Category: Books

“EVOLUTION”

4/8/2020

In 2003 British science fiction author Stephen Baxter published his long (592 pages) novel “Evolution.” It is named for its central character. In addition to the Prologue and Epilogue it consists of 19 novella-length chapters in three sections: Ancestors, Humans, and Descendants. The novel covers a period of some 165 million years. Each chapter deals with a different time period, the first one in the farthest reaches of the past, the last in the far distant future.

At the centerpoint of the novel, a few years from now, Life As We Know It is at its peak. Civilization is brought down by a perfect storm of pestilence and terrorism. Those few who survive retreat into the forest.

Until that point, the novel had celebrated the increasing complexity of the mind, the growth of intelligence, the creation of civilization. A success story.

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THE REDDENING BY ADAM NEVILL

11/3/2019

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In a recent first gush of excitement I listed Adam Nevill’s “The Reddening” along with John Langan’s “The Fisherman” and Michael Wehunt’s “Greener Pastures” as what I consider the finest achievements in the field of horror in at least the last decade. Now that I have slept on the matter a few days I have not changed my opinion. The two novels and Wehunt’s collection of shorter pieces are fine indeed. In fact, if I toss out the label horror I consider them among the finest new fiction.

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USING TIME

9/13/2014

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As I begin this post, I am just about 1/5th of the way through David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas. It’s a good novel. Well written. Well reviewed. I’ve read Mitchell before, an earlier novel that I liked more than not. Then I starting putting his novels in a large private category: works that I would like to have read but wasn’t sure I wanted to tackle. There’s an old science fictional concept from the middle of the last century that applies. Books could be reproduced in pill form, and when you took one you would have read the book. You could experience languages, scientific concepts, sexual experiences, anything, in this manner.

I was drawn to tackle Mitchell’s novel after having experienced, several times actually, both in a movie theater and on Blu-ray at home, the Wachowskis’ and Tom Tykwer’s movie Cloud Atlas, which I found an easy pill to swallow indeed.

Will I pull back from the novel and stick the rest of it in that private category? Perhaps. Not sure yet. My probable path will be to continue on, a bit at a time, until I reach the end of its 509 pages. It impresses, but it simply is not as much fun as the movie. The carrot is that I will watch the movie again once I have finished the novel.

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“EVOLUTION”

THE REDDENING BY ADAM NEVILL

USING TIME

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