Bored yet? Two more...

The Reality Dysfunction

(Part 1)

Hamilton, P.F.

Peter Hamilton is still long-winded, but I liked this book better than I liked Pandora’s Star. More interesting places, and for the most part, more interesting characters. Well, to me, anyway. Some rather confusing space-aliens didn’t help - more on that later.

It started off bad - a lengthy description of faster-than-light spaceships that are grown - along with their captain-pilots, to ensure some type of holistic (and pseudo telepathic) connection between ships. The ships are intelligent, and love their captains. They also have babies near the end of their lives - when the pilot’s offspring are also born. And they grow up together, And they love each other. At this stage, I almost quit. 

Anyway, the main ship-captain pairing are Oenone and (Edenist) Syrinx, and serve a term in the Confederation Navy. (Edenism is one of the confusing religions in the Confederation.) Later, we’re introduced to the more interesting Joshua Calvert - a 19-20 year old genetically engineered scavenger who finds an archaeological artifact of great value, and sells it at auction for big money. The archaeological subject is the Laymil, a race of intelligent and technically advanced beings who apparently killed themselves in a mass suicide/genocide. A gas giant planet, Mirchusko, has a ring of debris created originally from 1000’s of destroyed Laymil habitat satellites, and that’s where Calvert makes his find. With his winnings, (paid on the orbiting space habitat Tranquility) he rebuilds his deceased father’s space ship - the Lady Macbeth - and starts a new career as a successful freelance space cargo hauler and successful womanizer. 

We’re also introduced to a 19-20 year old troubled genetically enhanced kid - Quinn Dexter - assigned as a virtual slave on a newly colonized jungle-planet - sentenced to do all the manual labour for the new colonists. The planet - Lalonde - is poor, and colonists face decades of hardship before any chance of prosperity, meaning that the slaves (Ivets) don’t have much to look forward to.

Now for the aliens and other oddities. There is the Ly-cilph, an ancient and seemingly benevolent non-corporeal species whose purpose is to map and learn everything about everything. Then there’s Laton - okay, he’s human, but an antagonist doing research on immortality - by transferring consciousness into others’ (unwilling) bodies. And finally, there is the ??? - energy entities, similar in nature to the Ly-cilph, but aggressive, who seem to be doing the same thing as Laton, but far more efficiently, and threatening all life on Lalonde, and presumably, everywhere else…

Yeah; weird, but still...

7/10

The Reality Dysfunction

(Part 2)

Hamilton, P.F.

Peter Hamilton’s “world building” takes up a lot of page turning - a lot. However, part 2 of The Reality Dysfunction moved a lot faster - don’t get me wrong, there are still pages and pages of world building, but it is spaced out with a lot of action - a lot more than in part 1. For the first time, I can say that I can’t stop reading a Peter Hamilton book. This is a good ride. 

Turns out the ??? are the dead - that have been given the power to return from “the beyond” (sort of like vampires) through the intersection of universes caused inadvertently by the Ly-cilph. They begin taking over bodies on Lalonde, and eventually possess almost all of the human settlers. Gradually, they leave on transports destined for many other planets, where they plan to completely take over. Military intervention starts on Lalonde, with mercenaries dropped to reconnoiter, most of whom are possessed; the Dead gain more mobility when the transports return to the motherships in orbit. Once there, they start destroying other ships, making an invasion force untenable. Josh Calvert and crew are involved, but avoid possession (aka sequestration), while managing to save the last bunch of kids and a couple of adults from certain doom. In typical Hamiltonian fashion, the book ends with an introduction to another series of 500+ page books. Well, we’ll see…

8/10

A couple more books...

The Lost Fleet - Victorious

Campbell, J.

6th book of the series; Geary looks like he’ll be arrested by the senate because they’re afraid of his success. Instead, he gets promoted to Fleet Admiral, and gets approval to end the Syndic war, and to investigate the alien race. He beats the Syndics at their home system, travels the gate (wait…) encounters the “enigma” alien race, at the edge of Syndic space, figures out their deception, and deals them a sound beating. Goes home, gets the girl. So, what’s next…

7/10

Post Captain

O’Brian, P.

Second book in the Master and Commander series.

In and about 1802(?) Aubrey and Maturin fall for the same two women, causing jealousy, and even a duel - stopped by ship’s business (and then forgotten). Without a ship, and perhaps no possibilities, his accountant absconds with his money, right when his prize award was reversed - leaving him thousands of pounds in debt, and at risk of being nabbed for debtor’s prison. Finally able to land a command (of a horrible ship), manages to attack the French in harbour, and make away with a French vessel. 

His good work gets him on the good side of some at the Admiralty - he’s awarded post (full-time rank of Captain), and a temporary command of a crack frigate. Without Aubrey’s knowledge, Maturin gets him a spot on a squadron setting out on a big confrontation with the Spanish. (Maturin  is secretly a spy working for the Admiralty.) The squadron captures the Spanish, with great potential for prize money…

7/10

You guessed it; another book...

 The Jacques Plante Story

O’Brien, A.

When I was 10 and 11, my favorite sports hero was then-42 year-old hockey goalie Jacques Plante. He was a retirement-age goalie on his second or third comeback, and was a bright star on my favorite hockey team, the sad-sack Toronto Maple Leafs. 

They were a young team that had missed the playoffs badly the year before (1969-70), and top goalie Bruce Gamble was having a tough life playing behind a young, error-prone defense. 

Then the Leafs obtained Plante in a round-about trade deal, and he proceeded to have the best season any goalie ever had (statistically), and helped the Leafs make the playoffs that year (the 1970-71 season). The team wasn’t terribly good, but Plante ended the season with a 1.88 GAA (that’s very, very good), and a save percentage of .944 (the best ever recorded). He was my hero. I hated when Bruce Gamble played (his GAA was 3.80 - not good, and his save percentage was .882 - also not good).

But to be fair, Gamble was a decent NHL goalie - he had a good career before that year, and he played in the NHL for a couple of seasons after that, before he was forced to retire due to health reasons. He just wasn’t as good as Plante. But that year, nobody was; most weren’t even close.

So I had to read his book. I’m not sure why I waited so many years to get it. (Actually, it’s quite possible that I have read it years ago, but have completely forgotten it.) Plante didn’t write the book himself - although articulate in his second language, English, he just wasn’t a writer. Andy O’Brien was the writer - and he did an okay job, writing in the 1960’s style. His writing assumed that the reader didn’t know much about hockey - that was the style then, but it’s at times a dull read for the knowledgeable fan. Fortunately, he seems to have used a tape recorder, and quoted Plante quite a bit - those bits were very interesting.

Unfortunately, the parts of the book about the Leaf days are the shortest part. That’s fair - the book was written the summer after the 70-71 season, and few people had noticed just how good he was that year. After all, they finished in 4th place and lost in the first round to the Rangers, four games to two. 

But the story was captivating. He had some great years in Montreal, where he won six Vezina trophies (best goalie), including five in a row. He also won another with the St. Louis Blues (his previous comeback, before his stint with the Leafs). However, he was hounded by coaches and management in Montreal. Inventing the goalie mask, his coach didn’t want him to wear it, because it showed cowardice... He had asthma (as I do), but the coach and management thought it was in his head - the gall to have an asthma attack right before a game... He had torn cartilage in both knees, but he was accused of faking soreness to avoid playing in games…

Also some interesting anecdotes - Plante noticed over the years that the nets were not the same size in every NHL rink. He noticed because in Chicago, Boston and New York, the cross-bar was slightly lower when he felt it on his back. After a lot of eye-rolling, some people measured the nets, and sure enough, they were smaller in those cities. Turns out that when they welded them together, they properly measured 6-feet between posts, but in some rinks they welded the cross-bar atop the 4-foot posts, while in others, they welded it between the posts. This resulted in shorter nets in those rinks. (The disparity was quickly and quietly resolved by the NHL.) 

In the 1971 playoff finals, Tony Esposito allowed a goal from center ice by Jacques Lemaire late in the 3rd period of game 7, which played a pivotal role in the result in that game. Everyone was shocked that an excellent goalie like Esposito could allow such an easy goal in a critical game. But Plante knew what happened - having played in the Chicago Stadium many times, he knew that on a high shot, you could lose the puck against all the dark and white shirts across the rink. And if you went down on your knees, you would make it worse. Esposito’s style was to flop on every shot, so it was not his fault - just a matter of bad timing - wrong place, wrong time, wrong shooter, wrong goalie.

If you’re a goalie, a fan of Jake the Snake, or were a huge 11-year-old Leaf fan in 1970-71, then I highly recommend this book.

8/10