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Continuing my Summer Reading Extravaganza ‘08, I recently finished The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke.

The City and the Stars is the story of humanity’s last city, and the one man who wants nothing more than to leave it. The city, Diaspar, is a huge, enclosed environment, where the last vestiges of mankind has retreated after leaving the stars. Maintained by incredible and infallible machines, Diaspar has stood for a billion years, its immortal inhabitants living life after life, with periods of rest in the great memory banks of the city in between. Outside of the great barriers Earth has died, become nothing but a giant desert. Safe in the city, humans have lost their natural curiosity and cannot bear the thought of leaving the safety of their city. So it goes on, in stasis, until a man who has never lived before is suddenly brought forth by the computers, without the mental barriers, who goes about attempting to leave.

This story was a good enough read, but it never truly gripped me. Mankind has apparently edited out all the traits it found undesirable, so the characters all seem to be paragons of patience and understanding. While this is all well and good from the perspective of future society, it makes it harder to identify properly with most of them. The only flaw they seem to have retained is fear.

Clarke is masterful when it comes to describing the society of the future, however. The insights into the structure and machinery behind the city is inspired. I did at one point think that the insistence on the infallibility of the computers and machines was a bit too much, especially as the expectation was never reversed by a breakdown, but that’s nitpicking. The glimpses into the great forgotten past are the most interesting of all. As Alvin, the main character, finally gets out and about and stumbles over the remains of galactic civilisation, we are at Clarke’s greatest strength; the incomprehensible artefacts that clearly have much story behind them, but whose true purpose are never revealed to us. No one but Clarke can write mystery like this so masterfully, and I could easily get lost in the speculation.

Of course, this is also the most frustrating part of Clarke’s writing, knowing that the answers I so want will not come.

Overall, it is a good book, especially if your tastes lean towards the “science” part of science fiction. Clarke is a artisan at world building, but the characters leave something to be wanted.

Continuing with my post-exam reading frenzy (hurrah for hyperbole), I have just finished The Dreaming Void, by Peter F. Hamilton.

The Dreaming Void takes us back to the Intersolar Commonwealth from Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained. Well over a millennium has passed, and much is different. The monocultural Commonwealth we knew is no more, it has shattered into a myriad of worlds, many of which are only loosely affiliated with each other. On one of these worlds, a movement known as Living Dream is planning a pilgrimage to the mysterious Void, an artificial universe at the centre of the galaxy, which is slowly eating the surrounding stars. Living Dream believes the Void contains paradise, most others believe touching it is certain death. What’s worse, the pilgrimage might set of a massive expansion phase, devouring the whole galaxy.

It took me a chapter or so to get into this story. Hamilton mercilessly throws us into the middle of his world, and often takes a long, long time to explain exactly what all these acronyms and technologies and organisations actually are. As a result I felt quite disorientated for a while. Once I started getting my bearings however, there was nothing but enjoyment ahead. Hamilton is a superb writer who crafts an intriguing world filled with interesting characters, whose stories run parallel, interweaving and complimenting each other. We even get to see some of the characters from Pandora’s Star again, with a few glaring omissions. Ozzie is missed, but he is at least mentioned, unlike the SI, which is alluded to only in a single sentence in the appendix. Apparently, we will get to see more of it in the sequel though.

Interspersed with the main storyline we are also told the story from Inigo’s dreams. I enjoyed this story almost more than the main storyline, it was more reminiscent of a classic fantasy story than the science fiction which is so prevalent in the rest. This story is apparently also getting more focus in the sequel, a fact which has me salivating in anticipation.

The only thing that really bothers me is the ending. Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained didn’t feel like two books in a series, it felt like one book split into two volumes. This might be Hamilton’s M.O., as The Dreaming Void ends on a cliffhanger as well. Nothing is really resolved. I strongly suspect that when the entire trilogy is out, it can be read as one work to great enjoyment, but reaching the end of the first third leaves mostly frustration. There is a pay-off of sorts for one of the books main plot lines, but it barely has time to register, and certainly no time to explain itself, before something explodes and the book ends.

Despite this, the book is very enjoyable. Hamilton has conjured up not just one, but two deep and interesting worlds to immerse yourself in, filled with people you want to see more of. Frequent references are made to the events of Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained, but I think you could still follow the story fine without having read them. It is a book I enjoyed immensely, and I am greatly looking forward to the sequels.

A couple of weeks ago, I bough a bunch of books on one of those evil sales. Now that exams are over, I finally have time to read again, though it’s remarkable how all that drive to read and write I felt during the revision period dissipated once the exam was over. Nevertheless, I have recently finished the first of these books, Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart.

This book chronicles the experiences of Isherwood Williams, who returns home from a research trip in the mountains to find that humanity has all but died out from a mysterious disease. Banding together with a few other survivors, he tries to survive in the ruins of civilization, while dreaming of one day rebuilding it.

I quite enjoyed this book. While I was not overly fond of the main character, as I found him a bit too arrogant and inefficient, the story as a whole was quite interesting. I should admit that my ambivalence towards Ish might come from being hit a bit too close to home, though.

I particularly enjoyed the little segments on what happened to the things Man left behind, the plants and animals and constructions. Especially in the first segment of the book, these observations on how the natural world would change without people there to keep it in the mould we’ve built for it, were much more fascinating than Ish himself. Possibly, the author thought so too, as the first part of the book is mostly Ish driving around to observe the effects of the calamity, rather than taking any active part in events.

In the second segment, when Ish and some other survivors have banded together to form their little tribe, these little asides become rarer, but it doesn’t matter much, as the formation of the new society becomes the interesting part. The books characters aren’t really all that much to shout about, many of them can be described in a single word, and several of them never get any more characteristics beyond a name. At this point, the story is much more about the character of the emerging society than of its individual members. It is really only Ish and his wife who are more than background, yet it is the background that is interesting, the rites and customs that emerge in the little tribe, like the New Year ritual they develop. As the survivors age, the tribe becomes numerically dominated by their children, who never knew the old world, and who have original ways of seeing the past. The reverence they have for Ish’s hammer, which has acted as a sort of safety blanket for him, was a touch I really liked.

Overall, I wish we had seen more of the culture and mythology of the tribe, especially in the third part of the book, when Ish is old and dying as the last of the Americans, and the tribe consists entirely of people who have never known any life but the one they lead. Since Ish is the focus point, and at this point in the story, apparently senile, we get only fleeting glimpses. I would dearly have loved to see the story continue beyond where it ended, to have a look at the new world when the old was truly gone.

Overall, this story is enjoyable chiefly for its plot, rather than its characters. The plot is very interesting, and while the characters might not be the most developed personalities, they do not detract from the enjoyment. It was well worth the read.