A collection of wild rides, often having quirky visions of alien creatures as the central plot idea. If I hadn’t known that James Tiptree actually was a retired lady writing SF in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I would have guessed that a SF version of Hunter S. Thompson was writing this fueled by drugs. Creativity abounds more than once bordering on the surreal and absurd.

If I were to give an average rating, it would probably be two stars as I wasn’t taken by the majority of the stories. The highlight of the collection is the novella ‚The Girl Who Was Plugged In‘. A fun social commentary on the overflowing importance of advertising and at the same time an early cyberpunk story before cyberpunk existed. It even could be seen as a presage of influencers omnipresent nowadays.

I also liked ‚Fault‘ due to its original premise. Alien justice in a novel form, punishing a human perpetrator by removing his perception from the fabric of time. ‚The Milk of Paradise‘ and ‚The Last Flight of Doctor Ain‘ also have nice ideas although the plots aren’t that great.

The rest of the stories were forgettable. I’m especially astonished how the repellent ‚Love is the Plan the Plan is Death‘ was awarded with the Nebula award in 1973. Get this collection for ‚The Girl Who Was Plugged In‘ and skip the rest.

One more note: the German translation I read isn’t good and has aged terribly, using a lot of out-of-date pseudo-hip vocabulary not used anymore since the 80’s.

Not sure if it’s still true for the 21st century. But as everybody born in the 20th century, I got to know Huckleberry Finn in my childhood. There was the TV show, movies, he was mentioned whenever Mark Twain got mentioned. I didn’t really understand the depth of the figure. I never read the book. For me, he was a runaway enjoying his life and having fun only doing what he wanted.

Time to rectify this and finally read the book. A book hailed by Hemingway as the first American novel that never was matched again by everything that followed. At least as much time has passed since he made this claim as between the writing of the book and the very same claim. And I don’t think that it still can stand up.

Sure, it’s a fine enough book. It reminded me of an American Don Quichotte, hence I support the description on Goodreads of being a picaresque novel. But so much time has passed since that its relevance is limited nowadays. In a global world, isolated adventures along the Mississippi of the late 19th century have an old-fashioned air. I’m not talking about Blacks still being called by the n…. word. Given the time it was written, that should be accepted. Especially given Twain’s obvious position to see them as human beings as well, having a right to liberty. But if you look at this at face value as a novel about the adventures of a youth, it falls short nowadays. The social situation is too different, the pranks don’t translate to modern times, the story isn’t enough about the universal truths of being a youth, instead focusing on a wild plot of escape.

It’s certainly entertaining. It’s also worth reading as a literary experience. I read it in the English original and was challenged by the various dialects. Especially the one spoken by Jim, the black slave. Sometimes, the meaning only became clear when reading out loud and listening to myself. I liked it but I doubt that I will read anything else by Twain.

The premise is fantastic. A war breaks out. A war that never was declared and nobody talks about openly. A war between the old and the young. I almost wonder why this wasn’t enough to keep this book from falling into oblivion. I heard about Bioy Casares „The Invention of Morel“ and wanted to read it. But this book and the even lesser known „The Adventures of a Photographer in La Plata“ were the ones I could get my hands on.

The story is told from the view of Isidoro Vidal, a single man approaching the age of 60, living with his son in an apartment and following his daily routine of hanging out with „the boys“. Nothing new happens anymore, the conversations follow defined rules, nothing is expected as one day follows the other. Until juvenile death squads start hunting older people. Their motives aren’t clear. The government doesn’t take position. The further development is unclear. Suddenly, old patterns are broken. A friend of Isidoro gets killed, others get hurt or are abducted. A young woman develops a romantic interest out of the blue, he moves in with her and leaves his son.

There are common themes with the above mentioned Adventures of a Photographer which I read before this. The uncertainty of reality, things not being what they seem. Odd things going on in society. The estrangement of humans and the inability to live together without conflicts. Conceptually, this is the stronger book. It lacks the lightness of the Adventures but makes up for this with depth. It’s about an important topic most of us have to face: old age and all the disadvantages associated with it.

The Bone Clocks is in a line with Mitchell’s previous novels Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas. Various episodes are loosely linked by main characters of an episode appearing in others as well. All this in an urban fantasy framework of modern life spiced with supernatural mystery transcending the border of reality. The central character is Holly Sykes, born in 1969 as the author. We follow her across 6 episodes ranging from 1984 until 2043 with every decade getting one. Two of those episodes, the first and the last, are told from her point of view. Four others have narrators which are more or less important for the plot.

I don’t want to get into what the mystery is about other than it concerns immortality. Considered as an entertaining read, it succeeds. But I don’t think that it’s a successful book. The main culprit is the construction. Mitchell himself said that originally, he planned with 70 episodes. But even the 6 episodes are too much. At least two of the narrators don’t even remotely deserve having their own episodes as they don’t have any importance for the plot. Nothing would be amiss except for some flavour if they had been skipped. A third one is important in so far as he’s the only baddie getting his own story. But not a remarkable one. That leaves the two Holly stories and a third one by the one member of the Horologists, the ‚good ones‘. His story is the final culmination and reads like a cheap Marvel movie clone. I wondered why there was one more story after this end battle. And honestly, I’m surprised by the final near future dystopic ending in 2043. While I share Mitchell’s doubts about a blooming future presented in this episode, it doesn’t really fit as an ending with the theme of civilization breakdown coming from out of nowhere.

From a Mitchell book, I’ve come to expect more.

The science fiction short stories gathered here share a common thread of reappearing characters and a shared universe. It’s a uniquely Strugatskian universe. Noticeably influenced by their Russian background, with a positive socialism reflected in the interaction of the characters while believing in the good in man to further progress of humanity.

There is science but it’s not in the foreground which makes this story a pleasant read today. Too many SF stories from the past suffer from science now looking only ridiculous. The focus is on motivations, decisions and interactions.

Due to this, I already purchased the next Strugatsky book and put it on my to-read list.

I had written a longer review for this book but misclicked when wanting to save it. Again, a whole review lost. So a shorter version will have to suffice.

What drew me to this book in the first place was that it takes place in Hokitika, a former gold mining town on the remote west coast of New Zealand’s south island. When I was there in 2015, this town spoke to me with its much too large roads and many abandoned houses, testament to a town far beyond its prime.

As to the book itself, it’s an intricate mesh of characters, events and places. Looking back at it, I wonder how Catton was able to fill more than 800 pages with a mystery that she herself resolves in a brief chapter at the end. Repeatedly, I asked myself what use a verbose description of a character might have or what meaning a situation could have for the plot. None at all usually was the right answer.

Nonetheless, I liked the book as an entertaining passtime that spoke to me due to its location and the mystery kept me coming back with excitement.