Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch

Camp Concentration

Even thought it was published in the late 60s, this one felt very old school to me. The journal format, the paranoia specifically of a wartime government, even the "voice" all felt very 1984 or Kallocaine to me. Which worked in its favor. I could excuse some stilted description as a stylistic choice, I feel like, rather than sketchy writing.

But I guess "sketchy" really is the word I want to use here. The characters felt like a sketch (especially the one woman). The science - and I use that term loosely - wasn't given any details. The end seemed a little tacked on, barely fleshed.

That being said, not a bad read. It wasn't meant to be realistic, more of an thought exercise. How much are we willing to give up for intellect? How important is it? Health, taste, skill, life? Do they even attain intellect, or just speed? No answers given, but isn't that true of most dystopian literature?

Big Brother actually is watching them

In a move worthy of William Gibson's nightmares, the Lower Merion School District (a Philly, PA suburb) is being sued. Why? Because they issued a bunch of laptops to students and didn't tell them that the computers came equipped with webcams that could be covertly activated by the schools' administrators to record what was going on in front of said webcam without the students or parents having the slightest idea. This came to light when they decided to punish a student for "improper behavior in his home", behavior captured by the secret spying.

Makes you wonder who all is watching you sleep, don't it?

reading update

Just wanted to say that I finished Camp Concentration a few days ago. I'll be posting a review of it in the next day or two. Now I have a few options on the next book to read.

Which do you think I should open up:
- Feed by M.T. Anderson
- Dayworld by Philip José Farmer
- Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem

Too Too Abstract Individual Yagharek Not To Be Respected, the Garuda, stands on a rooftop near Perdido Street Station

(I saw this on the always awesome blog, Uncertain Times.)

Dear Journal:

Froom what I can tell, keeping a journal is pretty much the most important thing an individual can do in the face of an oppressive regime. 1984, We, Camp Concentration, Anthem, Kallocain, Level 7 - whether the frightened citizen hiding his notebook under the bed or the prisoner writing at his captors' request, dystopian authors just love their diaries.

Seriously, though, is this just lazy writing, an easy way to get in plenty of explanation without having to come up with realistic dialogue? Is it the echos of an older style? Classic works having their patterns borrowed through the decades?

To me, I guess it's like anything else. I like it when it's done well (Kallocain, We), but after I've seen it over and over it just serves to remove me from the action. Your feelings?

2010, where to begin

I've read about 2/3 of these over the last two years, but that still leaves enough beautiful books to make me drool a little.

Just a little.

Where should I start? Dayworld? Feed? Camp Concentration?

2009, and what I found there.

- The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
- Moscow 2042 by Vladimir Voinovich (Владимир Войнович)
- Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem
- The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
- The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
- Kallocain by Karin Boye
- When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
- The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
- Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove
- Sea of Glass by Barry B. Longyear
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- Halting State by Charles Stross
- Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Marching Through Georgia by S.M. Stirling
- Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison

Favorites: We, Gun, with Occasional Music, Sea of Glass
Most Boring: Halting State, The Plot Against America
What I should have ready decades ago, because it was excellent: The Lottery and Other Stories
Stank like patchouli: The Fifth Sacred Thing
Goriest: Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom, Altered Carbon

I'm looking forward to another year!

Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison

Make Room! Make Room!

(First, for the record, that is not the cover of the edition I read. But it's such a great design that I had to show it to y'all.)

This book inspired the classic flick Soylent Green, but doesn't actually have much in common with that movie. Let me just put this up front: it's not people. It's soy + lentil (soylent). And that's not even a plot point.

This is a dark little look at population growth predictions from the 60s. Mass starvation, water riots, people dragging themselves through life as a matter of habit. It's no The Sheep Look Up, but it's not exactly a stroll through Peppyville, either. (Then again, do I really want to go to Peppyville? You just know all their restaurants make their employees sing to you when you just want to eat.)

Luckily, Harrison bundles bleak forecasting with a little mystery, a little drug use, a little sex, and a little sharp humor. That's a lot to pack into a slim novel, and it keeps you reading. Even if the main point isn't "People! They're eating people!" but, instead, "Wear your condoms, kids, there's not enough to go around."

Marching Through Georgia by S.M. Stirling

Marching Through Georgia

I don't know. I just don't. It was written well. It kept me interested. The battle scenes were some of the best I've read. But a book that has me choose between cheering on Nazis or cheering on slave-owners? Not something that comes naturally, even when it's clear that the rest of the series probably deals with some changes of heart among the main slaver characters.

Here's the deal, I am not a history buff. I have a vague understanding of what led up to various American or world wars, but that's it. So I don't get that same thrill that I would guess regular readers of the stuff enjoy from the cleverness of manipulating facts and possibilities into a plausible situation. For me to enjoy work like this, I need a few facts filled in for me and I need characters and a story worth caring about. I'd say I got all three here.

Another year, another round.

Well, I've been at this a while now. I've read everything from porn to philosophical musings. Aside from a handful of more apocalyptic tomes (and a few Discworld novels to clean the palate), it's been dystopia 24/7 in my literary world. And I'm still enjoying the hell out of it! Expect some tweaks on this blog and a whole new crop of reviews and discussions.

Hey ho, here we go!