Book Review: 'Evolution' by Stephen Baxter
Nov 28, 2004
Joan Useb, a primatologist, attends a conference in mid 21-st Century Australia; one that could change the future of humankind. However, she is only the middle link in a chain of beings that stretches far into the past and future. As she prepares to make her stand for what she believes, the book delves into the line of primates from which Useb has sprung, and then travels into the future to see what consequences, if any, her actions will have on humanity in the millennia to come.
I always find it a cause for reconsideration when something is described as 'epic'. What 'epic' usually translates as, in modern times, is 'long'. Epics also tend to be packed with detail, a richness of imagination that extends to a full realisation of the world being described - in other words, 'long and full of pointless, dull bits'. Shame on me for thinking such a thing. Now you know I'm a philistine, and we can move past that.
Stephen Baxter is a man of preoccupations, which crop up time and again in his work. Here, his fascination for the history of life on Earth, and the possible stories of our ancestors resurfaces. It feels like Baxter's last novel, 'Origin', was a forerunner for this tome - a testing of ideas to be more fully explored here. Indeed, this is a tremendous undertaking - trying to dramatise the history of the primates from beginning to end. Unfortunately, the end result is best described as an impressive achievement, rather than a gripping novel.
Feeling more like a collection of short stories rather than one long narrative, this is a book primarily about animals, and thus almost void of dialogue, which can take some getting used to. The separate story-bubbles floating down the river of time are linked together by the theme of cause and effect, which struggles to the surface throughout - Baxter portrays man's intellectual development almost as a quest to fully comprehend the chains of cause and effect that can save us or doom us. A turning point for the book is contained in the chapter 'Mother's People', portraying one of the first humans to understand that actions have consequences, and her actions themselves reverberate through the rest of the novel.
Whilst impressive, it is difficult to truly immerse yourself in this book. Too much of it is too similar - there is too much primate in-fighting, head-smashing, and unsolicited love-making. The time in the light with cognisant humankind is too brief. All in all, the effort that has gone into writing 'Evolution' is all but wasted on people like me, who can't help but see it as almost 800 pages about nothing but monkeys.
R25968 13:16 28/11/04
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Book Review: 'Going Postal' by Terry Pratchett
Oct 31, 2004
Moist von Lipwig is a criminal, but one way or the other, he’s not going to be a criminal for very much longer. Shortly after death, he’s going to find himself in charge of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, where proceedings are run by a smelly old man and a pin-obsessive boy, and the backlog of old letters are literally screaming to be read.
Go on… admit it – it’s been quite a while since you last read a really good new Discworld book. Some people forgot what one actually was, to the extent they voted ‘Nightwatch’ one of the 100 Best Books ever written. For some reason, ‘Going Postal’ manages to break the recent trend, emerging as a really enjoyable book. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly why this is the case – it just feels more fun than other recent Pratchett novels; less like it’s been a labour to write, less strained. This novel is also less self-indulgent, less moralistically heavy-handed, just… better.
‘Going Postal’ is a mixture of old, medium old, and new. Ankh-Morpork is the same as it’s ever been, and it’s nice to return to familiar ground, with even Unseen University getting a look-in. Pratchett continues his fascination for the ‘clacks’ system, bringing it (almost) to the fore for the first time and does the concept justice in more than one sense. As for the new… this is the first Discworld novel to be written in chapters, and that feels unusual, but not unwelcome, and adds an extra breath of freshness to the proceedings.
With a setting that is great fun to explore, and a pace that never flags, ‘Going Postal’ makes a worthy addition to a once-great series of novels, which has lost the path lately. May the next book be as good, or better!
R25968 11:59 31/10/04
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Removals
Aug 27, 2004
It's not that I've abandoned these ancient and sacred grounds, I will be back, as usual, from time to time, but mainly to post reviews of things, which I feel is more appropriate to an online encyclopedia than my random wafflings about my day. Friends who actually *want* to read the random wafflings can find them on LiveJournal.com :
www.livejournal.com/~fraserd
R25968 26/8/04 18:46
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Bired
Jun 7, 2004
Gee... Boredom (or biredom, if you prefer) has set in again. This time, however, it's not from having work to do - rather the opposite in fact. Now that university is finished for the summer, I don't have a whole lot to do. I'm spending most of my time sitting at home trying to think of something to do. Of course, my main problem in life has always been the amount that I worry - I worry almost constantly, sometimes about sensible things, but usually about incredibly stupid, usually hypothetical problems that might befall me in my life, and then tend to convince myself that these are things that I actually need to worry about, when of course I don't.
That's the problem with being bored - my mind starts playing up, analysing everything, wasting my time. And the problem is if I try and do something else to take my mind off these worries, and in fact that thing turns out to be boring itself, my mind just returns to those worries it had before even more fervently. So I have to try and fill my time as much as I can with things that interest me, and there aren't very many of those. Even television and reading, two staples of my normal daily life, tend to bore me in these periods. I like the escapism they provide when I have real work to do, but when there's nothing 'real' to do, they're just as boring to me as everything else.
So, really, what I like doing best is getting out and talking to my friends, but even then you can't do that all day every day. Still, I'm trying my best to get out and arrange things to do. My one-sided love affair with Sam is now probably over - she didn't reply to messages I sent her asking her, casually, if she wanted to see a film, so I guess that's the end - I've actually pestered her so much that she won't even reply to me to say 'no' any more. There are, of course, other possible explanations for the lack of response - perhaps she has no credit on her phone, perhaps she's lost her phone, perhaps my messages aren't getting sent or received, or her replies aren't getting sent or received by our respective mobiles - but Occam's razor would have me look for the simplest explanation possible, and that explanation is simply that she received them, but can't be bothered replying.
Well, writing this has given me something to do for the last five minutes or so - it has exercised my brain, and all that, and left me feeling slightly refreshed in some odd way. I'll go and try very hard not to worry about something silly for a while.
R25968 18:18 7/6/04
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Film Review: 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'
Jun 1, 2004
Young wizard Harry enters his third school year with a dark shadow hanging over him; the man who betrayed his family to the evil Voldemort has escaped from the prison of Azkaban, and the Ministry of Magic believe he’s looking for Harry. When the demonic prison-guards known as dementors seem to take an interest in Harry, he discovers it may not be simply his life, but his very soul that is at risk.
The best of the five Potter books written so far gets the Hollywood treatment under director Alfonso Cuaron, instead of Christopher Columbus, leaving a niggling change-in-style feeling in the viewer’s mind which fades after five minutes or so. Once again, the world of Harry Potter is fantastically well-realised from a visual point of view: hippogriff Buckbeak is perfect, and the Dementors send the same shivers down your spine on screen as they did from the pages of the book. Although many people would place this third film above the previous two, it’s more equal with the ‘Chamber of Secrets’ movie. The feel is the same, although the darkness is more complete; there’s slightly less time to recover before being plunged into murk again, but the time in the light is refreshing.
Whilst much has changed for film three – including some of the settings, and even, apparently the lay-out of the castle (has anyone seen that pendulum before? Anyone?) and grounds (was Hagrid’s hut really on a steep hill last year?), some things have not. Rupert Grint still displays a stubborn inability to act, and screen-writer Steve Kloves is still mis-judging slightly the back-story he chooses to cut out. The biggest change of all is possibly Dumbledore’s metamorphosis from Richard Harris to Michael Gambon. Though Gambon makes the effort, the feeling of wisdom and concealed power is lacking. This is, however, possibly due to the very small part Dumbledore is given in this movie, and something that may be rectified in future. Other new faces fare considerably better, especially Emma Thompson, whose portrayal of Professor Trelawney is spot-on.
Director Cuaron also has a go at wedging a theme into the film, in the form of mirrors and reflections, as Harry gazes at himself in windows and lakes. The contrast of appearance and reality is an important one for a film whose turning point should fall on the existence of shape-shifting animagi, though, strangely, little time is actually devoted to bringing out this facet of JK Rowling’s Potter mythology. Instead, it is one of a series of reflection-based points, to be linked loosely with the fear-mirroring ability of the boggart, and Harry’s vision of his father in himself.
Overall, ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ is a hollow victory – a great story tears along, and never drags, but the depth of Rowling’s world has been snatched out from underneath it. Trying hard to reflect the intricacy and imagination of the novels, the film succeeds more fully in reminding us that a reflection is not the same as the real thing.
R25968 20:52 1/6/04
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