Cogwash (Kobren)

Cogwash, by Max Kobren (2018)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

(Okay, maybe there's a hint of review, because there isn't really much reason to remember much about this novella.)

A free download, from where I don't remember. It might've been reddit, and the person might've asked for a review, so I downloaded it. And then I read it because it was short and I just finished something else.

Anyway, unlike the overwritten self-published books I read recently, this one is a bit underwritten. It could use more details, and, again, an editor. There are, for example, dialogue sequences that need work. You aren't always sure who is talking. One person does something and the other says something in the same paragraph. Or both talk in one paragraph.

There's a prologue that really only sets up the first chapter, and the first chapter is really just a prologue for the rest of the book. We advanced enough to have robots. Then everything collapsed. So we still have robots and hover vehicles, but it's like the Old West out there, which gangs running the towns.

The big "reveal" isn't foreshadowed so much as telegraphed way in advance. However, the characters in the book don't see it because they think the guy is dead. No one could have survived being dumped in bandit territory like that. Which, come to think of it, it wasn't really explained how he could survive. The only shocking thing is that the other character from Chapter 1 doesn't make another appearance.

Terminology nit: I get that he wants to evoke the Old West (even though it's the future, after some bad times), but "hover coach" and "hover horse" get old fast. And anyone living in those times would just call them a "coach" or a "horse", particularly since the non-hover variety are nowhere to be seen. Moreover, you'd think someone might say "car" or "bike" (or "cycle").

Similarly, when every gun is a "plasma thrower", there really isn't much need to keep saying "plasma thrower". Also, the slug from this gun (is it a handgun? a rifle?) can temporarily take down a robot but when the doctor takes one in the shoulder, he's fine. He's had worse than that. Not that there are any other doctors around who can patch him up.

For all that, I didn't hate this book, and unlike the previous book of this caliber, I stayed with this one to the end. With work, it could be a book for middle graders. (He might have to remove the one more particularly grusome attack, but that's just me, and probably change the reason for the first sherrif's departure.) Middle schoolers might also appreciate the cipher in the text that seems to be there for no reason other than to have a cipher in the text. It was obviously not a date (because no dates are given) but the next most obvious cipher didn't make much sense. Except that it was the most obvious thing (which gets explained painfully) and there was a reason for it in the story, although no reason why robots would be babbling it over and over.

(Note: it's so obvious a code that I translated the final message in the back of the book in my head without using a pencil. I just read it. Maybe a little slower than I would read this paragraph, but it wasn't rocket science.)

I added the "Steampunk" tag, but it really isn't. It's robots in the new Old West, but otherwise, not really steampunk-y at all.

This was a quick one-day read. Nothing serious.

Life (Yao)

Life, by Lu Yao, translated by Chloe Estep (1982)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was another book that I downloaded during Amazon's World Book Day promotion. I picked it mostly because it was near the top of the list and it was short. Yes, I wanted to squeeze a few more books in.

Life takes place in a peasant village in China, and in a nearby city. Everyone has their place dictated to them, and moving up is no easy task. The rules can be manipulated, but doing so has its consequences.

Many people follow old ways, and tradition is strong even in the ones who don't. But change is coming. Then again, it isn't there just yet.

The story centers around Gao Jialin, who is educated, but didn't place into university, so he went back to his village and became a teacher. Unfortunately, he gets displaced from this job by Gao Minglou, a village leader, in favor of the leader's son. (I was a little confused here if there was a relation between these two Gaos, because Gao Minglou seems to be some relative to the other muckety-muck, Liu Liben, aside from the fact that their families are connected through marriage.)

Jialin winds up doing the work of a peasant, so much so that he works his hands raw from overdoing it with the tools.

He also falls in love with Qiaozhen, the second eldest child of Liu Liben, who was never sent to school. The oldest daughter, Qiaoying, is also uneducated and married to Gao Minglou's son. The youngest daughter, Qiaoling, went to school. The similarity in names sometimes confused me with the oldest and youngest, as they aren't mentioned as much.

Although Liu Liben didn't educate his oldest daughters, he still wants better for them than the life of a peasant's wife. He is important in town, and he can marry them, he believes, to the sons of better off families. However, Qiaozhen shows no interest in any suitors or matchmakers. She's in love with Jailin. To many, it looks unseemly. To others, it's modern love.

When threats and schemes don't seem to work to discourage this relationship, a new solution is arrived at. Basically, in modern corporate parlance, they kick the problem upstairs. That is, get rid of the unwanted person by giving them a promotion and sending them elsewhere.

Jialin gets a job as writing reports in the city, and he becomes very good at it. He has less time for Qiaozhen, and she starts to seem more simple to him. At the same time, he meets Huang Yaping again. He knows her from school, and she works at the radio station. She is datng Zhang Kenan, another old friend from school, but she doesn't love him. She falls in love with Jialin, and tells him so. She convinces him that they should each break up with their other love interest, so they can be together, and then move to a bigger city together.

But Life has a way at laughing at the plans of ordinary mortals, as politics and petty revenge rear their heads.

It was an intereting read, although it took longer than I expected because I only read it at meals. Before bedtime, I tended to drift off, no matter how long I kept at it. (So, not engrossing.)