Absolution Gap (Revelation Space, #3) by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds ends his space opera trilogy with Absolution Gap. Many of the characters from the last book are desperately fighting the Inhibitors, but humankind seems to be losing the war. In a final hail Mary, the Conjoiners and a new member of their race seek a distant star system where a planet seems to disappear and the phenomena is worshiped by a group of fanatics led by a prophet with religious fervor literally in his bloodstream.

For a fraction of a second something inexplicable had occurred. A sensor anomaly. A simultaneous hiccup in every sensor that happened to be observing Haldora as the ship made its approach. A hiccup that made it appear as if the gas giant had simply vanished. Leaving, in its place, something equally inexplicable.” pg 54

Reynolds weaves two main story lines together to create an adequate, but perhaps not entirely satisfying, ending. The science in his books is impeccable. But, like in my previous reviews, I wanted a bit more from the characters.

“Are you all right, sir?” he had asked. Clavain had looked at him sharply. “I’m an old man,” he had replied. “You mustn’t expect the world of me.” pg 77

Readers have come to care about Clavain, Anoinette Bax, Scorpio, and the myriad others characters in this world. The endings given to them are, in my opinion, abrupt and almost given as an aside.

But some of Reynolds writing is simply beautiful and it makes up for a variety of quibbles I had with the story telling.

“It was quiet now, but coming nearer, and he knew that when it reached its awesome crescendo it would fill his soul with joy and terror. And though the bridge looked much the way it had before, he could see the beginnings of stained-glass glories in the black sky beyond it, squares and rectangles and lozenges of pastel light starting to shine through the darkness, like windows into something vaster and more glorious.” pg 100

The broader themes are worth considering as well. What would happen to the human mind if the body becomes essentially immortal? Why does it seem like we’re so alone in the universe when there are so many inhabitable planets? What would advanced technological warfare look like? How would technology and its awesome capabilities change society, our modes of transport, and us?

“Brane theory suggested that the universe the senses spoke of was but one sliver of something vaster, one laminate layer in a stacked ply of adjacent realities. There was, Quaiche thought, something alluringly theological in that model, the idea of heavens above and hells below, with the mundane substrate of perceived reality squeezed between them. As above, so below.” pg 286

Recommended for science fiction readers who want to ponder those types of questions.

Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit by Eliese Colette Goldbach

Eliese Goldbach pulls back the curtain to reveal the unseen struggles and contributions to society by steelworkers in Cleveland, Ohio, her hometown. Along the way, she delves into complex issues of mental health, politics, socioeconomic status, gender equality, and religion in her own life. It is, ultimately, a memoir about hope, but there was great suffering on Goldbach’s path to this realization.

When Goldbach was young, she viewed the stink of the steel mills as a type of pollution she needed to keep out of her body. But, when her plans to become a nun don’t materialize and she faces hurdles to completing the paperwork for her masters degree, Goldbach applies at the steel mill for the paycheck, accepting it as a step backwards in order to move forward into self sufficiency.

“In a Rust Belt town, that flame isn’t just a harbinger of weird smells and pollution. It isn’t an anachronism, and it doesn’t prove a lack of innovation. … The flame is very much a part of our history and our identity. It’s a steady reminder that some things can stand the test of time, even in a world where nothing is built to last.”

A large part of Goldbach’s failure to thrive is caused by her mental health struggles. It affects her ability to hold down a full time job, maintain her relationships, and makes her dread the future. Yes, she might be doing well now, she tells herself, but in another couple of weeks that might not be true any longer.

“Doctors would tell me that mixed-state bipolar disorder is one of the most dangerous forms of the disease. Depression brings suicidal thoughts, and mania adds impulsivity. When people with mixed-state bipolar disorder have the will for death, they are more likely to have the energy to follow through.”

Raised in a conservative and religious household, Goldbach is trained from an early age to see feminism as a dirty word. Through her own life experience, she discovers that some of her assumptions about feminism are untrue and begins to speak up for those who are unable or unwilling to speak for themselves.

“While there were other women who worked in the mill, we were definitely a minority. … There was a good deal of mansplaining, and there were offhanded comments that came straight out of the 1950s.”

Goldbach’s memoir shines in its examination and dissection of her personal beliefs and how those change through experience. It feeds into my own belief that only the person living a life has the true insight into its meaning and direction.

“I’m just disappointed in myself, I guess. I feel like I should have done more by now, and I’m worried that I’ll get stuck in the mill.”

Photo by Kateryna Babaieva on Pexels.com

Some readers may find Goldbach’s politics off-putting. But I think the difficult conversations she describes at the dinner table with her parents are going on at other dinner tables all across the country. An open dialogue and willingness to look at our differences can be painful, but that doesn’t mean we should never have those conversations.

Recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs and as a possible book club pick. Trigger warnings for mental health issues, especially those with bipolar disorder, and rape.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book. The brief quotations cited in this review may change or be omitted in the final print version.

Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World by Pema Chödrön

“We are at a time when old systems and ideas are being questioned and falling apart, and there is a great opportunity for something fresh to emerge. I have no idea what that will look like and no preconceptions about how things should turn out, but I do have a strong sense that the time we live in is a fertile ground for training in being open-minded and open-hearted.” pg 28

The incomparable Buddhist nun and teacher, Pema Chödrön, interprets the dharma and applies it in the various challenging circumstances of modern life. From polarization to living in the now, comfort zones and boredom, Chödrön challenges practitioners to question their deeply entrenched beliefs by applying new lenses of perception. Change within, she says, and you will see changes in the world.

“Trungpa Rinpoche said that the way to arouse bodhichitta was to “begin with a broken heart.” Protecting ourselves from pain – our own and that of others – has never worked. Everybody wants to be free from their suffering, but the majority of us go about it in ways that only make things worse.” pg 4

Remembering this shared struggle to find relief from suffering is one of the many ways Chödrön breaks down the problematic mindset of us vs. them. She gives plenty of tips for remembering the sacred within oneself and everyone else. One of the simple ones that stuck with me was, when you see someone suffering, say to yourself, “just like me.”

Stuck in traffic but don’t want to be? Everyone around you is too. They’re just like you. Irritated by developments on the world stage? There are others who are just like you. Have a cold and just want to get some uninterrupted sleep? Think of the thousands out there who are just like you.

“… if we gradually increase our capacity to be present with our pain and the sufferings of the world, we will surprise ourselves with our growing sense of courage. In our practice of cultivating a broken heart, we can incrementally build the strength and skill to handle more and more.” pg 6

What I like most about Chödrön’s books is that she isn’t afraid to talk about how she has stumbled with the various teachings in her own life. She takes a clear look at her foibles and, instead of hiding them where no one else can see them, she uses her failings to propel herself and others forward.

For example, Chödrön relates how, when she first became the director of an abbey in Nova Scotia, she thought the kitchen was a disaster. She put all of these rules in place to organize and clean the kitchen, yet it was never good enough. She confesses going down to the kitchen at night after everyone was asleep in order to organize the drawers without their knowledge. Yet even with all of those struggles, the kitchen remained as it was.

So, instead of fighting it further, she relaxed into the belief that the problem was not with the kitchen or anyone in it, but her own perception of the kitchen.

“I said to myself, “I don’t care if the whole place is a mess. I’m going to work on my propensity to label things in negative ways, such as ‘dirty’ and ‘disorganized.’ I’m going to pay more attention to how I project my own version of reality onto the world.” pg 74

And this self examination altered her view of reality. “Instead of my whole being going into a knot of contraction, I felt relaxed and happy in there. It was a miracle.” pg 74

What sorts of things do you view as disorganized kitchens in your own life?

Highly recommended for readers interested in Buddhist teachings or improving the world around them by change from within.

All the Forgivenesses by Elizabeth Hardinger

From the front of the book: “As we know, forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.” – Joan Baez

Bertie, the heroine of our tale, was the eldest girl born in a family of nine in rural Kentucky in the early 19th century. Because of her gender, her mother taught Bertie everything about keeping house and how to care for children, which Bertie ended up doing all the time to the detriment of everything else, including her education.

“We was living in the Appalachian hills in southeast Kentucky, but I didn’t know that then. It was just the place where we lived at. For all I knowed, it was the whole world.” pg 5

An early childhood tragedy cements in Bertie’s mind that she is unworthy of the trust and scant love her mother gives to her. She carries that burden in her subconscious mind throughout the tragedies that follow and it shapes everything in her life.

Elizabeth Hardinger has penned a beautiful historical fiction novel about family, secrets, struggles and the life-saving power of forgiveness, not just for yourself but for everyone around you. The characters in this book are complex and so flawed that sometimes I wanted to reach into the pages and hug them until they came to their senses.

That’s how you recognize an extraordinary author, they make you care.

“If you was a bawl-baby, you got shamed, you got teased, or people just ignored you like you’d embarrassed yourself, which I reckon bothered me the most of all. … So you learned to hide your feelings or wait till you was out behind the barn and nobody could hear you.” pg 8

Photo by Kristina Paukshtite on Pexels.com

The culture examined in All the Forgivenesses is rural, impoverished and male-dominated, mainly because of the time period. The reader is able to juxtapose Bertie’s tragic situation with her best friend Alta Bea, the daughter of a wealthy banker.

“For sure I hadn’t never met nobody like Alta Bea. I never knowed nobody that had that look in their eyes like she could see into you. It made a person tired and jangled, like somebody was shining an oil lamp in your eyes, but it also give you a feeling of glittering, fluttery things you couldn’t hardly not look at.” pg 52

The girls’ friendship is strained at times and built upon a foundation of mutual loneliness, though Bertie has little to no time in her day-to-day routine to just be a person. It’s fascinating to watch the two characters develop from children to adults and the character traits they drag along with them as well as the ones they leave behind.

The vernacular of All the Forgivenesses was distracting for a page or two, but it started to flow for me after that. I appreciated Hardinger’s skill in making Bertie’s rough-edges part of the story. She’s such a relatable character. You know she wants to live her own life, but with her family’s situation, she just can’t. And yet, for the most part, she loves them anyway.

“Read it, Bertie, you’ll like it,” she said. Hearing somebody use my name – and not to curse me out or ask me for something – I confess that made me glow a little bit.” pg 67

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Highly recommended for readers who enjoy historical fiction or as a book club pick. My book club chose this and we had plenty to talk about – from gender roles to romance to families. Not everyone liked it as much as I did, but I absolutely loved the characters, Bertie being the top of my list.

And I do agree with the opening quotation of this book, “to forgive yourself can be the hardest of all the forgivenesses.” Funny that we, like Bertie, find it easier to extend that to others than to ourselves. I wonder what that ultimately says about us.

Redemption Ark (Revelation Space, #2) by Alastair Reynolds

In Redemption Ark, we return to the universe of Revelation Space in the second book of Alastair Reynolds’ science fiction series. Some of the characters readers will recognize, others are new. As usual, we are treated to Reynolds’ prodigious talent when it comes to heaping helpings of the science part of science fiction.

Those are the best parts of this book: the futuristic space battles and the mysterious machinations of the Inhibitors, machines designed by an alien intelligence to wipe out civilizations that develop the technology to travel among the stars. For the reasoning behind this decision, you’ll have to read the book. 🙂

They had never encountered another extant machine-using intelligence, nothing to measure themselves against. Until now. And what this machine-using intelligence did, so it seemed, was stalk, infiltrate and slaughter, and then invade skulls. pg 7

Humanity has divided itself into distinctive groups during its expansion into space, one of the most notable of these being the Conjoiners, a technologically advanced society that has linked its digital implants in a sort of hive mind. This link created a sort of “enlightenment” and connected the Conjoiners together in ways that aren’t quantifiable by those outside of the group.

“Down at the very deepest level Skade detected a few partitioned private memories that he did not think she could read. For a thrilling instant she was tempted to reach in an edit the man’s own blockades, screening one or two tiny cherished memories from their owner. Skade resisted; it was enough to know that she could.” pg 30

However, not everyone wants to allow the neural Conjoiner implants for fear of the loss of autonomy or privacy (see above) and embrace a more Luddite view of technology. This limited use of technology was pushed further by the appearance of a “melding plague,” an alien infestation that invades technology in an organic manner and consumes it, creating something else.

As you can tell from my rambling, Reynolds has created a universe populated with fascinating cultures, technologies and relationships. My main quibble with this book, as it was with his last, is his seeming inability to write about emotions. The extraordinary breakthrough of the Conjoiners was intimately connected to emotion and sharing it in a way that was impossible prior to the neural implants- an evolution of mankind. Reynolds puts all that depth into one or two lines of one paragraph of the book, which was fascinating to me, but also infuriating.

“Once you’ve touched someone else’s mind, walked through their dreams, seen the world through their eyes, felt the world through their skin… well… there never seemed to be any real need to go back to the old way.” pg 528

He could have written a whole book about that one idea if he wanted to- I’d read it.

Another issue I had was the conclusion, which I won’t spoil for anyone here, but he writes it as almost an afterthought. For more than 500 pages, he built to this spectacular conclusion, which he then tossed away.

I was so mad.

On the other hand, he sets up the next book in the series beautifully, which must have pleased his publisher.

Highly recommended for science fiction readers. There are few who write the science better than Alastair Reynolds, but don’t expect too much in the way of emotional depth or exploration.

Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1) by Alastair Reynolds

Through the interweaving stories of a scientist, soldier, and weapons expert, Alastair Reynolds explores classic science fiction themes in Revelation Space, a space opera and mystery.

“Despite being buried for nine hundred thousand years – at the very least – the chambers were almost intact, with the bones inside still assuming a rough anatomical relationship to one another. They were typical Amarantin skeletons.” pg 11, ebook

Nearly a million years previous, an entire species called Amarantin disappeared in a mysterious celestial-based disaster called, by those who study the geological record, “The Event”. Dan Sylveste, a scientist with unique machines for eyes, is trying to unearth the truth of what happened to them.

Khouri, a former soldier turned assassin for a semi-secret agency, goes on a routine assignment, only to have the experience turn into something entirely unexpected.

“Assassins, it turned out, had to be among the sanest, most analytic people on the planet. They had to know exactly when a kill would be legal – and when it would cross the sometimes blurred line into murder and send a company’s stocks crashing into the Mulch.” pg 45, ebook

Meanwhile, on an enormous space ship capable of traveling across the universe at nearly the speed of light, Volyova has a serious problem. Her captain has a strange disease that is assimilating his ailing body into the ship itself and the man she hired to run the ship’s guns has gone insane. Could these two disasters be connected somehow?

“It was not something to which she was ever going to become totally accustomed, Volyova knew, but in recent weeks visiting the Captain had begun to take on definite tones of normality. As if visiting a cryogenically cooled corpse infected with a retarded but potentially all-consuming plague was merely one of life’s unpleasant but necessary elements…” pg 35, ebook

Throughout the story, Reynolds asks the reader to imagine a humanity that has split itself into factions. Some groups travel among the stars, assimilating rare machines into their bodies, losing touch with what it means to be human as they spend years in frozen animation while the rest of the universe ages as usual.

Other groups are just as isolated on far-flung planets and develop their own cultures, ways of government, and quickly-shifting alliances.

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com

Also, through the story of the extinct Amarantin, Reynolds examines what it would mean if humanity discovered aliens were real, but mysteriously absent from huge swathes of what is otherwise inhabitable space. Are we really as alone in the universe as we appear to be? And why is that so.

“Something had reached into his mind and spoken to him. But the message that was imparted to him was so brutally alien that Sylveste could not begin to put in human terms. He had stepped into Revelation Space.” pg 100, ebook

The broad themes of Revelation Space are fun questions to ponder, but Reynolds’ storytelling suffers in some of his more technical moments and during a truncated love story. A couple times during the beginning of the book, I had difficulty picturing scenes because I would get so bogged down in the details. But that became easier as the story progressed.

The love story though, was one of the worst I’ve read in science fiction literature. It made me feel like the woman was just a plot device for Reynolds to be able to explain some of the more complex plot twists. That’s fine if that’s what she was meant to be, but it was rather off-putting. I do enjoy a good love story and felt like, if you were going to make it so awkward, maybe it didn’t belong in there.

Otherwise, I enjoyed this read and intend to start the next soon. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy science fiction and stories that make you want to go stand outside and stare at the stars for awhile.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a modern take on more traditional fairy tales wherein a child finds a way to another world and comes back changed.

I first read the title of this book in Catherynne Valente‘s much more adult novel, Palimpsest. I think it was mentioned as sitting on someone’s book shelf. I remember thinking how I wish I could read that book too. Imagine my surprise to discover it was actually a book in the real world. Of course, I had to pick it up.

“You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child,” said the Green Wind. “How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes and be delivered to the great sea, which borders Fairyland?” pg 2

How could any heroine refuse an invitation like that?

The main character of this tale, a girl with the curious name of September, has read enough books to know a once-in-a-lifetime chance when she sees it. Though she doubts, at first, that she is the appropriate girl for the adventure.

“In stories, when someone appears in a poof of green clouds and asks a girl to go away on an adventure, it’s because she’s special, because she’s smart and strong and can solve riddles and fight with swords and give really good speeches, and… I don’t know that I’m any of those things.” pg 14

Part of Valente’s fairytale, like most good fairytales, is how September realizes how special she actually is — one of the conclusions heroes tend to arrive at during their various journeys.

September’s journey is a danger-filled jaunt through a land under the thumb of a smartly-hatted villain named the Marquess. September meets curious characters along the way including a trio of witches, a wyvern who claims his father is a library, and a boy from under the ocean with dark eyes and a secret.

The story contains plenty of winks and nods to anyone who loves reading: “Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.” pg 36

And: “She sounds like someone who spends a lot of time in libraries, which are the best sorts of people.” pg 55

They are the best sorts, aren’t they.

Recommended for young adults, the young-at-heart, or anyone who enjoys quirky portal fantasy reads. I thought this book was charming.

The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

Elka grew up in a world where nuclear bombs fell from the sky and poisoned the earth, and the weather can turn deadly in a heartbeat. In this apocalyptic landscape, she found a home in the wilderness with a man she called, “Trapper,” and he was like a father to her. Turns out, there was a dark side to the person who fed and sheltered Elka. Now, Elka has to find her real parents who went north years before. And she has to hurry, because if Trapper finds her first, something terrible will happen.

“Trapper was my family even though I didn’t know a sure thing about him, but I figured quick I didn’t know much more ’bout my parents and they was kin. Trapper was the kind a’ family you choose for yourself, the kind that gets closer’n blood.” pg 21

The title of the book speaks to Elka’s disdain for taking the regular road through the wilderness — in her world, that’s where the predators find you. It’s also a metaphor for living the life you want to live, not the one that others expect for you.

“I don’t much like roads. Roads is some other man’s path that people follow no question. All my life I lived by rules of the forest and rules of myself. One a’ them rules is don’t go trusting another man’s path.” pg 85

Elka, instead, forges her own road through the trees and, as she goes, chooses a new family including a beautiful young woman with a background as mysterious as Elka’s own and a lone wolf who appears one day out of the blue. But she doesn’t trust her own choices because she made such a terrible one by relying on the monster she called Trapper.

“He bolted up, stood tall and kinglike, towering above me. Felt like I’d lost a piece of me in that moment, like that wolf had stolen something and I had to stick with him always to make sure I’d get it back.” pg 73

Written in first-person narrative style, The Wolf Road is a dystopian coming-of-age story with some elements of horror and mystery. I found the opening to be a bit slow, but was swept up in the plot as the story progressed and Elka remembered certain details she had forgotten from her unique childhood.

Recommended for readers who like the thrills and chills of dystopian worlds.

Thanks for reading!

The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman

Michael Kimmelman, art critic for the New York Times, gives art trivia and philosophic insights in The Accidental Masterpiece.

… I have come to feel that everything, even the most ordinary daily affair, is enriched by the lessons that can be gleaned from art: that beauty is often where you don’t expect to find it; that it is something we may discover and also invent, then reinvent, for ourselves; that the most important things in the world are never as simple as they seem but that the world is also richer when it declines to abide by comforting formulas.” pg 5

Though, at times, I felt as if he was getting too deep into the art “appreciation” portions, I learned a great deal about not just unconventional forms of art, but how art can be found in your every day life. It is all a matter of adjusting how you view reality.

There were some historical tidbits I particularly enjoyed. For example, did you know that when Kodak film was invented and made the art of photography available to the general public, that some professional photographers believed the medium was doomed?

“The placing in the hands of the general public a means of making pictures with but little labor and requiring less knowledge has of necessity been followed by the production of millions of photographs,” wrote Alfred Stieglitz in 1899. “It is due to this fatal facility that photography as a picture-making medium has fallen into disrepute.” pg 32

Wonder what Stieglitz would have made of Instagram.

Or this other bit of trivia, which seemed particularly apropos with the news reporting today that so many people are climbing Mount Everest that they’ve become a danger to themselves and others: humankind didn’t always find mountains beautiful or worthy of appreciation. The Romans hated the mountains — they were difficult to maneuver armies across and also enemies had a nasty habit of popping out of them. (Think Hannibal.)

Here’s a young Thomas Hobbes’ view of mountains:

“Behind a ruin’d mountain does appear
Swelling into two parts, which turgent are
As when we bend our bodies to the ground,
The buttocks amply sticking out are found.” pg 55

Hilarious. And now we highly value mountain views and the sublime feeling of ascending a mountain’s peak.

“The evolution of the whole modern worldview, including the notion of beauty, you might even say, is exemplified by the evolution of our feelings toward mountains.” pg 56

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

I also enjoyed Kimmelman’s thoughts on the art of collecting objects, every day and otherwise. I live with someone who has serious collecting tendencies — notably a large military hat collection. It made me appreciate my husband even more when I found out there are people in the world who collect things like light bulbs to the extent where they’ve set up light bulb-themed museums. In their own homes.

We’ve agreed (so far) to keep the collection in one room. So, comparably, I’m doing pretty well. 🙂

Recommended for readers who enjoy non-fiction reads about art, philosophy and a curious mix of the two.

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Tag: reader

Absolution Gap (Revelation Space, #3) by Alastair Reynolds

Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit by Eliese Colette Goldbach

Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World by Pema Chödrön

All the Forgivenesses by Elizabeth Hardinger

Redemption Ark (Revelation Space, #2) by Alastair Reynolds

Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1) by Alastair Reynolds

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman

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