draggonlaady

I read a couple short stories while away from the computer and The Sky So Big and Black, so brief summaries:

Chewed through 2 Cory Doctorow stories; I Row-boat and A Place So Foreign. Both are available for free download from his website. I encourage you to go try some of his stuff if you haven't.
I Row-boat was twisty and fun, and other than feeling sorry for the parrotfish (you'll understand if you read it), I really liked it. A fairly short story, so a quick read, and I really enjoyed the concept of spam as the origin of successful artificial intelligence.

A Place So Foreign was good, but I didn't enjoy it quite as much. I am a bit slow, sometimes - I sort of half-caught some things but didn't understand the underlying meanings until much later, which had me pretty confused and distracted from the story for a while. Also, I think Bruce may have gotten tired of seemingly random questions like "Hey, who wrote The Island of Dr. Moreau?" and "No, I a CERTAIN Verne didn't write War of the Worlds, what the Hell, has Doctorow lost his mind?" It made sense eventually, but I had a harder time getting into this one.

I also attempted but gave up on Breaking Down, by Lelanthran Krishna Manickum (downloaded from Smashwords). Yeah, yeah, I know, it's only 8 pages long, but I still only made it half way. Just not into the whole "God was a mis-understood, lost alien" concept, I guess.

I did make it all the way through Samantha Warren's Battle of Black River, which I apparently downloaded from amazon at some point. It was decidely mediocre; the intro to a series, apparently, but not one that I think I'll be pursuing.

And now I'm gonna pull up something nice and fluffy, cuz The Sky So Big And Black seems to've left a bit of a heavy spot in my emotions.

Yep. That chapter was just about depressing as Hell.

Off to float on the river for a while, will be back to read about the after effects of the Sunburst later.

This review is going to be a little different - I was requested by sagaciouslu for thoughts on a couple books, so I'm going to be writing as I read instead of just a quick "I liked it" summary at the end. That means there will probably be spoilers. Get over it - the book's been out for a decade. The Sky So Big And Black, by John Barnes

sagaciouslu - before you start reading this, keep in mind that I pick things apart and proofread compulsively. Just cuz I point out negative details doesn't mean I don't like the overall total! Though If I don't like it, I'll tell ya... :D

First page and we've already got a phrase I like: I raise my glass to my own reflection in the mirror by the door; lately this is as close as I get to drinking with a colleague.

Hmm. We've got 15 pages of establishing that the narrator is a lonely guy who drinks too much... time to move on?

Ok, we're at 20 pages and whiskey number 4... as-yet-nameless narrator has been waxing philosophical about the next generation for several pages. I am perhaps a bit impatient, but isn't there supposed to be action about here? I understand you have to establish the characters but...

Page 22 we get to what I think is the main character, based on the back of the book.

Page 26; I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the details of terraforming. I kind of like the concept of getting paid for spreading shit, though.

"Your aunt Callie is real nice about accidentally getting luxury goods to wander into our mail."

So I'm a bit confused here. Earlier, we were told specifically that folks mark age by earth years still, but everything else by Mars time. Now we're in Teri's story, and the only age indicator we have is the year she was seven... but she's talking about getting married and Dad says he got married younger than she is? Clearly there's been some time lapse there, but it's never really stated.
Okay, 5 pages later we have mention of "next 10 Mars years, so you probably won't be forty yet", which makes her about 20 Earth years? Maybe? Makes more sense for marrying, but I feel like trying to work this stuff out is a bit distracting from the story.
Page 41 we get a definitive answer, she's 15. In the meantime there was some pretty interesting discussion of Marsformed humans (as opposed, of course, to Terraformed Mars surface) and the debate about whether it's better to fit their descendants to the planet or fit the planet to themselves. Also, I want a picture of the Marsform, it sounds interesting.

ooh, deep driller sounds seriously dangerous and cool.

Clearly I am a total geek. Teri and her geography lessons are way more interesting to read than narrator and his philosophizing.

hahahahahahahahahahaahaha! "The next time...I hope you're a full adult, so that I can give you a beating and have it be simple assault instead of child abuse." (page 62 now, going a lot faster since we've been following Teri instead of narrator.)

Her dad had a bad habit of telling his little girl the truth, too. Probably spoiled her for life.

Page 80. The more I hear of her beau, the more I think Teri can do better for herself.

Bed time for me. More later. There's clearly been a lot of research put into this book, in geology and astronomy especially. Not a fluffy sort of sci-fi with randomly unexplained major precepts. Makes me wish I knew more about it. Liking Teri steadily more as we go, though her hang-up about the Marsforms is kind of grating on my anti-prejudice nerves.