nicanical

I thought this story had a compelling setting and view of a possible future.

I liked the use of uplift here (i.e., the artificial acceleration of a species' intelligence). I feel like it's not a concept featured so frequently in written sci-fi (I can name several examples in film though), nor is it featured as prominently as it is in Children of Time. Usually, monkeys are the ones uplifted, and/or it's a horror story. Here, we have uplifted spiders in a non-horror story. Very cool! And jumping spiders too, the bros of the spider world—look them up.

I also liked that time dilation was featured, similar to how Alastair Reynolds does it. Most of the other SF stories I've read sidestep this by allowing faster-than-light tech, or drastically limiting distances traveled. So it's refreshing to see time dilation explicitly described and how it can affect characters, etc., even if it ultimately is a minor thing in this story.

The structure is relatively simple: chapters alternating between spiders and humans. Between the two, I felt the human side was weaker—the characterization for the humans was a bit meh. I would describe the prose as straightforward, direct, but not spartan—it's more detailed than, perhaps, Isaac Asimov's style. Personally, I prefer simpler styles like this that get out of your way, so the writing here was right up my alley. You might not like it if you prefer flowery and meandering, or dense and expository dump-style prose.

Years ago, after inhaling all of Raymond Chandler's novels, I read The Maltese Falcon looking for a similar flavor from Chandler's predecessor. But, I found that Sam Spade wasn't that, and then I never got around to exploring the rest of Hammett's stuff.

This book though, sates the palate. First: the clear, straightforward prose keeps the action moving, gets punchy in the right places, and is just a pleasure to read. Second: the Continental Op is a cunning smartass with deadpan snarks that Marlowe himself might have quipped. (The Op acts more like a vigilante here than a private dick though, and his morals are a shade darker than Marlowe's).

Plotwise, well, I like hardboiled stuff for the scenes and characterizations, not the plots. The underlying impetus here is vengeance and vigilantism though, not the usual need to solve a mystery. I found this refreshing.

The story felt a little muddy towards the end, like Hammett was tiring and wanted to wrap it up. Still, a very enjoyable read, and now I'll have to see what else of Hammett's I might have overlooked.

I've only read a little Hemingway, just The Sun Also Rises and some short story collections, but I enjoyed all that a lot. So I was disappointed that I couldn't get into this one.

Plainly, it's the fishing. It's boring to read about. It's handlining too, not fishing with a rod or a net, so you'll read a lot about Santiago's hand pain. I didn't even take it all in as a tragedy in the end, more of an admonition of Santiago's unpreparedness.

I enjoyed the beginning and the end the most, where Santiago interacts with the boy. And of course, the prose is beautifully crafted as expected of Hemingway.

The Fall of Hyperion concludes the events of Hyperion with the Hegemony's response to the Ousters, and the outcome of the final Shrike pilgrimage. The story is experienced through CEO Meina Gladstone's confidant, Joseph Severn, whose origins are mysterious. Severn's curiously omniscient dreams replace Hyperion's frame structure, allowing Simmons to continue detailing far-flung parts of the universe simultaneously.

The attraction for many readers will be learning the fates of the pilgrims. Unfortunately, the pilgrims' chapters are frustratingly repetitive because confronting the Shrike follows one pattern: the Shrike isolates one pilgrim, while those remaining go and pound sand around the Time Tombs. This repetitiveness is aggravated by some backtracking over Hyperion's events—ostensibly a courtesy for readers who need it, but still repetitive.

Severn's narrative doesn't mitigate these issues. He lacks agency, and therefore any true story of his own. His uncanny timing and fantastic abilities are explained away by his origin, but not satisfyingly; they are thinly-veiled excuses for shifting Severn's location so that he can report on other characters.

Simmons could have replaced Severn with a third-person omniscient perspective and avoided the hand wringing about connecting dataspheres. But, then, Simmons would be missing justification for inflating the book with verses lifted from Keats.

And that's my big issue with this book—it feels gratuitously inflated, as if merely to meet a word count.

I still think Fall is a good read: the worldbuilding is gripping; the pacing of story is good; and, there's even a neat twist.

This collection is better than The Simple Art of Murder. The dialogue is punchier, the prose is tighter. The similes are still few, but they stand out more. The stories all feel better-paced too, thanks to the tighter writing.

I read somewhere that these stories originally had different protagonists; Chandler renamed them to Philip Marlowe after his novels gained popularity. I wonder what other changes Chandler made, if any, because the stories flow unexpectedly well together—as if Marlowe were narrating them in one session. (Finger Man references Bernie Ohls's help in the titular Trouble is my Business for example). This flow through all the stories makes the book read like a full novel rather than a collection. It's like a lost, eighth Marlowe novel (unless you count Poodle Springs).