City of Strife & Dr. No (not that one)
This was a pick of the Enigma book club -- I've been idly hanging out on the Enigma Discord server seeing what the younger generation are up to. I didn't manage to get to the discussion, but earlier I went to their bookswap and managed to unload a bin's worth of antiquated books on them. Anyway, the book is an easy read, and the author has a good sense of characters bumping into each other in various combinations. What it reminds me most of is more of a larp. Characters are created and there are reasons for them to come into conflict or conspiracy. So I guess I'm not surprised that (as I understand it) the novel developed from a D&D campaign. At the same time, what the book is missing (like a larp) is any sense of a larger world of NPCs inhabiting the space. It's almost eerie. Apart from a guard or two and a waif, there is really nothing other than people with PC glow. And in book that centers in part on political intrigue, it's just very strange. There's no sense of a real place. And (also as in RPGs and larps) there's something of a lack of plausible reactions to extreme situations. Oh Bob's just done an arson; surely the townsfolk will be enraged at his faction. But with no townsfolk, there's no reaction. My good pal Brenda has casually announced that she kills people for money. But we need a third hand for card games (because there are no other people in this allegedly crowded hostel other than those of us with PC glow.) So, like I said, there was some snappy writing, but I found it really unsatisfying in the realism of the world. Even fake fantasy 'realism'. All the characters are queer in some way, and this fact enhances the story as much as this fact enhances my review.
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Dr. No, by Percival Everett
A very quirky read. I liked it, but I didn't love it. Obviously, the author is making a huge nod and wink at the world of James Bond. In brief, a supervillain attempts to enlist the aid of a mathematician who has devoted his life to nothing. Not zero, not a lack of ambition, but the serious study of nothingness. And our villain wishes to weaponize it. This allows the author a lot of opportunity to make equivocal use of the word 'nothing'.
As Sill says, “Professor, think of it this way. This country has never given anything to us and it never will. We have given everything to it. I think it’s time we gave nothing back.”
This happens perhaps a mite too often. But again, all in good fun and nice to see many Bond tropes through the funhouse mirror. FWIW, the plot such as it is borrows much more from Goldfinger than Dr. No. Almost all the characters are African American, and this fact enhances the story somewhat more than this fact enhances my review.