Review - Zima Blue and Other Stories by Alastair Reynolds

[guppiecat]

Warning, this review is non-spoilery, but quite negative. If you're a Reynolds fan, you are as welcome to a differing opinion as I am to mine.

Over the weekend, I finished reading Zima Blue and Other Stories by Alastair Reynolds. To be fair, I only picked this up because he is to be the guest of honor at Minicon, and I thought I should give him a try. Interestingly, I was then sitting at home, the book was on my stack, and a friend noted the author and said "Yeah, I had to stop reading him. Too depressing."

In nutshell, I have to say that this is the last book of his that I intend to read. He's too depressing.

Going to a deeper level, of the various stories here, they all tended to end on something of a downer. Sometimes this can be good, as in "Beyond the Aquila Rift", which delves into just how alien alien worlds can be. However, it's not generally so good, and the entire volume reads as a combination of a mishmash of events and a catalog of missed opportunities. I was happy when I finished the last story, not because it was happy (it was NOT), but because I didn't have to read any more of his stories.

His protagonists lack a certain positivity that seems to be inherent in the characters that I like. In most of my favorite stories, characters will overcome adversity. In these stories, the characters surrender to it. The depression is offset by some decent physics... though Reynolds does seem to have something of a black hole fetish (taking appreciation of super massive bodies to a whole new level). However, this offet is offset by his utter lack of understanding of evolutionary biology. It is ridiculous to assume that evolution will halt once humans start living in space, especially as evolutionary changes increase in the face of stressors.

• "The Real Story" explores the man who first landed on Mars and the woman who is interviewing him. It does not end satisfactorily for either.


• "Beyond the Aquila Rift" is excellently written and a brilliant idea from the beginning to anti-penultimate page, after which it all falls down a deep dark hole. (Metaphorical, not literal... that comes later). Stargate did a better job with the concept.
  
• "Enola" is a post-apocalyptic story about machines that is ruined by a lack of mathematically-realistic metric terms. It ends in a way to irritate the reader, which would work well except that I was already irritated by "Beyond the Aquila Rift". It's also twice as long as it should be, and still doesn't explain things satisfactorily. This should be taken back in time and re-written by Theodore Sturgeon.


• "Signal to Noise" is a brilliant concept with characters that are almost realistic... but since they're not, it doesn't work. The end was predictable and utterly irrelevant to me. This is a classic example of a "neat idea" that is ruined by poor relationship writing. Sadly, many "hard scifi" authors suffer from this problem.


• "Hideaway" explores a far future and is one of the stories that I hated due to a disregard of evolution. That, and the fact that there is a whole of start-stop action that takes FOREVER to get to the point, and when we finally get there, it's not really worth the journey. Oh, and it's got black holes for no good reason.


• "Merlin's Gun" is the sequel to "Hideaway", in that one character makes it to the sequel. This would be good if he were written (even marginally) as the same person. It's also a sequel in that we get more black holes! You know how Alien had one alien, and was scary, and Aliens had to add a LOT more aliens to be almost as scary? He did that with black holes here. They have the advantage of being marginally useful to the plot, but the phrase "Rocks fall, everyone dies" would have worked just as well.


• "Angels of Ashes" gets the benefit of the doubt as it was clearly written with Catholic symbologies, and as I am not a Catholic, I might have missed something. However, the core premise is that of the quantum anthropomorphic principle (if you know what that is, you wouldn't enjoy the story, so I'm not spoiling anything), and could have been better.


• "Spirey and the Queen" is cool. I wouldn't go out and get the book for this one story, but it's a neat idea and I actually cared about one of the characters. It made sense, and though some of the twists were unnecessary, it was enjoyable.


• "Understanding Space and Time" would have been EXCELLENT were it half as long. As it stands, it's just depressing in that "the world sucks, but I accept it" sort of way. Of course, there is a black hole. No reason for one, mind you. There are many many ways to reach the same end without one, but there's one anyway. Maybe he's got a quota?


• "Zima Blue" is a brilliant idea that ends just as it should. It's well crafted though a trifle wordy. Also, I recommend that the wrist-slitting knife be rusty, 'cause it will hurt more -- thus magnifying its depressing brilliance once you're done with it.

In conclusion, this is a good book to read and be able to say "Yes, I've ready Alastair Reynolds" and then change the subject. It's also good if you've just been dumped, gotten fired, or had a friend die and need something other than alcohol to drive you to your own person nadir. However, it's excellent if you have the need of an approximately rectangular solid 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches (or 2.31E8 x 1.6E8 x 3E8 nanometers, if you're a Reynolds fan).

Of course, if you have a decent wooden plank and saw, you can make your own.

Comments

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

Wow: I have no interest in reading the book now (not that I had any before), but I'm certainly interested in reading more of your negative reviews - that was delightful!

Thank you for the diversion.

[guppiecat]

I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I always question myself before I post something negative like that. It's good to know that it's appreciated.

So far as others go, I hope to not stumble across such awful material too frequently, but when I do, I'll try to write it up for you. I actually have one in the "to be reviewed" stack that might work.

If you *really* want me to, I could refresh my knowledge on Newtonian Dynamics and write one on the truly horrible textbook I had to use back in the day. :)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

yeesh. sounds like the reason i swore off ben elton (who has the nasty habit of having the good guys lose on the last page)

[guppiecat]

But... that's what makes it literature!

If you enjoy it, it can't be "great art". (That's why "Guernica" isn't a pastoral painting of historical oaks) :)

[nancymcc.livejournal.com]

Similarly, in the mystery category where I usually hang out, I have to work hard to avoid authors who think that humans are basically nasty and deserve all the nasty things that happen to them (especially those that they do to each other).

The better written they are, the more effectively they communicate this, so I often read between the lines of glowing reviews. Apparently many reviewers are pleased by authors who confirm their self-hatred.