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The plot: aliens visit, and they call themselves the Constellation. They're kinda strange, but they want to help, even if they don't understand humanity all that well. A video game programmer who also reviews old games writes to them, and for some reason they write back and start sending him alien games to play.

Maybe I'm old. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe I'm an emotionally hollow shell of a man. But this book isn't all that great.

The idea of starting off with an alien first contact and somehow establishing contact on the basis of proposing to review alien video games is a nice conceit. The idea that much of the novel starts off in the form of game reviews and blog posts is... well, Dracula did it first, but I suppose if you're going to write something that's introspective and navel gazing, a diary / review format is a good choice.

The issues I have with this book (spoilers):


Ariel (the protagonist) is not a programmer. It's not about dropping the right buzzwords -- he just doesn't have the mindset you'd get from squashing logic errors and preconceptions all day.

The government is too damn incompetent. There are only two ex-TSA boobs talking to Ariel, and he's one of only three thousand people who've captured individual interest on this level. I understand it's being played for laughs, but Slaughterhouse 5 this is not -- the aliens exist, and they're the most important thing in the world. Not only does the government not take any real interest in Ariel, but even the Media and readers don't give a crap. Imagine a world in which a single guy is getting video games from ALIENS, and can just leave them around his apartment.

The aliens are too damn incompetent. Again, this is supposed to be played for laughs, but seriously: taking away the icecaps! Without even asking! That's not comedy, that's terrifying. Creatures that powerful and that invasive making impulsive decisions for humans isn't even remotely funny -- it's the difference between the idea of a drunk teenager, and a drunk, politically motivated teenager with a tank.

Ariel is too damn incompetent. While he does find some decent computer games and finds some interesting social commentary that points out what other civilizations were going through when they met the Constellation, it doesn't really make any difference to the plot, or make Ariel any more insightful. He's consistently babied by the aliens and his friends, and gets invited to huge earth-shaking events only to stand there and wonder if he's going to get laid by the hot astronaut.


Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

Short version: the protagonist likes to do as little as humanely possible while the all singing, all dancing manic pixie dream aliens carry the entire plot around. Avoid.

So, David Nickle wrote a set of short stories called Monstrous Affections, which are chilly and brilliant and disturbingly rendered. So when I saw Eutopia, I picked it up. Didn't have to think twice about it.

Eutopia is... well, it's set in 1911, in a small town in Idaho, with a cast of characters and only a couple of different locations. There's Andrew Waggoner, a black doctor (and no-one ever lets him forget about it), the Harpers, the family that bought the sawmill and essentially co-opted the town. There's the Pinkerton boys, especially Sam Greene, who are providing security and running all over the place... and there's the hicks up in the mountains. Then finally, there's Jason and his aunt who just showed up in town.

And then there's Mr Juke, who also shows up in the first few pages. He doesn't say much. He just whistles.

So. There are parts of this book which are very creepy and effective, and I can see how putting everything together in a small town in 1911 would enhance it. For me, though, it ended up making it far less understandable. I grew up in London, and so the thread of hellfire religion and blurring of lines between community and cult didn't emotionally connect. What I could see were the bones of one of the stories from Monstrous Affections, The Sloan Men. Given the connection, I couldn't help thinking that the short story was far more effective and efficient than Eutopia.

Which brings me to the issue I have with Eutopia. There is drama and intrigue in Eutopia, but so much of it is trope driven. So, onto the detailed criticism.

Jason's aunt obviously ISN'T, and just happens to be carrying a "solve all your problems" disease in her bag. Jason is a big dumb protagonist action hero brought in from elsewhere who hits and shoots people, while Andrew is the intellectual who deciphers the mystery. Sam Greene is the Gandalf who shows up when all is hopeless. So far, so gravy. But there's a lack of ability to put things together that seems contrived. Mr Harper -- the man who starts the community and carries a creature that makes you worship it -- is carrying an IdiotBall almost through the entire book, even hiring a doctor who has clearly been subverted from day 1. Jason is dumb enough not to wonder how Ruth got away after the town is invaded, when it's obvious that in fact she didn't and is carrying jukespawn. Even after people come up with countermeasures (the tea, physical pain), it's not used as a sanity test to check against compromised individuals. The Thing, this book is not.

Having said all of that, it's a cut above most books and it makes a point of going for more than the Scary Thing With Teeth That is Right Behind You. So.

I wish I could say I liked this book. I enjoyed Fun Home, and think that Bechdel is a remarkable writer.

But she starts the book by saying that she's going to write about her mother, and then starts talking about how she can't do that. She tries to pick out events out of her childhood and her mother's life, and writes about talking about it in psychoanalysis. This is, essentially, the entire book. Bechdel's conceptual framework clearly thinks that analysis is important, but for her it seems to be an end in itself.

Bechdel doesn't ask for her mother's permission to expose her private life and communication, but it turns out her mother is savvy enough to understand the book isn't about her at all. There's no great insight to be gained from her therapy, her analysis of therapy, her writing about her analysis of therapy, her writing about the analysis of the analyst responsible for the theory of psychoanalysis of children (I'm not even joking).

There's only her mother's quiet, ironic voice saying "Isn't this a waste of time, dear?" And she's right.

Kraken starts off slowly and rolls around, but consistently gains velocity as it goes.

I liked Kraken, although it reminded me of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (especially when it comes to Croup and Vandemar), but that's Mieville's thing -- he's addicted to language, cities, and the free floating consensual hallucination that attaches the one to the other. Mieville's London is a old, smelly, dirty and beaten place, full of characters of the ages who are halfway between parody and archetype, not so much believable as characters in and of themselves, but providing a panopoly of unlikely abilities and free floating zealotry.

Somewhere in the middle of this, the characterization of the protagonist and his friends is left out. Billy is rarely more than a placeholder for other people's beliefs, and his friends and enemies are hamstrung by circumstance. While "saving the world" doesn't leave you much room for personal banter, I did wonder exactly how on earth Billy could be taking everything on without a crisis of faith of sorts.

I think that the premise itself is responsible. Kraken suffers under the weight of of a predestined future in which something has Really Done Goofed, but in which the various uncoordinated actors, acting in the best intents, are inadvertantly lurching towards it in the process trying to avoid it. This, to my mind, is a cheat. Predestination, like time travel, must be used sparingly else it turns into prestidigitation. It gives the author too much room to waggle fingers around in causality -- it's far too convenient to apply apocalyptic visions when the plot starts to flag, and Kraken is driven by this engine far too often.

Similarly, there's always a moment in China Mieville's books when the fabric of the belief system is stretched a little too far and you think to yourself "hang on, according to the stated rules, there's a deep category error here." And then the flaw in the diamond is revealed, and you wonder why, if it didn't smell right to begin with, that it's presented as a revelation. Sometimes, as in Embassytown, it doesn't quite hang together -- the system is so incoherent that there's no real structure to poke holes in. Other times, as in The Scar, it's brilliantly obvious in retrospect. Kraken is a mix of the two -- I'd like to believe in the ending, but I don't quite, because Kraken contravenes its own rules.

So here's the flaw which surpasseth my suspension of disbelief. As stated by "the sea", the Kraken in the sea is not subject to human observation and understanding, and the Kraken in the bottle is a human construct. This is borne out by the fight between Billy and Grisamentum. If the Kraken in a bottle is a human construct and Billy is a bottle god (representing scientific thalience), then the stated end of the world is Bullshit with a capital B. Darwin's work of Evolution with memory fire does not destroy the Sea, because Evolution as a scientific theory is a human construct. Destroying the map doesn't destroy the territory, and destroying the idea of Evolution doesn't burn the entire world and everything in it to a crisp. it just puts you back two hundred years.

So, good book, but not one I'm going to re-read.

I'm a bit conflicted about this book.

On one hand, it's straightforward. No messy language details, no recondite SAT vocab words. There's no complex philosophical question to be considered, no mysterious butterflies or green frogs that tell you the Author Is Being Symbolic.

On the other hand... it's almost insultingly simple. It's a story about the daughter of a couple who can teleport, and how they've spent all their time living off the grid hiding from the people who attempted to kidnap them. The daughter turns 15 and they enroll her at a school, where hilarity ensues.

So here's the thing. This girl is supposed to be a genius. She could skip several grades and finishes the math and science questions early because she's so good. No social problems fitting into her school at all. S If anyone should be pretentious and smug and using big words and wondering about her future and screwing around with generators, it should be her.

Instead, she's near perfect. She's into Japanese anime, the Brontes, etc... and she's beautiful and she can teleport. She's a Mary Sue character in every sense of the world. Her enemies are almost laughably evil and misguided (a religious teacher who "just knows" people she doesn't like are Up To Something, drug dealers, etc) and while it's true she doesn't appreciate the work her parents have put into keeping her safe, it beggars belief that she wouldn't be more prudent for the sake of what her parents went through.

Put more bluntly, I REALLY WANTED ONE OF HER PARENTS TO DIE as a result.

As it is, this is a young adult book on the level of "Name of the Wind" -- it's good as wish fulfillment, but there are so many things it could have done better.