original title: A world out of time

I admit it, probably I would have never bought this book, if I didn't find myself in the prospect of 45 minutes of bus without a book XD and I payed for it like two euros at a books kiosk in Piazza Mercanti, and that adds glamour to every purchase :D
Yes, books kiosks are my favourite shops, at the moment XD
Well, however.
It's kind of a strange book. At the beginning, it seems one of those distopic books that I love so much, but it's like the author wasted cheerfully all of his potential of describing a State that is the only form of world govern in a future earth that is overpopulated and hyper-organized (in every aspect of life). Then he moves on, and reaching the first third of the book I was wandering how could it go on, since I felt like I was reading a story that was drawing to an end.
And instead you find out that the whole part the I was so interested into was actually a preamble of the real focus of the novel: Earth, three million years in the future.
It's a scary idea, right? How could possibly be earth within three millions years? My mind paralyzes, it feels like I have a huge blind spot. Not to talk about describing it.
Niven, at least, tries to. And he gives an interesting description, weird enough to be believable. Maybe the only point that he underestimate a little is genetic evolution, but I believe that actually in the years this book was written (70s... another world) genetic still didn't have the importance that has today in imagining the future (if not in post-nuclear scifi... but probably that was more 50s/60s scifi now that I think about it).
Actually, and I was thinking about it just while I was reading this novel, reading scifi written before your own birth it's a tough challenge. I mean, if I read a 70s novel set in the 70, the greatest effort I'll have to do would be forget 30 years of technological progress, and that's all. Seriously, if something it's not there, it's not there. It's unlikely that I find myself thinking "Why doesn't he call him on the mobile phone?" or "She should search on the internet". After all, I'm not so stupid XD
But when we're reading scifi, we're already entering a different universe, the one generated by the author's mind. And this universe, more or less, is an extrapolation made by the author of themes and problems contemporary to him, an exaggeration of a situation that him, and who is metaphorically near him, knows perfectly. Us "reader of the future" instead, have first of all to forget of 30 years of technological and social change, and then face the elaboration of a reality that we never experienced.
In short, even if it's true that reading just one scifi novel written in the 70s will probably make me understand more things on the 70s that five "normal" novels of that time, it is also true that this novels can be terribly tiring (and boring, since the themes and problems often are not the ones that matter for us right now XD)

La Matrice Ombra - Marion Zimmer Bradley
original title: The Shadow Matrix

The re-reading of Darkover continues, fascinating as always.
This is a strange book. Seriously, it's like two books in one.
The whole first part, where Mikhail is in Elhalyn, is totally useless for the second part set in the past.
However.
It's a nice book, even if it's not one of the best of Darkover (probably also because it's written with Adrienne Martine Barnes, and you can tell it's not pure Marion). Mikhail gets a little more depth, but he will never be one of my favourite characters. Regis in this novel reaches peaks of unpleasantness that I would have preferred never to read. And as usual it's full of inconsistencies on telepathy and matrices, but I fear it's an inevitable problem when there's a second writer...

Attacco a Darkover - Marion Zimmer Bradley
original title: Traitor's Sun

Probably this is the less darkovan Darkover book that I've ever read. Besides the wide part about the Terrestrial Empire (sorry: Terrestrial Confederation, as it has been called in the latest books. I never quite understood why they changed its name...), it's like we saw Darkover from the outside, and it's not pleasant. The presence of Herm Aldaran's Rennian wife changes the point of view, and it's like every particular but nice thing on Darkover is not nice anymore. I don't know, it's something really weird.
And the departure of the Empire... books over books saying " the terrans will not disappear just cause we want it" and then suddenly the terrans are going away because the lease of the ground of the spaceport is expired? I don't know, it's kinda absurd. But of course, this an Adrienne Martin Barnes book (even if the cover says something else), and it's obvious that she's not Marion Zimmer Bradley, unfortunately ;___;


Stardust - Neil Gaiman 
original title: Stardust

Probably I was expecting too much.
Also because actually I've known Gaiman just since this summer, but I believe I'm more than a little in love with him.
But this book disappointed me a little. It was difficult for me to enter its world, and I kept thinking about others things while I was reading.
BUT.
I probably read it at the wrong time, when I actually had something on my mind that wanted to distract me.
And there are many interesting things in this modern fairytale.
And then I discovered that a) it is born almost as a comic b) there is an illustrated edition as a book c) the version I read was cut in some parts so they could sell it as a children book -.-


Starplex - Robert J. Sawyer
original title: Starplex

If I don't remember wrong, it's one of the first books Sawyer wrote.
And well, there are many others better book in Robert's production. Yet, I've read it once years ago, and I had a terrible memory, while this time it surely fascinated me. The idea of giant creature made of dark matter, and the alien species are original and well characterized as usual, and the complexity of the idea of timetraveling and immortality... there are interesting things, and actually now that I think about it the problem is the main character XD who, let's say it, is not the best Sawyer's character that I ever read about!


Year's Best Fantasy 2 - cured by David G. Hartwell

And after 5 years, I finally end this book XD
Okay, five years ago I dropped it when I was half through the first story, so it doesn't count. But it still took MONTHS since when I re-started it, and that sounds like a judgement to me.
Like every short story collection, there are beautiful and terrible, slow and fluent, fascinating and boring, original and trite stories... problem is, in this anthology the terrible stories are much more than the beautiful.
And, well, it's not easy reading a book like this.




La strada del Destino - Larry Niven
original title: Destiny's Road

This book is one of the Urania (famous series of paperback science fiction novels) that I read when I was 12/13 taking them at the library, and then they disappeared XD
So now I wander through bookstalls looking for them XD
However, we were talking about Niven.
I had a really faint memory of this book (that I always confuse with John Crowley's Engine Summer, because in both of them there was The Road - but they're actually two different things with the same name) and in fact it was like reading it for the first time, the only thing that I actually remembered were speckles (that for some reasons in italian are called stelline, that means little stars -.-).
It's a strange book; it's quite interesting and nice, but it's not really focused on something. And then there is a time jump of like thirty years, and it always kinda weird when it happens.
Anyway, it's a colonization scifi book (anyone can tell me if this thread really exist? XD or if it has another name maybe...), that is one of my favourites subgenre.

Original title: Exile's song

Though she's not credited, this book was written in collaboration with Adrienne Martine-Barnes, and it isn't something you cannot notice.
Not that is unpleasant, of course. Exile's song is one of my favourite Darkover books, even if there are actually some anomalies.
To start with, we experience for the first time something like normal city life in Thendara. Craftsmen and shops, and liric music (which sounds wrong to me, on Darkover, but I don't really know why).
Margaret is an interesting character, even if I know she has lots of detractors XD she's a scholar, clever and educated, and with a stubborn temperament that, clearly, won't take long to put her in embarrassing and dangerous situations.
The thing that I like less in this book, actually, is the way marion has been treating my poor Regis ;____; ok, it's been like thirty years from Sharra's Exile, and he couldn't possibly be the same boy he used to, but he's so horrible ;____; poor Regis, I used to love you so much ;____; it must be Lady Linnea's fault -.-
However, Lew is wonderful and super lovable, especially since he comes bach to Darkover, because in Marja's memories he's awful XD
One thing that I don't quite understand is that Ashara's problem is solved not at the end but near the middle of the book, practically the first time that Margaret faces her.
Well, I know that the story is developed in The Shadow Matrix, but in this novel it could have been managed better, for example with a first fight at Ardais and a final one at Armida, maybe with Lew's help or with some resonance of the ancient Forbidden Tower... in other words, it was an interesting storyline, and closing it so abruptly, making Margaret defeat Ashara so easily when she's still so ill and inexperienced when dozens of Keepers completely trained couldn't do anything against her... well, it's rather disappointing.
And Dom Gabriel... he was so nice in Sharra's Exil, and now he's dreadful ;___; I don't wanna believe that aging you can change that much, I don't wanna grow old XD
And then there's Mikhail.
What I mean is, is it possible to have such a dull character? But above all, believing that Margaret immediately falls in love with him??? -.-
Thank God there's Lew Alton (and Jeff Kerwin too, whom is hot even if he's old XD)