Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Less by Andrew Sean Greer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Less won lots of prizes and is clearly a work that many people appreciate. It's a good case in point of the fact that I am not one of those people, because I thought it was largely boring, and the main character uninteresting.

Less follows middle-aged author Arthur Less as he jets around the world avoiding reminders of twin impending disasters: his ex-partner's marriage and turning 50. He spends a lot of time feeling out of place, unsure of himself, nostalgic for a simpler past, and unable to write. Eventually he sorts out his feelings (somewhat) and manages to write again (but not finish his novel) and finds resolution for his romantic woes (but not on purpose). This is not a book with an exciting, gripping plot.

Arthur is gay. There were maybe one or two places where this actually mattered, as far as I can tell, most notably one bit where one of his books is rejected because it deals only with a white gay man instead of something more exotic. Other than that, you could swap the gender of a few characters and maybe a few locations to make this a straight novel and it would read very much the same. Arthur has no struggles over being gay, there's no discrimination, practically everyone he meets is either also gay or could care less. Which is fine, something of an ideal world in fact, but it begs the question of why write a novel about it? Ideal isn't interesting.

Romantic relationships seem to define Arthur's self-image. He's with an older partner in a long-term but still somewhat casual relationship; that ends and he finds a younger partner to do basically the same thing in mirror image; then that ends and he's alone and pathetic. Completely alien to my mindset, putting this kind of weight on romance and yet not actually pursuing a solid lasting relationship. To me, it makes Arthur simply look like someone unable to decide what he really wants out of life...not uncommon, but not interesting enough to base a novel on. This being a romantic novel, there is an eventual resolution to Arthur's love woes...but it fell flat with me, as it basically falls into his lap, through no fault of his own.

The writing style of Greer reminds me of when I was reading classics in school. Some genuinely funny or moving prose, surrounded by a whole lot of flowery language meant to convey characters' mindsets that goes off in all directions and is either uninteresting or confusing. So I can see why the literary critics loved it, but it is definitely not to my taste.

There are obviously lots of people who enjoyed Less, most notably a Pulitzer committee. However, I am not one of them.

On the Wing: American Poems of Air and Space Flight

On the Wing: American Poems of Air and Space Flight by Karen Yelena Olsen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not much of a poetry person. On the rare occasions that I read any, about 90% of it does nothing for me. Too abstract, too vague, too flowery. But every once in a while, there's a bit that does make an impression.

On The Wing is a poetry collection all about flight, and it wasn't an exception to that 90% rule of thumb. Much of the parts that didn't click for me were about the feeling of flying, largely by pilots or those writing about pilots. It's not that I don't enjoy a bit of romanticism about flight...there are some songs I like that fit that description...but the format here didn't work for me.

The 10% that I did find interesting, though, was pretty good. Much of it was about passenger flight, which makes sense considering that I've spent a lot of time as a passenger. Rosanna Warren's "from North", for instance, the first section of which is about the feeling of being a passenger while flying through dangerous weather. And Simon Ortiz's "A San Diego Poem" that describes a whole trip, including feeling a bit lost in an airport after disembarking. I also enjoyed several in the section related to military flight, most notably "Tuskegee Airfield" by Marilyn Nelson Waniek.

This collection was published in 2004, but most of it came from prior to 2001. That means there's very little written after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Only one poem makes a direct reference, "History of the Airplane" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (written in 2002). Oh, there's still a few pieces that deal with hijackings, but they don't have the kind of urgency and trauma that you'd expect from people who lived through that day. I suspect that similar works written in the last two decades are quite a bit more focused on security and danger.

Poetry is never going to be my favored form of writing. Given the right subject matter, though, I can find some pieces that I enjoy like I did with On The Wing.

The Boys (comics)

The Boys is a comic series based in a world where super-powers are real, but almost no one who has them is a hero. They put on a good public face, but behind the scenes nearly every one is terrible. And a small group of operatives, who are pretty terrible themselves, track down the secrets and hand out punishments.

All that sounds like it's a fun concept, and it would be, if the writers of The Boys weren't so fond of going over the top with every kind of the worst excess and immorality. Most of it is sexual, though there's plenty of violence as well. Some of it actually matters to the plot and world-building, and that part I don't mind. But I'd say that's maybe a third of what's actually presented, with the rest being just unnecessary crude sensationalism and humor.

It's possible to do this kind of "if super-powers were real people would be terrible with them" thing in a different way. I know because it already was done, back in 2003 with Supreme Power. That series had its share of sex and violence, but it wasn't thrown in your face on every page, and most of it had a purpose in the story.

I read the first collection volume of The Boys for a few reasons. I have friends who have liked it, I was looking for a new graphic novel to read anyway, and also I'd heard there was going to be a TV series made. But if the TV series holds true to the style of the comics, I doubt I'll want to watch it.

The world-building, the characters, the story plots...all that stuff is interesting and fairly well executed in The Boys. If the writers could have just restrained their impulse to cram crude language and humor into every possible nook and cranny of their creation, I'd have really liked it. But as it is, I can't say the good parts are worth the sludge you have to read through on the way.

Good Omens (Amazon 2019)

The Good Omens miniseries from Amazon navigates the tricky waters of book-to-video adaptation in a largely successful fashion.

I first read Good Omens 20+ years ago, and several times since. Considering the authors, it's unsurprising that I liked it so much. Both Pratchett and Gaiman have written plenty of good stuff, most of which I've read. Their collaboration is as good as one might expect, and from all accounts they enjoyed writing it as much as we've enjoyed reading it.

I have no complaints with the production quality or the casting of the video series. The visuals are beautiful, and the costumes and special effects bring some of the more exotic descriptions in the book to life. Both Michael Sheen and David Tennant are excellent as the two leads, and I thought the kids playing the Them did a great job also. (OK, maybe one minor complaint, I wasn't terribly impressed with the special effects of the Bentley-on-fire-across-M25 scene. So much more potential there.)

Film adaptation has to strike a balance between getting the details right for fans of the original book, and keeping things simple enough for those unfamiliar with it to understand. Good Omens is somewhat heavy on the side of the details, in my opinion. I think it's difficult to get the very understated humor of the book to come across on screen or in narration without leaving unfamiliar viewers feeling confused or even bored. Plus it would simply take up a whole lot of screen time to fully explain everything so a viewer can reach the same level of understanding that one gets from the book. So the creators of the series decided to stay largely faithful to the book, even if it meant that those who hadn't read the book would be a bit lost at time.

That's not to say that everything is exactly like the book, of course. There are quite a few minor characters and plot points left out. Slightly disappointing to some of us who read the book, but not surprising and not a major problem. I would have loved to see the Other Four Horsemen, for instance, but I can certainly understand why that bit was left out. Not essential to the storyline and would have taken a good amount of screen time.

All told, I loved the Good Omens series as a long-time fan of the book. I'd recommend reading the book first for anyone planning to watch the series, or at least give it a second watch after you've had a chance to get through the book. You'll likely pick up on quite a few things that weren't completely clear to a non-reader viewer.

David Drake's Books of the Elements

David Drake's Books of the Elements series is not historical fiction, but the setting is based heavily on historical elements with fantasy elements added - nature spirits, magic, etc. It's historical fantasy in the same sense that something like Harry Potter is modern fantasy.

There are four books in the series, each based on an element: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. The story follows a small group who are pulled into a major world-threatening conflict of magical forces: two young men and two young women, a learned elder, and various allies they meet along the way - both human and magical. At first they're largely ignorant of the big picture, and have to struggle both to stay alive and learn enough to make the right decisions.

If you've read Drake's books before and think that sounds familiar, it's because his Isles series could be described much the same way. As I read this series, I regularly had moments of near deja vu, when Hedia acted just like Ilna, or one of the characters was pulled through some magical portal and had to adventure their way back. There are a lot of similarities, enough so that anyone who didn't like the Isles series can safely skip this one too. But if you did like Isles and wanted more of the same, good news - this is it. (With one caveat - there's more sex in this series than I remember from Isles.)

Drake's writing style is descriptive and easy to read. He keeps the plot moving, constantly sending the main characters off to new places and dangers. I never felt the story bogged down. The characters are decently well developed, with plenty of time devoted to each. My only complaint is that they seem a bit too heroic and/or lucky at times, pulling victory out of some pretty crazy situations, but then this is a heroic fantasy so that's par for the course.

The historical elements of the setting are based on the Roman empire circa 30 AD, as stated in the author's note. The fantastic elements are more varied - there are Norse elements, shamanism, nature magic, and I'm sure plenty of other things I didn't specifically identify. Drake makes use of many sources to pull together his world, not least of which is his own imagination to weave them all together.

The Books of the Elements are a solid read for fans of Drake's work. They're not likely to convert anyone who didn't like his other fantasy titles, though.

City of Heroes: Homecoming

It's good to be home.

For the better part of 8 years - beta in 2004, launch in 2005, until the servers shut down in 2012 - my single most extensive leisure activity was City of Heroes. Not just my favorite game, or most-frequented online community, or programming project (via the HeroStats addon). It was all of those things at once, and when you put it all together I spent more time in the game and related activities over those 8 years than I did watching TV shows, reading books, or just about anything else other than work and sleep.

After the shutdown in 2012, there were rumors of fans keeping the game alive, but I was never involved in any of it. They kept information under wraps to avoid any legal issues with the owner of the intellectual property rights, and to avoid a big crowd on their servers. But about a month ago, that all changed.

The Homecoming project is a fan-run organization that has set up City of Heroes servers for anyone to freely play on. They had some growing pains initially as the demand was overwhelming, but over the last few weeks have done a fine job stabilizing the system so the 20k+ players (around 9000 concurrent at peak) have a place to be super. That takes some money, of course, so they had a donation drive to raise about $6600 for server costs. It took 20 minutes - that's the kind of hunger the community has to keep this game available.

The game itself is changed somewhat from the old days. Quite a few quality of life changes, some new content that was in the works when the shutdown happened, and it's a lot easier to level up a character and obtain the end-game items and powers. The incentive to keep progression to a slow pace is gone when the game is being run for fun rather than profit.

I've really enjoyed getting back into the game and revisiting all the old haunts that I used to know so well. And more importantly, the characters. The first thing I did was recreate several of the characters I had on the old servers, looking as close to the same as I could remember. I'm far from alone in that, almost everyone who used to play the game has done the same thing. This is a major nostalgia trip for thousands of us, as well as being a fun game that we still enjoy playing. If anyone wants to find me in-game, PST to @ineffablebob!

The future of the Homecoming servers is uncertain. It depends on the core Homecoming team continuing to be willing to volunteer their support, and avoiding legal issues. For now, though, I'm not worried about the future, just enjoying being home.

The Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon

I put Maurice Druon's series The Accursed Kings on my reading list several years ago, largely because I saw that George R. R. Martin referenced it as a major influence in his creation of A Song of Ice and Fire. Then I promptly forgot about it, until my recent binge on historical fiction (The Ivy Crown, A Very English Scandal) brought it to mind.

The series takes place mostly during the 14th century in France, from the last of Phillip the Fair's reign until the time of John the Good. The characters are many and varied, from royalty and courtiers to merchants and peasants. There are six books, which sounds long but really went quickly, as each book is fairly short and there's no lack of interesting activity to keep the reader turning the page. (There's a seventh book as well, but it was written many years later and doesn't quite fit with the rest. The library didn't have it, so I stopped at six.) Credit to both Druon and translator Humphrey Hare for well-crafted writing that maintains the reader's interest!

There's no lack of action and intrigue in the series, which I'm sure is part of why Druon chose to wrote about this particular time period. Love affairs, embezzlement, blackmail, secret plots against the powerful, torture and executions, conflict internal to France and externally with England...plenty of material to work with! Much of it centers around Robert of Artois, either directly or indirectly, who is clearly the author's favorite figure from the time. And with good reason, as his actions had huge impact on the direction of both France and England during his life. Robert wasn't a good man, but was certainly a very influential one, and his story is incredibly interesting.

Occasionally the author steps outside the story and speaks directly to the reader about medieval society and events of the time, which I thought added to the feeling of listening to a great storyteller. Unfortunately, this also occasionally spoils some of the suspense for any reader who doesn't already know the fate of the various monarchs and nobles. I think Druon assumes that most of his readers have studied history in enough detail to already know who became king/died/was imprisoned/etc, and so doesn't worry about occasionally talking about future events.

I can definitely see the influence on Martin's work. The various factions playing the "game of thrones" have plenty of similarities to those in The Accursed Kings books. The intrigues and plots of 14th century France would fit right into the world of Westeros and Essos. Inspiration for individual characters can be seen on a regular basis: Enguerrand de Marigny reflected in Eddard Stark, or Marie of Hungary in Olenna Tyrell. Martin added magic and dragons, of course, but even there you see some reflection in Druon's writing when lack of understanding leads people to interpret poison as magic or the suffering of a stroke as the fulfillment of a curse.

For any historical fiction fan, The Accursed Kings series is a must-read. If you're not yet such a fan, read it anyway, you might become one.