@@thedumbdog1964 There isn't much to tell. Chinese immigrants started using a plancha instead of a wok and did what all diaspora do and use the local ingredients and flavors integrated into the cooking they were raised with. The combination is flavor dynamite! Mexico is an amazing melting pot with people from all over the world, something I think most people are not aware of.
I love when you have such high praise for a book so I know to add it to my TBR list. Recently finished 'Other days, other eyes' after you mentioned it and it was worth the difficulty in trying to find a copy, so can't wait to get to ICE, also this review had me reading her wiki and god damn what a bio.
I totally agree about the sex thing. Here's a good example. The Scarface novelization. I'm no prude, but the book has all these detailed sex scenes with Tony and different people, and I'm like, WHO GIVES A SHIT?! Is this why I bought Scarface? What does this have to do with anything?
In The City and the Stars I thought it was interesting that the inhabitants of the city were immortal and periodically recreated by the computer. The main character had this drive toward creativity and escape because he was one of the very few new people created by the computer. This said, you might be right that it's a YA novel, I only read it as a teenager, but I still remember it fondly.
"City and the Stars" was a reworking of ACC's first novel, which was "Against the Fall of Night". Plot is essentially the same. Gregory Benford wrote a loose sequel to ATFON, published bundled with it as "Beyond the Fall of Night". It's readable. Yeah, I thought it was great stuff when I was 13.
I always have to remind myself to diversify my reading. Going to read 3 non-sci-fi classics next Having just read City and the Stars I can see how you could find it dull and predictable, especially if you've been entrenched in science fiction for awhile. I have a feeling you wouldn't like The Alchemist and you've helped me see from the perspective of all the people in my comments who roll their eyes at it
I read “Against the Fall of Night” when I was a teenager and the book was relatively new. Some of the ideas haunted me. I was dismayed that those ideas were edited out of the revised versions. All three versions ceased to be interesting when Alvin left the city.
Historical fiction/fantasy is a nice change of pace from SF. For instance, Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth and Eye of the Needle were good reads. Thanks for another great post, BP. Cheers.
You really did a good a job of capturing the essence of Clarke (in the novel), just as you did with Silverberg, Miller, and, come to think of it, all the writers I've heard you critique. I'm impressed.
I haven't read 'River of Gods', but I really enjoyed McDonald's 'Chaga' (also known by it's US title 'Evolution's Shore'). Granted, I read it over 25 years ago, so I can't really tell you what I liked about it, but it did have a big impact on me at the time.
Are you going to be reviewing the Mishima, Matt? I don't think you've reviewed a piece of literary fiction on the channel yet, if I'm not mistaken, but I'd love to hear your review. I agree that Mishima is one of the most interesting people ever and since I've learned of him I've been thinking of reading something by him, so I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.
I cant wait to get to 'Ice'. Been hoping to find it in the wild for a few years now. I didn't think much of 'The City and the Stars' but then again its a reworked version of his first novel. Not as good as his later stuff.
Mr Pilled, please don't ever change. Thank you for having a mind of your own and being honest about liking what you like and not liking what you don't like. The world needs more real people who don't have the disease to please and conform. Just found your channel and subbed. What a refreshing channel, though I rarely read SF.
I had the same thing with The Dervish House by the same author. Loved the first part then grew so disenchanted with it. I actually might never have finished it if I was not on a 30+ hour flight with no other reading matter. I was SO relived to finish it and I left it on a bench in Berlin hoping to never see it again.
I think books should be judged both as compared against all other books, but also compared against what existed when it was written. By the first category, The City and the Stars is still good (I re-read it recently, so my memory isn't clouded too much by childhood memories). But by the second category, it was nearly revolutionary. Also, I like both the book and the original novella (Against the Fall of Night, which I also re-read recently), for different reasons.
One of the things I liked about Against the Fall of Night was the Moving Way. Was that in The City And The Stars? The Moving Way is a transportation system with no moving parts; this is a recurring trope is Clarke's work. The monolith in 2001 is another example.
"Ice" has been on my list for a while, might be time (looked for it in secondhand shops for a couple of months before realising i'd been checking under 'C' instead of 'K' because I am a very smart person). (and I _think_ Ian McDonald is one of my gaps though i've had 'Brasyl' on the TBR for years)
Is there a list somewhere showing every book you’ve reviewed and which video it was on? It would be nice to revisit some of your older videos as I catch up and read some of the same titles.
Thanks for your reviews as always. I'll put another vote out for hearing reviews from you that deviate out from sci fi. Also, you've added Ice to my stupidly large tbr pile... thanks!
I appreciate all of the classics you dig up in your critiques - was wondering if you've ever done any more contemporary hard space opera pieces like Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space or Jason Russell's 224-Verse? Would love to hear some thoughts if so. Also your take on any of the work from the enigmatic Greg Egan.
I PICKED UP AND PUT DOWN RIVER OF GODS. I JUST COULDNT. OTHER REVIEWS ARE SIMILAR. THANKS! PS -- WHILE YOU ARE IN MEX CITY TAKE THE TRAIN DOWN TO XOCHIMILCO AND TAKE A TRAJENERA BOAT RIDE BY THE CREEPY DOLL ISLAND. THAT AREA IS THE LAST REMNANT OF THE AZTEC CANALS. ANYWAY, IT WAS A FUN DAY TRIP.
Just wanted to say that it sounds like the best way to read "River of Gods" is to enjoy a few pages of it, up to and including the first half or so, but if it starts to sour, to just move on to something else, yes or yes? It's not going to markedly improve, and there is no payoff at the end, yes or yes?
Regarding the Ian McDonald: This was exactly how I felt about Riders in The Chariot by Patrick White -- had to give it to a friend -- and even(!) Blood Meridian by St. Cormac which I found to be repetitive and tedious after about the first half.
This video's title just gets better and better each time it pops up in my feed. Man, the world was Way different before we all had porn on tap - a LOT more "Sexual Blood" in the streets. OK, does ^THAT^ make me sound like a psycho?
As you said, The City And The Stars is a rewrite of Against The Fall Of Night. But have your heard of Beyond the Fall of Night? It's two books in one: the first half is Clark's original Against the Fall of Night; and the second half is a sequel written by Gregory Benford. It's pretty good.
Wow, River of Gods won the BSFA (British SF Assn) novel of the year. Generally that means quality, unlike what the Hugo and Nebula have become. I've not read it though I read his book Luna, which seems similar from what you said. Against the Fall of Night was Clarke's first book though it was a novella. It contained the boring parts too. I really had to push hard to get through that final part.
Yeah, the channel's called 'bookpilled' after all. Slipping in a small percentage of lit fic wouldn't hurt. Pretty sure most of your viewers would welcome your thoughts on anything you have a strong opinion about - good, bad, or indifferent. I would.
Mishima's Sailor... screwed me up. It's like most of it bypassed my brain and settled in my gut. Haven't read anything else from him yet. Curious to hear from you about this one. Clarke's City... is one of the most "ok" books I've read sdfg. Pleasent enough to read, not very memorable. Haven't heard of Ice before. I'm curious now.
I read City And The Stars in highschool. I don't remember anything of it. I read The Temple of The Golden pavilion, which I think it's considered Mishima's best and I was kind of underwhelmed. My favourite Japanese writer is Dazai Osamu and I read everything appears of him in translation. Even when it's not that great, like Flowers of Buffoonery, there are gems in there that leave you smile: "Welcome to Sadness. Population one."
I've found that a lot of the hard sf writers are very good explainers but not very good writers, in the fictional way. They are of course highly intelligent and well-educated; most of them have doctorates and are professors, etc., and their ideas are incredible. But often their prose and story-telling are lacking, very hit or miss. Never heard of Ice but will look for it sometime.
For me I found that SF authors who take on larger ideas tend to do better because when they take on smaller scale stuff they let their biases and lack of studying the subject matter show through. Many times they don't know how to fit the smaller subject matter they wanna focus on. Going all over the place with the scope of their stories. They also can get debunked quickly. The last SF novel I read was from the radium age. "The Absolute at large" ( 1922) , and has all the poblems mentioned above. For me it only served as a look on how desperate many where to find unimaginative and not outside the status quo solutions for the economic unrest in that period. Which failed. The cherry on top is that the action takes place in 1943 and there's no war. Because the reforms the author refers to worked perfectly. I would like to see your thoughts on more non-SF books more frequently.
I've sworn off Ian McDonald and not likely to seek anything else of his to read. It happened with volume 3 of the Luna series. That series wasn't helped by the hype comparing it to "Game of Thrones! But on the Moon!" Why? Just because it has families at war? I was already struggling with volume 2, which featured some cringy sex scenes: one was a session of self-love after a lawyer wins a case; another had what I'm sure McDonald thought was poetic description of male bodily fluids. Maybe his brain overloaded after watching too much online pron. What ultimately threw me off was the beginning of the third volume which featured a running battle across the surface of the moon between forces who wanted to save the badly injured body of the "prince" of one of the families versus those who wanted him dead. What happens? Dozens of other people die. Strangely I had more empathy for any one of the ones killed than the prince. I actually thought, "Just let him die already..." That's when I knew... Don't know if it's a trope to sacrifice the many for the sake of a noble, or if it has a name. I also had a similar experience as you with River of Gods when I read Dervish House. I was excited to read it and become immersed in the dense culture he created, but grew increasingly restless. I suppose I can admire the level of craft and the detail in the worldbuilding, but what if there's no soul? I don't mean that in a religious sense. Soulless just means there's something missing despite the apparent richness of language and detail.
While in the Philippines I read three of the books that you recommended as among your top #10. Actually, four. I read "Tiger, Tiger", "Solaris", "Roadside Picnic" and "Frankenstein". I could not finish Frankenstein. All these books, yeah, I get it, the prose is fine, but.....they're just not good reads. Nothing impelling, all were just so bland. My next sci-fi book that I want to try is Neuromancer, another one of your recommendations.
I read River of Gods less than a year ago, I have no memory of the plot even listening to your notes :). I did give it 1 star on Goodreads, and of the 3 other books by McDonald I have read the highest rating is 2 stars... this guy is not my cuppa tea.
I read 'Ice' two years ago and struggled, mostly, with the second half. Because there was little to no narrative arc, I couldn't stay interested in the hallucinatory aspect of the writing. It's essentially, a book that's going to blow your mind or just really annoy you.
I like apocalypse books and books about people trying to keep their head above water in the face of human evil, and I'm a former smackhead, so I guess I should check out Ice. Edit: Thanks for the recommendation!
Ice sounds vaguely similar to Dhalgren, which I'm about halfway through. Kind of weird and you never really know what's going on or where it's all leading, if anywhere.
I checked McDonald's wiki page, and this was actually his TENTH novel. So nope, you can't excuse this as an early effort where he was still figuring out how to write. BTW, Kavan died 4 months before Slaughterhouse Five was printed. Maybe Vonnegut told her about it?
McDonald was born in 1960. So was I. I like a lot of writers born around then (Mignola, Gaiman & Newman come to mind). Obviously enough, we have similar cultural influences.The fact that those guys move between general/genre fiction, music, film & comics seems natural to me. I have no idea where McDonald is coming from. He appears to understand little about the subjects he "researchs", or people for that matter. Unlike you, I won't be giving him another shot, I avoid him like the plague. Kavan is brilliant. If you haven't read the collection, Julia and her Bazooka, you should. While I still make jokes with my Kiwi mates about how the scenario is actually current New Zealand, Ice is a great book. It's also an example of a book that is the correct length, unlike many modern works.
ICE is a masterpiece. One of the greatest books I’ve read this year. So happy you enjoyed 🙂 Sleep Has His House is great as well but significantly different but feels very personal to her as well.
Nothing to do with this video but have you ever read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky? It may not be your thing, but I just read it and though it was one of the better books I’ve read in several years.
I read The City and the Stars when I was 12. I later discovered that it was a second iteration of the original, Against the Fall of the Night, which I liked better. For a 12-year old in 1956, it was a wonderful revelation.
I take your point: “Against the Fall of Night” was much leaner and more focused than “The City and the Stars.” I like them both, but I think Clarke should have let well enough alone after “Against.” Thank you for your erudite and passionate reviews.
I beg to differ. "River of God"s (and "Cyberabad Days", "The Dervish House" and "Brasyl" for that matter) are four underrated masterpieces which were revelations to me, inspiring me to learn Hindi, Urdu and Turkish! The luminous prose, the in-depth dive into Indian, Turkish and Brazilian culture (rivalling Neal Stephenson's dive into FIlipino culture in "Cryptonomicon" - and I AM a Filipino and was duly impressed by Stephenson!), the elegant and subtle futurism colored by these traditions... Ian McDonald is the worthy successor of William Gibson (whose Sprawl novels inspired me to learn Japanese in the Nineties) and surpasses Gibson at times in world-building and creating hyperreal characters with poignant stories the reader can relate to. Thankfully, he is much more prolific than Gibson. The four afore-mentioned works I have each read at least three times. His Luna series carries on in this vein translating his vision into a Heinleinesque Lunar society. His short-story collection from the nineties, "Speaking in Tongues" is on par with Gibson's" Burning Chrome", surpassing the latter in its overall consistent high quality, whereas "Burning Chrome" has some sub-par "filler" stories like "Fragments of a Hologram Rose", "The Winter Market", "The Belonging Kind" and "Dogfight" each story of McDonald's anthology is a unique gem especially "Gardenias" which should have at least won both Hugo and Nebula awards for it's vision of a future Brazil where teleportation becomes an addictive mystic experience which ruins lives. Not to mention what I consider his greatest work in creating a distant future both alien and inescapably, frighteningly familiar, "The Broken Land", in addition to "Chaga" and Kirinya" fulfilling the unkept promise of David Gerrold's unfinished Chtorran series of books dealing with an invasion of alien ecology. Yes, I truly beg to differ! PS the Indian pantheon of gods revels in sexv. Where soed tantra come from? There are Hindu temples covered with pornographic (from a Western viewpoint) statuary. The Spires actually repsresent Shiva's linggam - phallus. The sex scenes were justified.
Reading "Ice" at the moment, and I feel drawn to its mood, and will have to re-read it to get it, I think, and I will get back to it soon, after re-reading Lessings "Canopus in Argos:Archives"
I loved River of Gods when I read it years ago, but there were a lot of sex scenes, and that is also true of his later books. But I have in his Luna series been able to sit through them in exchange for the great ideas.
Dude if you want to go into a side ally, no one will complain here. The main road will also be sci Fi, we know that's where your heart is. Now I have two non sci Fi suggestions The great alone All the light we cannot see
I beg to differ I enjoyed River of Gods, I enjoyed the sex scenes. I enjoyed Dervish House and Brasyl too. I liked them better than Ice but not as much as City and the Stars.
Thanks Matt. Really appreciate the fervor & furor of this vid. I've got some explanations about the sexual content of a buncha books from the 90's but I won't dump an essay on your tired well worn brain at comment #104. That's not fair to my wandering book bodhisattva . Have great adventures! Live Deliberately!
ICE was exceptional. It worked surprisingly well as an audiobook but there were multiple sections that I needed to listen to a number of times to follow.
I wanted to ask Bookpilled if he ever listens to audiobooks. I noticed it is tough i need to relisten a few times on audio if im not fully paying attention.
One of my friends who recently visited me looked at my books and saw a couple Arthur C Clarke books. He said he wanted to read something by him and asked what I thought about it. I actually used the same word to describe his books as is used in this video. Vanilla. It is a 50s science fiction that is too vanilla.
I feel its a shame you didn't enjoy City & the Stars more, it feels so magical to me. I have read this twice and also read the original work "Against the fall of night". I did read this 45 years ago or so and I accept it may not seem so magical and special reading it for the first time in 2023 after reading a thousand 21st C works?
If you haven’t read The Light of Other Days by Clarke and Stephen Baxter, I think you would really dig it. It’s honestly just a better version of Childhood’s End, as the human race rapidly advances into a sort of ‘adulthood’. The characters are a lot more memorable, and the incremental advancements in the featured wormhole technology causing the end of privacy was fun. I put it up there with Blood Music.
I've always felt that sex scenes in movies, TV shows and books add nothing to the story. People having sex is almost always used to express a connection two characters have but as a viewer you didn't need a sex scene to tell you that.
11:00-11:35 This kind of "infinitely ambiguous and changing, unpredictable interpretability" just makes me think something is unfocused and that the author didn't have a single or coherent approach, and that different ideas were just thrown in as it was being written. I'm not saying this book is, (I don't have the stomach to read something so traumatic) but (on the extreme end), incoherent or even nonsensical messaging or narrative is a sure way to have people endlessly looking for a clear meaning when attempting to interpret it. I'm perhaps too Asimovian in that regard in my appreciation for clarity and certain messaging in narrative above most-if not all-else. _The City and the Stars_ is one of my favorite books, despite being myself more of an extreme pessimist/critic with regards to humanity at large, but I don't find your suggestion about it being good for middle school or high school condescending. That gentleness and type of intimate adventure story is why I like it so much, and why I re-read or re-listen to it every few years. I also like Clarke's prose, compared to (most of) Asimov's (especially early Asimov), or Heinlein. I don't remember the end of the book, though, since it's been years since my last re-read, but I particularly like the audiobook and the narrator's reading (I've listened to all of his short stories, but there are so many that I can't keep track of all of them, and don't remember "Against the fall of Night"). Same with the narration of Asimov's _Nemesis_ , and the prose reads a lot more like Clarke than most of Asimov's stuff. That one is a bit more pessimistic in its setup (or one could say realistic, regarding human civilization's likely future of continual conflict) and I actually found myself agreeing more with one of the antagonistic character's cynical philosophy than what the story wanted to happen. Nonetheless, it's one of my favorite books due to the intimate, subdued tone and characters, and the concepts explored.
Thanks for the review of River of Gods, I definitely won't be reading it based the amount of sexual content you descirbed, also like you and am not a prude, but I can't see what the point of the all the sex scenes would be and like you would want to throw the book into the sea.
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