Book I of The Codex Alera: Furies of Calderon
by Jim Butcher
I decided to try The Furies of Calderon, Jim Butcher's second series after Dresden and the one he originally wanted to write: epic fantasy. And yes, that is exactly like me, and Briar, and the ghoul book. Heh. I only hope that my series ends up on TV.
It was a great book, though it was very long, and felt at times like a chore. Not because it was boring, but just because so much happened, so much information was put out, and it took so very long for the main plot themes to wrap up that the tension was a little wearing. But everything ends well, amazingly enough; the final battle (which takes up more than a hundred pages) was up to Butcher's usual standard of excellence, which I have come to expect, and crave, from the Dresden books.
The Furies were okay; it's a nice take on magic, though not exactly an original one (not that a good fantasy series needs to be totally original; I'm not sure a fantasy series can be, considering how many ideas have been put into print in the past), but I particularly liked the Marat. These are the big enemy, the race (non-human, though pretty danged close) that live outside the kingdom of men and which threaten the dominance of the civilized group. They have a great concept for a society that isn't based on technology and knowledge and order, like ours: they follow animal totems, just like the Indians they're based on (I assume -- obsidian knives, loincloths, long hair in braids with feathers woven into it, close ties to nature and disdain for modern weapons and those who use them -- what would you think?), but in the case of the Marat, they bond with those animals and become halfway part of their pack or herd or flock. It's an interesting concept, and Butcher gives it a hell of a twist in this book.
The writing was great, the characters are excellent on both sides, and the plot was wonderfully done. Definitely going to read on in this series. And try very hard to swallow my envy.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Book #21
The Dark Tower, Book I: The Gunslinger
by Stephen King
Part of me wanted to dive straight into Eclipse, the third book of Stephanie Meyer's series, but I'm usually happier when I put other books in between, and the best of all is when the books are quite different from the series I'm trying to get through. And I'm saying this like it's news. Anyway, I re-read one of my favorites, Stephen King's The Gunslinger, because I want to re-read the whole Dark Tower series this year. The most interesting thing about this was how much more I realized about the book from the first time I read it, which must have been fifteen or twenty years ago, somewhere in there. Back then, the parts I focused on most were Roland's most badass moments: the gunfight with the town of Tull, the coming of age battle with Cort, his final confrontation with the man in black. But this time I paid attention more to the things in between: Roland's meetings with his father, and the time with Jake, especially when Jake falls. It impresses me that King could follow through so well in the later books, when his author's note says that he had no clear idea, while writing this one, where these plot lines were headed. It makes me wonder how much writing there is to be done without conscious thought, and what exactly you need to have in you to be able to hear the voice whispering the words in your ear.
Oh yeah, and the writing in this book is much worse than in the later books. He's trying too hard in several places. But then, he wrote it starting in college and going on for twelve years; it's actually pretty cool that he managed to leave those parts in when it actually came to publishing the thing.
by Stephen King
Part of me wanted to dive straight into Eclipse, the third book of Stephanie Meyer's series, but I'm usually happier when I put other books in between, and the best of all is when the books are quite different from the series I'm trying to get through. And I'm saying this like it's news. Anyway, I re-read one of my favorites, Stephen King's The Gunslinger, because I want to re-read the whole Dark Tower series this year. The most interesting thing about this was how much more I realized about the book from the first time I read it, which must have been fifteen or twenty years ago, somewhere in there. Back then, the parts I focused on most were Roland's most badass moments: the gunfight with the town of Tull, the coming of age battle with Cort, his final confrontation with the man in black. But this time I paid attention more to the things in between: Roland's meetings with his father, and the time with Jake, especially when Jake falls. It impresses me that King could follow through so well in the later books, when his author's note says that he had no clear idea, while writing this one, where these plot lines were headed. It makes me wonder how much writing there is to be done without conscious thought, and what exactly you need to have in you to be able to hear the voice whispering the words in your ear.
Oh yeah, and the writing in this book is much worse than in the later books. He's trying too hard in several places. But then, he wrote it starting in college and going on for twelve years; it's actually pretty cool that he managed to leave those parts in when it actually came to publishing the thing.
Book #20
New Moon
by Stephanie Meyer
Since Mimi and Toutou took me a week to read (lots of work and even more anger at my students means less energy for reading. Plus we rediscovered the Sims.) I figured that was enough space in between Greywalker and Stephanie Meyer, so I went ahead and read New Moon, the sequel to Eclipse. This book was as good as the first one; I really love the main character Bella, and I like the way Meyer writes. Plus I have to love the idea of a woman writing a lengthy fantasy series that jumped straight to the NYT Bestseller List -- very inspiring.
The problem I had with this book was that there was just so much emotion in it. It's what Ron says in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: "One person couldn't possibly feel all of that -- they'd explode!" This book is about what Bella goes through after Edward leaves her, and takes his family away with him, because he thinks they have put her in danger and she'll be better off without him. Dumbass. I mean, I understand that he's never been in love before, but you'd think that his hundred-plus years of life, plus the example of all six of his family members, would show him that people who are in love are always better off together and not apart. Always. I mean, I can understand not taking your loved one into mortal combat with you, but you'll both be better off if she's on the sidelines (Or he, in my case, since I really can't see myself in mortal combat -- but Toni would make an excellent pit fighter.). So throughout the book, Bella is trying to live through the worst imaginable case of a broken heart. This was what made Ellen Hopkins (I think that was her name -- the author who came to speak to my school) say that Meyer's character was too whiny and too lost without her man, and thus a weak example for teenaged girls (we'll ignore the fact that Hopkins's own character is a meth addict who gets pregnant at 16. She is an anti-hero, of course, but let's not start slinging that "Bad role model" around, hmm?), and I have to say, she is totally wrong -- and for a bestselling author who actually managed to write several books in verse and sell them to teenagers, that woman is kind of an idiot not to see that this is not a weak character, it's a sad character, a broken character, and that makes her realistic. If anything, I'm amazed by Bella's strength in finding a way to survive, and even feel better once she becomes friends with Jacob, after she lost her true love because he's a nimrod.
But admiration aside, and sympathy aside, 500 pages of heartbreak is just a lot to get through. I really liked the places the plot went in this one; I loved Jacob and the Quilleutes, and I really loved the Volturi -- though I was a little disturbed to see yet another vampire concept set in Italy. What is it about Italy that makes it so attractive to vampire authors? Why did I have to choose Italy for the origin of my own vampires? Maybe I should change that, honestly. Hmmm -- now that I think about it, weren't there some Russian nobles who were comparable to Italians?
Anyway, I liked the ending of the book a lot, though I'm really pissed that Edward is so freaking dead set against turning Bella. I like that she's talking him into it, and I like the way Meyer is setting it up with several complications, but I can't believe that weenie actually thinks it would be better to watch his true love die, rather than stay with her forever. I mean, seriously? What the hell? How can he look at himself and his family and imagine that they don't have souls? Or if they have indeed lost their souls, that the soul is anything worth worrying about? Why worry about eternity in the afterlife when you can have eternity in this life with the one you love? What a jerk.
by Stephanie Meyer
Since Mimi and Toutou took me a week to read (lots of work and even more anger at my students means less energy for reading. Plus we rediscovered the Sims.) I figured that was enough space in between Greywalker and Stephanie Meyer, so I went ahead and read New Moon, the sequel to Eclipse. This book was as good as the first one; I really love the main character Bella, and I like the way Meyer writes. Plus I have to love the idea of a woman writing a lengthy fantasy series that jumped straight to the NYT Bestseller List -- very inspiring.
The problem I had with this book was that there was just so much emotion in it. It's what Ron says in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: "One person couldn't possibly feel all of that -- they'd explode!" This book is about what Bella goes through after Edward leaves her, and takes his family away with him, because he thinks they have put her in danger and she'll be better off without him. Dumbass. I mean, I understand that he's never been in love before, but you'd think that his hundred-plus years of life, plus the example of all six of his family members, would show him that people who are in love are always better off together and not apart. Always. I mean, I can understand not taking your loved one into mortal combat with you, but you'll both be better off if she's on the sidelines (Or he, in my case, since I really can't see myself in mortal combat -- but Toni would make an excellent pit fighter.). So throughout the book, Bella is trying to live through the worst imaginable case of a broken heart. This was what made Ellen Hopkins (I think that was her name -- the author who came to speak to my school) say that Meyer's character was too whiny and too lost without her man, and thus a weak example for teenaged girls (we'll ignore the fact that Hopkins's own character is a meth addict who gets pregnant at 16. She is an anti-hero, of course, but let's not start slinging that "Bad role model" around, hmm?), and I have to say, she is totally wrong -- and for a bestselling author who actually managed to write several books in verse and sell them to teenagers, that woman is kind of an idiot not to see that this is not a weak character, it's a sad character, a broken character, and that makes her realistic. If anything, I'm amazed by Bella's strength in finding a way to survive, and even feel better once she becomes friends with Jacob, after she lost her true love because he's a nimrod.
But admiration aside, and sympathy aside, 500 pages of heartbreak is just a lot to get through. I really liked the places the plot went in this one; I loved Jacob and the Quilleutes, and I really loved the Volturi -- though I was a little disturbed to see yet another vampire concept set in Italy. What is it about Italy that makes it so attractive to vampire authors? Why did I have to choose Italy for the origin of my own vampires? Maybe I should change that, honestly. Hmmm -- now that I think about it, weren't there some Russian nobles who were comparable to Italians?
Anyway, I liked the ending of the book a lot, though I'm really pissed that Edward is so freaking dead set against turning Bella. I like that she's talking him into it, and I like the way Meyer is setting it up with several complications, but I can't believe that weenie actually thinks it would be better to watch his true love die, rather than stay with her forever. I mean, seriously? What the hell? How can he look at himself and his family and imagine that they don't have souls? Or if they have indeed lost their souls, that the soul is anything worth worrying about? Why worry about eternity in the afterlife when you can have eternity in this life with the one you love? What a jerk.
Book #19
Mimi and Toutou Go Forth
by Giles Foden
I picked up this book at a book sale -- probably the library sale in Scappoose, but who can remember? I got it because of the title, of course: Mimi and Toutou Go Forth. I decided to read it now because I wanted to read the next Stephanie Meyer book and catch up with Toni, and since Greywalker was a supernatural book with a female hero, I wanted to throw something in the middle, there. I got thrown for a loop, though, when I first opened the book and glanced at the author's other credits: Giles Foden wrote The Last King of Scotland.
Warning! Warning! Danger! Danger! (Sorry, you have to imagine the flailing arms.)
We watched that happy tale of Idi Amin just a night or two before I grabbed this book, and since this one is also set in Africa, I was a bit apprehensive. Right from the beginning, though, it is very clear that this story is very little like that one. But you know, now that I think about it, there are some definite similarities: this is about colonial Europeans using and destroying Africa for the most absurd of reasons, and that was what got Idi Amin "elected," and what made him powerful and influential despite the atrocities he committed.
But come on: this one's about Mimi and Toutou.
I got thrown again after reading about ten pages, when I realized: this isn't a novel. This is a historical narrative, based on actual facts and actual people, not characters invented by the author. That made it much more interesting for me -- which was good, because the story was a bit far out of my realm. Next time I go looking for history, I won't look to World War I in Africa.
The basic story here is that the Germans had the East Coast of Africa as a colony, between the Indian Ocean and Lake Tanganyika, which is part of the Rift Valley of Leakey/Lucy fame. And a big game hunter (and this was the part that seemed like a novel, because it starts off in this guy's POV, and who the hell believes in big game hunters nowadays? They're like knights errant or Shaolin monks living in the Wild West. Absurd fantasies. Cartoon characters.) realized something: on the other side of Lake Tanganyika was the Belgian Congo (of Heart of Darkness fame, and I don't mean the coffee) and a British colony or two, so if the Allies could take over Lake Tanganyika, they could use it to move troops and artillery all over German East Africa and throw the Boches right the heck off of the continent. So he went and pitched an expedition to the British: since the Germans had brought a large steam-powered warship to the lake by rail, he proposed that the British bring smaller boats in, also by rail, through central Africa, and take over the lake and thus central Africa. And since the Germans could potentially have used African troops in the war -- hundreds of thousands of them, that is -- this actually was an important thing to do. So the British Navy did it. They sent two wooden boats, armored and packing big engines and fairly big cannons, up rivers and along railroads and even overland, to Lake Tanganyika, where they managed to fight off the Germans and save (possibly) the war.
Now here's the absurd part: the mission was led by this incredibly ridiculous figure, who I still have a hard time believing was a real person, but of course he was. This guy bragged constantly of his hunting prowess, and yet couldn't hit an ox -- an ox! -- from ten feet away. He forgot to order enough food for his men, but he made sure to order enough monogrammed cigarettes for him to chain-smoke over the entire 4-month journey. He wanted to name the boats Cat and Dog, and when the Navy refused to name a boat HMS Dog, he went with Mimi and Toutou, which are the French versions of cat noises and dog noises. And he thought that was funny.
He wore a skirt. Honest to goodness, a skirt. He said his wife made them for him and they were great in the heat.
The great thing about this story, which Foden unfortunately couldn't verify beyond a doubt, was that this dumbass gained a reputation as a powerful man, and so was idolized by the tribes around the lake, who went so far as to carve fetishes of him. Two foot statues, with a recognizable caricature of his face, wearing a skirt. Priceless.
So the book was quite good, really too ridiculous to seem like actual history, but a little bit sad what with reading about how incredible a place Africa was. Before the honkies fucked it all up.
by Giles Foden
I picked up this book at a book sale -- probably the library sale in Scappoose, but who can remember? I got it because of the title, of course: Mimi and Toutou Go Forth. I decided to read it now because I wanted to read the next Stephanie Meyer book and catch up with Toni, and since Greywalker was a supernatural book with a female hero, I wanted to throw something in the middle, there. I got thrown for a loop, though, when I first opened the book and glanced at the author's other credits: Giles Foden wrote The Last King of Scotland.
Warning! Warning! Danger! Danger! (Sorry, you have to imagine the flailing arms.)
We watched that happy tale of Idi Amin just a night or two before I grabbed this book, and since this one is also set in Africa, I was a bit apprehensive. Right from the beginning, though, it is very clear that this story is very little like that one. But you know, now that I think about it, there are some definite similarities: this is about colonial Europeans using and destroying Africa for the most absurd of reasons, and that was what got Idi Amin "elected," and what made him powerful and influential despite the atrocities he committed.
But come on: this one's about Mimi and Toutou.
I got thrown again after reading about ten pages, when I realized: this isn't a novel. This is a historical narrative, based on actual facts and actual people, not characters invented by the author. That made it much more interesting for me -- which was good, because the story was a bit far out of my realm. Next time I go looking for history, I won't look to World War I in Africa.
The basic story here is that the Germans had the East Coast of Africa as a colony, between the Indian Ocean and Lake Tanganyika, which is part of the Rift Valley of Leakey/Lucy fame. And a big game hunter (and this was the part that seemed like a novel, because it starts off in this guy's POV, and who the hell believes in big game hunters nowadays? They're like knights errant or Shaolin monks living in the Wild West. Absurd fantasies. Cartoon characters.) realized something: on the other side of Lake Tanganyika was the Belgian Congo (of Heart of Darkness fame, and I don't mean the coffee) and a British colony or two, so if the Allies could take over Lake Tanganyika, they could use it to move troops and artillery all over German East Africa and throw the Boches right the heck off of the continent. So he went and pitched an expedition to the British: since the Germans had brought a large steam-powered warship to the lake by rail, he proposed that the British bring smaller boats in, also by rail, through central Africa, and take over the lake and thus central Africa. And since the Germans could potentially have used African troops in the war -- hundreds of thousands of them, that is -- this actually was an important thing to do. So the British Navy did it. They sent two wooden boats, armored and packing big engines and fairly big cannons, up rivers and along railroads and even overland, to Lake Tanganyika, where they managed to fight off the Germans and save (possibly) the war.
Now here's the absurd part: the mission was led by this incredibly ridiculous figure, who I still have a hard time believing was a real person, but of course he was. This guy bragged constantly of his hunting prowess, and yet couldn't hit an ox -- an ox! -- from ten feet away. He forgot to order enough food for his men, but he made sure to order enough monogrammed cigarettes for him to chain-smoke over the entire 4-month journey. He wanted to name the boats Cat and Dog, and when the Navy refused to name a boat HMS Dog, he went with Mimi and Toutou, which are the French versions of cat noises and dog noises. And he thought that was funny.
He wore a skirt. Honest to goodness, a skirt. He said his wife made them for him and they were great in the heat.
The great thing about this story, which Foden unfortunately couldn't verify beyond a doubt, was that this dumbass gained a reputation as a powerful man, and so was idolized by the tribes around the lake, who went so far as to carve fetishes of him. Two foot statues, with a recognizable caricature of his face, wearing a skirt. Priceless.
So the book was quite good, really too ridiculous to seem like actual history, but a little bit sad what with reading about how incredible a place Africa was. Before the honkies fucked it all up.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Book #18
Greywalker
by Kat Richardson
Greywalker was a good book. The writing was excellent, and I liked the characters and the world she created. But there were two big problems, which were closely related. First of all, the setup of the magical world makes almost no sense. This was intentional, because the main character, a private detective who literally gets beaten to death and then is revived after being dead for two minutes, cannot accept the fact that she can now see and go into the world between this reality and the afterlife, called (boringly but appropriately enough) the Grey. It was impossible to understand exactly what the Grey was, and exactly how it worked, because the main character didn't understand and didn't want to. In itself that wouldn't be so bad, except the character who is supposed to be the expert -- two characters actually, a husband and wife, college professor and witch combo -- don't understand the thing either. All they keep saying is, "You have to learn to accept what has happened to you!" They don't actually tell Harper anything useful, other then some brief meditation/coping techniques. But if Mara told her one more time that she just had to learn to accept her new life, I was going to chuck the book across the room, right into the Grey. The worst thing about this constant ignorance was it made me think that maybe the author herself doesn't really understand the Grey, and that, I think, is a problem.
The second problem with the book is that the plot wasn't great. I mean, I liked the villain, and I liked the way it all resolved with the vampires taking out the evil artifact and saving Seattle from the nasty thing, but it took a whole lot of hemming and hawing to get us there, and a ton of unnecessary side trips, into dates, into other plot lines, and especially into visits to Ben and Mara so that Ben could say something that might have been profound if it had any point at all and Mara had said something other than, "Harper, you have to learn to live with this!" But that's where these two problems are linked: because the author either didn't know how to make the Grey work, or she had some bad idea about keeping it mysterious throughout this book, she had to waste a lot of time to fill out the story before getting to the end.
On the plus side: really great vampires, really beautiful descriptions of how disturbing they are to be around, especially to someone who can see their undead side directly. Really excellent writing, great descriptions of places and objects, especially the evil artifact. The heroine is great, funny and smart and realistic and sympathetic, and I liked her boyfriend and his brother, and the short appearances by her other clients and informants and so on and so forth. So overall: she's a good writer who does great characters and has a good idea. She just needs help plotting. Hopefully she'll get better in the second book.
by Kat Richardson
Greywalker was a good book. The writing was excellent, and I liked the characters and the world she created. But there were two big problems, which were closely related. First of all, the setup of the magical world makes almost no sense. This was intentional, because the main character, a private detective who literally gets beaten to death and then is revived after being dead for two minutes, cannot accept the fact that she can now see and go into the world between this reality and the afterlife, called (boringly but appropriately enough) the Grey. It was impossible to understand exactly what the Grey was, and exactly how it worked, because the main character didn't understand and didn't want to. In itself that wouldn't be so bad, except the character who is supposed to be the expert -- two characters actually, a husband and wife, college professor and witch combo -- don't understand the thing either. All they keep saying is, "You have to learn to accept what has happened to you!" They don't actually tell Harper anything useful, other then some brief meditation/coping techniques. But if Mara told her one more time that she just had to learn to accept her new life, I was going to chuck the book across the room, right into the Grey. The worst thing about this constant ignorance was it made me think that maybe the author herself doesn't really understand the Grey, and that, I think, is a problem.
The second problem with the book is that the plot wasn't great. I mean, I liked the villain, and I liked the way it all resolved with the vampires taking out the evil artifact and saving Seattle from the nasty thing, but it took a whole lot of hemming and hawing to get us there, and a ton of unnecessary side trips, into dates, into other plot lines, and especially into visits to Ben and Mara so that Ben could say something that might have been profound if it had any point at all and Mara had said something other than, "Harper, you have to learn to live with this!" But that's where these two problems are linked: because the author either didn't know how to make the Grey work, or she had some bad idea about keeping it mysterious throughout this book, she had to waste a lot of time to fill out the story before getting to the end.
On the plus side: really great vampires, really beautiful descriptions of how disturbing they are to be around, especially to someone who can see their undead side directly. Really excellent writing, great descriptions of places and objects, especially the evil artifact. The heroine is great, funny and smart and realistic and sympathetic, and I liked her boyfriend and his brother, and the short appearances by her other clients and informants and so on and so forth. So overall: she's a good writer who does great characters and has a good idea. She just needs help plotting. Hopefully she'll get better in the second book.
Book #17
Ricochet River
by Robin Cody
I went all literary and scholarly and stuff with this one; I read Ricochet River, one of the favored teaching novels of my compatriot, Gerry Tinkle, and one of the top 100 Oregon novels (Because there have been, what, 102 Oregon novels total? 103?). All I can say after finishing it is, Tinkle's welcome to it. I mean, I can see the up side in reading a novel that is set where you live, and this one basically is, though I think it's supposed to be on the other side of Portland, closer to The Dalles and places like that (Not that I really know where The Dalles is, just that any place name that includes "The" is incredibly awkward to say, and therefore The Dalles sucks. Just like The Hague.) and I'm sure the jocks love this book since it's about being a sports hero in a small town in addition to being a teenager in a small town. But since I didn't grow up here and I don't fish, and I never watched salmon swim up river and spawn, and since I do not know what it's like to play in the BIG GAME with the whole town watching you, and since I don't like people who do those things, I didn't enjoy the book very much. But at least it had a totally crappy Separate Peace-like death for the hero, the narrator's best friend and worst enemy, Jesse Howl: he tried climbing a tree in a lumberjack competition, with the spikes and the belt, when he was drunk -- and he went flying off the top of the log and killed himself. Utterly stupid, just like the rest of the book.
Nah, that's too harsh. It actually had its good points. It did have some nice descriptions of the area around here, the forest and the river and such, and the stories of the salmon being trapped by the dams actually were quite touching and sad; the main character (Who really is a jock dumbass and who I really didn't like) has a good girlfriend who he doesn't deserve and an amusing grandfather that I liked reading about, though didn't particularly like. But the grandfather had this great speech about survival of the fittest: how in some circumstances (He was talking about salmon trapped upriver by a dam) the ones who are fittest, who struggle and fight, are not the ones who survive: the lazy ones who sit on their butts and do nothing are the ones who never face danger and who survive.
Overall, like I said: Tinkle can have it.
by Robin Cody
I went all literary and scholarly and stuff with this one; I read Ricochet River, one of the favored teaching novels of my compatriot, Gerry Tinkle, and one of the top 100 Oregon novels (Because there have been, what, 102 Oregon novels total? 103?). All I can say after finishing it is, Tinkle's welcome to it. I mean, I can see the up side in reading a novel that is set where you live, and this one basically is, though I think it's supposed to be on the other side of Portland, closer to The Dalles and places like that (Not that I really know where The Dalles is, just that any place name that includes "The" is incredibly awkward to say, and therefore The Dalles sucks. Just like The Hague.) and I'm sure the jocks love this book since it's about being a sports hero in a small town in addition to being a teenager in a small town. But since I didn't grow up here and I don't fish, and I never watched salmon swim up river and spawn, and since I do not know what it's like to play in the BIG GAME with the whole town watching you, and since I don't like people who do those things, I didn't enjoy the book very much. But at least it had a totally crappy Separate Peace-like death for the hero, the narrator's best friend and worst enemy, Jesse Howl: he tried climbing a tree in a lumberjack competition, with the spikes and the belt, when he was drunk -- and he went flying off the top of the log and killed himself. Utterly stupid, just like the rest of the book.
Nah, that's too harsh. It actually had its good points. It did have some nice descriptions of the area around here, the forest and the river and such, and the stories of the salmon being trapped by the dams actually were quite touching and sad; the main character (Who really is a jock dumbass and who I really didn't like) has a good girlfriend who he doesn't deserve and an amusing grandfather that I liked reading about, though didn't particularly like. But the grandfather had this great speech about survival of the fittest: how in some circumstances (He was talking about salmon trapped upriver by a dam) the ones who are fittest, who struggle and fight, are not the ones who survive: the lazy ones who sit on their butts and do nothing are the ones who never face danger and who survive.
Overall, like I said: Tinkle can have it.
Book #16
Tales From the Nightside Book 4: Hex and the City
by Simon R. Green
First: I have hit my very first experience with Toni's problem with fantasy novels. I tried reading Glen Cook's The Tyranny of the Night, the first in his series The Instrumentalities of the Night. And I like Glen Cook's writing, and I like the concept of this series -- but I couldn't read it. Because after 100, 150 pages, he had spent so long reciting the names of imagined countries and people and religions, and explaining in excruciating detail what happened between all of these entities in the past, and I had gotten so confused by the utter lack of a tangible touchstone for me to follow all the twists and turns and wars and rivalries -- not even a map, and what the hell kind of fantasy series doesn't have a map printed in the first book? -- that I just didn't care about the world to read about it. Totally annoying, too, because I was looking forward to new Glen Cook books. Ah, well.
I decided to go for Simon R. Green's fourth Nightside installment, Hex and the City. The writing is getting better, but there are still some of the same flaws: he still relies too much on stock phrases and poor attempts at hardboiled wit for humor. Fortunately, the characters are much more interesting, and though there are some of the old overpowered characters in this one, they are much more interesting; John's quest in this is to find out the origins of the Nightside, which it turns out relate to the identity of his mother and his role in the potential future destruction of the Nightside and the entire world, as glimpsed in the first book. His allies in this are the best part of the book: Madman and Sinner, two people who are in one way or another impervious to harm, who he brings because he can hide behind them when things get nasty. And though there is a surprise appearance by Suzie Shooter, and some annoying parts with Alex the bartender, the book overall was a lot of fun to read.
The ending kinda sucked, though. Either a cliffhanger or just a lame attempt to maintain John's persona as the tough guy/sad victim of the world's vicissitudes. Not good, whichever it was. But then, it was only one line in a 250-page novel, so the read was definitely worth it, and we'll hope the next installment saves the series from the potential downfall of John's last words.
by Simon R. Green
First: I have hit my very first experience with Toni's problem with fantasy novels. I tried reading Glen Cook's The Tyranny of the Night, the first in his series The Instrumentalities of the Night. And I like Glen Cook's writing, and I like the concept of this series -- but I couldn't read it. Because after 100, 150 pages, he had spent so long reciting the names of imagined countries and people and religions, and explaining in excruciating detail what happened between all of these entities in the past, and I had gotten so confused by the utter lack of a tangible touchstone for me to follow all the twists and turns and wars and rivalries -- not even a map, and what the hell kind of fantasy series doesn't have a map printed in the first book? -- that I just didn't care about the world to read about it. Totally annoying, too, because I was looking forward to new Glen Cook books. Ah, well.
I decided to go for Simon R. Green's fourth Nightside installment, Hex and the City. The writing is getting better, but there are still some of the same flaws: he still relies too much on stock phrases and poor attempts at hardboiled wit for humor. Fortunately, the characters are much more interesting, and though there are some of the old overpowered characters in this one, they are much more interesting; John's quest in this is to find out the origins of the Nightside, which it turns out relate to the identity of his mother and his role in the potential future destruction of the Nightside and the entire world, as glimpsed in the first book. His allies in this are the best part of the book: Madman and Sinner, two people who are in one way or another impervious to harm, who he brings because he can hide behind them when things get nasty. And though there is a surprise appearance by Suzie Shooter, and some annoying parts with Alex the bartender, the book overall was a lot of fun to read.
The ending kinda sucked, though. Either a cliffhanger or just a lame attempt to maintain John's persona as the tough guy/sad victim of the world's vicissitudes. Not good, whichever it was. But then, it was only one line in a 250-page novel, so the read was definitely worth it, and we'll hope the next installment saves the series from the potential downfall of John's last words.
Book #15
Sandman II: The Doll's House
by Neil Gaiman, et al
I tried reading Emerson's essays again, having been inspired by Self-Reliance. I xeroxed the entire essay and tried to teach the whole thing to my class, but after three days -- and I really tried to focus on the work, rather than messing around and wasting time -- we were only 6 pages into the 19, so I gave it up. Similarly, even though I gave the book a serious try, I had to surrender after getting through four or so essays after Self-Reliance. Some of them had good concepts, but a few just didn't work for me -- he sees platonic love as the highest form, and recommends that people try to find that in their potential life partners, since all love is guaranteed to cool off over time. I disagree with that. I don't think love cools, at all. The needs and wants of the body may change, but not of the heart -- not true love. Anyway, I'll go back to it again sometime this year, hopefully soon, and read another couple of essays. But the attempt this time did take up a week, and helped to create this long gap in my list-keeping.
After I gave up the Essays, I went for the second Sandman installment. This one follows the life of a Dream Vortex, a human mind that has the power to break down the barriers between sleeping people, to draw their dreams into her own dream and make all dreams one. There's also a secondary story of Morpheus trying to regain control of his realm after his kidnapping; he is seeking four missing dream creatures, ones of serious power who have left his realm. The two stories intertwine, of course, as the four beings have come into contact with the Vortex -- who also connects to the first book through the woman who slept her life away after Morpheus's disappearance.
I liked the people, and I love the Corinthian and the serial killer convention; great concept, very nicely realized. I though Gilbert and Rose were both excellent, and I liked how the story wrapped up. I didn't like Dream's sibling, Desire, or her part in the whole thing; it seemed pretty bland to me. Though I enjoyed the ancient story-telling aborigines in the opening chapter, who told the tale of the mortal woman whom Morpheus loved, and how badly that went. I like the idea of the Endless, and how they are different from gods as well as different from mortals -- the whole idea of the embodiments of abstract concepts, like dream and desire and despair. I find it fairly interesting that so many important, and interrelated, concepts all start with D -- but I'm not at all surprised that it was Neil Gaiman who recognized that.
Good book, overall. These are a nice break from the full novel-reading.
by Neil Gaiman, et al
I tried reading Emerson's essays again, having been inspired by Self-Reliance. I xeroxed the entire essay and tried to teach the whole thing to my class, but after three days -- and I really tried to focus on the work, rather than messing around and wasting time -- we were only 6 pages into the 19, so I gave it up. Similarly, even though I gave the book a serious try, I had to surrender after getting through four or so essays after Self-Reliance. Some of them had good concepts, but a few just didn't work for me -- he sees platonic love as the highest form, and recommends that people try to find that in their potential life partners, since all love is guaranteed to cool off over time. I disagree with that. I don't think love cools, at all. The needs and wants of the body may change, but not of the heart -- not true love. Anyway, I'll go back to it again sometime this year, hopefully soon, and read another couple of essays. But the attempt this time did take up a week, and helped to create this long gap in my list-keeping.
After I gave up the Essays, I went for the second Sandman installment. This one follows the life of a Dream Vortex, a human mind that has the power to break down the barriers between sleeping people, to draw their dreams into her own dream and make all dreams one. There's also a secondary story of Morpheus trying to regain control of his realm after his kidnapping; he is seeking four missing dream creatures, ones of serious power who have left his realm. The two stories intertwine, of course, as the four beings have come into contact with the Vortex -- who also connects to the first book through the woman who slept her life away after Morpheus's disappearance.
I liked the people, and I love the Corinthian and the serial killer convention; great concept, very nicely realized. I though Gilbert and Rose were both excellent, and I liked how the story wrapped up. I didn't like Dream's sibling, Desire, or her part in the whole thing; it seemed pretty bland to me. Though I enjoyed the ancient story-telling aborigines in the opening chapter, who told the tale of the mortal woman whom Morpheus loved, and how badly that went. I like the idea of the Endless, and how they are different from gods as well as different from mortals -- the whole idea of the embodiments of abstract concepts, like dream and desire and despair. I find it fairly interesting that so many important, and interrelated, concepts all start with D -- but I'm not at all surprised that it was Neil Gaiman who recognized that.
Good book, overall. These are a nice break from the full novel-reading.
Book #14
Lamb
by Christopher Moore
(aka, The Best Book Ever)
And so I did. Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. It was a reread, but it's been so long since I read the book -- the second Christopher Moore book I read and the one that turned Toni and I into fans -- that I didn't remember anything but the broad strokes.
I actually finished this book long enough ago that I forgot I read it, so I'll keep this short and sweet. It made me feel better to read it, and it confirmed its place as one of my all-time favorite books; still able to make me laugh out loud, still able to make me care about religion and almost enough to make me want to believe that Jesus was somebody. Not quite enough to do that last one, but Moore says in his author's note that he didn't intend the book to convert anyone, just to tell a story. And that it does, better than almost any other book I know.
I still like the beginning best, when Josh and Biff are kids in love with Mary Magdalene; Biff's precocious self is priceless. I love that he's in love with Josh's mom, and talks about how he'll marry her when Joseph dies and be Joshua's father. I like the parts about Joshua having trouble understanding his place and dealing with his gifts, and I like the elements of modern humor in an ancient context -- and a pretty realistic depiction of that context. My other favorite part is in the Buddhist monastery with Gaspar; I love the monks, the training, and the parables that Gaspar is always spouting.
Just a great book. I'll have to try to wait a few more years and then read it again.
by Christopher Moore
(aka, The Best Book Ever)
And so I did. Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. It was a reread, but it's been so long since I read the book -- the second Christopher Moore book I read and the one that turned Toni and I into fans -- that I didn't remember anything but the broad strokes.
I actually finished this book long enough ago that I forgot I read it, so I'll keep this short and sweet. It made me feel better to read it, and it confirmed its place as one of my all-time favorite books; still able to make me laugh out loud, still able to make me care about religion and almost enough to make me want to believe that Jesus was somebody. Not quite enough to do that last one, but Moore says in his author's note that he didn't intend the book to convert anyone, just to tell a story. And that it does, better than almost any other book I know.
I still like the beginning best, when Josh and Biff are kids in love with Mary Magdalene; Biff's precocious self is priceless. I love that he's in love with Josh's mom, and talks about how he'll marry her when Joseph dies and be Joshua's father. I like the parts about Joshua having trouble understanding his place and dealing with his gifts, and I like the elements of modern humor in an ancient context -- and a pretty realistic depiction of that context. My other favorite part is in the Buddhist monastery with Gaspar; I love the monks, the training, and the parables that Gaspar is always spouting.
Just a great book. I'll have to try to wait a few more years and then read it again.
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