Amazon's Mobipocket

After lugging around 1000-page books on the subway for a few months, I've come to realize that it's not a practical solution in the long run. It's a hassle even when the weather's fine, so I'll probably give up when winter starts. The problem is that a book this big doesn't fit even inside my relatively large pockets, which means I either need to go about my daily life one-handed while fumbling with the book in the other hand, or get a bag to put it in. As much as I love and respect Joey, I don't share his love for man's bags, stylish though they may be.

Enter technology. I remembered hearing about Mobipocket, an e-book reader that runs on your phone and enables you to read books in digital format. I visited Mobipocket.com and had a shiny new book on my phone within minutes. Yes, I actually bought a book almost immediately, which is unusual seeing how stingy I can be. I boycott restaurants that I think are too expensive, and I hardly ever buy anything if I don't feel that I really need it. Thing is, I couldn't pass up their deal on Peter F. Hamilton's Night's dawn trilogy. If I'd bought those three books in paper form for the cheapest price I can find in Sweden, they'd sum up to 340 SEK. At Mobipocket.com, the entire trilogy in digital form is 79 SEK. Three e-books, cheaper than a single paper book. The price was worth it to just try out the software and see if I'd be comfortable reading on my mobile phone.

As it turns out, I kind of miss turning real paper pages, and the glare of the LCD screen can be irritating at times. However, there are just so many benefits. The weight, for one. I recently moved, first to a new town and then to a new apartment in the same town within a year. During that same year, I helped my parents move. The experience convinced me that a box full of books must be among the heaviest things on Earth. If all my books were digital, they would all fit in my pocket and weigh next to nothing. Secondly, I now always have a book handy, since I always take my phone with me wherever I go. No more sitting on the subway (or toilet) longing for something to read. Actually, now I can even pretend to do something relatively important and relevant with my phone during boring meetings when in fact I'm engrossed in an epic battle between organic starships and their mechanical counterparts. Third, as I've already mentioned, the price is right. Mobipocket has apparently been acquired by Amazon.com, which started out as an online bookstore and thus should have some experience in the field. Finally, as if you even needed a fourth reason, you can never lose a Mobipocket e-book since you can simply download it as many times as you want from the website. Also, e-books don't tear or get soggy, and nobody can ruin them by scribbling in them or underlining entire passages of text. Well, Mobipocket actually lets you enter notes in books, but it's purely optional and you don't have to view them, which does make it a feature as opposed to the eternal scourge of booklovers everywhere.

The only problem I have now is that I have too many books to read. My latest impulsive purchase brings me to a total of eight unread sci-fi novels. I have some catching up to do.

Pandora's Star

Tuesday, July 31

I am currently reading Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. I'm on page 163 of 1144, which seems a ridiculous length for a novel, but it's so good I'm already one tenth in. I've decided to simply add my experiences to this post as I go along.

In a book of this size, you're bound to stumble across a curious turn of words here and there, but some of them seem intentional, such as "[...] Wilson walked along a long, meandering gravel track [...]", or when describing the layout of a starship development complex, "[t]he complex layout was simple enough." I like to think that Hamilton wrote these phrases off the top of his head, spotted the rhymes and ostensible paradoxes and amusedly decided to keep them, wondering if his readers would spot them as well. This sort of shared jokes with the reader appeals to me, because then I get to squeal "I caught them, Mr Hamilton, aren't I clever, look at meeee!" Needless to say, it's a deeply satisfying experience.

Thursday, August 16

I'm now at page 422. It took Hamilton around 200 pages to impart much the same information as the summary on the back of the book, while adding a substantial amount of detail and a secondary plotline. He sheds light on the year 2380, when the human race is organised in an Intersolar Commonwealth. Through the use of wormhole technology, it spans several solar systems, as the name implies. During these 400-odd pages he has also relatively briefly, albeit in great detail, touched upon the lives of three seemingly random inhabitants of the Commonwealth. It's a titillating technique that leaves me wondering if and how he'll reintroduce them into the main story.

During their travels, humans have chanced upon a few sentient alien races. These are casually referred to early on in the book as if we already know who they are: for example, the Silfen and the High Angel, both with such interesting names it's almost painful to have to read through nearly 300 pages until Hamilton actually starts delving deeper into who these alien races are. I have to say, this book is definitely not for the inexperienced or impatient reader, but having said that, it's consistently well written and never dull.

Monday, August 27

Page 562, and still no end in sight... Sorry, for a moment there I imagined dedicating a blog solely to a page-by-page report on my arduous progress through this book. I quickly abandoned the idea, as my progress isn't arduous at all. By mid-book, famous police investigator Paula Myo solves a case, one of the seemingly ephemeral characters I mentioned earlier has been fleshed out and given a very foreboding plot, and finally a specially built starship, the Second Chance, sets off towards the titular star of the book. There's a substantial change of pace at this point as Hamilton exclusively reserves a whole chapter for describing the journey of the Second Chance and its thrilling encounters with alien technology. The story-telling is more focused, and the book subsequently becomes a real page-turner. I'd say the pacing is flawless; I'm at the first peak of the rollercoaster, and I just hit the point of no return. I'm glad I held out -- a normal-length book would be over by now.

Wednesday, August 29

I've only read a couple of pages since the last update, but I just wanted to hypothesize about the alien encounter in the middle of the book, and the reason their civilisation seems unexplainable to the crew of the Second Chance.

Click to view spoiler

I can't help but think that the crew is using the wrong frame of reference. They've observed short-range spaceships race off into nowhere, probably heading for certain doom when their fuel runs out. They've seen violent clashes between spaceships completely obliterating each other with nuclear warheads, contradicting the amount of stability needed to reach their high level of technology. They have not been able to decode any of the vast amounts of alien signals, although they can draw the conclusion that they're analog, and there are no visual or holographical signals. All this evidence, and they still haven't abandoned the assumption that they're dealing with a civilisation formed of individuals.

Granted, the entire crew consists of people who've lived multiple lifespans; there is no "first-lifer" on board. Maybe they're all stuck in their old ways, unable to think outside of the box. My money is on one huge sentient lifeform or hivemind. If you scale it up, cellular biology is extremely violent and self-sacrificing, and I'm pretty certain none of our intercellular signals are digital or audiovisual. And yet, to an outside observer the evolved techniques are surprisingly ordered and systematic.

Tuesday, September 11

Current page is 735. I was pleasantly surprised that one of the fleetingly mentioned characters from the first half of the book was reintroduced on page 666 and revealed to be the first-born of the head of a ridiculously rich and powerful family. The story took a break from the action and focused on political intrigue for what seemed to be a very long chapter, albeit strangely fascinating. Hamilton also adds in a loose end from the Paula Myo case in the form of the defendant's girlfriend, now broke and helpless. At this point, I was disappointed that Hamilton blatantly reused not one, but fully two concepts from his earlier novel Mindstar Rising, which rather taints the experience for me. I'm hoping he at least takes this storyline in another direction than he did in the earlier instance.

There's still a character that pops up now and then who doesn't have a clear purpose. So far, he hasn't had any impact on any of the major storylines, but he has served as an outside spectator, adding vivid detail to the Commonwealth universe. Also, one of the storylines (an exploration of the exotic worlds inhabited by the Silfen) is finally getting interesting.

Tuesday, September 25

On page 894, Hamilton returns to the outside spectator's view of the main plot. It's actually a welcome human perspective now that the Commonwealth is preparing for war, and still the politicians are thinking in terms of polls. Tension is building, and it seems like the focus of the storytelling is shifting more often, quickening the pace. As for the alien threat, it's been thoroughly explained at this point, and I was basically right. Yeah, I'm smarter than the brightest minds of the 24th century.

Monday, October 1st

Finally put aside some time to finish the book this week-end. Strangely, the side-plot involving the exploration of the Silfen worlds slowed down again, and contrasted rather heavily against the action-packed war against the alien invasion. I would have welcomed an even more focused storytelling near the end, since at times I felt that I had to trudge through some less interesting paragraphs to get to the juicy bits. Thankfully, the pacing was high and I was quickly rewarded for my perseverence. The pace revved up considerably toward the end while weaving together several plotlines, which made for a raffling finale.

It was also a rather special feeling to pass the 1000-page mark. Reading a book this long actually feels like somewhat of an accomplishment, and it was definitely good enough for me to immediately get started on the sequel, Judas Unchained, which weighs in at a hefty 1234 pages.

Black Man

Richard K. Morgan writes gritty, no holds barred sci-fi that feels as real as a kick in the nuts, and Black Man is no exception. This novel does exactly what good sci-fi should do; start with reality, take an aspect of that to its extreme, and watch it play out to its logical conclusion, all the while telling an engaging story with believable characters and unraveling a mystery that keeps you on the edge of your seat. A tall order perhaps, but as usual Morgan delivers on his promise.

That's what the blurb on the back of the book would have said if I were a famous sci-fi author. Instead, there's some high praise from Peter F. Hamilton, who shares quite a few traits with Morgan, as I've already pointed out. That's fine by me, although I still think my blurb is better and more to the point.

The black man referred to by the title of the novel, Carl Marsalis, turns out to be an african european who is genetically designed for war, a specimen of the thirteenth official variant of the human DNA, which emulates the hunters and gatherers of yesteryear. So called "13s" aren't known for their team building skills, but Marsalis grudgingly pairs up with female COLIN agent Sevgi Ertekin to track down a fellow 13 that has somehow escaped the Mars colony, crash landed on Earth, and is now on a seemingly random killing spree. As "out there" as this storyline may seem, it boils down to a surprisingly realistic mystery sprinkled with some social and religious commentary that is well worth considering. For some, Morgan's sci-fi may even be too realistic, since it doesn't really offer much in the way of escapism as it deals with racism, religion, politics and death. It's really more of a hardboiled novel, with sex, violence and the stereotypically cocky, uncaring male protagonist, although it will eventually surprise you again with depth of character and heart wrenching developments that had me sniveling in a crowded subway car, making a fool of myself.

I guess that's the trademark brilliance of Morgan's novels; they have everything.

Capacity

Tony Ballantyne's Capacity has one of the best sci-fi prologues I have ever read. I bought the book solely because the first few pages read like an introductory pamphlet for people whose personality has recently been copied into processing space, a virtual reality where people from the atomic world are so accurately simulated that they garner human rights of their own as Personality Constructs. The pamphlet explains all this and more, and thus also serves as a perfect introduction for the reader, easing you into the storyline even if you do as I did and skip the first novel of the trilogy. (The first book, Recursion, wasn't available in the store so I just picked this one up.) The actual story kicks off with a cursory introduction of the main character Helen, and then her death. Suddenly the story twists around in a loop, apparently into the past, to describe a minutely different version of reality where Helen is alive, until she proceeds to meet her fate in a slightly different turn of events. This loop reiterates a few times, showing still other variations, until Judy, a kimono-clad mysterious agent of Social Care, appears out of nowhere and saves Helen.

Ballantyne's prose tickles your imagination and challenges your intellect. His vision of the future is exotic almost to the point of being completely alien, and many of his descriptions are dreamlike, almost nightmarish. There is a pervasive mood of hopelessness and inevitability, and the underlying theme seems to be that the human race cannot possibly grasp the sheer enormity of life's most important questions. The book throws a barrage of existential conundrums at the reader. The first one is on the cover: If you are copied, who is the real you? The rest are presented in dialogue and plot and elaborated upon from almost every possible angle. What does it mean to exist? Thinking? What if there are sentient robots? Identity? What if you can be copied? Reproduction? What if there are reproducing machines? The seemingly endless philosophising would get tiresome if it weren't for Ballantyne's careful pacing.

Thankfully, the book is not all about Helen and Judy's travels through Existentialism 101. Helen's story interweaves with the story of Justinian, an expert on Personality Construct psychology who has been brought to a recently colonized planet to investigate the suicides of several artificial intelligences. His dialogue with the AIs and his accompanying robot Leslie is pure genius. Sure, it contributes to shedding light on some of the existential questions raised by the parallel storyline, but it's not nearly as blatant. It lends heart to the story, and some feeling of purpose, as Justinian is the most sympathetic character in the book.

My final impression of the book was that there was no actual story, because every plot element and every piece of dialogue seemed only to present new permutations of existence and thereby elaborate upon questions of its definition, cause, effects and limits. However, a book without a story is definitely not a bad thing, especially when it's this well-written. Suffice to say that I went back and bought the other two books in the trilogy.

Mindstar Rising

Like Richard K. Morgan, Peter F. Hamilton writes sci-fi and has an abbreviated middle name. And much like Morgan's first book Altered Carbon, Hamilton's first book Mindstar Rising bears a title composed of two words and tells the story of an extraordinary individual who solves a mystery. Also, both authors are British, as well as brilliant. Unfortunately (for you), it's been too long since I read Morgan's novels to crisply detail his brilliance. Luckily, I just read Hamilton's Mindstar Rising.

To keep me interested, a book should have a good mystery, believable characters in somewhat believable situations, and at least one gimmick. Take Harry Potter for example. He solves mysteries and is constantly developing as a character. The gimmick is the magic school of Hogwarts. In Mindstar Rising, Greg Mandel solves mysteries and is at times almost painfully realistic in his interaction with a series of increasingly deadly situations. His gimmick is his intuition, which has been enhanced by a military-grade neurohormone gland, lending him full-blown psychic powers that allow him to sense and even alter other's thoughts.

Not satisfied there, Hamilton adds a few other gimmicks in the same vein. Greg teams up with his old army friend Gabriel, a woman who can see into the future, and with Julia Evans, a girl with bioware implants that make her a living breathing computer, besides being the teenage heir to the most influential economic power in a communist-savaged Britain.

The brilliant part is how well Hamilton describes these abilities. Greg sees each mind as a blob of colours, seething and writhing with readily identifiable thoughts and feelings, some of them shooting out like spikes or surrounding a person's head like a halo. Gabriel sees all possible future events flowing down converging timelines into the present, a mystical forking river she refers to as "tau lines". Julia's power is similar to both Greg's and Gabriel's in that she can instantly recall and process such great amounts of information that she can foresee events with some certainty, deducing motives and playing people against each other like pawns, her mind ablaze with data coursing through logical matrices that effortlessly search and filter all possible answers until only one remains.

I also liked the pacing of the book. The first 100-or-so pages form a rather straight-forward first act where the reader is introduced to the main characters, getting a good taste of their backgrounds and personalities. It's nearly a self-contained story, having a resolved mystery and a bittersweet ending that lures you in, only for the second act to open up with a flurry of surprises, bringing you in for the kill.

Among the more interesting recurring themes are abnormality and isolation. Both Greg and Julia have a hard time relating to other people and living a normal life because of their abilities, and they are both eventually forced to come face to face with their humanity and mortality.

Well worth the money; I'm definitely reading the next two books in the Greg Mandel trilogy.

But first I have to finish Tony Ballantyne's Capacity, which I just started. Of all sci-fi books I've read thus far, Capacity easily has the best prologue. It made me smile and surprised me both with form and concepts. Here's hoping that the rest won't let me down.