Yearly Archives: 2009

Blood & Iron (Elizabeth Bear)

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Blood & IronElizabeth Bear The first and second acts are lovely; the third falls apart a bit, as if disintegrating into fibres. This is probably a direct result of the way the first and second build up, giving you all this backstory about the Dragon Princes — my favorite scene, I think, is the one where Elaine is telling the Merlin about all the previous Dragon Princes, because it’s so much history, so tightly compacted. Because it seems as if the first and second acts are focused around Keith, as the Dragon Prince, and to a lesser extent, Carel, as […]

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (Douglas Adams)

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Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective AgencyDouglas Adams The thing I most admire about Douglas Adams is his ability to use nonlinear storytelling within a story that progresses chronologically (linearly) through time. That statement’s a bit of an oxymoron considering that a time machine features prominently in this book, but the scenes still proceed chronologically as the characters experience it. However, the story itself emerges nonlinearly — every page is filled with whimsical, seemingly random events that all end up linking with each other, a vast matrix created of many patterns. Like Dirk Gently, we must believe in the fundamental interconnectivity of […]