(I used to call this type of post "Bits and Pieces." I like the new name better.)
Let's start with TV.
Mad Men has returned for the third season. Set in the tumultuous year of 1963, this season has started slow. The various storylines (both new and old) have a deliberate pace and succeed at setting mood and tone as they slow ratchet the tension. At this rate it may be season's end before all this tension comes to a head. And speaking of tension, one can't really watch the new season without thinking about the world-shaking events that are soon to occur. The question is: When in the season arc will the Kennedy assassination happen? Will the writers wait for the end or place the tragedy in the middle of the story? Which is the best dramatic choice? Personally, I hope they deal with it sooner rather than later. Right now, watching
Mad Men is like watching the first act of any Pearl Harbor story. We're just waiting for the bombs to fall.
I realize I've reduced the subtle and complex drama of
Mad Men to rather simplistic terms. The show has never been a historical drama. It's a period piece and good one. The characters and setting are rich and the themes of identity and artifice are wholly integrated into the drama. But the atmosphere of the show has always had a
fin de siecle quality. A way of life is ending. Big changes are coming. A modern audience can't help but think of 1963 in this way. I'm sure, then, that the writers will work hard to either make us forget the imminent changes about to befall the characters or satisfactorily make those changes part of the drama. Either way I'll be watching.
(One last note about
Mad Men. The show has certainly made me less interested in HBO's
True Blood, a series that has all the subtlety of a travelling circus. Compared to
Mad Men, True Blood is nothing but melodrama and loud, horny characters. Let's face it: Where
Mad Men is delicate,
True Blood is gaudy; where
Mad Men is nuanced,
True Blood is coarse. What's more,
True Blood has become increasingly superficial; there's just nothing to care about in the show. (Probably because it's not "about" anything.) I watch it now from a distance and with some impatience.
Mad Men, however, fully involves me, emotionally and intellectually.)
Books: I recommend
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente -- a beautifully written fantasy about a magical city accessed through dreams. This one was wholly captivating. I also liked
Positively Fifth Street by James McManus--an exciting, real world look at high stakes poker. Less interesting was
World War Z by Max Brooks,
The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. All these books have gotten rave reviews and there is much to like in them. But
World War Z lacked any narrative drive (you have to really be into zombie fiction to appreciate it);
The Magicians featured a highly unlikeable protagonist who failed (in my opinion) to grow up by the end; and
The Knife of Never Letting Go was aimed at a young audience and lacked any kind of subtlety (which is OK, really, but the first-person urgency of the narrative became wearing after a while).
Comics: I've read some great illustrated work over the past two months and I'm saving my reviews for a separate post. Look for it soon.
More on David Foster Wallace: We are approaching the first anniversary of Wallace's death. No doubt we'll be hearing more about Wallace's life and his last, unfinished novel (
The Pale King) in the weeks to come. Wisconsin Public Radio has already put together a wonderful tribute which can be found
here. Go give it a listen. I cannot recommend this program highly enough (the excerpt of Wallace's Kenyon commencement address alone is worth your time).
A few months ago I clumsily attempted to express what Wallace's loss meant to me. Recently, I found the perfect remembrance of Wallace by Sven Birkerts in
Agni. I'm ending this post with his words. Where I stumbled, Birkerts dances:
"We are fortified by the work of our writers, by their specific books, but no less important is the sense we have, so long as they are alive, that they are with us, in our midst, engaged, taken up with seeing and thinking and processing--with writing. They make up an important part of the invisible but pervasive and perceptible sum-total that we recognize as our culture. When they die, we feel a terrible diminution, a suction of available energies withdrawn. As if suddenly we all have that much less purchase on reality. The air feels thinner and our gestures of thought feel heavier, more cumbersome, less part of a common purpose."
Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H. F. Saint (1987). Forget the movie and check out the best invisibility story ever written. Nick Halloway is made invisible after a science experiment goes wrong. Even though he can't be seen, Nick learns that when the government is after you, it's pretty hard to stay hidden. This one is a real page-turner. I've always wondered why Saint never wrote another book. Was the name H. F. Saint really a pseudonym for another, better-known writer? I mean, the name seems awfully suspicious. (Does anyone else think of H. G. Wells when they see it?) Oh well. H. F. Saint--whoever you are, wherever you are--I love your one and only book.
Terraplane by Jack Womack (1988). This came out after the big "cyberpunk" boom when fans of that subgenre were looking for something new and original. Along comes Womack with a book that featured savvy tech agents from a corporate-dominant future travelling back in time to an alternate past where FDR was assassinated and slavery didn't end until the beginning of the 20th century. Add to that a wonderful jargon that demands a careful reading and you've got the first "post-cyberpunk" cyberpunk novel. Excellent.
Voyage to The Red Planet by Terry Bisson (1990). There's a heck of a lot of good Mars books out there but few critics mention this minor classic from Bisson. The book is a lighthearted look at a corporate sponsored trip to Mars. (Actually Disney has bought NASA and now wants to make a film on Mars. So of course they send cast and crew on location!) The book has great humor but also really good SF. And it has a wonderful ending. This one really belongs next to Robinson, Bear and Benford in the SF Mars library.
Evolution's Darling by Scott Westerfeld (2000). The closest thing to an Iain M. Banks "Culture" book not written by Iain M. Banks! Evolution's Darling is a sweeping space opera about an AI ("Darling," of the title) that gains sentience and becomes involved (in more ways than one) with Mira, an assassin whose job it is to kill an artist who works (possibly illegally) with AI's. Westerfeld has made quite a name for himself as an author of teen and young adult books (the Uglies and Midnighters series) but this book is explicitly "adult" (emphasis on explicit). But it is also a mature book, one that deals deftly with the themes of sentience and identity. This is high-quality SF.
On by Adam Roberts (2001). This is a book that has really stayed with me. The premise of the story is that, once-upon-a-time, gravity on Earth turned sideways. (I know, sounds weird, but Roberts includes a whole appendix that spells out the possible science behind the idea.) Anyway, the flat ground suddenly became a world-size vertical plane. (The book's opening line perfectly establishes this dangerous setting: "On Tighe's eighth birthday one of the family goats fell off the world.") The story echoes the books of Gene Wolfe in that it features a young male protagonist who finds himself on a journey of discovery, soon learning that the world is far more interesting, dangerous, and technological than he ever expected. The book's concept is quite unsettling. What if the world did turn sideways? Friends and family who live but a few miles from you would suddenly become inaccessible (if they even survived the initial disaster). This is one of those books you keep thinking about long after you've finished it.
