Profound, profane or pedestrian

I bought this last week and finished reading for the second time today. I liked this a lot

( and here's why. )

Just finished reading William Gibson's classic Neuromancer. I'm embarrassed to admit that in 35 years of reading SF, I have never read this book - and, to be honest, I am not sure that I should have now. I guess that my problem is that this book tries too hard to get its future projection "right" and so, where it misses, it is really obvious. The edition I had was a 20th Anniversary one and there is an additional Foreword from Gibson in which even he comments on his complete miss on mobile phone technology. When the fiction really is speculative, I don't mind. I can still read ERB's John Carter of Mars or H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds and not find the "future" vision too jarring because it doesn't even try to get it "right" - it just asks "What if?" Neuromancer fails for me because it isn't speculative enough, not in the sense of being inventive or creative but more in the sense that its characters, dspite all the bells and whistles and flash toys are just us, with the bells and whistles and flash toys!

There's good here, don't get me wrong and Gibson can pace a story very well and keep a plot rolling along. But I just didn't get immersed in this like I do in good SF - I was always aware of reading this because something always distanced me from it. What was that? Not a clue, sorry!

Just finished reading "A Certain Chemistry" by Mil Millington. The is his second book and just as good as his first - not as funny, mind, but a better story.

( The Review's back here. )

Sorry, that should have been "Still Life with Woodpecker". I know when I am in a trouble when I find the jacket quote (which, if Tom Robbins was thinking at all, should know is an insult) more amusing than anything in the book. The quote (apparently from an unnamed British critic) is "Tom Robbins writes like Dolly Parton looks". For me, I translated this as meaning that Robbins' writing is overblown, looks pretty at a distant but very forced close up and is the product of a deliberate manipulation and exaggeration of something which is rather ordinary at heart. And that that's OK - if that is all you are looking for.

Don't get me wrong, Robbins is a writer with a wonderful turn of phrase:

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm."

and

"Somewhere between champagne and tequila is the secret history of Mexico, just as somewhere between beef jerky and Hostess Twinkies is the secret history of America"

but story? meh! characterization? meh! people I want to know more about? me! improved my knowledge of the world? meh! posed questions that make me consider my view of the world? meh!

The title of the post, btw, is a quote from Dexter describing himself.

I have just finished reading Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter. Because I have great problems writing reviews without spoilers, ( the rest of the review is behind the cut. )