Everything is true. Everything anybody has ever thought.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? Vol 1 – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Vol. 6
Written by Philip K. Dick Illustrated by Tony Parker

Philip K. Dick is a poet of beauty, pain, humanity, and ideas. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is one of his greatest and most intense novels, filled with some of the most amazing ideas. Sometimes it can even be a little distracting because the characters aren’t talking to each other, but it is intensely obvious that the author is aware that every word they say is aimed at the readers. It can be a little distracting because the dialog can be so loaded with subtext and sometimes the way the characters talk and think seems downright otherworldly. It is a very fitting feel for the setting, a ruined world where real natural living animals are so rare that even finding a spider outside of captivity living a real life is like a miracle.

There is another reason why the strange dialog works, though. The thematic parallels are packed into every idea that is expressed, and even thoughts that seem errant and off topic tie in to the tapestry of the overall ideas with precision and grace. It may be that every single word in this novel is important. For those who only know this book as novel that Blade Runner is based off of, it would interest you to know that the novel follows entirely different themes from the movie. The movie carefully focused on how narrow the gulf between man and machine is, whereas the novel views it as how far apart we are.

In this dystopian world the ultimate ideal for the domestic home life is the preservation and maintenance of an animal, the more rare and more difficult the animal to care for, then the more prestigious it is to keep. People who are unable to afford a high quality animal often keep mechanical ones which are cheaper to maintain, but shameful and low class. This little detail of the universe is incredibly important to the psychology of the characters. It ties in with the universally adopted form of what might be considered religious communion between all of humanity, the Mercer religion. Mercerism is the absolute indulgence in empathy. Each participant touches an object that is called an Empathy Box, and in so doing participates in the mutual sharing of the pain of an old man named Mercer who is endlessly climbing a mountain while stones are being thrown at him, causing him pain with every strike. Millions simultaneously share in this tiring and physically and emotionally draining experience as a means of worshiping their ability to empathize.

These two basic ideas of the world begin to show up inside of the way the characters think and react. They even empathize with the androids. This combination of a quest for constant empathic feeling and preservation of life clashes with everything the main character, a bounty hunter, is forced to do. His job is necessary, but it tears at his humanity. The entire journey that the reader takes with him through it all is both enlightening and painful, and nothing is resolved comfortably, even if at the end the author manages to evoke a feeling of normalcy in the chaos of questions. The end says to the reader, these are the questions as they exist, and this is why they cannot be answered, it is what it is, and through the pain of their contradiction a sort of life can be had and appreciated even in the worst of the uncertainty and danger of living.

The graphic novelization requires a review of the original novel because unlike any other translation from one medium to another, this graphic novelization literally takes the complete and unabridged text of the novel and illustrates it. It comprises of six volumes because of the amount of art it took to illustrate so much text. The art is both beautiful and harrowing, and frequently lends to the reader images that emphasize and highlight and contextualize the narrative. The art services novel in every sense, and never over-rides it. It is, in essence, the perfect translation. In that way, this is the most effective delivery of the prose of Philip K. Dick, and there is probably no better way to experience this particular story.

It is impossible and meaningless to review individual volumes of this collection as it is a specific and definitive story with a beginning middle and end. The volumes do an acceptable job of segmenting the story, but none of them feels complete individually, and they really shouldn’t feel complete on their own. There is no reason to only read any one segment of it, though, so that isn’t much of a concern. This is an absolute must read for anyone.

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More Singing About Defrosting Your Freezer

A Clash of Kings (HBO Tie-in Edition): A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two
By George R. R. Martin

I want to start out by saying that this review is going to be a little bit informal. Book reviews are pretty new for me, and writing this review has really presented me with a challenge I hadn’t started to consider till I was almost done with it and started thinking about what I wanted to say. I’ve been trying to think about what’s important about reviewing a sequel in a series of novels. If there are tonal shifts, and major thematic changes between the novels, then it is a lot easier, because changes make it easy to distinguish the two experiences and they start to give a frame work for reviewing the novel as a separate work. In this particular case, it doesn’t feel like it’s another book at all, particularly since I’m reading a kindle collection of the first 4 books in the Song of Ice and Fire anthology. That’s problematic as a reviewer, because if the books are too similar then you could get trapped just repeating your review for the previous installment. In this case it picks up immediately where A Game of Thrones left off, it continues on almost all of the strong themes from the first novel, etc. If you read them back to back and if you remove the title pages and cover and table of contents between them, they would truly read like one single very large book.

Because of this, I’m going to approach the third book differently. I think as a reviewer I will need to approach it looking for differences from the start, important differences that distinguish the experience. Anyway, with all that said, there are some important things that I can talk about. First off, this book does something that is unconventional, and that I like a great deal, but that will make it a difficult read for new readers of the series. It does not hold your hand at all. I have been into a lot of serial novels lately, and one thing I have found very irritating is reading an introduction and even a back story for every character as they are re-introduced per every novel in the series. Maybe I’m different. I have always been able to step into the middle of a story, pick up on what’s going on, and then follow the story from that point to the end. A Clash of Kings does a wonderful job of feeling like its own story while you’re reading it, and it never makes a point of giving straight and obvious exposition about the story up to that point. If you missed it, you missed it, and it’s there for you to go back and read.

I can even say that in retrospect, even the first book in the series feels like it picks up after a huge story has already taken place. I am always feeling like I am in the foot steps of characters that are in the middle of very great things happening, and their conversations are always filled with subtext about things that are important from the past that they either know or don’t know. It captures the feeling of understanding how the characters at any given moment and how they react to not knowing everything that is happening.

Clash of Kings is a faster paced novel than A Game of Thrones is, including more action and more detailed strategies and battles. The deep character interactions are all there, just like before. If anything, though, overall this story is a bit darker than its predecessor. The entire world seems to be crumbling for everyone involved, even the people who feel like they are winning at any given moment.

However, while every single moment in A Game of Thrones felt important when viewed as a whole by the end of the book, in a Clash of Kings there are several characters who don’t feel as though they make meaningful progress through their plot line. Maybe what’s happened to them in this story has more meaning in future books, but for now characters like Daenerys just don’t feel like they’ve undergone any kind of meaningful change by the end. For everything that happened to her, at the end of the book Daenerys does not appear to have changed her circumstances much at all. This, though, is the exception and not the rule.

With all of that said, though, there is every reason in the world to read this book, especially if you have already read the first one. It is a strong and fascinating continuation. Where the first book ultimately feels like the whole world is about to catch fire and someone is striking the first match, this book feels like seeing the resulting flames burn, and even begins to feel more like a increasingly incredible story is taking shape from the beginnings of A Game of Thrones. I highly recommend it and look forward to sharing my feelings about the next book in George R. R. Martin’s anthology.

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A Modern Witch (A Modern Witch Series) by Deborah Geary

I love a good fantasy read, and a storyline like this, that is so well thought out to the smallest detail, is hard to find in books these days. It is an intriguing read from beginning to end. For me to enjoy a book as well as I did the first time is difficult most of the time. I have had a lot of trouble getting past the feeling of already knowing a story and the details within, but I really enjoyed being able to re-read a good book like this one. Many books have great plots, and the story lines are interesting. And even though I have read ‘A Modern Witch’ a few times over, along with the other books within this series, I still find it refreshing and enjoyable every time I sit down and read.

The story is about witches, of course, and who does not like a good witch story? A modern touch to a long existing way of life. This book follows a crazy awesome community of witches who love, cherish, and indulge in everything fun, crazy, and glorious about being a witch in the modern day. The story centers around the woman who’s life is turned upside down by the witching community’s crazy, nosy antics after a fetching spell has unexpected results. Combining fantastic witching powers, incredible programming skills, and an intensely heartfelt way of meddling, the witching community dabbles in the lives of those who they care about. The child-like logic and silliness adds an extra dose of comedic flair to the otherwise stressful points in the lives of the characters. The cast of characters is so well planned, and each is full of so much detail that I cannot imagine picking a favorite character over another. The reminders that it is okay to be a responsible adult and still indulge in child-like fun is refreshing. There is a wide arrangement of emotions that flows as you read one page and then the next. The flow is subtle, but strong where it needs to be. I could not have stopped laughing out loud at mishaps or practical jokes, even if I had wanted to try. And tears streamed down my cheeks in heart felt emotions of both love, kindness, joy, and even sadness.

This is a self-published book. That being said, it means that it is not at all unexpected that there would be the occasional typo or misplaced punctuation here and there. Sometimes a statement made by one character is replaced by another character’s name, and words are out of order or misspelled on occasion. With these errors it reads as if the book was written at times while exhausted, and as though it could have used some fresh eyes to review it before printing. As good of a story as this is, having these errors fixed would improve the story a great deal.  I would love to see that happen. Despite this, it is a great read. I look forward to reading and reviewing future works from this author.

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The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead: Compendium One
Written by Robert Kirkman

This first large compendium of Walking Dead volumes covers a great deal of time in the Walking Dead universe. The comic as a whole has reached its 100th issue, and this printing includes issues #1 – #48. I think it’s important to note that zombie fiction is fundamentally end of the world fiction, and I don’t think it has ever been done with a positive spin on the downfall of humanity and people’s ability to deal with death and mortality well. If anything, this stems from the really basic ideas that make zombies so appealing, they take all of that inherent and natural xenophobia that exists within us, and they give us an endless body of things that are unlike us that it is okay to hate and be afraid of.

Given that natural meaning to zombies, it makes a lot of sense that people who write fiction in these worlds always write characters that are constantly at odds or against each other. This can also be credited to the need for conflict to drive a story, and zombies being a constant external threat with thin motive and limited dramatic force, it becomes almost essential to make that driving dramatic core of a story work between the characters inside of it. If you really think about it, zombies are more like a destructive force of nature than characters, they have the same limited affect as a tidal wave or a poison gas leak. They become background for a real story. A lot of books and movies and other mediums tend to forget this and try to focus on the action and the conflict with the zombies, but Robert Kirkman has brilliantly created this wonderful series that never forgets that it’s about how people interact with each other in this newly claustrophobic universe.

But with all that said, it’s very important to note for someone who might be considering reading this that it is a depressing read. It addresses suicide, rape, murder, loss, and deep personal pain in every conceivable scenario. The series has a lot of high points for the characters where people have managed to set up reservations against the zombie horde, but I will tell you now that this compendium does not end on a high note. Even for people who are able to really enjoy a well told story with a sad ending, it is important to know that this is a different sort of animal. On this journey of discovering the nature of a new world, it is a world of constant suffering and solitude. The author almost casually kills off great characters, and you feel their loss, and you’re supposed to feel it. And more importantly, you even feel it when you start to stop feeling loss when they die. You start to share in the numbness of a mad world with the survivors.

The dialog is engrossing and captivating. The characters have real issues to talk about and fears to express. Their hopes and dreams are meaningful, and it makes them very endearing, even when you tend to hate them when they are actually given things to say. When they step out from the horde of dangerous humans, hungry, violent, aggressively desperate to survive, they are humanized just enough to give you a glimpse at what makes them such a monstrous and terrible enemy. They are given just enough humanization to give relief to the distinction between the feelings you have for them and for the zombies, and to highlight the underlying ideas that make the zombies so terrible. The visual style rich and detailed and emotive making it very appealing. It might turn off some to know that while the covers are beautifully colored, the graphic novel is mostly gray-scale. I find it to be an appealing way to contextualize the bleakness of the setting, and it works really well. If you are like me, then you may very well find yourself so completely engrossed in the dialog and the movement of what is happening and the overall narrative that you don’t even notice anymore.

This is an amazing series, and this is only most of the first half of what is available to read so far, and every bit of it is worth reading. Given what I’ve said here, maybe you might not like this type of story, but it is very good. It is, I feel, some of the best this genre of stories has to offer, if not the very best. I recommend it to anyone at all who can handle the things that make it terrifying and bleak. This is a great story to talk about and discuss, because like all truly great fiction it is full of ideas, not just a story. And ideas are infectious.

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A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)
By George R. R. Martin

I am going to start out by saying that this is indeed some of the best fantasy writing I have ever read. The characters are clearly defined, and their motivations and qualities widely varied, and their interactions organic and understandable. The world of the seven kingdoms is one of the most beautifully and carefully realized fantasy realms I have ever explored, and it is appropriately and carefully revealed a bit at a time through very natural feeling exposition that never feels overbearing. George R. R. Martin makes every decision and every action feel purposeful and meaningful and understandable in every instance. I want to start with that point so that everyone can be clear what my feelings are about this series on top of everything else I say.

That is some pretty glowing praise, I’ll admit. So, it’s pretty important to move on to some of the issues that a reader might experience that would hinder their enjoyment of the book. The first and most important one is that in particular, this, the first book in the series, has a very slow buildup. The buildup is very slowly paced because of the natural way that the characters evolve and behave and interact with each other. Everything that happens is important because of the way it lends context to the major events and because of the way that it makes the larger events feel unavoidable because of character qualities and because of small choices as the series builds up to a nation at war with itself. However, a lot of subtlety a lot of those details that are so important can be easily overlooked. As a whole everything comes together very well, but for a reader there is a barrier to entry. This is definitely an adventure best taken with a group of readers or with friends who are either also reading the book for the first time or who have read and loved the book before.

The large number of characters can also contribute to this. A Song of Ice and Fire has a large catalog of rotating characters as many die and many more replace them, each with important parts to play. It took a lot for me to get invested in this book, and it took me larger than average to read, and that’s even accounting for just how large the book is. It helped that I had a lot of friends who were also reading it, and there has been a lot of great discussion about the characters and events that are shaping the world even from this book. I really can’t stress enough how difficult I think this read is for someone reading it by themselves for the first time, but I do think that overall it is very worth it.

A character that is continually rewarding is Tyrion, and every one of his chapters is a reward to read because of his brilliant perspective and wit. Another thing that I found brilliantly rewarding was following the machinations of both Varys and Petyr Baelish throughout the story. Finding little threads of connectivity to their actions is a constant reward throughout the reading, and is definitely worth discussing later on in a discussion and analysis of the entire series. I would like to certainly post elsewhere my observations and discuss the greater meanings and entangling of the events between the characters, and I hope to find a way to do it here without spoiling it for other readers.

With those notes of warning expressed, I highly recommend Game of Thrones. The end of the book is just enough to really make me want to read the next one, feeling like big things are coming but without a frustrating feeling of a lack of individual resolution. If you’re willing to digest a slow building story for a quality pay off full of intricate but very subtle character entanglements and foreshadowing, this book is definitely for you.

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Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind

Stone of Tears (The Sword of Truth #2) by Terry Goodkind

It has been quite a while since I read the first book in the Sword of Truth anthology, Wizard’s First Rule. I have fond memories of it, and I recall it being a fun read. Stone of Tears picks up right where Wizard’s First Rule leaves off, and I had high hopes for the book as a whole, and expected a very solid read from beginning to end. I did not get what I expected, though I did ultimately like the novel. A lot of my problems with the story have to do with some weak use of exposition, and some issues with pacing and character. The book had a strong finish that went a long way toward it leaving an overall positive impression. That speaks volumes about the importance of a strong ending, with the right ending, you can fix almost anything about a story.

The book tries to consistently hold to two or three major themes. The main theme fits in with the arc of the first book, moving from the wizard’s first rule to the wizard’s second rule. Other major themes include dealing with personal failures, and a changing lifestyle. One of the big stumbling blocks for the book is the difficulty of involving the reader emotionally with some of the poor decision making of the characters. The story recovers and resolves these issues, and picks up a stronger pace as they begin to start making better and better decisions as you near the end, and I was surprised to find how many of the things that bothered me about the novel were resolved by this. Some of the more blatant issues are also more present at the beginning of the novel. There are times when it appears that Goodkind doesn’t understand that all communication in a book is really to the reader, and has more than a few moments where characters repeat details and instructions to each other in ways that are distracting.

Stone of Tears hits home pretty solidly on better than half of the things it tries to do. I felt that it is definitely worth a read, though it is difficult to recommend a strategy for determining if it is a good book for you because of how long it takes to pick up pace and start to come together in interesting ways. It’s pretty safe to say that if you enjoyed the original, then it is worth making your way all the way through the second, at least. It’s easy to give this book an overall positive review, I just wish I could do so more wholeheartedly without having to worry about all the times where I spent more time trying to identify with irrational characters and occasionally really poor dialog instead of purely enjoying a well crafted story.

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