Real Short Book Reports
Aug. 2nd, 2007 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
...aka, this week's reading.
(Published in accordance with the Tenets of Book Reporting and the support of Viewers Like You.)
So far this year...
#1 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
#2 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore
#3 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu
Not-#4 -- Neil Gaiman Anansi Boys
#4 -- John Scalzi, The Android's Dream
#5 -- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Takes A Holiday
#6 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, Daughter of Hounds
#7 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, Threshold
#8 -- Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden
#9 -- James Ellroy, The Cold Six Thousand
#10 -- Minister Faust, From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain
#11-17 Ru Emerson, Night-Threads 1-6
#18 -- Louse Cooper, Avatar
#19 -- Meredith Ann Pierce, The Darkangel
#20 -- Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
#21 -- Richard Peck, Remembering The Good Times
#22 -- Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
#23 -- Nick Mamatas, Under My Roof
#24 -- Christopher Fry, The Lady's Not For Burning
#25 -- Terry Pratchett, Thud!
#26 -- Eliot Fintushel, Breakfast With the Ones You Love
#27 -- Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms
#28 -- Justine Larbalestier, Magic Lessons
#29 -- Holly Black, Tithe
#30 -- Ilona Andrews, Magic Bites
#31 -- Holly Black, Ironside
#32 -- Nicola Griffith, The Blue Place
#33 -- Nicola Griffith, Stay
#34 -- John Scalzi, Old Man's War
#35 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, Low Red Moon
#36 -- Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union
#37 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt
#38 -- Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
#39 -- Art Spiegelman, Maus I
#40 -- Grant Morrison, Arkham Asylum
#41 -- Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies
#42 -- Liz Williams, Snake Agent
#43 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Legacy
#44 -- Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water
#45 -- Melissa Marr, Wicked Lovely
#46 -- Sarah Monette, The Mirador
#47 -- Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, A Companion to Wolves
#48 -- Cherie Priest, Not Flesh Nor Feathers
I liked this...hm. Better than the Wings to the Kingdom, not as much as Four and Twenty Blackbirds. I can still zip through Priest's books in an evening each: the prose is really smooth and accessible and doesn't poke at you or obstruct. The vividness of scene, of grounding that really made Four and Twenty Blackbirds is back; I feel more like Eden is tied into her world again. She has stakes and belongs there, which was something I was missing with Wings,those ties to home and family.
There are a few holdovers that kicked me out some, like Eden's apparent ability to gather a Scooby Gang (tm) of new characters to replace ones that left in Wings that she was supposedly always friends with, but didn't show up in previous crises (yes, I know this is unfair, it's hard to introduce new characters, but it does feel like a guest spot). There are plotting issues: I figured out what the river zombies wanted light-years before Eden got there, and I felt as if some of the ending was achieved by deus ex and withholding of information from the reader.
But again, it's the scene. It's this alive place, Priest's Chattanooga, and once the shit starts to hit the fan and people lose their homes, emotionally fall apart, cope with natural disaster, it really hits its stride. This is a hurricane book. It's a book about unstoppable, unappeasable forces coming to take away your plans and what you do, and how you cope with that, because what you have to say about it doesn't mean much. The core of this book is honest.
My life is not changed, I am not permanently impacted, but I am satisfied. Good read.
#49 -- Jo Walton, Ha'Penny
This I'm not sure how I feel about, and it's partially that I don't know how to...weigh the intertwining storylines that look like they'll be a staple of this series. Farthing was definitely a book about Lucy Kahn. Ha'Penny seems to be more about Carmichael, the continuing character, yet the stronger voice again, the one that commands your attention, is a transitory character, Viola Lark. I am having structural confusion here, and that was a problem as I kept stopping to figure out how and why I am to be weighting this story.
Here I am less satisfied. Carmichael is -- sort of -- dealing with the consequences of his blackmail at the end of the last book. But that's sort of: for a book that's talking about persecution, about being forced to compromise your ethics lest you be ruined, I'm sort of not feeling the sting. Yes, his lover Jack complains about not being able to go out, to dance, to hold hands in public, but it hits more like any cop's wife who's tired of the late hours and the middle-aged taking-for-granted. There's not enough in the narrative to illustrate to my gut how this is different.
The structural problem comes back near the end, when...I really was not sure what to make of Viola's final actions. There are blatant parallelisms with Hamlet, yes, and they're not subtle, but I'm not sure if I'm meant to be reading her final quoting of Hamlet as something that ties the whole book together. The book is not tied-together for me. I'm not sure what those words signify about a change in belief, in environment, in how we are to evaluate the character. And then the book stops.
So either something has gone way over my head here or I'm looking for a point that doesn't exist; this may be one of those cases where the author is making a point that is a point to a whole bunch of people, but because of my preset assumptions and worldview it's as huge as saying the sky's blue (this happens sometimes). But either way, I'm just...not sure what was being said to me, and why it was important.
#50 -- Charles Stross -- The Merchants' War
Tangled, tangled, and getting more complex by the day. This series seems to delight in being...well, as Byzantine as possible, and Clever to boot. However, if something doesn't resolve soon instead of just complicating yet more -- even a small thing, some emotional resolution and moving to the next problem -- I may well put it down. While the Family Trade books have all been engaging, there's too much short-term movement and not enough long-term for me here, not for four books into a series.
#51 -- Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, The Shadow Speaker
Again, setting! The setting here was deadly cool: a near(ish)-future Nigeria with both advanced technology and magic that came into the world as a result of technological mishaps. While written toward a younger age level than I thought (I was expecting teen, it feels more like age 10-11) the characterization very well done and felt...realisitc for a kid growing up in the environment Ejii has experienced.
What spikes this for me as a coming-of-age (and coming-into-power/responsibility) story was...there is a point where things get a little deus ex machina. Okay, a lot. And while the words Ejii speaks that are supposed to denote how she's changed and what she can accomplish now, in the pivotal scene, are her own, her being there and a lot of her shaping is due to external forces. The shadows she speaks to, the plants, other things tell her where to go to defend her values. She makes the initial choices herself, but after a point she's just sort of swept along, and I felt a bit let down about that, especially given how much attention is given by adults to how she hangs back behind her male friends, doesn't put herself forward or make decisions, how that's pointed to as a thing that needs changing. She speaks, but she doesn't choose.
So, not sure how I feel about this either. Deadly cool world, full of awesome ideas and things that SF needs more of by god (like a cast full of people who are either Muslims or aliens. or sandstorms. or talking camels.) but maybe for much younger readers than I thought.
#52 -- Matt Ruff -- Bad Monkeys
This is just wild. Outrageous, silly, gleeful, and all with a straight face; keeps you constantly reevaluating two narrators for unreliability in a way that shapes the story differently after every chapter; plays off several things that are dear to my heart, such as how the hell you effectively Fight Evil in the world now, today. And it totally crumbles like a stale cookie in the last five pages. But I don't care. I ignore the last five pages, which are Not An Ending, just a twist, and fail to bring the giant sparkling fabulous plane of the rest of the book down to any sort of runway.
Because the journey? Is wild.
I'm still unpacking this a little, so I might revisit. But go read.
(Published in accordance with the Tenets of Book Reporting and the support of Viewers Like You.)
So far this year...
#1 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
#2 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore
#3 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu
Not-#4 -- Neil Gaiman Anansi Boys
#4 -- John Scalzi, The Android's Dream
#5 -- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Takes A Holiday
#6 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, Daughter of Hounds
#7 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, Threshold
#8 -- Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden
#9 -- James Ellroy, The Cold Six Thousand
#10 -- Minister Faust, From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain
#11-17 Ru Emerson, Night-Threads 1-6
#18 -- Louse Cooper, Avatar
#19 -- Meredith Ann Pierce, The Darkangel
#20 -- Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
#21 -- Richard Peck, Remembering The Good Times
#22 -- Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
#23 -- Nick Mamatas, Under My Roof
#24 -- Christopher Fry, The Lady's Not For Burning
#25 -- Terry Pratchett, Thud!
#26 -- Eliot Fintushel, Breakfast With the Ones You Love
#27 -- Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms
#28 -- Justine Larbalestier, Magic Lessons
#29 -- Holly Black, Tithe
#30 -- Ilona Andrews, Magic Bites
#31 -- Holly Black, Ironside
#32 -- Nicola Griffith, The Blue Place
#33 -- Nicola Griffith, Stay
#34 -- John Scalzi, Old Man's War
#35 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, Low Red Moon
#36 -- Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union
#37 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt
#38 -- Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
#39 -- Art Spiegelman, Maus I
#40 -- Grant Morrison, Arkham Asylum
#41 -- Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies
#42 -- Liz Williams, Snake Agent
#43 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Legacy
#44 -- Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water
#45 -- Melissa Marr, Wicked Lovely
#46 -- Sarah Monette, The Mirador
#47 -- Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, A Companion to Wolves
#48 -- Cherie Priest, Not Flesh Nor Feathers
I liked this...hm. Better than the Wings to the Kingdom, not as much as Four and Twenty Blackbirds. I can still zip through Priest's books in an evening each: the prose is really smooth and accessible and doesn't poke at you or obstruct. The vividness of scene, of grounding that really made Four and Twenty Blackbirds is back; I feel more like Eden is tied into her world again. She has stakes and belongs there, which was something I was missing with Wings,those ties to home and family.
There are a few holdovers that kicked me out some, like Eden's apparent ability to gather a Scooby Gang (tm) of new characters to replace ones that left in Wings that she was supposedly always friends with, but didn't show up in previous crises (yes, I know this is unfair, it's hard to introduce new characters, but it does feel like a guest spot). There are plotting issues: I figured out what the river zombies wanted light-years before Eden got there, and I felt as if some of the ending was achieved by deus ex and withholding of information from the reader.
But again, it's the scene. It's this alive place, Priest's Chattanooga, and once the shit starts to hit the fan and people lose their homes, emotionally fall apart, cope with natural disaster, it really hits its stride. This is a hurricane book. It's a book about unstoppable, unappeasable forces coming to take away your plans and what you do, and how you cope with that, because what you have to say about it doesn't mean much. The core of this book is honest.
My life is not changed, I am not permanently impacted, but I am satisfied. Good read.
#49 -- Jo Walton, Ha'Penny
This I'm not sure how I feel about, and it's partially that I don't know how to...weigh the intertwining storylines that look like they'll be a staple of this series. Farthing was definitely a book about Lucy Kahn. Ha'Penny seems to be more about Carmichael, the continuing character, yet the stronger voice again, the one that commands your attention, is a transitory character, Viola Lark. I am having structural confusion here, and that was a problem as I kept stopping to figure out how and why I am to be weighting this story.
Here I am less satisfied. Carmichael is -- sort of -- dealing with the consequences of his blackmail at the end of the last book. But that's sort of: for a book that's talking about persecution, about being forced to compromise your ethics lest you be ruined, I'm sort of not feeling the sting. Yes, his lover Jack complains about not being able to go out, to dance, to hold hands in public, but it hits more like any cop's wife who's tired of the late hours and the middle-aged taking-for-granted. There's not enough in the narrative to illustrate to my gut how this is different.
The structural problem comes back near the end, when...I really was not sure what to make of Viola's final actions. There are blatant parallelisms with Hamlet, yes, and they're not subtle, but I'm not sure if I'm meant to be reading her final quoting of Hamlet as something that ties the whole book together. The book is not tied-together for me. I'm not sure what those words signify about a change in belief, in environment, in how we are to evaluate the character. And then the book stops.
So either something has gone way over my head here or I'm looking for a point that doesn't exist; this may be one of those cases where the author is making a point that is a point to a whole bunch of people, but because of my preset assumptions and worldview it's as huge as saying the sky's blue (this happens sometimes). But either way, I'm just...not sure what was being said to me, and why it was important.
#50 -- Charles Stross -- The Merchants' War
Tangled, tangled, and getting more complex by the day. This series seems to delight in being...well, as Byzantine as possible, and Clever to boot. However, if something doesn't resolve soon instead of just complicating yet more -- even a small thing, some emotional resolution and moving to the next problem -- I may well put it down. While the Family Trade books have all been engaging, there's too much short-term movement and not enough long-term for me here, not for four books into a series.
#51 -- Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, The Shadow Speaker
Again, setting! The setting here was deadly cool: a near(ish)-future Nigeria with both advanced technology and magic that came into the world as a result of technological mishaps. While written toward a younger age level than I thought (I was expecting teen, it feels more like age 10-11) the characterization very well done and felt...realisitc for a kid growing up in the environment Ejii has experienced.
What spikes this for me as a coming-of-age (and coming-into-power/responsibility) story was...there is a point where things get a little deus ex machina. Okay, a lot. And while the words Ejii speaks that are supposed to denote how she's changed and what she can accomplish now, in the pivotal scene, are her own, her being there and a lot of her shaping is due to external forces. The shadows she speaks to, the plants, other things tell her where to go to defend her values. She makes the initial choices herself, but after a point she's just sort of swept along, and I felt a bit let down about that, especially given how much attention is given by adults to how she hangs back behind her male friends, doesn't put herself forward or make decisions, how that's pointed to as a thing that needs changing. She speaks, but she doesn't choose.
So, not sure how I feel about this either. Deadly cool world, full of awesome ideas and things that SF needs more of by god (like a cast full of people who are either Muslims or aliens. or sandstorms. or talking camels.) but maybe for much younger readers than I thought.
#52 -- Matt Ruff -- Bad Monkeys
This is just wild. Outrageous, silly, gleeful, and all with a straight face; keeps you constantly reevaluating two narrators for unreliability in a way that shapes the story differently after every chapter; plays off several things that are dear to my heart, such as how the hell you effectively Fight Evil in the world now, today. And it totally crumbles like a stale cookie in the last five pages. But I don't care. I ignore the last five pages, which are Not An Ending, just a twist, and fail to bring the giant sparkling fabulous plane of the rest of the book down to any sort of runway.
Because the journey? Is wild.
I'm still unpacking this a little, so I might revisit. But go read.