Brain candy for stressful times
May. 16th, 2012 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteEach of us has comfort reading we do while we're under stress and need something to sedate our brain. For some it's Harlequin romances or pornography; for others, it's spy novels or Westerns. For me, it's military hard SF. When I'm beyond frustrated with work or other situations, my go-to guy is David Weber (most famous for the Honor Harrington series of novels.
Weber does many things well: he creates a range of interesting, honorable characters you like, and doesn't hesitate to kill them off when they make dumb mistakes or the world conspires against them. He's willing, nay eager, to include the whole rainbow of humanity in his novels, with two overt exceptions that give me pause: he doesn't do Jewish characters, and he doesn't do gay characters. In his defense, neither does he demonize them in any way. Despite those reservations, when I just want a romp in which many things get blowed up real good (i.e., military porn), I don't go to Tom Clancy; I go to Weber.
[Spoiler alert]
My latest Weber book is Out of the Dark. It's a bog-standard alien invasion tale, and a bog-standard Weber tale: bad aliens invade Earth, kill off about half the population, and Weber's usual protagonists, heavily armed military and civilians who have survived the initial stages of the apocalypse, respond by proving they can defeat even technologically superior aliens by guts, grit, and superior firepower, plus a willingness to die defending what they hold dear.
Yeah, on one level, it's really that stupid. But it's masterfully done, and a real page-turner that doesn't require much in the way of brainpower to read. This time, Weber almost pulls off one of the most brilliant surprise endings I've encountered, a real and possibly literal deus ex machina that's skillfully foreshadowed once you know how things end and can look back for clues and that really, really almost works.
Almost.
Here's the shtick: For 370 or so pages, this is a classic Weber tale of good guys 'n guns blowing up bad guys. Good people die in droves; so do bad people. Enough heros survive to keep you reading in the hope your favorite characters survive and wondering how they'll manage that difficult trick given the body count. In the end, as it must because of the setup, the aliens are forced to withdraw from Earth because their losses have become unacceptable, and they prepare to turn our home into asteroid debris from the safety of their ships. And there's nothing humanity can do to stop them... except: one of the characters whose adventures we've been following throughout the book, a Romanian guerrilla leader, turns out to be Dracula. Yeah, that Dracula.
I'll pause while you absorb that one.
Have you stopped giggling yet?
Yeah, that's the part that almost works. From the self-contained perspective of the novel, the hints are all there if you've been paying attention, and Weber plays true to his premise throughout the story. On that level, it's a fair ending: nobody ever said that the only things in this story universe are things Arthur Clarke would approve up. But if you're like me, a novelist wannabe, you probably won't accept the misdirection as valid from a narrative perspective: if you spend more than 90% of the book establishing the terms of the story as science fictional, invoking a fantasy character for the ending completely violates the contract you've established with the reader. From a literary perspective, it's all crap (or at least high-quality junk food).
But on a purely emotional level, I've got to admit that I grinned like a fool once I realized where Weber was going with the plot. Like the best jokes, you only see the punchline coming as the narrator delivers it and you share their pleasure in the reveal.
Historical note: I recall reading a story when I was a wee sprat (so this is probably 40 years ago, and the story likely at least a decade older) in which aliens invade Earth, and end up taking a host of vampires with them as prisoners when they depart, thereby finding themselves locked aboard their ship with nowhere to flee from the starving vampires. My gratitude if you can remember the author and title. Wonder if Weber read the same story when he was younger?
Weber does many things well: he creates a range of interesting, honorable characters you like, and doesn't hesitate to kill them off when they make dumb mistakes or the world conspires against them. He's willing, nay eager, to include the whole rainbow of humanity in his novels, with two overt exceptions that give me pause: he doesn't do Jewish characters, and he doesn't do gay characters. In his defense, neither does he demonize them in any way. Despite those reservations, when I just want a romp in which many things get blowed up real good (i.e., military porn), I don't go to Tom Clancy; I go to Weber.
[Spoiler alert]
My latest Weber book is Out of the Dark. It's a bog-standard alien invasion tale, and a bog-standard Weber tale: bad aliens invade Earth, kill off about half the population, and Weber's usual protagonists, heavily armed military and civilians who have survived the initial stages of the apocalypse, respond by proving they can defeat even technologically superior aliens by guts, grit, and superior firepower, plus a willingness to die defending what they hold dear.
Yeah, on one level, it's really that stupid. But it's masterfully done, and a real page-turner that doesn't require much in the way of brainpower to read. This time, Weber almost pulls off one of the most brilliant surprise endings I've encountered, a real and possibly literal deus ex machina that's skillfully foreshadowed once you know how things end and can look back for clues and that really, really almost works.
Almost.
Here's the shtick: For 370 or so pages, this is a classic Weber tale of good guys 'n guns blowing up bad guys. Good people die in droves; so do bad people. Enough heros survive to keep you reading in the hope your favorite characters survive and wondering how they'll manage that difficult trick given the body count. In the end, as it must because of the setup, the aliens are forced to withdraw from Earth because their losses have become unacceptable, and they prepare to turn our home into asteroid debris from the safety of their ships. And there's nothing humanity can do to stop them... except: one of the characters whose adventures we've been following throughout the book, a Romanian guerrilla leader, turns out to be Dracula. Yeah, that Dracula.
I'll pause while you absorb that one.
Have you stopped giggling yet?
Yeah, that's the part that almost works. From the self-contained perspective of the novel, the hints are all there if you've been paying attention, and Weber plays true to his premise throughout the story. On that level, it's a fair ending: nobody ever said that the only things in this story universe are things Arthur Clarke would approve up. But if you're like me, a novelist wannabe, you probably won't accept the misdirection as valid from a narrative perspective: if you spend more than 90% of the book establishing the terms of the story as science fictional, invoking a fantasy character for the ending completely violates the contract you've established with the reader. From a literary perspective, it's all crap (or at least high-quality junk food).
But on a purely emotional level, I've got to admit that I grinned like a fool once I realized where Weber was going with the plot. Like the best jokes, you only see the punchline coming as the narrator delivers it and you share their pleasure in the reveal.
Historical note: I recall reading a story when I was a wee sprat (so this is probably 40 years ago, and the story likely at least a decade older) in which aliens invade Earth, and end up taking a host of vampires with them as prisoners when they depart, thereby finding themselves locked aboard their ship with nowhere to flee from the starving vampires. My gratitude if you can remember the author and title. Wonder if Weber read the same story when he was younger?