Once Upon a Bookshelf

I first stumbled across Bova’s books when I was a wee high school student. His were the first sci-fi books I had ever read, have been hooked on the genre ever since, and always seem to find myself going back to read more of his works that I haven’t yet. What keeps drawing me back is that although it is science fiction, it is so close to reality, and there’s no trouble at all believing that what he has written is quite possibly going to come true in a couple of years time.

This particular book is about a television show, and the people who are creating the show.

Titanic, a large television company, is in financial difficulties, and has managed to end up with only one of their shows being renewed for the coming season. In order to get things back in order, they’ve found a few investors to help out with one special television show, which showcases the best 3D technology developed so far.

The story centres around those who are putting the show together - the inventor of the 3D software, a rep from Titanic, and the screen writer. When you find that everything that possibly could go wrong does, you can’t help but cheering on those three characters. And, unsurprisingly, they also seem like the only uncorrupt people in showbusiness.

Surprisingly, for Bova, I found this book to be rather anti-climatic at the end, and in all honesty, was somewhat disappointed. It felt like the book just ended with everything that the characters had been striving for falling through.

The Prestige is a science fiction book written by Christopher Priest. Apparantely, he’s very well known, but I’ve never read any of his books before. And okay, I admit it. The only reason I had heard of this book, and the only reason I even really wanted to read this book, was because I heard that Hugh Jackman was in talks to be in the movie adaptation. The story is about two stage magicians who have a feud going on between them that ends up travelling down through the generations - each generation tries to heal the gap, but all have failed until the present.

The way this book was written really impressed me. It was seperated into five different parts, and there are four different narrators, and each different part has such a different voice that you wouldn’t even realize they were all really written by the same author. In one part, the narration reminded me slightly of an old black and white detective movie, whereas another sounded slightly like a text-book.

I normally don’t like fiction that’s written in first person. I think perhaps that may be due to the fact that I’ve read too much bad fanfiction in first person where you just KNOW that the author in Mary-Sueing him or herself into the story. With that said, I actually liked the fact that this was in first person; it felt more like a conversation between you and the narrator.

Now, you have expect that the narrator is going to completely make events sound like he/she was the victim. I think that is what made it so interesting to have a number of different narrators telling about the same events. While going through the fourth part of the novel, for example, I had to go back to the second and re-read it to see exactly what was different about the situation in both persons perspectives. Those who you first believe to be the bad guys aren’t, and no one is quite as innocent or good as you first believe them to be.

As well, this book seriously reminded me of the classic gothic novels - Mary Shelley’s Frankenstien, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde - even while you were totally repulsed by what was going on, you still felt this great pity for the character who is the so-called monster.

I have to say, I’m really excited to see how they turn this book into a movie. Normally, I can say which parts of a book I think should not under any circumstance be cut out (not that what I think is usually what those making the movie think as well), but this time I have absolutely no idea.

I had originally had no plan on posting about this novel on it’s own, as I have the collection that has this novel as well as The Happy Return and A Ship of the Line all published as one, but it appears that I’m going to have to take a bit of a hiatus from Hornblower for the time being. Alas. Other books that are demanding immediate attention.

In all honesty, I found this one not as exciting as the other Hornblower books I’ve read. Perhaps it’s the fact that organizing a funeral for a good portion of the book doesn’t quite seem super thrilling to me. That said, it’s still Hornblower, so it still holds a spot dear in my heart.

As always, Hornblower’s ability to out-manuever the enemy is always fun to read. But the poor man believes the only reason he ever gets anywhere is because of luck. PFFT. Well, he’s obviously got some brains in order to come up with cunning plans like he does. I really like the fact that Hornblower has all of these faults, makes him more relatable. Same with the fact that he is motivated by not wanting to appear cowardly in front of his crew; and of course, we can’t forget the fact that he feels so strongly about his duty to the King and his country.

One of the things that really does stick out to me about this book is that Hornblower is the only character that I really like. Usually I love a couple of the minor characters, but I was just completely indifferent to most of them (though I did feel strong dislike for a couple of them, which could be considered a good thing, I guess).

I don’t know if I never really noticed it before, or if it’s more apparant now, but it actually seems like Hornblower cares for his wife. I never really thought it before - perhaps because I had hated the way she is in the movies - but he does seem to genuinly care for her, even if it’s only because he believes it’s the duty of a husband. (Well, except for when thoughts of his boat comes first, of course.)