Abbadon's Gate

It has been quite a long time since I explored The Expanse, but it is not for lack of desire. The first two books in the series, Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War, are outstanding galaxy-sweeping adventures. Continuing the main story involving the mysterious protomolecule introduced in the first novel and the escalating situation in the second, Abaddon’s Gate swaps out some major faces for new blood but maintains the fast pace and great characters that impressed me in the inaugural installments.

In this third volume, the story manages to be both congested and expansive simultaneously. Where the first two books included scenes on Earth, on Mars, on Ceres and other asteroid belt stations, and on various spaceships traveling between, the action in Abaddon’s Gate mostly occurs at The Ring, a gigantic structure built in space but not by any of the three known governmental bodies of Earth, Mars, or the Outer Planets Alliance. To determine the purpose of The Ring, the three warring factions must form an uneasy allegiance. Even then, and to nobody’s surprise, not everyone intends to play fairly. The resulting events are as exciting as any sci-fi action film I have ever watched.

As with the first two novels in The Expanse series, author James S. A. Corey (a conflation of authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham) crafted characters who fascinated me, inspiring me to read well past bedtime because I just had to know what they were up to next. The primary hero of the series, Captain James Holden and the crew of his ship The Rocinante are back and just as rich and disfunctional-family as they always have been. I love the Roci’s crew so much. Now, here is where my viewing of the streaming series — itself a phenomenal piece of science fiction entertainment every bit as good as the novels — gets me into trouble because I know the character of Anna was in season two of the series but if I recall correctly, she is new to the novels in Abaddon’s Gate. In the streaming series, she is introduced during the events of Caliban’s War so when she is introduced in book three, I already had an image of actress Elizabeth Mitchell in my head. She is great on the show so no worries there, but I tend to always prefer to read the book first so I can form my own image of a character. I love the novel’s Anna. She is a pastor to her congregation on Europa, the sixth moon of Jupiter. She embodies compassion, a trait so much in need in both the fictional world of The Expanse and in our challenging reality. I hope she appears in future novels. Newcomers Bull and Melba are wonderful, strong characters, one looking to right a wrong and the other looking to do the right thing, and both of them willing to die for their causes.

Science fiction is, by nature, progressive and so to say James S. A. Corey have written progressive elements into their stories is par for the genre course. I do, however, particularly enjoy the matter-of-fact nature of these elements as included. Body modification, homosexuality and same-sex parents, a variety of political ideologies, religious faith without fundamental extremism are all explored without judgment or condemnation. It is so incredibly refreshing and I cannot wait for these subjects to be commonplace in our own reality as well. Over the decades, science fiction has predicted many aspects of what have become our daily lives. I hope it too comes to pass that people are left to be who they are without the rejection, hatred, and demonization we see today.

The Expanse is truly one of my favorite things right now, both the books and the streaming series, and I am so excited for the opportunity to continue this amazing adventure with book four, Cibola Burn, this year.

The Way of Kings

When I read Elantris during the summer of 2018, I was impressed, but The Way of Kings is next storming level.

This one-thousand-seven page epic is just the first of a planned ten-novel series that already has at least one novella (Edgedancer, 2017) on bookstore shelves, virtual or otherwise, to sate voracious fans awaiting the fourth behemoth. I cannot imagine how author Brandon Sanderson plans to fill ten to eleven thousand pages, but I will say this. Despite the incredible length of The Way of Kings, I was not bored at any point. That is astounding. I have read some three-hundred page books that struggled to hold my attention throughout, but Brandon Sanderson managed to enthrall me from beginning to end. Every page was full of interesting details that exploded my imagination. Print copies are further enriched by beautiful chapter header artwork and full-page illustrations and maps. I spent several minutes perusing each of these, drinking in every detail.

Brandon Sanderson eschews the traditional fantasy races like dwarves, elves, and orcs in favor of a rich variety of human cultures with their own traditions and physical attributes. The only exception to that might be parshmen who are described as having human or human-like physiology but they have another quality that is certainly extraordinary. Sanderson teases details about these different cultures throughout the story and by the time I flipped to the last page of the novel, I had some understanding about a few of them but yearned for more. Sanderson offers little in the way of direct explanation, instead allowing me to explore and imagine on my own and when a new piece of information is provided, to chew and savor. The Way of Kings is one of those epic fantasy novels that delights in slowly dragging the reader deeper into its world. I loved every second of it and am in no hurry to escape it.

Living among the characters of Sanderson’s world are a diverse ecology of flora and fauna. Aside from horses, there are no recognizable animals in this world. Oh sure, one can recognize the earthbound inspirations for Sanderson’s creations, but the animals living on Roshar are strange and magnificent and I do not want to pet any of them. I was fascinated by the plant life and its sentience, reacting to outside stimuli, hiding like a timid animal and slowly reemerging when the coast is clear. Even the weather and the seasons have a strange, otherworldly quality to them. Such details were a warm blanket on a cold night and burrowed deeper.

Magic systems are important to epic fantasy fans. BookTubers produce entire episodes ranking their favorite magic systems and discussing in detail which are the best and which authors they think need to put a little more effort into the mystical actions their characters take. Personally, I do not think about it quite that much but I certainly do recognize and appreciate when an author has put extra effort into designing a system of magic that has rules and makes sense. Throughout his career, Brandon Sanderson has established a reputation for being one of those authors and in The Way of Kings, he introduces readers to characters with astounding abilities and then slowly sprinkles bread crumbs of information such that by the time the story is over, we understand the basic rules but still have so many questions. This is a great trick, especially when one intends to write nine more novels in the series. I expect to learn more about this Stormlight and how it can be harnessed in book two.

As Brandon Sanderson himself stated in an article on Tor.com, “I do put a lot of effort into the magic in my books. But a great book for me isn’t about a magic, it’s about the people that the magic affects.” As such, the characters in The Way of Kings are probably real people you can meet provided Brandon brings them along to his book signings. When I read Elantris, I loved the main characters and was surprised when I was drawn in by the villain’s story and felt some measure of empathy for his plight. The Way of Kings is no different. There are heroes and there are villains, but all of them are interesting and breathe. I identified with Kaladin the most because I recognized in his actions what I had hoped to accomplish in my former career. I was not successful and so I rooted for him to succeed that much more. The scholar in me envies Shallan and I want nothing more than to spend a day with her in one of the Veil balcony alcoves, reading books and discussing philosophy. I grew up in a family of military men — we can trace our military roots back several generations and therefore have tremendous respect for our men and women in uniform — and thus I admire and fear for characters like Adolin and Dalinar, but am thrilled when they are on the page because their adventures are just so storming exciting! Szeth-son-son-Vallano, like Hrathen in Elantris, is one of those villains deserving of sympathy and about whom I want to know so much more.

Another aspect of this novel that inspired me is the philosophical discussions. Throughout the novel, characters debate topics such as theology and faith, ethics and morality, prejudice and classism. Sanderson does not do it in a superficial way either. He presents valid arguments on both sides of the discussion and a handful of times, I actually set the book down to ponder what was just stated. I love it when a fantasy novel — a genre not given much credit in literary circles — has something profound to say about the real world. That is really every author’s goal but I feel like fantasy authors are largely ignored in this respect. Hopefully, authors like Sanderson can break through.

I love this book so much. For the past couple of years, my New Year’s Resolution has involved a pledge to read a book that I have been putting off for one reason or another. I had heard incredible things about The Way of Kings and so purchased a copy several years ago, but since then, it has sat on my shelf. The sheer size and weight of it intimidated me. Until six months ago, I was working a job that did not afford me much leisure time and so reading a novel the size and depth of The Way of Kings did not seem possible. I left that job in December and so in January I decided that in 2020, I would finally read this behemoth that had put Brandon Sanderson at the top of the fantasy author pile. Thanks to a buddy read hosted by my friend Dean Ethington, I can finally check The Way of Kings off my list of shame, off my TBR, and off my #20BooksIn2020 list. More than all of that though, I have taken the first step into an amazing fantasy world and I am excited to continue that journey.

The Shining

The Shining is a bona fide classic. Whether speaking of the novel or the film, if you are in a crowd and mention you have never read it, never watched it, you will be pelted with outraged expressions of disbelief and exasperation from nearly everyone else within earshot. You may even be asked what you are doing with your life. So here I am, protected by the safety of my own website, saying I had never read The Shining.

Had. Past tense. I have remedied the situation and feel strange saying I feel a sense of completeness now, but that is the only way I can think to put it. The fact that I had not read The Shining had bothered me for years. During my junior year at university, I took a class that was listed in the university course catalog as a history of film studies, but the professor Dr. “Bob” Davis was a Stanley Kubrick überfan and had retooled the entire course to be an in-depth review of the director and his work. It was a fascinating class and one of my favorite university experiences. Students of Kubrick’s body of work will note that all of his feature films beginning with “Spartacus” (1960) are based on a novel or novella. Dr. Davis’s lesson plan was to assign the novel to read followed by an in-class screening of the film followed by analysis and discussion. It was a wonderful experience and one I am so sad to admit I did not take full advantage of. Being a full-time student while also holding down a full-time job left little to no time for sleep let alone in depth study of any of my class subjects, even of a subject that fascinated me as this one did. I wish I could take the class again today as a wiser adult with an appreciation for the gift that was being delivered to me every Tuesday and Thursday morning in that university auditorium classroom.

The first subject was A Clockwork Orange. Having been assigned for reading at the end of the class session on a Thursday with film screening and discussion scheduled for the following Tuesday, I had essentially four calendar days to read the novel. It is a short novel and I managed to do it. Following the Anthony Burgess masterpiece was The Shining. I bought the novel — I worked at a bookstore at the time so even received an employee discount! — but was not able to read it before the next class and so was without Stephen King’s original version of the story to guide me through the discussion. With the class charging forward to Barry Lyndon the following week and then Dr. Strangelove and beyond, I did not have the time to back up and read The Shining properly. After purchasing the book though, I did peek at the first page and will always remember the first line. “Officious little prick”. Why did that stick with me for two decades?

Fast forward to April 2020. In recognition of the global COVID-19 pandemic quarantine that has us all locked in our homes, my podcast (The Hero’s Journey) cohost and I decided it would be fun to cover a book or film featuring main characters trapped in isolated locations. Many projects were on the initial list but we narrowed it down to three finalists that we then presented to our Patreon patrons for voting: The Shining (novel and film), the John Carpenter classic thriller “The Thing”, and the criminally underappreciated Dan Trachtenberg directorial debut “10 Cloverfield Lane”. The Shining won with 50% of the vote and so I had a project to undertake.

I have seen the Kubrick film many times and that in-class screening in Dr. Davis’s auditorium was not the first, but I still had yet to read the novel. Appropriately enough, I had been toying with the idea of undertaking a Stephen King project wherein I would begin reading every novel of his that I have not yet read in publication order. I read Carrie last year — wait, was that last year… please hold, checking Goodreads… no, my goodness that was the first week of October 2018! — and had thought I would continue with ‘Salem’s Lot this year with The Shining to follow some time after. The people have spoken however and demanded I read The Shining immediately. So more than two decades after I should have read it like a good little film student, I finally read Stephen King’s The Shining from April 16-22. I did read it in less than a week and my first instinct upon snapping the book shut to test its thumpability was to chastise myself (and more?) for not doing it when I should have, but then I had to remind myself that more than two decades ago, I was working 40+ hours per week at a bookstore and shouldering a 16-unit university course load. The lesson here is be kind to yourself. Be forgiving. You’ve been through a lot.

I have read many Stephen King novels in my lifetime. Nowhere near half or probably even a quarter of his ever growing bibliography, but certainly more than any other author in existence. My first was The Stand, Complete and Unabridged. I have read Under the Dome, 11/22/63, Bag of Bones, Misery, On Writing, and several others. All of them have been great experiences. While reading The Shining, I struggled with this sense that I am reading one of the literary world’s horror classics upon which one of the cinema world’s horror classics was based and I was expecting the moon and more. “Wow, this is so cool,” I thought. “I’m having so much fun! This is amazing!” But was I? And was it? There is no question that The Shining is a great novel. Even though it is only the third of King’s massive oeuvre, King’s incredible skill at creating characters that capture the reader’s attention is on full display. The man understands people and what makes them who they are. Who we are. We recognize ourselves in them and isn’t that just the most frightening fucking thing?

I enjoy that King takes the scenic route to the destination. In the Hero’s Journey mythology, the World of Common Day is the first segment of the Journey and usually a brief one, especially in modern storytelling. The segment introduces the hero in their normal environment and is meant to give the reader the opportunity to relate to the hero or their situation which then helps the reader insert themselves into the story. Stephen King gives readers the veggies along with the meat and potatoes and I chew every bite slowly. In The Shining, I was a good hundred pages into the novel before I felt like other elements of the Journey were really beginning to take shape. At the very least, King’s Act One is juicy.

What would be the Journey’s second act of The Shining is where I began to flounder just a bit. I was still enjoying the heck out of the experience, but after seeing Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of Jack Torrance, a troubled writer and his descent into hysterical homicidal madness, that became the version of Jack Torrance I expected. It is not the Jack Torrance of the novel. In some way, I enjoy the person of Jack Torrance in the novel much more than the film version. I see too many elements of myself in him. Jack Nicholson’s portrayal is unsettling, theatrical, almost comical, but always frighteningly human. In the novel, the troubled but earnest father and husband is possessed by supernatural forces of the Overlook Hotel and forced to commit his heinous attacks. While this is certainly unpleasant, I was not afraid of the novel’s Jack Torrance the way I am still today afraid of the film’s Jack Torrance. It just did not affect me the way the film did and does.

Where the novel is far superior to the film is the establishment of the Torrance family. All three characters are developed and interesting whereas in the film, it just feels like the Jack Nicholson Show. In the novel, the family is strained to the point of breaking but the job at the Overlook Hotel gives them another chance and it seems to cement them together again as a family unit. Then Stephen King does what he does best nobody escapes unharmed. The conclusion of the novel is vastly different than the film, but every bit as tense.

Stephen King’s talents are clear and present if slightly raw still. Do not misunderstand me: slightly raw for Stephen King is still masterful compared to many of his contemporaries. I think maybe I just prefer Stanley Kubrick’s film ever so slightly. This is why I tend to prefer to read the novel first and why I even now kick myself for not generating the time to read this story back in college when Dr. Davis assigned it to the class. Would I feel differently about it? It is such a subjective thing that I cannot think my way into an honest answer. All I know is that I enjoy both experiences and am grateful to Dr. Davis for his class. Two decades later, I have finally completed the coursework, Professor.

A Rage for Order

It began nearly a decade ago with an act of police brutality, followed by a grassroots campaign that resulted in huge public protests, a revolution that spread throughout an entire region of the world. The political landscapes of multiple countries were upended, leaders were removed, tyrants were eliminated. For many people in far-removed countries who knew little to nothing of the Middle East beyond a vague impression that it has been a troubled region for their entire lifetimes, the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings brought many struggling nations into sharp relief. The protests were on our television screens and computer monitors. We watched real people, beaten and bloodied, carried to safety by their friends, sometimes by complete strangers, but always by their fellow citizens. For some of us, it was reminiscent of watching news footage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. The cause of the strife may have had a different immediate source, but the result looked terrifyingly familiar. People who normally would not have been interested in such events suddenly began to pay attention. It was much more difficult to dismiss the images as belonging to “them, not us”. These were not just a shadow population of a far away land. They had become real people who had faces, who wore clothes with logos we saw in our own stores, who were frightened and angry and had earned a better life than they were receiving. They were human beings. Still are.

My first exposure to Robert F. Worth’s A Rage for Order was in the Spring of 2016 when it was featured on Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square program on CNN. I have always enjoyed Mr. Zakaria’s program and his global citizen view of the world and its problems. I even have a coffee mug with the program’s logo on it. I call it my smart mug. Shortly after the program ended, I visited my local bookshop and bought a copy of Worth’s new book.

And then it sat on a shelf for nearly four years.

As much as I try to pay attention to what is going on in the world, there has been so much worldwide negativity during my adult life, which has been a smidge more than half of my lifetime so far, that it is exhausting to keep up and keep it all straight. I reached my tolerance limit and backed away. With the coming of the new calendar year, I reignited by interested in world events and endeavored to make this book the first of my new effort. (Note: I wrote this more than a month ago before the COVID-19 virus brought the world to a standstill. So that’s one more negative global story to add to the pile. Had I not read the book prior to the pandemic, I probably would not have read it at all.)

This is difficult subject matter, but I appreciate the way Robert Worth chose to tell this story. Instead of just being a textbook explanation of the events, Worth chooses individual people as the lens through which we see these events unfold. We meet a Libyan rebel who comes face to face with the man who tortured and murdered his brother and we witness him struggle with vengeance or forgiveness. It is one of those stories that makes me really sit and think about what I might do in that situation. Later, Worth takes us to Egypt and introduces us to a doctor who suffers an existential crisis as his political loyalties and his medical oath conflict. The Syrian chapter tells the story of two young women, best friends since childhood, but from different sects of Islam and the wedge it drives between them as the uprisings turn violent. It is a heartbreaking story that illuminated the senseless nature of such squabbles. These are human stories about real people and the absolute awfulness they endure. The stories made me mad, made me sad, made me wonder if things will ever, can ever get better.

What the book did not do is give me any hope whatsoever that the region is on the right path. There was a moment there during those Spring months of 2011 when we saw a glimmer of hope, baby steps in the right direction, but since then we have continued to see stories about atrocities in the Middle East and so it seems the region is backsliding. It is still the one region of the world to which I have no interest in traveling. My perception is that it is still just too dangerous and not at all friendly to Westerners. That is such a shame. There is so much history and beauty there. My hope is that before I die, the region will experience a Renaissance, an Enlightenment, and people like me can experience the rich culture of the Middle East firsthand. Until then, I will have to continue to feel sorrow and despair every time the news shows me another blood-drenched and smoke-choked scene of death and destruction due to government brutality or religious extremism.

If you have A Rage for Order on your shelf, put it on your nightstand, in your backpack, carry it with you to your local coffee shop (after COVID-19 clears up — again, I originally wrote this over a month ago). Make time to read it. Despite the way it made me feel, I am still grateful for the opportunity to experience the stories Robert Worth shared and grateful to the subjects for allowing him to tell me their tales.

20 books in 2020

How many books do you own that you have not yet read?

I just counted and I have 220 unread books on my bookshelves at home, a figure which plays nicely with the title of this article. I have written previously about my personal experience with tsundoku (積ん読) which the BBC gently identifies as “the art of buying books and never reading them”. I think many of us in the #bookstagram community are guilty of this. Guilty? That makes it sound like we are committing a crime. To say we suffer from or live with tsundoku may be a little closer to the mark because it suggests this condition may very well be on the spectrum of a mental illness. Nothing so extreme as schizophrenia or sociopathy, but certainly with one toe in the waters of obsessive compulsive disorder.

For me, it is a compulsion that I have been trying hard to control. Until last year, if I ever entered a bookstore, I would not leave empty-handed. If there is a series I am interested in reading, I will buy as much of the series as is available. What if I read the first volume of the series and do not like it? If it is a long-running series like Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time — fourteen volumes written over a period time just one week shy of twenty-three years — then I have just spent hundreds of dollars and taken up several feet of shelf space for something I will probably never read. I know for a fact that many others do this as well and quite a lot of us can be found on Instagram, posting photographs of our voluminous book collections in tiny, artsy cries for help. Sometimes I will luck into a great series like The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. I now own seven of the eight chunky volumes, but have only read the first two. Fortunately, I absolutely adore them and I am quite confident that I will enjoy the rest of the series because after reading reviews written by people I trust, it sounds like the series only gets better. But in general, I just buy books. I buy them as though owning them will keep me alive. I love having them around me. I am comforted by them. Even knowing that I will die before I have the chance to read some of these tomes, just having the author’s ideas within arm’s reach makes me feel good.

My book-related social media community exists mostly on Instagram — and not Goodreads, which surprised me — and it is through users like Whitney who manages @theunreadshelf Instagram account and www.theunreadshelf.com that I have begun to rein in my tsundoku. I have not bought a book for myself in at least half a year and I am really proud of that. Part of it hurts because I love wandering the aisles of a bookshop, pulling an interesting book off the shelf and trotting to the cashier with it, driving home with it resting comfortably on the passenger seat like a newly adopted puppy. Buying books supports the author who wrote it, the publisher and agent who gave it a chance, the bookstore who made it physically available for purchase. Not buying a book makes me feel as though I am not participating in that economy.

To combat that unpleasant feeling, I am trying to be more active in the @bookstagram community and with Goodreads and with this website. Word of mouth is another positive way to support authors and the books you love. This involves writing reviews — I say “review” but prefer to think of my articles as just my experience with the book because I do not follow the rigid book review format — posting photographs of books on Instagram, checking out books from my local library. Speaking of libraries, I signed up for my first library card in three decades at the beginning of this year. I have since checked out and read four books:

1. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien — the subject of the January episode The Hero’s Journey Podcast — The Secret of NIMH

2. All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka — the subject of the February episode of The Hero’s Journey Podcast — Edge of Tomorrow

3. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick — the subject of the March episode of The Hero’s Journey Podcast — Total Recall

4. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Sadly, my library patronage has been temporarily halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I intend to return as soon as it is safe to do so. My local library branch is about a mile and a half from my home so if I walk, I not only have the opportunity to visit the library and everything it has to offer, but I also squeeze in a three-mile exercise walk. And while I walk to the library, I listen to an audiobook on Audible so I am not only accomplishing exercise goals, but also reading and library goals at the same time. Hashtag multitasking.

I have digressed. The purpose of this article is to challenge myself to read twenty books that I already own before the end of the year 2020. As I stated at the top, I have 220 options. With the first quarter of the year now in the past, I have already made some progress in that four of the nine books I have read this year are from my Unread Shelf. The others are the aforementioned library books and a literary journal. I do not count the library books because I do not own them. I read them because I featured them and the movie based upon the books on my podcast. Did I mention I have a podcast? I have a podcast. The Hero’s Journey. Check it out! My co-host Jeff Garvin and I have a few laughs, a themed adult beverage or two, and break down popular books and films using Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey myth structure. We are really proud of our work and would love it if you would give us a chance to entertain you.

I digressed again. Darn it. 20 books for 2020. Okay, here goes:

1. The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi (complete)

2. A Rage for Order by Robert F. Worth (complete)

3. Where Gods Fear to Go by Angus Watson (complete)

4. Anyone You Want Me To Be by John Douglas and Stephen Singular (complete)

5. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (complete)

6. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (complete)

   and here is where I have to challenge myself by actually choosing fourteen books off my shelf and committing to read them before the end of the year…

   …so here we are, not necessarily in this order…

7. The Lightness of Hands by Jeff Garvin (complete)

8. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer (complete)

9. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (complete)

10. Badluck Way by Bryce Andrews (complete)

11. How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry (complete)

12. The Grey Bastards by Jonathan French

13. How Like a God by Brenda W. Clough (complete)

14. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (complete)

15. The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis (complete)

16. Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter (complete)

17. Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn (complete)

18. The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl (complete)

19. Abaddon’s Gate, Book 3 of The Expanse by James S. A. Corey

20. ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King (complete)

By the gods, that is a list. Again, the goal here is to read books I already own. Once I finish them, I will either keep them if I absolutely love them or donate them to the library so someone else can read them. I visit Santa Barbara frequently and behind Brass Bear Brewing on Anacapa Street, there is a red telephone booth that has been converted into a Little Library. I have left books there before and they are always gone the next time I pass through. I don’t know if someone takes them to keep or if the local library swings by to collect them. It matters not to me as long as someone else is gaining access to these books.

So there it is! Twenty books I plan to read in 2020. Twenty books I already own. How many books are on your Unread Shelf? How many do you plan to read this year?