Michael Corleone

[threemonkeys]

The circumstances under which you read a book are important. A couple of weeks back I wrote about how well When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger had aged. In an area of the genre prone to temporal attrition, this book has stood up extremely well and was every bit as enjoyable to read as it was when I first read it.

But When Gravity Fails was the first book of a trilogy. The other two books are A Fire in the Sun and The Exile Kiss. I remembered them as being good but not really at the same level as the first one. A common enough complaint I guess. But this is where circumstance come in. You see I read those books during a weekend at a group outing to a beach house. The organiser of the outing happened to bring them along and I grabbed the chance to read them while they were lying about - I hadn't known they existed until that point. Having a whole bunch of people around with various "weekend away" activities happening is not exactly ideal reading conditions. I re-read those two books yesterday while I was home sick. Lying in bed trying to avoid any sudden movement is brilliant reading time even if you don't feel too great. The quality focus I brought this time reflects in my opinion of the books.

I enjoyed each of the books individually every bit as much as the first one this time. But more than that I realised that as a collected work they are something even better. You can read them as three cyber-noir stories in an interesting setting with a clever protagonist, interesting characters, clever social commentary and good stories. But what I saw this time was the complete character progression across the series. The building of a character and the reforging of a morality that unfolded is perhaps the best thing of all about these books and I just missed out on it all last time because of when and where I read them.

Comments

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Yeah I would have had something to say if you hadn't changed your original opinion, I think that trilogy is streets ahead of other stuff in the genre.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Oh yes - very much "best in breed". I'm glad that the quality of these works has been recognised by their re-issue.

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

They're a trilogy?

Oh yay!

I read When Gravity Fails for the first time about 1 or 2 years ago. I had the book for a while before I read it, because the font was tiny and tight and difficult to read. Once I got past that though, I really enjoyed it.

I shall go hunt down the other two.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Do it. Read them all together - they deserve to be read as one single piece.

[stephanie-pegg.livejournal.com]

I can remember seeing in one of C.S. Lewis' critical commentaries the belief that the best time and situation to read The Faerie Queene</> is sometime between the age of 12 and 17, with a beautifully illustrated edition, on a rainy day, when you're home ill but not feeling miserable with it. He was just so specific about it.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Specific yes, but in a way it all does ring true.

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

I remember that trilogy for being amazingly depressing. Wonderfully drawn background, though.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I can see how they may have that effect but I didn't find them too bleak. Sure there are some nasty moments and characters in pretty hopeless circumstances but no more so than in say a Raymond Chandler novel.

[lobelet.livejournal.com]

Sitting on my to be read shelf is "Budayeen Nights", a collection of associational writings in the same universe. I'm sort of hesitant to read it -- Effinger was a great writer, but he never hit the collective consciousness (a novel sequence with a muslim hero? Thank goodness he died before it went out of fashion). But those three initial novels have an honoured place on my shelves. Wonderful, wonderful stories. He was an eccentric man ("What Entropy Means To Me" is one of the oddest novels Ive ever read). But I enjoy him. What higher praise can there be?

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I understand your hesitancy. Associated writing can be a mixed bag. Every so often you find a gem but the signal to noise ratio can be pretty bad. Sometimes it may even sully the original work and that would be a real crime in this case.