I enjoyed Effendi more than I expected to, particularly since it appears to be the middle book of a trilogy. I don’t really know where it sits in the Specfic genre wars. I mean, there’s a lot of cyberpunk in it, and a lot of post-apocalypse sort of thing, and a lot of semi-mystic stuff, and some infernokrusher, too.
John Scalzi recently wrote a longish essay on his view of the genre wars, which among other virtues tackles the question of genre from the point of view of the person who doesn’t read in the genre. I don’t altogether agree with his point (although I think the book-cover issue is, as he says, huge; many people really do judge books by their covers), but one thing he brings up is that in Science Fiction, more than Fantasy, the reader and the writer expect to share a quite large set of references of other genre works. This means that, for me, if the writer comes up with something that he thinks is all new’n’stuff, and I read it in 1978, then I dismiss the writer as trite and ignorant. It also means, then, that the writer must either come up with Something Really New (and also good, which is even harder) or riff off something that we both know, and not present the SF ideas as new. Fine for me. But when Joanna Novel-reader picks up her first SF book, and it’s (a) assuming she knows what wormholes are, or what an EMP weapon does, or what a newsplaque is, and it’s (2) presenting all that stuff with a kind of blasé, don’t-act-pleased, old-hat demeanor. This totally destroys Joanna’s sensawonda, and makes her feel a little snubbed. And since Joanna knows what sort of person reads science fiction, she’s being snubbed by geeks. No sale.
Digression: I wonder if how this applies to movies; I was young when Star Wars came out, but I suspect that most people who watched it in that first year were being introduced to the cool stuff in the movie, just like I was. Cool! A hovercar! Cool! Aliens in a bar! A Cyborg villain with no face! He talks to a little hologram-phone! The ships are totally bitchin’, and they need fixing all the time! A droid! And another one! That doesn’t look human and speaks in beeps! Cool! A light saber! Honestly, all of that was cool and new. Now we get, um, a light saber with two blades. Which was cool and all, but come on. What was there in the second trilogy that was as cool and new as all the stuff in Star Wars? Or as cool and new as a transporter beam, and a phaser that could be set on either stun or kill? End Digression.
In large measure, that’s just how it is. The mystery guy at the end of the book turns out to be an AI, and nobody’s at all surprised, and Jon Courtenay Grimwood is OK with that. The basic setting, a not-very-future world where massive tech advances haven’t improved the standard of living? Yep. The hero is some sort of teched-up mutant with control over musculature that would normally be involuntary? Oh, yes. It’s all good. It’s just that none of it’s new, or wonderful. Fortunately for me, I’m in it for the plot, which is actually handled reasonably well, up until the end, and even then it doesn’t so much fall apart as lose steam. But—well, let me put it this way. Anybody who reads less science fiction than YHB would almost certainly not like this book, and shouldn’t put it on the shortish list of science fiction to read. Anybody who reads more science fiction than I do has probably already read it, or already read something enough like it not to bother with this one. Which is not to say it’s a bad book. It’s not. It’s just caught, I think, in this trap set up by the stuff John Scalzi is talking about.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
That’s a really fascinating and insightful book review. I haven’t read, nor have I ever been likely to, read Effendi, nor had I even heard of it before, but the concepts you (and Scalzi) raise and apply are thoughtful and are applicable to so many things.
I guess I should read your book reviews of books I’ve never read or heard of more often; I sometimes skip those posts, but if they’re often like this, then they’re well worth reading.
Sheesh, what was I thinking when I stuck that comma between “to” and “read”? Not, much apparently….
Hmm. Thanks, for the praise. I wouldn’t say my book reports are often like this, but then the idea here is Mr. Scalzi’s, not mine. I will say that my book reports are meant to be (a) a log of what books I read, and I’m only, um, five or six behind now, and (2) an occasion for my musing on something that the experience of reading the book brings to mind. Often, as in this case, the musing is not so much about the book itself, and so might be interesting to somebody who isn’t interested in the book. On the other hand, I do give spoilers, so that’s a warning.
I really ought to write a note, perhaps for the beginning of the New Year, about what I’m writing in these book reports and why. It’s been two years now (less two weeks, and the six or seven books I’m behind on), so I should be able to articulate it by now, right?
Thanks,
-V.