Book: The Armageddon Blues
Sep. 8th, 2009 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Daniel Keys Moran
Details: (c) 1988 Daniel Keys Moran; Pub 1988 Bantam Spectra; ISBN 0-553-27115-6
Verdict: The Armageddon Blues is entertaining though a little sparse.
Reasons for reading it: After I tried and failed to give this to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lethargic_man, I had it in my bag when I was travelling across the country for job interviews, and had otherwise run out of reading matter.
How it came into my hands: I spotted it in one of the wonderful SF bookshops in California, and picked it up idly because I am aware of Moran as a writer with a cult following, but obscure to the mainstream. And it turned out to be signed by the author, so I thought I could give it tolethargic_man, because he's a big fan of Moran's (half-written) Continuing Time series. But it turned out that although this isn't directly part of said series, and I hadn't heard Michael talk about it, he already owned the book.
The Armageddon Blues is basically about someone travelling back in time from the future and trying to prevent destruction of the planet in a nuclear war. It is highly imaginative, particularly the way it handles the time-travel thing, and interesting little snippets about AIs becoming sentient. The story seems to be very much part of a larger background; there are glimpses of a whole range of alternate realities and other planets, as well as Earth where the story is focused.
I didn't quite get into it, though, and found myself skim reading most of the second half. I think part of the problem was reading it when I was travelling and therefore somewhat tired and distracted, but I think mainly that the characters aren't quite fleshed out enough to hold my attention. Neither Jalian nor Georges is fully human, and they aren't quite successful as aliens who are weird while also being sympathetic characters. Also, a lot of the worldbuilding is obscure and I got a bit fed up with piecing together enigmatic hints, I wasn't quite motivated to do the hard work of making sense of what was going on.
The first section, All the time in the world is by far the strongest part of the book. You get a glimpse of future society, and interesting aliens, and sufficient insight into Jalian's emotions to keep things interesting. The section where she actually activates the portal back to 1960s earth, and the climactic battle with her mother and Georges is really dramatic and exciting. After that the book seems to get a bit bogged down in anti-nuclear propaganda, and the story starts to wander a bit. Things do happen in the period between 1963 and 2007, but in a rambly and unconnected way, and Jalian stops being an interesting person from an unimaginable future culture and degenerates into a fairly generic Mysterious Being from the Future. The later part of the book might make more sense to an audience in 1980s America than it did to me, I'm not sure.
I also didn't understand the ending at all, but that's probably because I was quite bored and disengaged by that point. I was more trying to get through the book than actually concentrating on the content
Details: (c) 1988 Daniel Keys Moran; Pub 1988 Bantam Spectra; ISBN 0-553-27115-6
Verdict: The Armageddon Blues is entertaining though a little sparse.
Reasons for reading it: After I tried and failed to give this to
lethargic_man, I had it in my bag when I was travelling across the country for job interviews, and had otherwise run out of reading matter.How it came into my hands: I spotted it in one of the wonderful SF bookshops in California, and picked it up idly because I am aware of Moran as a writer with a cult following, but obscure to the mainstream. And it turned out to be signed by the author, so I thought I could give it to
lethargic_man, because he's a big fan of Moran's (half-written) Continuing Time series. But it turned out that although this isn't directly part of said series, and I hadn't heard Michael talk about it, he already owned the book. The Armageddon Blues is basically about someone travelling back in time from the future and trying to prevent destruction of the planet in a nuclear war. It is highly imaginative, particularly the way it handles the time-travel thing, and interesting little snippets about AIs becoming sentient. The story seems to be very much part of a larger background; there are glimpses of a whole range of alternate realities and other planets, as well as Earth where the story is focused.
I didn't quite get into it, though, and found myself skim reading most of the second half. I think part of the problem was reading it when I was travelling and therefore somewhat tired and distracted, but I think mainly that the characters aren't quite fleshed out enough to hold my attention. Neither Jalian nor Georges is fully human, and they aren't quite successful as aliens who are weird while also being sympathetic characters. Also, a lot of the worldbuilding is obscure and I got a bit fed up with piecing together enigmatic hints, I wasn't quite motivated to do the hard work of making sense of what was going on.
The first section, All the time in the world is by far the strongest part of the book. You get a glimpse of future society, and interesting aliens, and sufficient insight into Jalian's emotions to keep things interesting. The section where she actually activates the portal back to 1960s earth, and the climactic battle with her mother and Georges is really dramatic and exciting. After that the book seems to get a bit bogged down in anti-nuclear propaganda, and the story starts to wander a bit. Things do happen in the period between 1963 and 2007, but in a rambly and unconnected way, and Jalian stops being an interesting person from an unimaginable future culture and degenerates into a fairly generic Mysterious Being from the Future. The later part of the book might make more sense to an audience in 1980s America than it did to me, I'm not sure.
I also didn't understand the ending at all, but that's probably because I was quite bored and disengaged by that point. I was more trying to get through the book than actually concentrating on the content
