federation, cruel and merciless when you are not the lucky wearer of the golden captain uniform or, even better, an admiral. How did it come to this? The answer is both captivating, original and with deep roots in the Star Trek basic tenant: the Prime Directive.

I actually listened to the audiobook, also on YouTube (see embedded video), which was very well narrated. If I had any problems with the story was that it was clearly very biased. Kirk is always thinking of the poor alien species that are like humans, but seems to have no qualms to experiment with phaser fire and even slightly torture other alien beings if they are bug like. Also Spock seems very little a Vulcan in this.

Bottom line is that the idea was intriguing and original and the style of the writing was very good. One of the best ST novels so far.

Star Trek: Strangers from the Sky is an audiobook read by George Takei and Leonard Nimoy. While it is a typical ST The Original Series plot, with god like aliens, travel back in time to significant moments of Earth's history and a focus on high moral values that, in the end, save the day, I felt that it was a little bit more subtle, deeper than a typical episode of any of the series. Was it because of the introspection of the characters, or the wonderful narration of Nimoy and Takei, I do not know. What I can say is that I enjoyed listening to the story quite a lot and I recommend it highly for any Star Trek fan.

I also don't know if it is in the public domain or not, all I can say is that I listened to it on YouTube and so can you:
Of course you cannot listen to it on YouTube anymore. Some lawyers saw to that.

This is the third writing of Esther Friesner that I've read, after The Shunned Trailer and Druid's Blood, both excellent and funny, combining fantasy elements with the present or other realistic historical settings. Gnome Man's Land does the same thing, but I have to say I didn't find it as funny or as good as the others I mentioned. I also attempted to start Here Be Demons, another of her books, but couldn't really enjoy it enough to go past the first chapter. Probably she is one of those authors who, when they are good are really good and when they are not, well...

The book is the first of a trilogy starring Tim Desmond, a young boy of Irish descent who finds himself in a strange situation when the veil between our world and the land of the fey is punctured and more and more fantastic creatures go through. They come and attach themselves to mortals, as many of them are creatures who's very reason for existing is serving their masters. Stuff like banshees, Mongolian ancestors, goblins, kobolds, Greek demigodesses, Russian bath spirits, sprites, elves and so on and so on just sprout from the rupture, bringing annoyance and confusion more than anything. Tim somehow gets tricked into becoming the champion of the Fey on Earth and he does the job mainly because he feels all of these supernatural creatures need his help (plus the girl he secretly loves supports this and his banshee is a hot redhead to boot).

Some hilarity ensues, but often feeling a bit artificial, while the actions of the characters involved are simplistic, inconsistent and dragging on, like the author wanted to tell a joke and she ended up writing an entire book. The crises are not that good either, oscillating between childishly funny and dead bloody serious. The ending was disappointing as well, leaving a very traumatic event just in the wind, like an afterthought, pending Tim's recovery of some of his memory. I really wanted to like the book, too, but in the end I just forced myself to reach the end and I am confident I will not read the other two books in the series. I have some hopes for the Princesses series, which I understand is one of Friesner's better works.

If you were born before the 80s, Ready Player One is going to fill you with melancholy. Ernest Cline combines several classical young adult themes - like a battle versus an oppressive corporate evil, true and pure love, villainy and lack of honor defeated through friendship and good feelings - with (often obscure) geek memes of the 70s and 80s. If you are the kind of person who likes to impress by quoting lines from movies or telling of your adventures in games that are older than your children, this is the book for you. OK, I won't be mean, the book is going to be fun no matter when you were born, but the level of enjoyment may vary.

However, the book is still a young adult book at its core and, besides the overall message that you actually have to make an effort to reach your goals - an often neglected tidbit in young adult books and movies - it reads like one. Young heroes, with enough skill to pass through the challenges of the story, but awkward enough to also be endearing, manage to save the world through the power of their dedication and ideals. Also Chekhov's Gun has been used so much that it left gaping holes in the story. Amazing how random things in the story come perfectly together at the end. Let a bitter Harry Potterish aftertaste.

But let's start with the plot, which is pretty fun. It all happens in a dystopian world where energy reserves dwindled, gasoline became way too scarce and expensive, Elon Musk never happened and most people live their lives in a virtual world called OASIS, created by a brilliant yet reclusive visionary who made sure the system will remain secure and anonymous. Kind of like the Internet, but without the MPAA or the NSA. Yeah, it already sounds like an impossible dream, doesn't it? Well, the maker of the game world dies and leaves his entire estate (hundreds of billions of dollars and complete control over OASIS) to whoever finds the Easter Egg he his inside the game. The heroes of the story are young "egg hunters", while the villains are corporate drones who have been hired to find the egg for their company.

The writing style irked me a little. I know it is Cline's first book, and it certainly was a decent effort, but it had that way of explaining things that I call "fake past" in which the narrator explains things as if he is telling a story from the past. "The OASIS was...". Since this is supposed to happen in the future, it took a while until I could stop feeling irritated by it. However this has the advantage of being very easy to read.

I think it matters a lot if the reader is into cultural references. I could understand some, I could remember some, most of the references in the book, though, were ancient or obscure enough that even I didn't recognize them, and I am a pretty geeky person. I felt rewarded when I could "get it" and frustrated when I didn't, so probably it will be the same for most readers. If you don't care about these things, I think it is better to wait for the movie.

...which is in the works, with Steven Spielberg attached to the project. It might be difficult to put the story on the screen, though, since the book made an effort to describe a future world where everybody is obsessed with this specific period of the late 20th century, kind of like the Star Trek episodes that happened in the past or that required Kirk or Picard to know some specific book from the school curriculum. There is even a Ready Player One web site, that might have some Easter eggs in it (they would be dumb not to program some) but to me it seems both way too geeky and way to social at the same time.

Bottom line: a fun book for geeks. I hope it inspires the younger generations to look at the world a little bit differently, but I don't have my hopes up. My guess is that they will go all 'Meh' on a story that references anything that happened last century.

Villains by Necessity is not a masterpiece of literature, but it is a fun fantasy book that doesn't feel the need to be part of a trilogy or take itself too seriously. Perfect for when you want to pick up a book because you are tired, not because you want to work your brain to dust. First work of Eve Forward, it is rather inconsistent, moving from silly to dead serious and back and making the heroes of the story oscillate between pointlessly evil and uncharacteristically good.

The best part of the book, though, is the concept. The world enjoys an age of light and good after a bitter war that saw all the forces of darkness and evil be defeated. The world is filled with happy people, no conflict, beautiful weather, lush vegetation. In a word, it is fucking boring. An unlikely party of evildoers gets together to save the world by bringing darkness back!

Alas, it was a concept that was not really well used. The characters, borrowed from classical fantasy, are "evil" by their professions only, but not by behaviour. Sam is an assassin, but he doesn't enjoy the suffering of his victims and is proud of his prowess. Archie is a mischievous thief, but other than that he is an OK fellow. Even Valerie, the dark sorceress, eats sentient beings just because it is her race's culture and her evil is more often artificial. Not to mention Blackmail, who acts as the classic stoic hero. Similarly, the forces of good are blood thirsty thugs that want to either kill everything dark or brainwash them, as a humane solution. This basically makes our heroes... err... heroes, not villains, and viceversa.

Now, the book wasn't bad. The style was amateurish, but it is Eve Forward's first book, after all. I could read it and I got caught by the story. I was more attracted to the original concept, though, and I was very curious how it would go. It is so difficult to present bad people as the protagonists, I know, because many people, including writers as they write, want them to be redeemed somehow. In the end, the moral of the story - excruciatingly laid out in a few paragraphs that shouldn't have existed - felt really heavy handed and simplistic. Ok, good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things, but it is important to explore what makes them good and bad, not just lazily assign them dark fantasy classes and be done with it.

Bottom line: fun read, but nothing special.

There are several stories happening at the same time in The White Luck Warrior, with almost no direct connection between them. There is the Great Ordeal, advancing slowly towards Golgoterath while being besieged by hordes of Sranc, also containing the story of this kid prince forced to march with it; then there is the palace life, with Esmenet left to rule the empire while Kellhus is away, while various factions are ready to take advantage of the lack of man power of the leadership and her half Dunyain children prove to be either insane or really insane; there is the trek of Achamian in search of the origin place of Kellhus. Among these there is a vague and a few paragraphs long subplot of The White Luck Warrior, a mysterious figure that seems to know all of its future, making him an automaton, I guess and some bits about the Fanim.

Why the smallest and insignificant portion of the book gave its title I do not know, but remember that the first book in the Aspect-Emperor series was called The Judging Eye, which is most prominently used or described in this volume. By far the most interesting and captivating storyline is that of Achamian, although I have to say that the logistics of long duration travel within enemy territory and the psychological factors involved seemed to me poorly described by Bakker.

What I knew will happen happened. I finished the book before the third volume in the series was released and now I am in withdrawal pains. That proves that the book captivated me. At very few moments I felt the need to "fast forward" and, considering the amount of distraction and that I had resolved to draw this book out a little bit in the hope that the third volume would be released, I finished it rather quickly.

Even if enjoyable, to me it felt more like a filler. I couldn't empathize with Esmenet or any of her demented children, nor could I care less what happened to Maithanet, who is one of the less fleshed out characters in the book. Similarly, the Sorweel story arch described a confused and frustrated teen, which was relatable, but uninteresting as a character. Unlike in the first four books, Kellhus sounds less godly and dominating and is mostly relegated to a minor role in the overall story. No, the most interesting characters and storyline revolve around Achamian, Mimara, The Captain and the mysterious Cleric, plus any of other members of the crazy bunch of mercenaries known as The Skin Eaters. And they just walk and walk and walk, only to end the book in a cliffhanger. While I await eagerly the sixth book, I have my misgivings and fears that it will not be as good as this one, just as this one felt a little bit short of the first.

The Prince of Nothing trilogy was a total masterpiece, full of harrowing experiences of flawed men and women and characters so deep and original that they defied belief. You get the godlike Kellhus, not only freezingly rational and intelligent, but also mastering the Gnosis, the art of magic, while being a textbook example of a charismatic psychopath. You get Akkamian, a worldly sorcerer and spy, a teacher and a hopeless romantic. You get Cnaiür, a monstrous barbarian driven by revenge, but trapped by love. Esmenet, the whore empress mother, being heartbreakingly and treacherously a woman. And all these complex characters get to live in an epic world of different cultures, with politics, and military campaigns and evil creatures serving the No-god, shape shifting assassins and magic schools. In fact, it was so great that I found myself feeling dread of reading more, so terrifying the deep and personal pain of the characters that it was becoming mine.

Now I have finished The Judging Eye, the first book of the Aspect-Emperor trilogy, itself no more than a direct continuation of Prince of Nothing. R. Scott Bakker kind of cheats by using the same basic scaffolding for this story: a military campaign where an innocent and sympathetic character is being eroded by Kellhus' influence, a dark character driven by revenge on a lonely and dangerous quest, against himself slowly warming himself to the presence of a woman, court machinations driven by self serving creatures and the general backdrop of a clash between religions. He does it masterfully, though, switching the characters around and adding new ones to fill the roles left empty. In The Judging Eye one gets something as similar to The Darkness That Comes Before as needed to please the crowds that enjoyed Prince of Nothing, but as different to make it a completely different story. You get more of the same, so to speak, with an emphasis on 'more'. But also a little bit less.

Not everything is perfect. I feel that the inner dialogues of the characters have become more opaque, more strained. The metaphors flow just as in the previous books, but they communicate less, one makes more of an effort to get them and feel what the author meant, giving it a slight air of pompousness. I mean even a little kid philosophizes more than all the adults I know. The book has slightly more action scenes than I remember in Prince of Nothing, but they also feel more confusing. For all of Bakker's talent, I think he doesn't really understand combat and physical violence. He more than compensates with emotional and visceral violence, I agree, but I can't stop myself thinking of all the tactical applications that were never explored in battles purportedly fought by hardened veteran mercenaries.

His biggest sin, I believe, is that he doesn't follow through with the revelations that he awards the reader. I remember he was doing something similar in Prince of Nothing as well. He takes one through the labyrinthine mental processes of a character that marches uneventfully, but he fails to explain what exactly is happening - or at least what the characters are thinking - when something extraordinary happens. For example, in one scene, they discover a crazed individual with an eye on his heart, driven mad by the darkness that his heart is plunged into. A very powerful image. Yet Bakker doesn't explain anything. How was that possible? How did Akka know to look at his heart? What the hell were hordes of Sranc doing in a sterile dead mountain tunnel? No, instead we get to read about every single internal thought that the characters have about themselves and their lives. To quote from the book: "the work of a race that has gone insane for staring inward".

Bottom line: there is so much introspection in this book that barely anything happens. Falling into his own trap, Bakker gets seduced by his characters to the point of ignoring the universe in which they live. The book remains incredibly good and so I will venture to read the next one in the series. I already lament the fact that the third book of the Aspect-Emperor is not yet published and dread the moment when I will finish the second.

Another really nice book I am glad I readlistened to. In 2001 Neil Gaiman published this book, American Gods, and then,ten years later, a special tenth anniversary edition, with the "author's preferred text" and including an additional 12,000 words, was published by William Morrow in June 2011. Both versions of the book were adapted to audiobooks, the first just narrated, the second with a full (and talented) cast. This second version I listened to, on YouTube no less. Long story short, I liked the book a lot, even if it was a bit too long winding.

The story is not only interesting in concept - gods being created and fed by people's beliefs, then being forgotten and dying as belief wanes, but also in its many details borrowed from the world's superstitions and religions. We start with a man in prison, a calm, cerebral man, but also big and muscular. He is about to be freed from prison and return to his wife and his best friend to start his life anew. From then he is just thrown into this crazy world of supernatural beings, but not like all these lazy TV shows where there are vampires and werewolves at war, but slowly and subtly. Gods are at the same time what we remember them to be: big spiders, thunderbirds, gods of war, but also men and women that can be killed. They can be pitiful beings, old creatures that resent the newness of the world and of its people. I also liked that there was not a lot of the major religions, just a few hints at the end. No Christian or Muslim stuff, I mean. At the end of the audio book there is an appendix, Shadow meeting Jesus, that the author wrote but decided to keep out of the book because it didn't feel like it was part of it. I agree with him.

There is also a kind of Lord of the Rings ending to the book. Even if the main story arches ended, there are still several chapters after that. I could have lived without them, I guess. This verbosity is also the problem with the book. Laden with details and side stories and keeping the pace slow can be slightly boring. I never read the version published in 2001, but it was shorter, which was probably for the better. I liked that Gaiman left a lot of hints in his writing and even I was able to see through them. That was maybe another reason why the pace felt too slow, since I've glimpsed a little of the whole story and then just waited for it to reach that point. However, that is the exact reaction of the protagonist, when he figures stuff out. He feels like he already knew, but refused to actually bring it into consciousness.

The adaptation of the book was top notch, the protagonist, but more than this the man called Wednesday, were interpreted by talented actors and I found myself drawn into the story like a man slowly being pulled down in quicksand. Give it a try.

It was announced by Starz in July 2014 that they are preparing an adaptation of the book into a TV series. Also, while there are other Gaiman books and stories in the same universe (like Anansi Boys, from 2005, which some call American Gods #2), the author announced he is working on a direct sequel of the book only in 2011.

Another fantasy audio book, The Black Company is the first of ten of the ongoing series with the same name. Glen Cook probably thought about it for a while before writing it, because you can see that the first three books in the saga were published mere months apart (*cough*R.R.Martin*cough*). I was attracted by the story, because it seemed similar to my favorite Malazan Book of the Fallen series: a mercenary company fighting under the flag of powerful god-like magical beings that want to conquer the world. And in part the plot and characters were satisfactory. Alas, the many details and focus on small things like what games they played to pass time or what each character was like or maybe the narration style... I don't know; it all made it hard to focus on the story. I felt like the book could (and should) have been half in size, and better for it.

The main character is the doctor and analyst of the company, Croaker. Before your filthy mind thinks of other things, analyst in this context means he is a keeper of records, a chronicler of the company's history and, occasionally, the person who draws parallels between past experiences and current events. Croaker is an inquisitive person, often risking his personal safety to unlock a riddle or reveal a secret. Unlike Malazan, he is the lead character, through and through, and the company itself with its many soldiers and camaraderie just the backdrop.

Plot follows the Black Company in employment of The Lady, a powerful magician who wants to conquer the world, fighting the Rebel, a group of lesser magicians who have gathered the people of the land in response. Croaker has romantic fantasies about her, but throughout the book he discovers that his affections are misdirected, even if a strange relationship develops between them. Most of the story is about various battles, painstakingly (and painfully) described, only to be followed by the occasional interesting bit of character and plot development. In fact, I was kind of annoyed when I read the book summary on Wikipedia and I couldn't think of much that was left out. I mean, it's a big book.

The bottom line is that I am unsure if I want to listen to the rest of the series. While I can't say it was a bad book, or that is had weak plot or characters, I am reluctant to go through all that again for nine times. Basically I feel that the characters were never made empathetic enough, at least for me, and in the end all I cared about was what was going to happen next and how it would all end. In that case I would be better off reading synopses rather than listening to the entire thing. The overall structure of the story, though, has a lot of potential and I don't know if the series would not become really cool afterwards. To make the final parallel with Malazan, the first book in that series was not really making people eager to read the next, but it turned out to be great overall. I guess time will tell.

The Gift of Fear has popped up repeatedly in my field of view, recommended by multiple sources. I started reading it and at the beginning I thought it had a nice concept: the systematic study of violence perpetrated by people, written for reasons of protecting ourselves. However, Gavin de Becker has a writing style that got to me really fast. He sounds like he is the lecturer in a police conference, and half of everything he says is just marketing for the bits that are going to come next. You know the type: "I will reveal to you the secrets of the universe, but before I do that in one of the next chapters, let me tell you a little story". I mean, what he is saying makes sense, but he oversells it so brutally that I could not continue reading past the half of the book. You know, he sounds a lot like Walter O'Brien, the guy who's life is supposedly the basis of the TV show Scorpion. He doesn't sound like the O'Brien on TV, but like the actual guy, always overselling and overstating everything he allegedly did. Also the little anecdotes are useful in the book, but his explanations are so over the top. Man!

Anyway, the things that I chose to take from the book is the JACA system for assessing threats and the fact that when your intuition is telling you something, it either means it has access to some data that you are not conscious of or that it malfunctions and in either case you need to pay attention. The JACA system is about someone being more of a credible threat if they pass four tests. J: they feel Justified to harm you. A: they feel that they have no Alternative to violence. C: they believe the Consequences of violent action will be manageable. A: they believe they are Able to do you harm. Of course, that immediately makes someone believe that the first step of counteracting such a person is to convince them they are not justified, which fails on so many levels, especially with an antagonist.

The book covers all kind of violence: rape, murder, stalking, assassination, road rage, office vengeance, domestic violence, even violent children (I haven't gotten to that part). I can imagine how this book would be very useful to young people, scared women, maybe even children, but with the language being so pretentious and the guy making it all sound like a marketing pitch, I doubt it would be accessible to any of them. Let me reiterate: I believe the subject of the book is a good one and it should be addressed. I also don't criticize the conclusions that Becker reaches or doubt his professional experience. What I am saying is that the way the book is written stylistically made it unreadable for me. So instead of reading a few pages every week, I've decided to stop reading it. Sorry, Gavin! I only wish someone would make a short summary of it, since a lot of the stuff there is at least interesting, if not downright useful.

A World Out of Time is a book out of time as well. Larry Niven wrote the book in 1976 and it describes events that happen over a span of three million years, but it feels like The Time Machine. The hero is a guy from the 70s who's memory gets uploaded in the body of a convict hundreds years later, sent on a mission that was supposed to last tens of thousand of years (Earth time), but ending up in a joyride around the galaxy that brings him back on Earth millions of years later. The strange world of immortal creatures living like feudal savages in a world filled with broken and discarded technological wonder, but somehow still looking human, is difficult to take in. The cowboyish behaviour of the lead character and his inconsistent switch between genius and ineptitude don't help either.

It doesn't mean the book is not entertaining. I had fun with it. However it feels really long and old and I don't intend to read the other two Niven books in the same batch: The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring, even if they sound slightly more interesting.

The second book of The Reckoners series revolves around Firefight, a character from Steelheart, the first book, that I cannot explain without spoiling it. Brandon Sanderson outdid himself, managing to describe a dark world of bright colors, a desperate and dramatic situation in which hope shines through, an impossible romance inside a war story and a totally positive view on fear. Contrasts everywhere, like a bad metaphor that discovers it is a simile before a book ends. Well, if you read Firefight you will get the reference.

The action and plot of the book are much more detailed and a level above what happened in Steelheart. The villain is more interesting, the interactions between the members of the team are more complex, with various shades of conflict, plus an interesting new location in a sunken city filled with glowing plants that feed the people and provide light at the same time. I can't wait for Calamity, the third book in the series, to appear in 2016.