Thoughts for books I read in March, 2024

I am cheating here, as I am writing this in August. But my mind would keep hurting me if I do not complete the monthly read blog posts. I am going back to organising my life. Or atleast trying to organise it. And that requires updated reading posts on the blog.

So, here goes nothing.

The Forever War

written by Joe Haldeman

Now, this is a book that I will spend some time and write a separate post about. I bought this book from the bookfare in buy two get one free Sci-Fi Classic scheme. I had no idea what it was about. I had gone to buy some Asimov or Arthur C Clarke novels. But to complete the trio, I picked this book up knowing absolutely nothing except one glance at the blurb. The text in the back mentioned a war that goes on for centuries and time travelling and I was sold on it.

Going in, I expected a Sci-Fi action book about a war against aliens, and yes I did get infact a book about war against an alien species. But this was a lot more than that. The Forever War is a war novel before being a Sci-Fi novel. This movie emerged out of personal experiences that Joe Haldeman went through in Vietnam War. And his experience of that gruesome war has been so incredibly, graphically and painfully redrawn as this war against alien in this book that it is palpable. The PTSD of the soldiers returning from the war is incredible.

But then this book takes it one step further into trying to develop into a dystopian world (utopian for many). A whole section of the story brings our action hero fighting the aliens back home, he returns to a different world, a world that has moved on without him. For our alien fighting gentle Army protagonist the time gap is super exaggerated because of all the near light travel and its effect on time. But for a soldier returning from Vietnam war or any other elongated war must be equally devastating. When the world seem to have evolved around the same sun you fought under without you. And you don't recognised the people, the world and feel out of the space.

There are some incredibly on point predictions as many sci-fi stories have. But this novel is terrifying how it predicts many things in the post vietnam world that is a reality for us. Joe Haldman has written a story that has stood the test of time and will keep that up for the time to come.

The Seven Dials Mystery

written by Agatha Christie

My mission to read all of christie continues with a book released almost 100 years ago (1929).

The Seven dials mystery does not have the Moustached belgian genius detective Hercule Poirot, or the witty Miss Marple to resolve the whodunit. But what it lacks in serious detective work, it wins back in super funny and charismatic protagonist as Bundle. Bundle is super enthusiastic, she wants to solve the mystery. She is amabitious. Among all the attempts to solve the mystery, she falls into an obvious trap.

The twist is something that you can see from a mile. Yet the charm and with of the characters and the jokes make you forget the predictablity of the story. In the standalone outings of Agatha christie, this does not end up at the top for me. But the intrigue surrounding espionage, secret societies and who is number seven leaves you interested in the end. The twist reveal when it comes feel like it is not enough.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

written by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This book has been on my to read list for a long time. But I just never could get around to reading it untill in March 2024. This is a translated work from japanese about a coffee store located in a non descript alley down a busy street. This coffee shop has a few tables and three clocks each showing different times. But that is not the only quirk, in the coffee shop sits a chair at a particular table, oppposite the entrance. This chair is usually occupied by a person, maybe a customer? If they leave the seat and you sit on the vacated chair. You can go back in past.

This time travel has its own rules however. You get to go to a certain time in the past, but you can only visit this coffee shop as you cannot vacate the chair. Nothing you do in the past can alter the future. And most importantly, to travel in the future a female employee of the cafe pours a cup of coffee from an ornate tea set and you have to drink the coffee to return to the present before the coffee gets cold-thus the title.

Because of these rules not many people decide to go back into the past. This is where the novel stops being realistic for me. If there would be a place like this in real world, this place would be swarming with people trying to go back, scientists would begin experimenting on the temporal anomaly. But it is not the case.

Each chapter in the novel revolves around a different customer who wish to go back in time to meet someone they once knew. The characters and their heartbreaking or warming tales is what guides this novel. The translation though isnt very promising. The text is very repetitive and often the phrases are weirdly worded.

Overall I think if the stories were not so moving this novel would not have been worth reading ever. But I have committed now to read the whole series so that Mr Kawaguchi can play with my heartstrings.