Zeno's Library

Digest Post

2010-02-17T09:17:35-06:00

All right, I admit defeat: I really am never going to catch up with this backlog of books to review. It's actually tempting to give up on this booklog entirely at this point, but I'm not doing that quite yet. Instead, I'm just going to present a list, with microcomments, of the books that I have read recently which will not be receiving reviews, thereby clearing the backlog and letting me start with a clean slate.

Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942. An interesting look at another country in another time, from another time. Also, very short.
The Court of the Air, Stephen Hunt. Steampunk, more or less, though of the far-future variety rather than the AU past kind, though including the ObVictorianValues and also the ObOrphans.
A Fire upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge. (Re-read) I couldn't do this book justice in 2,000 words, let alone 50. And plenty of people have praised it before me, so given the circumstances, I'm not even going to try.
Y: The Last Man: Cycles. Still proving to be pretty good apocalypse porn.
Anathem, Neal Stephenson: One of the best books I've ever read in my entire life, though probably not for SF newcomers or the foggy-brained. But then, it's Stephenson, so you knew that.
Odd Girl Out, Timothy Zahn. Accidental reading of second book in series before reading the first one, but it wasn't hard to follow despite that. I continue my trend of never being disappointed by a Zahn book, though this one is of a subgenre I don't ordinarily much care for, having overtones of hardboiled-PI-ness.
Fables: Legends in Exile. (re-read) I do love variations on the familiar, which this does seem to promise. I can't remember why I stopped reading after a handful of volumes before, but maybe I'll figure it out when I get there.
Fires of the Faithful, Naomi Kritzer. Not entirely un-generic, but I enjoyed it thoroughly and look forward to more.
Black Ships, Jo Graham. Classical fantasy FTW! I can totally believe these characters went off and founded Rome.
The Walking Dead, Book 2. As with Y, this is pretty awesome apocalypse porn, but with zombies!
Angel, After the Fall, Volume 3. Enh. Is this series over yet?
A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge. (re-read) See line for aFutD, above.
Year's Best SF 13. 2007 was apparently a kind of depressing year for SF, if this is a representative sample. Yikes. Mostly pretty good, though.

...and that's that, and now I can start accumulating a new backlog. Sigh.

In His Majesty's Service, Naomi Novik

2010-01-29T13:25:08-06:00

The only new-to-me component of this book was the short story "In Autumn, A White Dragon Looks Over The Wide River", a tale of Lien's arrival in France. It was a very good story - I expected no less - but I still didn't really like it. I think that's because I so thoroughly dislike Lien. I enjoy disliking her, though, so the value of the story was not entirely lost on me.

Nonetheless, the main value of this book is as a collection of the first three volumes of the exceptionally awesome Temeraire series, and as that, I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Diaspora, Greg Egan

2010-01-29T12:05:23-06:00

This is only the second Egan novel I've ever read (Permutation City was the other), and I have to say, I'm impressed. It didn't grab me and drag me along through its pages at a breakneck pace - it is, actually, one of the denser books I've read lately - but throughout the span of time in which I was in the middle of it, I found myself pondering one or another of its concepts at odd moments throughout the day. I confess that I'm not actually a very good reader of hard SF in one sense: I tend to largely ignore the science. I know that some authors - such as this one - go to great lengths to develop plausible fictional science; extrapolating existing concepts and so on. However, like the ungrateful reader I am, I tend to absorb just enough of the science to determine what its effects on the story are and how it behaves in its own internally-consistent fashion. In short, I tend to treat hard SF almost as if it were space opera. So quite a bit of it just plain doesn't work for me, because it depends pretty heavily on its science at the expense of other elements.

With this, as with Permutation City, however, this is not the case. Diaspora is absolutely brimming with several of my absolute favorite aspects of science fiction, as it focuses on the implications of technologies and developments on the people who live with/in them, and extrapolates these diverse new kinds of people in a way that I found absolutely believable. And, as with all the best SF, I seem to have learned how to think about things and in ways that hadn't occurred to me before, which is a rarer occurrence than it used to be.

In short, it's not for SF neophytes, or for those unwilling to wade into universes strange and even stranger. But it's a really spectacular book for its target audience. Highly recommended.

Spike: After the Fall, Brian Lynch, et al

2010-01-29T11:40:32-06:00

Much though I love Spike - and that's a lot - I can't say as I really thought this little back-fill was what I'd call necessary, story-wise. Perhaps it's a personal-taste thing, but I really find that an obsessive filling-in of gaps is an excellent way to ruin a good story - you're building a little piece of a universe, here, Mr. Lynch, or at least tacking on a somewhat extradimensional room addition. You can't tell the whole story, because it's too big. It's possible that your readers are in fact not all growed up and able to extrapolate and imagine ways things may have arrived at the state of affairs evident at the opening of the first of these post-television-era Angel comics - but I doubt it. Occasional flashbacks when plot-relevant would have done just fine; devoting two entire trade collections to backstory is just plain silly.

If the next of these collections doesn't shape up somewhat, I'm going to have to give up on them. But at least it should actually progress the plot a little. I hope.

The Dark Tower, Stephen King

2010-01-21T12:28:28-06:00

Perhaps the most illuminating way of conveying my reaction to the conclusion to this series is to tell you that as soon as I finished the last page, I was adding the whole thing right back to the bottom of my reading list (it's a long list; it'll come to the top again in a couple of years, probably). Or possibly that it had such a sobering effect on me that I was subdued and contemplative for days after I closed the book and set it aside. Even now, weeks later, thinking about the book enough to write even this sketchy review has started my mind buzzing with questions and theories that I cannot include here, because they all depend upon the events of the last dozen pages of this multi-thousand-page series; the dozen pages that knock the events of all the others onto their ear and cause the reader to re-evaluate not just the story, but the universe in which it takes place: Huge, series-destroying spoilers, essentially. So I shall keep them to myself, at least for now. Mr. King, however, was kind enough to provide this warning, leading into those dozen pages:

Should you go on, you will surely be disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken. I have one key left on my belt, but all it opens is that final door [...]. What's behind it won't improve your love-life, grow hair on your bald spot, or add five years to your natural span (not even five minutes). There is no such thing as a happy ending. I never met a single one to equal "Once upon a time."

There was never any question but that I would read on, of course. Once a story gets its teeth into me, I usually can't stop until I have run it to ground and gleaned all it has to give. The fact that the author who had broken his reader's heart at least three times already in the course of this book alone saw fit to give such a warning, though, did rock me back on my heels a bit. I even hesitated a good half-minute before daring to proceed.

This is a spectacular series, unequaled in my experience in many ways. I look very much forward to reading it again.

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, Connie Willis

2010-01-21T11:59:10-06:00

I often try to re-read this at Christmas time, which indeed I managed this past December. It's a collection of eight holiday-related short stories from one of my favorite authors - someone who has the ability to point up the absurd in the ordinary and the magical in the mundane, and all while telling a remarkably good story.

I have a different favorite every time, but this time it was "Epiphany", a story of a modern-day wise man, on a quest for God through a blizzard. Last year my favorite was "Inn", when Mary and Joseph get lost and end up at the viewpoint character's church on Christmas Eve, where they are as shunned as ever they were at the original inn. The first time I read it, my favorite was "Adaptation", mostly because I worked at a bookstore at the time, and really identified with this poor shmuck about his job. I'm not really a fan of "In Coppelius's Toyshop", because I dislike slimy viewpoint characters, comeuppance or no. All in all, though, it's an awesome book, and a great celebration of Christmas from perspectives often overlooked in traditional observances.

Lucifer: Evensong, Mike Carey, et. al.

2010-01-21T11:42:12-06:00

My comments about this book, such as they may have been, are lost in the brain-fog of the last few weeks, it appears. I remember thinking it was sort of epilogue-ish and not really particularly substantive, but that's all right - I was pretty much Done with the Lucifer arc anyway, and was ready for it to tie off a few loose ends and sail off with the rest fluttering gaily in the breeze. It's a good story, but it was time for it to end.

Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

2010-01-21T11:35:21-06:00

I have been quite lax about keeping up with my booklogging of late, and now I have nine books in the pile, some of which I barely remember reading. Some of the catching-up posts are going to be a bit perfunctory, I'm afraid.

Anyway, Hogfather. I try to re-read this every year around Christmas, because it's just that awesome. Most Pratchett is awesome, which I've said before - it all manages to be hilarious on the surface and also succeeds in saying things that are rarely pointed out. This one is a bit more overt than some, in that it has a revelatory conversation near the end:

"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying that humans need ... fantasies to make life bearable."
Really? As if it was some sort of pink pill? No. Humans need fantasy in order to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little --?"
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty. That sort of thing.

Yeah. good stuff.

The Walking Dead: Miles Behind Us

2009-12-29T14:30:25-06:00

I honestly appear to have nothing whatsoever to say about this. I enjoyed it - as zombie stories go, this one is unfolding nicely so far. But there's not enough story as yet for me to be able to review it properly. Next time I pick one of these up I'll be reading two volumes worth, so perhaps then I'll have something to say.

Still, so far, so good.

Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett

2009-12-29T14:21:20-06:00

With only a very few exceptions near the beginning of the Discworld when the story was still finding its feet, every Pratchett book I have encountered has a) made me laugh hysterically and b) left me with an immensely satisfied feeling after I finished reading it. I will probably never understand quite how he manages to make (for instance) a book about soccer (sorry, "football"), full of silly wordplay and ludicrous hijinx, resonate so entirely with Life, the Universe, and Everything, but here it is all the same. Of course, it's only a book about soccer if one focuses exclusively on the surface of things. In an equally accurate and substantially more true sense, it's a book about pervasive and constricting social expectations, about the difficulty and rarity of true self-determination, about racism in its simplest forms - and at least a dozen more things. In short, it's a Terry Pratchett book, and what on earth are you waiting for? Go read the thing, for crying out loud.

Oh, and also, if you haven't already, read this. Then, if the situation fills you with the same sort of helpless, despairing fury as it does me, go here, or here.

The Thunderer, Felix Gilman

2009-12-16T13:34:56-06:00

I'm not going to mince words: I thought this book was appallingly boring. I mostly read it over the course of a series of baths, and on more than one occasion I cut my bath short when I'd really planned an extended bubble-bath soak, because I wanted to stop reading this book and go do something else. Now, in an effort to exhibit some fair-mindedness, I think it is at least possible that had I read it in a less piecemeal fashion, it might have achieved some degree of momentum and felt less like an uphill slog the whole time, but I'm not at all certain I would have ever got to the point of actually liking it.

I had the sequel to this on my to-read list, a dozen or so books down. I've moved it down another 30 or so, and maybe by the time I get to it I'll be feeling more charitably inclined toward the universe in question.

Song of Susannah, Stephen King

2009-12-16T13:03:15-06:00

Quite frankly, I think I'm running out of things to say about this series, given that specifics on pretty much anything that happens here, in book six, would be remarkably spoileriffic. I will point out in passing that the number of times I've seen an author write himself in to a book as a character - and make it work - is vanishingly small, but wow, did it ever work here. Far from shattering the book's illusion, it actually left me toying with "what if"s about its version of reality, and coming with remarkably few demonstrable holes in it. This is both remarkably cool and surprisingly creepy, by the way, in a way that probably won't fully make sense to people who haven't read it. (And on a more objective note, King's not afraid to put his book-self through the wringer, is he?)

Looking very much forward to the concluding volume, but also very much not. I'm not really ready not to have more Dark Tower story ahead.

Random Magic, Sasha Soren

2009-12-14T13:44:44-06:00

See Alistair's review of this book here.

I confess I was somewhat less overwhelmingly charmed by this book than was my husband. In fact, I had a great deal of difficulty getting through it, because while the plot and characterization and twisty little side journeys are all as pleasingly eccentric as Alistair's review led me to believe they would be, my tolerance for puns is quite low, with the exception of the occasional very-clever specimen, and this book is absolutely littered with the damned things. Scarcely a one of the ludicrously-short chapters went by without my giving a heartfelt groan and having to set the book aside for some several minutes to recover. Now, this did wonders for my general productivity during the span of time in which I was reading this book, but did not serve to speed my progress through the pages.

In summary, I think I'd have to say that the book was incredibly disappointing. It had tremendous promise, and taken as a whole I really did enjoy it. However, I really think it could have been great, had its author not spent quite so much effort trying to look clever by means of excessively-florid wordplay, and instead simply relied on the strength of the actual cleverness that the book is built from.

Oh, and as a mostly-irrelevant aside, I don't know where this book may have been stored before it was shipped to us as an Early Reviewer copy, but it smelled so strongly of patchouli upon arrival that even now, months after the fact, when I flipped through it in a quick re-familiarization, it was able to give me a headache. Yikes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Predators and Prey

2009-12-14T13:16:05-06:00

I'm afraid this Buffy-continuation may be losing some of its appeal for me. By no means all of it has fled, don't get me wrong; the "what happens next" curiosity is a strong motivator. But I think these graphic novel collections are too short and too infrequent to sustain critical mass, plot-wise. Perhaps I should start letting three or four of them accumulate between readings. ...yeah, right. If I possessed the patience of a saint, perhaps. Well, re-reading should provide a similar effect, right?

Still, in this collection, we have Harmony being Harmony, Andrew being Andrew, and Faith being Faith, so it's not all bad. There's also about zillion evil stuffed animals, and (finally!) a resolution of the Magical Morphing Dawn plotline. I liked what I read, it just all seemed a bit a) slapdash and b) rushed. And very, very little metaplot development appeared to be present, either. Still, as I keep saying, it's better than no Buffy at all, and I'm a very, very long way away from giving up on the continuation.

The Gathering Storm, Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

2009-11-18T15:23:45-06:00

So, um, wow, I think about sums this up. I generally try to keep this booklog spoiler-free, and most of the things I might say about this are horrendously spoileriffic (one thing that can definitely be said about Sanderson's effect on this series is that the pace of Important Events has received a serious kick in the pants), but I can come up with a few general comments:

First, writing-style/tone/characterization comments. As mentioned in my previous post, I started this book less than a minute after finishing Knife of Dreams, so I can directly compare previously-unread pure-Jordan WoT to the Sanderson-completed stuff. Conclusion: It's not identical, but it's a remarkably good fit for the world, especially given he wasn't even trying to mimic Jordan's voice. I've steered largely clear of people's reviews and commentaries thus far, as I try to write my reviews uncolored by others, but one thing I've picked up here and there is that more than one person has remarked on a dramatic decline in the quality of the depiction of Mat. The change in that characterization didn't really bug me, though I did notice that his mental monologue was rather significantly more straightforward and self-aware than had previously been the norm for Mat. The one that bothered me was Cadsuane, who had previously been a fascinating character and somehow managed to turn into a bitchy old woman with few apparent redeeming characteristics. So, that's unfortunate. By and large, though, I was pleased with the assorted renderings.

Second, Stuff Happening comments. I wasn't keeping a tally, but off the top of my head, I laughed a few dozen times, cried twice, wanted to punch a character in the nose a few times, had a sinking feeling of dread on at least one occasion, cheered mentally three or four times, and once said aloud "OH HOLY CRAP".

Third, irreverent and irrelevant comment: I bet Leigh's glad she's not in charge of the FAQ any more, because wow, is it ever going to need revamping now.

Anyway. Go read the damned thing already, would you? It's spectacular, and I can't wait for the rest.

Knife of Dreams, Robert Jordan

2009-11-18T13:21:09-06:00

My timing was off in my Great Wheel of Time Re-Read - I'd planned to finish this book just as the new one was coming out, not to start it then. And life conspired against me by giving me almost no free time at all for two whole weeks after that point, too. Still and all, I got through it, and whaddaya know? People were right. This one doesn't suck. It's not great, either - no Shadow Rising or anything - but it stands so far above the books that preceded it that it appears to be a work of great literary merit by comparison. It's probably about on par with Crown of Swords, if I'm attempting to make a relatively objective assessment.

That said, I'm not going to give it much of a review, because while I'd never read it before and therefore ought to have some interesting reactions/analysis to convey, I started reading The Gathering Storm about ten seconds after I finished this, and so the older chunk of new WoT is a little fuzzy after the nearly non-stop roller-coaster of Sanderson's WoT. Sorry, y'all.

Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, Harry Turtledove

2009-11-18T12:41:28-06:00

Alas, I'm afraid I didn't enjoy this one nearly so much as the first of the series. The setting being already fairly familiar, I was substantially less swept away on a tide of "ooh, shiny" than was previously the case, which left Turtledove's lack of skill in the craft of writing (as opposed to the art, which he's not bad at) glaringly apparent.

Still, the story is good, and so far I'm still interested enough in What Happens Next plot-wise to slog along through the next book. With a very few exceptions, I'm not sure it would be possible for me to care much less about the characters, though. Bleh.

The System of the World, Neal Stephenson

2009-11-15T14:42:54-06:00

(See my reviews of the first two books here and here.)

Well, having now made it to the end of this brickbook series, I can pretty definitively say that this is a multivolume literary work constructed from 100% pure awesome. It's got a pretty steep entry slope, but it's worth every step of the climb, because the view from up there is phenomenal.

The thing is, as I said in my review of The Confusion, the Baroque Cycle is very much not for everyone. It's a collection of interwoven political, scientific, and interpersonal plots, embedded in a very complex period of history, and relying on the reader to pick up on oblique hints of one sort or another in order to appreciate the full impact of the story. I'm a practiced reader of Complicated Books, and not entirely unfamiliar with either the subject matter or the time period, and I'm pretty sure I came away from this reading having gleaned only about 60% at best of what was on offer in the pages. I don't feel particularly bad about this - I enjoyed them thoroughly, and those bits unnoticed on first reading are what make re-reading such a joy - but I feel I should point it out as a warning to those who are not well-practiced in the art of tracking multiple plotlines over an indefinite length of time. This would probably not be a good place to try to acquire the skill. Go read the Wheel of Time instead - it'll ease you into it, and you'll be juggling sixteen plot threads at once before you know it.

I heartily recommend these books for anyone who's up to the challenge of reading them, though. Like I said, 100% pure awesome.

Lucifer: Morningstar, Mike Carey et al

2009-11-15T13:47:52-06:00

Alas, it has been sufficiently long since I read this (my backlog is quite daunting) that any particularly scintillating insights I might once have had have evaporated. I am left with nothing more interesting to say than that the war and the universe's existential crisis were brought to a satisfactory conclusion, albeit by a mechanism I had not anticipated. Which is nice, really.

Looking forward to Evensong, anyway.

Kushiel's Mercy, Jacqueline Carey

2009-11-15T13:16:24-06:00

I am honestly not sure why I even picked this book up in the first place. As of the end of Kushiel's Justice, I gave not even the least approximation of a damn for Imriel and his whiny internal monologues, and the greater plot arc was not one I found particularly compelling. Still, as I said in my review of the second book, I am a completist, and so here I am.

Well, despite Imri still being fairly whiny, I'm quite glad I kept reading. This installment entirely redeemed the entire plot line, as far as I'm concerned, or at least gave it a justification for having existed. The bewitching of Terre d'Ange was most skillfully done and quite compelling. My faith in Carey is hereby restored - which is good, because I kind of want to read Naamah's Kiss, and was quite dubious about the prospect given the bad impression I was carrying around after the first two-thirds of this trilogy.

Which I suppose means I recommend it, except I can't really in good conscience recommend the first two books of the trilogy except by reiterating that they get better in this third one, and you can't very well read the third one without the first two. And if you've already read and liked the first two, you don't need my recommendation to read the third one. So there's very little point in my recommending it, one way or another...

Forty Thousand in Gehenna, C. J. Cherryh

2009-10-23T10:28:11-05:00

Well, this book made me really cranky for about the first three-fourths of its length. I couldn't quite decide if I was angrier with the authority figures in the book, for failing to be sufficiently open-minded about potential forms of alien intelligence, or with the author, for subjecting me to yet another book about how Humans Are Bastards. That meme is growing rather old for me, though I suppose it might have been less done-to-death at the time, as the thing was written 25 years ago.

I really have bad luck with Cherryh, which is unfortunate. She's an author I want very much to like, but can't quite seem to get the knack of. On the other hand, this was an improvement over my disastrous attempt to read the Chanur books, which I found appallingly boring, though not because of the excessive alienness of the characters, which I understand is the failure mode for most people), so I'll count that as progress? I'll make another try or two at other books of hers we have here, and perhaps I'll finally get the right angle of approach to enjoy her work, the quality of which I can already see quite clearly but cannot quite come 'round to enjoying.

Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King

2009-10-23T09:59:13-05:00

And with this book, I progressed into what I can't help but think of as the modern era of the Dark Tower saga - the books published since the time at which I first read The Gunslinger. I don't actually think it was quite as good in a technical sense as the ones leading up to it, but I only really noticed that after I finished the book. While actually in the middle of it, I was every bit as engaged with the plot and characters as I could wish.

I continue to be increasingly impressed by the underlying story of this with each additional book I read, and find I'm having more trouble each time waiting until the next one comes to the top of the pile. But there are thousands of books in our library, many hundreds of which I actively want to read at any time, so a bit of discipline in keeping the queue-jumping to a minimum is a thing I have had to acquire. And so it will be another week or two before I get to Song of Susannah, and I will be patient.

Mostly.

Grantville Gazette III

2009-10-16T09:24:45-05:00

OK, you know what? I'm going to stop hedging around with this now. These things are actually really bad, with only occasional glimmers of competence showing through the crap. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, as even officially-sanctioned fanfic is not overwhelmingly likely to be of professional quality, but egad. Surely they could at least sift out a better class of dreck. Perhaps not, though; Flint-as-editor is not what I would call a choice likely to lead to good writing. I mean, yes, he is the original creator of the world, and as such is the obvious candidate to serve as gatekeeper thereto, but while his stories are generally pretty good, his writing is workmanlike at best and cringeworthy at worst, and so upon reflection it is not beyond reason to presume that he might not have a great eye for good writing. And the ideas of these stories, to be fair, are generally pretty neat. It's the execution that is so often - and so sadly - lacking.

It's a little unfortunate that the Gazettes seem to suck so much. I said before that I recommended them only for completists, true, but the thing is, I am a completist. I'm going to be faced with the choice between continuing to read them and running the risk of stepping in a literary cow pat in order to get to encounter all the stories in this (really remarkably compelling) world, or forgoing the risk and reward alike. I'm honestly not sure which way I'll end up choosing.

Small Favor, Jim Butcher

2009-10-16T09:14:08-05:00

Yay Dresden! Though honestly, the "let Harry think he might possibly be catching a tiny break and then yank the rug out of him while the universe points and laughs" plot formula is perhaps growing just a tiny bit old. Still, now I've reached the end of what's available in paperback, so I'll be reading the books farther apart from now on, and the little things like this are likely to bother me less. So that's a bonus of sorts, I suppose.

Anyway, the book was no less compelling or enjoyable than the previous installments have been, which is to the good; it was also no less irritating in an almost subliminal way. I always finish one of these books feeling sort of like I just ate an entire bag of Fritos or something - I enjoyed it at the time but feel kind of guilty and maybe a little queasy afterward. And yet I don't stop doing it, so it can't bug me that much.

Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan

2009-10-05T15:35:30-05:00

I'm a little perplexed upon completing this, actually - I would have sworn I'd read the whole thing once before, but only the first half was familiar. It's certainly possible that the Perrin/Faile plotline and Elayne's infamous bath combined to make me unable to finish it, the first time through. Egad. Nonetheless, if read with the appropriate willingness to skim the cringe-inducing parts, the book is far, far better than my memories and the gestalt opinion of my corner of Jordan fandom had led me to believe.

...not that that brings it within shouting distance of good, I hasten to point out.

Anyway, only one more book - and that one I know full well I've not read - lies between me and the current end of the story, but the new book will be out in a few weeks, and I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm actually looking forward to Knife of Dreams, too, oddly enough.

Worldwar: In the Balance, Harry Turtledove

2009-10-05T15:18:25-05:00

Color me late to the party, I suppose; most people read this 15 years ago. I had a rough introduction to Turtledove, though, and it took me several years to get over it and decide maybe I should, before giving up on him entirely, try some of the stuff he was actually famous for rather than just the bits of his work that I stumbled across at random. And what do you know - this is actually really good alternate history. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by that. After all, while he certainly didn't invent the subgenre, he's written dozens of them, and is widely considered a master of the concept.

Plot-wise, the point of divergence in this universe involves the Earth of 1941 being invaded by the Race, a bunch of lizard-like conquerors with a remarkable inability to conceive of things different from themselves, which, along with humanity's unanticipated speed of innovation and adaptation, turns out to go quite some way toward offsetting their overwhelming technological advantages. The slowness of development of their own species as well as those previously conquered led them to anticipate no appreciable changes between their reconnaissance in the 13th century AD and their arrival 800 years later...

As I may have mentioned in the past, I love a good alternate history (though often avoid reading them because good ones are rare and bad ones are painful), and so I enjoyed the hell out of this one, despite it possessing no shortage of the awkward writing and poor character portrayal that has bugged me about Turtledove in the past. This time, the concept/setting/plot was good enough that I was able to overlook the writing, and indeed it didn't even register until I'd read about 90% of the book. I hope this trend continues, because if I continue to be able to overlook Turtledove's prose shortcomings in favor of his alternate-history strengths, I'll suddenly have rather a lot more alternate history available to read.

The Confusion, Neal Stephenson

2009-10-01T16:34:51-05:00

I tried to read this book once before, several years ago. At the time, I was in grad school, overworked and underslept and generally a mess in most of the ways in which it is possible to mess oneself up and not die, and so it is not surprising that I failed utterly to succeed in reading this exceptionally densely packed depiction of a series of interrelated and convoluted plots, rendered in gorgeous if somewhat, er, baroque language. Even in my bedraggled state I was fully aware that the book was phenomenal, and that my not finishing it was entirely my failure and not that of the book.

I was careful to pick a time when I was not tired-in-the-brain for this, my second attempt at reading the thing. It's a good thing I did, too, because this is not a book that allows one to be a passive consumer, to say the least. It's absolutely wonderful, though, and I enjoyed every second I spent reading it (except the time I dropped it on my head, because it ain't no lightweight book). The dawn of the Enlightenment is a fascinating time in history, and reading this treatment makes me feel like I've lived through a chunk of it myself. I can't wait for the final installment to get to the top of my reading list.

Recommended for appallingly overeducated people who like history, language, science, and reason, and have a goodly supply of patience, a decent tolerance for scatological and other coarse humor, and are willing to put some effort into the role of reader. Other people will find it impenetrable and probably not worth the effort.

Warbreaker, Brandon Sanderson

2009-10-01T15:30:08-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was attempting to explain to my mother how it is that the Wheel of Time series can still be in pending-completion mode instead of eternally-incomplete, now that its author has passed away. Upon my telling her that another author will be writing the remainder of the story in his stead, she asked "What does this other guy get out of the deal?" Well, entirely aside from the GIANT PILES OF CASH that are likely to result from sales of the books in question, what he gets is this: People who had never - and likely would never have - heard of Brandon Sanderson suddenly start seeking out his books out of curiosity, and he goes from a little-known fantasy author to one of the big names rather faster than is, shall we say, usual.

So that's what he gets out of it.

What we as readers - and by that I mean "me", because that's the part of we I can speak for - get out of it is exposure to this author that might otherwise have stayed under our radar forever, which would have been a bloomin' tragedy, I tell you. This man can write.

In Warbreaker, he creates another fascinatingly original world - all three of his worlds I've seen have been fascinating - in which the supernatural element is something known as BioChromatic Breath. Everyone is born with one Breath, but collecting large numbers of them - and they have to be given; they can't be stolen - bestows a selection of abilities upon people. Oh, and using the more active of said abilities leaches color out of things, which is a neat touch.

Oh, and the story doesn't suck, either, but the worldbuilding is so awesome it was hard to focus on much else, I confess. Perhaps upon re-read I'll have a more coherent review of the plotly portions of the book.

Recommended, in any case.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, Galen Beckett

2009-09-23T10:43:56-05:00

This is another member of the set of books I would never have purchased had I not happened across it in a bookstore, and as with all books from authors of whom I have never heard (though it turns out this is a pen name for an author whose books we own but have not read), I approached the reading of it with some degree of trepidation. As it happens, I need not have feared. The book is absolutely charming. It's a fantasy of manners with a bit of a Gothic turn - and while it does borrow heavily in themes from assorted 18th century authors, I don't think that detracts from its enjoyability to any real degree. After all, while originality is a virtue, it is far from the only possible virtue in writing, and its presence or absence alone does not determine the quality of a work. Beckett takes a handful of familiar threads and weaves them into a thoroughly absorbing tale of life in a society which shares a fair number of characteristics with our own 18th century history, though the addition of magic and what must be a truly remarkably complicated solar system (the varying lengths of day and night are quite an original touch, I might add) are more than sufficient to keep the reader from losing track of the fantastic element.

Recommended for, mostly, fans of the fantasy-of-manners subgenre, though anyone who enjoys a slow unfolding of a large story told mostly through its effects on a handful of people will probably enjoy it.

Wizard and Glass, Stephen King

2009-09-22T16:08:14-05:00

I really must get better about booklogging more promptly after I finish reading a book, because when it comes right down to it, in the final accounting there's no visible difference between the books about which I had nothing whatsoever to say and the books about which I had many insightful and fascinating thoughts which were forgotten by the time I came to write them down. And while there is little I can do about the former case except feel vaguely guilty, the latter case is infuriating to me.

All that is by way of saying, as I am sure is obvious, that I can't remember what on earth I might have wanted to say about this, as its specifics have faded in my mind, leaving behind only a sense of something closely akin to awe - because it really is an incredibly good book. The interleaving of past and present is very skillfully done, I remember that much, and the story of Young Roland is almost painfully compelling.

...sorry. This is a lame review, and I have nothing to blame it on but my own procrastination. It is certainly not the fault of the work in question that I was unable to hold its state in my head for so long. Though in my defense, I feel I should point out that since then I've read a fantasy of manners, a Brandon Sanderson book, and approximately one-third of the Baroque Cycle, so my brain has had some competition for its time.