Ash And Mist

Tough month this month, some amazing things, some not so amazing things and some straight up super crappy things.  This is a month where I am so grateful for the ability to read and the means to feed my addiction, I think it is the only thing that got me through it all.  So let's ramble about one of the books that got read this month of chaos shall we?  Today we shall ramble about Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson, the first book in the Mistborn series.  I have read a couple other books by this author and really enjoyed them and decided to pick this one up based soley on that premise.  This book enchanted me, frustrated me, intrigued me, made me think, made me scream, made me roll my eyes, but mostly made me want to read the next book.  Let's get on with it shall we?  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

I'm not even going to pretend to cover this whole book, it is insanely complicated and in depth so I will just go with a quick bare bones summation.  Our book is set in a world of haves and have nots.  We have the nobles, a high class that is beloved by virtue of having ancestors who supported the current immortal ruler (more on that later) and we have the skaa, a peasant/slave class who are doomed to a life of servitude and destitution due to their ancestors opposing the current immortal ruler (talk about sins of the father...).   The world has become a place of falling ash chocking off most living things and a supernatural mist permeating the night.  In this strange and dreary world a man named Kelsier bursts with his unnatural optimism and a talent for Allomancy, which a kind of complicated magical use of metal alloys to produce various results...and as one reader put it a bit of a video game way to fight...it's hard to describe...just read the book.  Anyways our boy Kel decides to get a band of his buddies together to pull of the greatest caper ever, to overthrow the Final Empire.  To this end he gathers a motley crew that includes Breeze: known as a Soother he burns brass and is able to calm peoples emotions; Hammond a pewter burning Thug who enhances his physical prowess; Dockson, who does not burn metal, but can organize a group like nobody else; Marsh, Kels brother who burns bronze to reveal other Allomancers; Sazed a Terrisman (who is apparently different from a skaa and a noble) who possess the unique ability to internalize his own strengths into metals on his body and call upon them later, he is also a Keeper, a person who searches out and remembers an astounding amount of information in a specific area, religion in Sazeds case; and Vin,

a girl who like Kelsier himself is what is called a Mistborn a rare person who can burn all the metals and have all the powers.  With this motley crew of half breed ska (only noble born...or people with noble born blood aka half breeds can be Allomancers) Kelsier comes up with a multi point plan to overthrow the Final Empire.  Vin's part of the plan is two-fold, the first part is to learn to use and control her substantial powers and two to infiltrate the nobility as a young country noble relation of an up and coming house.  Vin of course falls in love with the heir to the most powerful house of the nobility, Eland Venture who of course is secretly sympathetic to the cause.  As one can imagine all kinds of chaos and craziness ensues as the merry band tries to accomplish their gargantuan goals.  Through out the book we find out snippets of the history of this world.  The immortal ruler that has been in charge for close to 1000 years, according to vague stories was a normal guy who went on a quest to defeat the Deepness, and unexplained terror that threatened the world.  The hero defeated the Deepness at the Well of Ascension and then became the immortal ruler.  He then divided the population into the nobles and the skaa, rewarding the people who helped him and punishing those who defied him.  We learn that nobody actually knows what happened, that the world was a different place before the mists and ash and that the Lord Ruler is assumed to be an insanely talented Allomancer.  The story culminates in Kelsier being killed by the Lord Ruler and by doing so becomes a martyr who sparks a new type of religion.  Vin takes the opportunity to infiltrate the Lord Rulers castle and after more madness an mayhem guesses the Lord Rulers secret.  He is not the Hero everybody thought he was, he was a Terrisman who felt that the Hero was the wrong man for the job and took his place some how.  Using this information Vin pulls out his embedded metal and the Lord Ruler dies.  Vin's love interest takes over as ruler (in a good way) and we end the book with much contemplatives.

World Building - This world is a mix of a very complete medieval style fantasy world with a complicated government and a magic based on metal and a whole lot of confusing details.  I feel like the world itself is fairly complete, but the author threw in a ton of stuff that was never really explained.  This led to a world that worked, but had gaps...not sure if it was successful or not...yes on some points, no on others...but yes...I felt that there were a lot of contradictions that were never satisfactorily resolved and I admit that it took me out of the world on occasion.  That being said the parts that were complete, were very complete and I felt I got a good grasp on the feel of the parts we were shown at the very least.

Story - This was very complicated story, not in a bad way necessarily, just a lot to take in.  I very much appreciated how the author understood that most societies are not based on "good" and "bad" but on various nuances, individuals, and groups.  The author also made sure to have a mix of broad world scope stories and small personal stories.  I love it when stories are told like this, I feel it gives perspective and realism to the who thing.  The only part of the story that I really had a hard time with was the history.  The whole of the story is based on the idea that their was an epic event in this worlds history that led to this point.  The history is never really made clear which leads to frustration and confusion...that being said the author made sure that to get the point across that the reason WE don't know the history, is because the inhabitants of this world don't know it either.  This at least gives a plausibility, but it is still frustrating.

Character - I loved the characters in this book.  They were all varied and individual with stories, families, histories and just enough of a twist to make them all interesting.  Kelsier has every right to be a depressive, morose, violent leader, but he makes a point to be as positive as possible...at least in public.  I love watching his struggle to maintain an optimistic outlook despite the myriads of things against him.  He is never unrealistically cheerful as we get to see the struggle behind the smile.  Vin is the character who has to essentially reassess her whole life, she is thrust into a whole new world and her views on all kinds of things have to slowly change and the journey is both realistic and fascinating, also for once, a character who doesn't LOVE to read :-).  Sazed is the type of character I love because of his extensive history and his different outlook on life.  His views on religion and belief especially intrigue me.

Editing - Overall the editing of this book was pretty good.  For the most part it flowed and made sense, I kept reading it and didn't realize how quickly I was turning the pages...always a good sign.  The format was a little skippy with the view point switching with no warning, making it a bit jarring when I had to wrench my brain to a different character.  Also a couple of times things were mentioned without any explanation, like since the characters knew what was going on, we should too.  This made me flip back and forth a couple times 'cause I thought I may have missed something...not cool dude.  I did however love the bits of journal entry at the top of each chapter, it gave a cool history vibe to follow along with, especially with the twist at the end of the book.  I also like that the journal was talked about in the book, a bit of meta editing.

Allomancy - So much to say about this central magic of the book.  First off I found it a bit weird that the metals used in this fantasy world were all Earth metals...kind of made me pause and wonder if their was a connection.  I liked the idea of Allomancy better then I liked the execution of it in the book.  The use of it was fairly consistent which was good, every element assigned to a certain action that when used did a certain thing. I like the idea that most people with Allomancy were only able to use a single metal with the rare few being able to use more then that.  I also really appreciated that Vin saw the wisdom in learning from Allomancers who specialized in one metal to truly fully appreciate the full potential use of each metal.  I still don't understand how/why only nobles could use Allomancy.  Are the nobles and skaa two different races?  Was the Lord Ruler able to "gift" Allomancy to certain people?  How many generations removed could Allomancy be genetically viable?  Like I noted earlier, another reader stated that a lot of the Allomancy sequences read like a video game, which is a very accurate description.  I think the bigger problem was that the fight sequences were numerous and all felt the same.  Obviously Allomancy is a central part to the books, I just wish it was better explained and more streamlined.

Religion - I think one of the best things about the fantasy genre is the ability to explore sticky topics like religion with out offending to many people.  I absolutely LOVED the questions of religion posed in this book.  Let's star with Sazed and his Keeper memory.  In this world, the only "acceptable" religion is the one where the Lord Ruler is considered the Sliver of Divinity.  During the...whatever it is that happened, religions were the last organizations to fall to the Lord Ruler.  According to Sazed it wasn't because of the religion, but because of the belief that people had.  Sazed as a Keeper has over 300 religions in his head and is working on discovering more.  As he interacts with people, he tries to find a belief that fits them, to give them something to fight for.  I like the idea that belief...in whatever..is the true important part.  This inspires Kelsier, who figures out how to turn himself into a religion, knowing that his death will spark the rebellion needed to win the fight.  This brings up uncomfortable comparisons with the Lord Ruler who essentially did the same thing.  I  just love love love when a book makes me think, and this aspect send my brain reeling in a million directions.

Genetics - One of the things that was never really clear to me was the genetics of this world.  I can't tell if the world is made up of genetically different races, or if the Lord Ruler made different races, or there were some differences before the Lord Ruler and more after...I don't know, it's all really confusing.  It seems that maybe the Terrismen were a separate race from...I don't know what they were called originally and then the Lord Ruler did his Well of Ascension thing and then maybe turned everybody else into two races, noble/skaa.  Also what are the nobles called?  Is there race just called the nobles?  Are there more races/people we haven't seen yet?  Are the mist wraiths and kanda (which we also get very little explanation for) of the same stock? Animal? Alien? Demon?  SOMEBODY JUST TELL ME?!?

Overall Impression - Many aspects of this book intrigued me, made me thing and kept me turning the pages.  Many aspects of this book drove me crazy, made me flip back and forth and just generally made me scream.  It is complicated, full, and overall pretty good.  I want to keep reading, I want to know more, and I have a feeling that I will like the series as a whole better then I will any individual book...which is not a bad thing per se, I just have to read the books with the whole series in mind.  I give this book 7 out of 10 metal coins and will continue the series and see where it takes me.
Happy Reading Everybody!

Space Faring Bureaucracy

To appease my summer SciFi appetite I finally finished reading the short story collection Federations edited by John Joseph Adams.  The editor says he took the inspiration for this collection from watching shows like Star Trek and Star Wars and reading book like those in the Dune series.  The common theme in all of the above mentioned is the interstellar government that spans the stars.  This inspiration has lead to book chock full of a myriad different stories, governments, worlds and organizations that come together to make for a very though provoking, page turning collection that makes me want even more stories.  Here are just a few of the stellar stories in this anthology.

Carthago Delenda Est by Genevieve Valentine - A being from deep space has sent out a vision to a select member of every race in the known galaxy.  The vision is powerful enough that when the being states it will only come if all the races stop warring with each other they all comply.  The story is set many many years after the initial contact and leaves one wondering if the fact that the wars have stopped is the whole point of the secret glorious mission.  Good story, very good story.

Terra-Exulta by S.L. Gilbow - This may be one of my favorite short stories of all time.  It explores the use of language and how labeling something in a certain way can change ones perception completely.  We get a quick glimpse of a man who using only words changes a galaxy's perception of a planet form thinking it is the most beautiful paradise to being disgusted with the whole endeavor.  The story is short, sweet, to the point and really gets the point of the power of words across in a direct and entertaining manner.

Twilight of the Gods by John C. Wright - Imagine a ship so large it feels like a world.  Now imaging the people on it have lived there for so many generations that the newest ones think Earth and any other planet is nothing more then a myth or fantasy.  This story turns our pre-conceived notion of a space ship and it's inhabitants on its head.  I love the idea that this decrepit space is all these people know and how it has shaped their culture and mind set.

Pardon our Conquest by Alan Den Foster - An entire empire is conquered with out so much as a shot being fired.  The premise of this story is made even more interesting by the perspective that it is told in.  Instead of the grand hero's swooping in and gallantly helping a backwards race, we see the story from the conquered empires point of view and understand their confusion when this new alliance actually seeks to integrate them into their federation (but only if they want to) while giving them complete freedom and autonomy.  This is a great story that gets you thinking long after you have finished it.

My She by Mary Rosenblum - This is the kind of short story I love.  A to the point, thought provoking tale about the line between an individual person and a tool.  The story is about clones of a very specific pair of humans that serve as an invaluable communication tool in the future.  The tale if further enriched by the presence of a anthropomorphic dog character that acts as a servant/guide.  If this story does not get you thinking about a myriad of different things...then I don't know what will.

The Shoulders of Giants by Robert J. Sawyer - A look at what happens when the present catches up to the future.  This story is another thought provoking look at life and what happens when the continues experimentation and exploration comes to a critical mass and all converges on one point.  I also like how this story in a very concise manner manages to convoy a story, characters, humor and a thought provoking premise all in a very limited amount of pages.

Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy by Catherynne M. Valente - Imagine my surprise, consternation and eventual delight when I discovered the author of my beloved September stories had contributed to what was an already awesome collection.  This super visual story was focused on interstellar wine as a way to convoy a story, a history, and a universe.  This story had all the trademarks of this authors insanely awesome image driven story telling with an adult twist...and wine...'cause wine is awesome...just go read the story.

In case you haven't figured it out I loved this collection.  One of the unique things about this collection is the little bit of editor commentary at the beginning of each story.  He obviously really enjoys the subject matter and has an enthusiastic and fairly concise insight into each story.  I enjoyed this collection immensely, it was varied, well edited and yet stayed easily within the identifiable confines of the theme.  I still keep picking it up, hoping more stories will magically appear because I just don't want to stop reading!  I recommend it to anybody who likes sci-fi, Star Trek, Star Wars or well written, varied, thought provoking stories.  I give it 8 out of 10 Galactic Senates and am going to go find ALL the collections edited by this guy 'cause seriously awesome stuff here.  Happy Reading Everybody!!!!

Smokes and Glasses Club

Had another great weekend, maybe not THE BEST WEEKEND EVER, but still not to shabby.  Helped one of my fellow EMT's out and did a little extra staffing and training with the crew.  Had ice cream with cinnamon and chocolate chips for dinner on Saturday (I love being an adult) after I got home, and even got my lazy butt out of bed to work out the next day.  Sunday was beautiful and after our workout decided to consume as many calories as possible in the form of Kraken rum, home made bacon, jalapeno, smoked cayenne cheddar bbq burgers and home made apple cider donuts.

Best part (or one of the best parts) was either curling up in my reading chair and living in my book world for two solid uninterrupted hours, or our meeting of the Smokes and Glasses club. What is a Smokes and Glasses club?  It is when you get something tasty to drink (wine, whiskey, scotch, rum) that has to be drunk from an actual glass and then light up your favorite cigar or pipe (no cigarettes) and talk about to most
random things while sitting on the porch.  Last night me and the Hubbin (founding members of the Smokes and Glasses Club) started with a discussion of Atlas Shrugged by the late Ayn Rand.  This is one of Hubbin's favorite books, and he is enjoying the movies as well.  After a bit of a talk on our favorite characters,(Fransico for him and Rearden's wife for me) we moved on to the discussion of potential utopia scenarios in books and what works, what doesn't and why it seems they can't last. In Atlas Shrugged the potential utopia happens when (SPOILER ALERT) a small group of like minded people purposely isolate themselves from the real world.  This seems to be a common theme in utopian scenarios, almost every ""perfect" society seems to be one of limited humans in an isolated condition.  Of course this works, because in general if you have a small group (compared to the rest of the world) who are all agreeing to work towards one goal and eliminate most of the outside interference then you probably have a better shot at that coveted working as one happy happy joy joy society.  In books we either see a person stumble upon one of these groups, or we see the utopia
being threatened by outside sources, or we see where there are cracks in the utopian ideals making it actually more of a controlled experiment and less of a choosing to live in perfect harmony.  In the novelette Genesis society only works for about one generation or so, as soon as a generation is born into this created peace, they don't have the fear and knowledge of the outside world to motivate them into following specific rules that were earlier agreed upon. So essentially we see any long term, wide spread perfection is almost impossible even in fiction.

Of course after this discussion, I took it upon myself to try and form, if not a perfect society, then at least a form of government that would actually be accountable for its actions, be able to respond in a timely manner and still be representative of the general populace.  I came up with a weird mix of elected monarchy, a life time elected super court (kind of like the supreme court but bigger) and general populace voting.  My Hubbin always looking to improve ideas helped my by playing devils advocate and was finding the potential strengths and weaknesses.  The biggest weakness of course is the one that essentially dooms all human run societies to potential ruin and that of course is humans themselves.  We determined that society works best when individuals are given freedoms, and those individuals use that freedom, by choice for the good of the whole. Of course that leaves us wide open to those humans who because of various reasons choose to do something that might not be in the best interest of the whole and that brings the whole thing crashing down.  Of course legislating good behavior has also never worked because then we start getting molded into faceless puppets with no individuality.  All this to say is that I have yet to read a book, watch a movie, or see a real life instance where a perfect society can or does exist in the long term.  I think this is ok for two reasons, one is we need those challenges and adversities to make life worth living, to learn and help us grow (not that I want bad things to happen, just that we can use them to grow).  Without these challenges we grow complacent and stagnant, also it makes for really bad
books and movies, I mean who really wants to read about a perfect protagonist with a perfect life where nothing arises to challenge them? The second reason I am ok with a lack of perfection is it gives us something to strive for.  Even though perfection seems impossible, we can at least try to make it better, and if we continually try and make it better, it will get a little bit better and then we can try for more better (was that thoroughly confusing?).  I think this is where books play such an important role as a way to examine and play out some of these idea's, to see where the flaws may be and to even possibly see the long term effects.  You can put crazy idea's in books because the risk to actual humanity is pretty low, but who knows we may look back on those ideas and realize, maybe they are not as crazy as they sound?  Ok so this post got really long and talky so if you made it this far, bravo and go get your self something tasty to drink. I appreciate you all letting me indulge in a little blah blah blah time.

What is your favorite Utopian book?  Have you ever read about a successful long term, wide spread Utopia? What is your idea for a more perfect government?  Should I quit watching CNN before writing these posts?

VOTE!!!!!!

Hi All, sorry this is up so late, but it took over 1 1/2 hours to vote this morning, but hey that is the price of living in a country where I can vote for whoever I want without fear of being shot in the head.  If you have not yet voted, please please please go vote, I don't care who you vote for as long as you vote.  If you have already voted then YAY for your you, you awesome and wonderful and are now entitled to complain about anything the government does :-)  Standing in line today with my Hubbin got us thinking and talking about the most common forms of government in fiction and how that very much shapes the world the book is set in and in many cases is integral to the plot.  Here are just a few of the common ones we came up with.

Monarchy-Since I read a lot of fantasy, this is the most common form of government I run into in books, it comes in many many forms and is usually central to the plot.  It is also the basis for many of the old fairy tales and finding out you are a long lost prince/princess is a key plot device in many a story.  Monarchies can be good as in The Princess Novels series or Ella Enchanted where the main King/Queen reign trying to honestly do what is best for the people.  There are the monarchies that are contested like several times in the Chronicles of Narnia which the struggle for the throne is central to the plot.  Then of course the are the bad Kings/Queens/Princes/Princesses/Dukes/Baronets and so forth that must be fought against as in the Song of Fire and Ice.  Monarchies are not limited to strictly fantasy, historical fiction such as The Other Boleyn Girl or alternate histories like the Leviathan Series or even Science Fiction type stories like Dune can have some form of monarchies at there center.

Dictatorship/Dystopian-This is another common literary government style. I include both of these styles together because to me one indicates an individual and the other a group, but both are a leadership style that controls the people with or without their consent.  Again there are several types of this leadership style.  There is the crazed leader who will stop at nothing to gain and keep power as seen in the Inheritance Cycle.  Lately the oppressive government that is only good to a limited number of people while keeping the rest of the population miserable and controlled has been very popular especially in Young Adult Fiction such as The Hunger Games.  And of course their is always the more subtle dystopian government that is kept in place mostly by consent and very few people seem to have an issue with it (until of course the plot decides to expose some heinous secret to the general masses) The Uglies Series is a good example of this.

Federations-This government is most often used in Science Fiction, it is a great way to unite humans, or a group of "good" people against a common outside threat.  The most famous example of course is the Star Trek series (yes these are books as well as a TV show...actually a lot of the books are even better then the shows).  The Tower and the Hive series is another one that focuses on a more strictly human federations.  Enders Game shows a more forced style of federation, where the planet has to mostly come together to defeat an outside threat, even with the domestic problems still looming large.

I found it interesting that overall in the type of fiction I normally read (and I know that there are always exceptions) elected officials are few and far between.  Even in happy peaceful countries/worlds/random places it is usually a benevolent (unelected) leader or government that is in charge.  I guess that is because it makes for more compelling story telling when you can solve all your problems by discovering a long lost prince to depose the evil government that was suppressing your right to a federation :-)

Did you vote yet, did you, did you?  What is your favorite style of literary government?  What is the most unusual style you have read about?  What blend would be your ideal?