Empty Review for Hire
Mar. 26th, 2013 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
Finished up a couple of books.
First up is Empty Space by M. John Harrison. This is the third book in his Light series. I read the first one back in 2004, skipped the second and heard good things about this one so I picked it up.
It was...ok. It's very literary so it hints and alludes to Big Meanings, but I'm not sure how much it says. It splits it's time between the far future near a physics-warping region of space called the Kefahuchi Tract and the near future of London where an old woman is having a little trouble with her garden shed burning down every night...except that it doesn't.
There are various plot lines in both near and far future and they slowly wind themselves together through the Tract and a mysterious alien artifact set to watch it. In the end? Well...the end is pretty much yours to decipher when you get there. It's not a neat ending and it's not a setup for a sequel it just...is. I usually enjoy Harrison's stuff but this didn't quite do it for me.
And neither did Wages: Future Tales of a Hired Gun by Zack Parsons. Mr. Parsons writes for SomethingAwful.com and I've been amused enough in the past that a $3 Kindle title seemed worth. And I pretty much got my money's worth. The book is a collection of short stories set over the next 30-50 years following an ex-Marine's adventures in private contracting. The book is hardly a gritty military thriller (although there's plenty of action). The guy just keeps getting crappy jobs and working his way through them losing a bit of himself each time. There's some fun American Collapse going on as the US breaks up, but there's nothing super stand-out in all of this. Anyway not great, not terrible, disposable reading at comic book prices.
later
Tom
Finished up a couple of books.
First up is Empty Space by M. John Harrison. This is the third book in his Light series. I read the first one back in 2004, skipped the second and heard good things about this one so I picked it up.
It was...ok. It's very literary so it hints and alludes to Big Meanings, but I'm not sure how much it says. It splits it's time between the far future near a physics-warping region of space called the Kefahuchi Tract and the near future of London where an old woman is having a little trouble with her garden shed burning down every night...except that it doesn't.
There are various plot lines in both near and far future and they slowly wind themselves together through the Tract and a mysterious alien artifact set to watch it. In the end? Well...the end is pretty much yours to decipher when you get there. It's not a neat ending and it's not a setup for a sequel it just...is. I usually enjoy Harrison's stuff but this didn't quite do it for me.
And neither did Wages: Future Tales of a Hired Gun by Zack Parsons. Mr. Parsons writes for SomethingAwful.com and I've been amused enough in the past that a $3 Kindle title seemed worth. And I pretty much got my money's worth. The book is a collection of short stories set over the next 30-50 years following an ex-Marine's adventures in private contracting. The book is hardly a gritty military thriller (although there's plenty of action). The guy just keeps getting crappy jobs and working his way through them losing a bit of himself each time. There's some fun American Collapse going on as the US breaks up, but there's nothing super stand-out in all of this. Anyway not great, not terrible, disposable reading at comic book prices.
later
Tom
