Random Book Review - A Song of Ice and Fire (so far)

Author: George R. R. Martin
Released: 1996-2011
Format reviewed: Mass-market paperback
Pages of content: 5,285 (per internet sources)
Rating: incomplete

I started re-reading the ASOIAF books and stopped because I realized I would be disappointed... again.  While Martin is under no legal obligation to his readers to complete the series, he is at risk of betraying a promise implicit in the beginning of every story: that there will be an end.  Sure, the GoT television series provided an end, but to a different story, one that was heavily re-written to meet the needs of the format.  I (and a great many other readers, I suspect) want to be given the end to the original work, in the original format.  (It was obvious by books 4-5 Martin was writing with an eye to creating an episodic television series, and it was part of the reason those books weren't as good as the first three.)

It is hard to recommend that a reader of speculative fiction not read what is one of the best high fantasy novels ever written (book 1, A Game of Thrones), so I can only ask that readers who haven't encountered the series not start it until Martin shows he is serious about completing the work.  Instead, they should invest in completed series or other ongoing series where the author is likely to finish the story.  Martin has for years stated on his blog that he is continuing to write the next book and has completed many hundreds of manuscript pages.  Those claims, to me, indicate that the author isn't really in control of his material, and that his editor(s) have no leverage over him that will force him to focus.  The latter is unsurprising, as Martin is probably the second most successful living speculative fiction author, trailing only J. K. Rowling, who has become a billionaire on the back of her very popular (but much less inventive) Harry Potter series.

Martin's continued involvement in many other projects, ranging from an ASOIAF prequel series to a dinner train in New Mexico, is an indicator he is bored with his creation.  That is his prerogative - it is his life to live and, as I said, he is under no legal obligation to complete the series.  But I think it is bad for speculative fiction in general that such a famous series can be so neglected that it risks being left unfinished.  Readers will be more hesitant to plunge into a new mega-series if they don't believe it will be finished.  While mega-series are not the end-all and be-all of the speculative fiction genres, they have drawn in a lot of new readers, and are an important part of the industry, much as Hollywood blockbusters are important to the movie industry.  I hope for the sake of his readers and speculative fiction in general that Martin finishes ASOIAF.  I just don't really expect him to do so at this point, and that disappoints me.

Random Book Review - The Dirk Gently Novels

Author: Douglas Adams
Released: 1987 / 1988
Format reviewed: Mass-market paperback
Pages of content: 306 / 320
Rating: 3/5 / 3/5

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul are two* nominally science-fiction novels by the late and very much missed British author, Douglas Adams.  More accurately, they are comedies with a smidge of science fiction and/or fantasy to help the absurdist humor along.  In that aspect, they are similar to Douglas's more famous Hitchhiker's series.  However, the setting is primarily on Earth in this series, and there is considerably less action.

Both of the books are called detective novels, but as such the clues are a little obscure, at least to this reader, who may not have approached the books in a sufficiently adversarial manner.  The pacing of LDTTS is the better of the two, as there are more jokes sprinkled throughout and the setup portion of the book moves a little better.  DGHDA doesn't really come alive until the last 80 pages, but it's fairly fun once it does.  Both have interesting endings, though neither are entirely satisfactory.

Overall, these are fun, readable books that anyone who enjoys either speculative fiction or British humor should consume.  They don't rise to the level of the early HHGG books, but unlike a lot of recent speculative fiction, they are easy to finish without getting frustrated.  I recommend them for anyone who doesn't have a hangup about reading only 'serious' literature.

* An partial draft of the third novel in the series was published posthumously, but I felt it inappropriate to include it here.

Random Book Review: The Wheel of Time series

Author: Robert Jordan (0-11) / Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (12-14)
Released: 1990-2013
Format reviewed: Mass-market paperback
Pages of content: 11,898 (per internet sources)
Rating: 3/5

Avid and even moderate readers of the fantasy genre are probably familiar with The Wheel of Time, a 15 books series that is one of the top 10 best-selling of all time.  It is also one of more frustrating, with the middle books being interminable slogs of padding and poor editing.  The energy of the early books leached out by book 5 or 6, and Jordan's infamously similar descriptive passages make some of the chapters feel like they were written with word processor macros.  Bringing Brandon Sanderson in to finish the series would have been a good idea even if Jordan had not passed away in 2007, as the new author managed to fill out pages without employing Jordan's literary tics.  He also recaptured some of the energy of the early books, though he didn't always sustain it through all of the plot threads that needed to be resolved in plausible fashion.  And the ~200 page chapter of the final battle is ridiculous, though perhaps inevitable given the multi-book build-up.

For readers who have limited time and/or budget (the complete series will set a reader back by at least $150), I recommend steering clear of this series in favor of smaller series and stand-alone works.  During my recent re-read, I was able to skip several dozen chapters in books 8 through 11 because I knew basically nothing happened.  What's the point in paying for all those words if they are basically useless?  For readers who feel they've read all the other major series, or who want to read one that has been completed, The Wheel of Time is a decent if somewhat mindless way to fill up time.  Readers should keep internet access internet handy, as they are likely to want to look up characters vaguely remembered from previous chapters without having to pick through the earlier books.