Booklog 'em.
Aug. 27th, 2007 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneNew job is pretty good so far—the people are nice, I'm occupied but not overwhelmed, and I'm learning interesting new things about Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The only drawbacks so far appear to be the commute (an hour and a half each way—dreadful) and the fact that my desk is right at the front, directly in my boss' line of sight, so no looking at LJ and only minimal checking of e-mail is possible. *sad* So once again I am exhausted and behind on everything. But at least I'm making money?
Here's one of the things I'm behind on:
Weeks 31—34: 30 July—26 August
169. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon — I absolutely adore the movie adaptation, so I was both biased in favor of the book and concerned that Chabon would somehow "screw up" the story that was his in the first place. He didn't, but I still like the movie better. The film is zanier—more of a comedy, while the novel is a drama with some great one liners (and yeah, a dent in the hood of a car shaped like a butt). I enjoyed the backstory about Grady's wife's family and their passover dinner; it certainly made Grady's choice of who to stay with—his wife or his pregnant girlfriend—more complicated, something the movie avoids. But the film's ending is much neater (and not just because it sidestepped this problem—the Wife is dismissed long before the conclusion) but because Chabon has serious Ending Issues, I think. Still: it's a really good book. But it's a FABULOUS movie.
170. Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi — Rougher and less focused than Persepolis, the first half of this volume focuses on Satrapi's life in Austria where her parents sent to be safe and to go to school. Though away from the war in Iran, she still stuggles, both with others' treatment of her as a foreigner and with growing up alone and very isolated. After a period in which she actually ends up living on the street, she returns gratefully to Iran; even if the country is still messed up, she has her family there. This is where the book really picked up for me, and the second half is as good as anything in the first volume. Satrapi talks about how different the internal world of Iranians is/was than the external: outside you have to appear to be conservative and pious, while at home people would hold wild parties, even orgies. "The more time passed," she writes, "the more I became conscious of the contrast between the official representation of my country and the real life of the people, the one that went on behind the walls." I love how Satrapi reinforces the fact that everyone, everywhere is essentially human—something I think the current American administration would like us to forget.
Not quite as good as Persepolis, but still excellent.
171. Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi — A series of vignettes, almost, about women's lives in Iran, connected by bridging segments of after-dinner tea and conversation with Satrapi's mother, grandmother, and their relatives and friends. The embroideries of the title do NOT have to do with arts and crafts, but rather refer to what some Iranian women do to, um, regain their virginities. (OW!) This book is seemingly lighter than either volume of Persepolis, but there's an underlying weight and seriousness, and Satrapi as usual is great at conveying character and telling stories. I only wish it had been longer.
172 & 178-180. Y: The Last Man -- Unmanned, Cycles, One Small Step, & Safeword, Brian K. Vaughan — A plague hits, wiping out every mammal with a Y chromosome—except for a dude with the improbable name of Yorick Brown (his father was an English professor, y'see) and his pet monkey. This comic is incredibly, insanely good. The first volume launches into the story at a breakneck pace and for the most part it never lets up. Yorick is believably brave-but-not-an-action hero: that job's mostly left to Agent 355, a government shadow-operative who becomes his protector after the plague; she and Dr. Allison Mann, a geneticist with a secret, round out the trio of main characters, who, when I left off (damn you library! where's book 5?) are in the midst of a cross-country quest to reach Dr. Mann's backup lab in California. (There was a liiiiiiiiittle accident with her primary location in Boston.) I'm so far impressed with the characterization of the female characters—women are necessarily the antagonists, as they're the only ones left, but Vaughan does a good job making everyone's motivations complicated and generally real. The Yorick/355/Dr. Mann sorta-love triangle is fun, and I love how dorky but secretly fucked up Yorick is. He's like John Sheppard, in a way. Anyway: highly, highly recommended.
173. My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes, Ed. by Lila Azam Zanganeh — Essays and interviews by and with Iranians about what life is really like in their home country, and about their receptions in and reactions to the rest of the world. As with many collections, some of these pieces were really excellent, while others were not; the interviews were in many ways the weakest, veering off into somewhat pretentious discussions of post-modern works I haven't seen. But I'm glad that (inspired, unsurprisingly, by Persepolis) I read this; I would love to read more good books about Iran and the Iranian experience.
174. InterWorld, Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves — A young adult novel based on an idea for a TV show Gaiman and Reaves could never get off the ground, this reads like the pilot for said TV show. It introduces a really fascinating world, one in which the main conflict is between the forces of magic and science, both of which have representatives who are trying to achieve dominance over the multiverse. Then from an Earth quite like ours comes Joey Harker, who discovers he is a Walker, with the power to move between universes and fight to keep those essential forces in check. The story is a lot of fun, and the potential Horrible Fate that could befall Joey and his friends is really, legitimately terrifying, but the first person narrative is much weaker than Gaiman's usual authorial voice, and ultimately, more questions are raised than answered. I want to know why Joey and all his infinite variations are special! Instead it's kind of frustrating that things leave off where they do. This would have made an even better show than a book, dammit.
175. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab, Gideon Defoe — I found the humor in The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists kind of one-note, so I'm really not sure why I read the sequel. It's been a few weeks now and I've almost completely forgotten it. But I believe I was somewhat pleasantly diverted for about an hour at the time?
176. These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer — Most fandom people I've talked to either love or at least rather like this book, but it seems it's my turn to feel all "bwah?" and left out, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runpunkrun does with The Dreyfus Affair and siriaeve does with Swordspoint. I hated it. I despised pretty much all the characters, other than Hugh and Rupert—Leonie was irritating, and Avon was just creepy. I know he was supposed to be "Satanas"—the devil of a man who isn't really that bad, but I found him neither enjoyably naughty nor charming; he was just kind of slimy. The idea of him and Leonie being together really skeeved me out, not because of the age difference—I actually like an age difference, when it's done well—but because of the power dynamic, I guess. All the power was Avon's, both practically and emotionally, and throughout the whole book Leonie was worshipful of him and he condescending towards her. Ew. I also didn't see the slash at all; Hugh was one of the few nice characters, as I said, so I guess it could be construed that he put up with Avon because he was in love with him, but Avon didn't seem particularly gay to me—he was just an 18th Century dude who lived in France and was a bit of a vain ass. The overall package was not appealing, and neither was this book, which is too bad, because I really enjoyed the only other Heyer I've read, The Masqueraders.
Before I read These Old Shades, I was planning to read The Grand Sophy soon, but now I'm not so sure; Shades turned me off, and I also heard that Sophy has a really ugly Jewish stereotype in it. Those of you who've read it: what do you think?
177. The Kid, Dan Savage — The story of how sex columnist Savage and his boyfriend Terry come to adopt a kid. Savage writes with great humor, even (especially?) when he's clearly angry: the attitude toward gay men and women in the United States is still so ridiculously backwards, especially when it comes to things like wanting to have a family. Savage does a great job exploring the issues of adoption, open adoption, gay adoption, and modern families in general, and balancing all of that discussion with his own story. This book was unexpectedly, wonderfully moving—I actually teared up toward then end during the scenes where Dan and Terry hold their son for the first time, and when they react to having to take him from the mother who's unable to care for him. The whole book is a fascinating, engaging, political, emotional read. I really recommend it.
181 & 184. Over Sea, Under Stone & The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper — Rereads. I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie—and more importantly, I sawdarcydodo's furious reaction to the trailer for the upcoming movie, and I realized that I didn't remember these books well enough to be properly furious myself. I'd read them, in the opposite order, when I was much younger, but didn't recall being particularly engaged by them, which was why I never continued with the series. I figured that, rereading them as an adult, I'd see the error of my ways.
Sadly, I didn't. I still don't find these books very engaging. Over Sea, Under Stone is, as even Darcy admits, only so-so: the setting is great (the rambling old Cornish house, the standing stones perched on their cliffs, the sea-cave), and at least one of the siblings (Barney) is spunky and entertaining, yet the treasure hunt-plot is oddly slow, and the conclusion completely unsatisfying in my mind. (They give the grail to a museum and get 100 quid? Barney has his "Dude! Merlin!" revelation? Yawn.) I thought The Dark Is Rising would be better, but it didn't do much for me, either. There's a lot of portentous stuff, but I felt that every scrape Will gets into he gets out of either through the intervention of an adult or thanks to a deus ex machina. Meanwhile, the Dark Rider and the Dark in general seemed oddly unthreatening to me, while being an agent of the Light did not seem particularly exciting or pleasurable. I never wished I was there: with, say, the Narnia books, I wanted SO BADLY to go through a wardrobe or a painting of my own, even if it was dangerous; but being an Old One mostly seems dull and chanty to me, to the point that if the position were offered on craigslist, I think I might pass. What is wrong with me?
Because I really do feel, having this reaction, that there must be something wrong with me and not the books: so many people—and people whose opinions I trust—love them. Oh well. I suppose I didn't like The Lord of the Rings, either.
182. The Commitment, Dan Savage — The story of how sex columnist Savage and his boyfriend Terry try to decide whether they want to get married. Not as focused or quite as good as The Kid, as much of the book involves Dan and Terry and Dan's mom and Dan and Terry's son D.J. and Dan and Terry's various other relatives going back and forth (and back and forth) on the issue, giving the narrative less forward momentum and impetus than the other book. Still, I really enjoyed Savage's frank, intelligent, humorous, but impassioned analysis of the issues at hand, and the insights into his life as well. (The story about the margaritas was so good I had to share it soon after reading.) I'm looking forward to reading more of Savage's work.
183. Serenity: Those Left Behind, Joss Whedon, et. al. — I think the biggest problem with this for me is that I just now got to read it; it may have had more of an impact if I'd actually read it BEFORE watching Serenity, but alas. Post-movie, it's kind of pointless: it fills in some of the gaps between the series and the film, but not in any way the film fails to. The plot resurrects a character that in my mind should have stayed dead, only to kill him again, and makes very poor use of the Two by Two, Hands of Blue guys. Also, the art annoyed me. Some comic book artists are very good at conveying action, but the way the fights were drawn in this I couldn't actually figure out what was happening. I mean, I'm glad to have finally read this, I guess, but it was really not worth the desperate efforts to get it over the last several years.
185. The Sharing Knife: Legacy, Lois McMaster Bujold — The continuing adventures of Lakewalker patroller Dag and his new farmer-girl bride Fawn, whichfairestcat was nice enough to lend me since I was number 65 or something on the library wait list. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed this less than Beguilement, the first part of the duology. This one starts out, as that book ended, with a lot of domestic/culture clash stuff, but the Lakewalkers giving Fawn the cold shoulder was much less interesting that the farmers getting all up in Dag's face. The book really picked up when a new malice pops up, and that entire sequence—Dag riding off through Fawn's eventual entrance into the fray, as it were—was fabulous and exciting. However, the way the story finally wrapped up was frustrating to me: the jerks in the camp mostly get away with being jerks, whatever's going on with Dag's "ghost hand" is never fully explained, and, most disappointing of all for me, the relationship between Fawn and Dag doesn't really progress or change at all beyond the point it was at when Beguilement ended. All the conflict is external; apparently there is no more internal conflict once you're happily married.
This book was still totally worth reading, and I'm really glad I got the chance to (thank you so much,fairestcat!), but I felt, especially since Bujold is such a good writer who creates such interesting characters in such fascinating worlds, that the plot of this book could have gone somewhere more interesting. Maybe if Fawn and Dag had set out on their journey a little earlier. Or maybe that's a book she still intends to write? I'd definitely read it.
186. The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch — This book took me forever to read—through no fault of its own, I think. It's a fast-paced fantasy set in a world I am ACHING to read an entire history about; you can tell Lynch has really thought about this society and this city and this landscape he's created, and he doles out information about it in little bite-sized bits that leave you hungry for more rather than rolling your eyes at dialogue of the "Well, Locke, as you know it's been seventeen years that we've known each other; we of course met after you escaped from the plague and my parents died in a fire..." type. You really get to know Locke and his fellow Gentleman Bastards, the finest Camorri con men; their banter is fantastic, and you really do care about them. I think my biggest problem with this book is that it's incredibly, shockingly violent: there are numerous descriptions of torture that still make me shudder if I chance to think about them (...dammit). I keep wanting to say, "This would make a fantastic movie!" but I'd be honestly afraid to see some of this stuff on screen. Still, the novel is exciting, full of creativity and verve and sharp wit, and the relationships between the characters, especially Locke and Jean, make the "gah!" moments well worth it. I've already gotten my hands on the sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies, and am most pleased.
187. Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill — Aging rock star Judas Coyne (surprise twist! not his real name), a collector of strange and macabre items, learns about a ghost up for sale on an "eBay knockoff" and decides he has to have it. The ghost is transported to him via the dead man's suit, wrapped in a heart-shaped box, and almost immediately Jude begins to experience buyer's remorse.
The beginning of this book—the first hundred pages or so—was truly frightening to me. A secret: vampires, werewolves, mummies, sea monsters, demons, zombies, killer clowns—these things don't scare me. Ghosts scare me. They don't even have to do anything: there's just something about them, intangible but there, watching, that scares the crap out of me. So this book freaked me out the most—in that wonderful, shivery, brrr kind of way—when the ghost wasn't doing anything, when it was just sitting in Jude's hallway, its hat in its hand, two mad, black scribbles where its eyes should be.
Then the plot happened. See, there's a reason Jude came to find out about this particular auction; Jude's ex-girlfriend's family is blah blah blah...okay: all of this is actually pretty interesting. The action did lag in the middle, when there were just a lot of instances in a row of the ghost trying to convince Jude and Jude's new girlfriend, Georgia, to kill themselves, but it does pick up again, and the whole book is generally captivating. However, as soon as the plot engages, the book stops being scary. At least to me: once its motivations are explained, the ghost became a creepy dude out for a revenge, and a lot of the otherworldliness, the inexplicableness, went away, and with it the scary. There were still things I enjoyed: Jude and Georgia are both interesting, flawed characters, and I liked how their relationship developed; I even liked the slightly unrealistic ending. (It made me happy, okay? I'm a sap; shut up.) But the book lost something for me when it stopped being frightening, and devolved from something creepy and unusual to something much more done, almost an ordinary, average horror/thriller. So it's a good novel, yeah, but not a great one; I really do wish Hill's spark of originality could have burned a little bit longer. Maybe in the next one.
188. Prime Times, Ed. by Douglas Bauer — The concept is interesting: twenty-three writers discuss their favorite TV shows. The execution...sadly less so. Almost all the shows discussed were Before My Time; I think the only ones that had any personal relevance to me were The West Wing and Mystery Science Theater 3000 (with half a point each for The Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek). Also, a lot of the writers seemed to take this as a great opportunity to be windbags; nobody likes pretentiousness, but I especially dislike pretentiousness about pop culture. I am already on the side of people writing about pop culture—I do think it's an important topic, worthy of writing about! So please don't make yourself sound like an asshole by talking about the "oikos" of the Enterprise—or if you must do so, at least do so with a sense of humor. Some people did: I liked Nick Horby's West Wing essay, and April Bernard about Secret Agent; I even liked some of the more serious ones, like David Shields' discussion of Monday Night Football (really!) and Lan Samantha Chang writing about how growing up Chinese-American in Wisconsin was kind of like Gilligan's Island (no, really!). But there was a way-too-high percentage of windbaggery, or just dullness; too much, "My knowledge of Ancient Greek: let me show you it." Also, dear editors: please do not introduce your essay collection by summarizing all the essays therein. Thanks.
I feel like this same idea could be done in a much more interesting way. Maybe when fandom finally takes over the world?
Total Books: 188
And finally, something that cheered me up and made my whole week better:
The Doctor, Martha, and the Master, meeting Rodney and Vala as space pirates. Possibly at an alien cantina? byanna_luna. This is possibly the greatest piece of fanart, ever in the history of fanart. *loves insanely*
Here's one of the things I'm behind on:
Weeks 31—34: 30 July—26 August
169. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon — I absolutely adore the movie adaptation, so I was both biased in favor of the book and concerned that Chabon would somehow "screw up" the story that was his in the first place. He didn't, but I still like the movie better. The film is zanier—more of a comedy, while the novel is a drama with some great one liners (and yeah, a dent in the hood of a car shaped like a butt). I enjoyed the backstory about Grady's wife's family and their passover dinner; it certainly made Grady's choice of who to stay with—his wife or his pregnant girlfriend—more complicated, something the movie avoids. But the film's ending is much neater (and not just because it sidestepped this problem—the Wife is dismissed long before the conclusion) but because Chabon has serious Ending Issues, I think. Still: it's a really good book. But it's a FABULOUS movie.
170. Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi — Rougher and less focused than Persepolis, the first half of this volume focuses on Satrapi's life in Austria where her parents sent to be safe and to go to school. Though away from the war in Iran, she still stuggles, both with others' treatment of her as a foreigner and with growing up alone and very isolated. After a period in which she actually ends up living on the street, she returns gratefully to Iran; even if the country is still messed up, she has her family there. This is where the book really picked up for me, and the second half is as good as anything in the first volume. Satrapi talks about how different the internal world of Iranians is/was than the external: outside you have to appear to be conservative and pious, while at home people would hold wild parties, even orgies. "The more time passed," she writes, "the more I became conscious of the contrast between the official representation of my country and the real life of the people, the one that went on behind the walls." I love how Satrapi reinforces the fact that everyone, everywhere is essentially human—something I think the current American administration would like us to forget.
Not quite as good as Persepolis, but still excellent.
171. Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi — A series of vignettes, almost, about women's lives in Iran, connected by bridging segments of after-dinner tea and conversation with Satrapi's mother, grandmother, and their relatives and friends. The embroideries of the title do NOT have to do with arts and crafts, but rather refer to what some Iranian women do to, um, regain their virginities. (OW!) This book is seemingly lighter than either volume of Persepolis, but there's an underlying weight and seriousness, and Satrapi as usual is great at conveying character and telling stories. I only wish it had been longer.
172 & 178-180. Y: The Last Man -- Unmanned, Cycles, One Small Step, & Safeword, Brian K. Vaughan — A plague hits, wiping out every mammal with a Y chromosome—except for a dude with the improbable name of Yorick Brown (his father was an English professor, y'see) and his pet monkey. This comic is incredibly, insanely good. The first volume launches into the story at a breakneck pace and for the most part it never lets up. Yorick is believably brave-but-not-an-action hero: that job's mostly left to Agent 355, a government shadow-operative who becomes his protector after the plague; she and Dr. Allison Mann, a geneticist with a secret, round out the trio of main characters, who, when I left off (damn you library! where's book 5?) are in the midst of a cross-country quest to reach Dr. Mann's backup lab in California. (There was a liiiiiiiiittle accident with her primary location in Boston.) I'm so far impressed with the characterization of the female characters—women are necessarily the antagonists, as they're the only ones left, but Vaughan does a good job making everyone's motivations complicated and generally real. The Yorick/355/Dr. Mann sorta-love triangle is fun, and I love how dorky but secretly fucked up Yorick is. He's like John Sheppard, in a way. Anyway: highly, highly recommended.
173. My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes, Ed. by Lila Azam Zanganeh — Essays and interviews by and with Iranians about what life is really like in their home country, and about their receptions in and reactions to the rest of the world. As with many collections, some of these pieces were really excellent, while others were not; the interviews were in many ways the weakest, veering off into somewhat pretentious discussions of post-modern works I haven't seen. But I'm glad that (inspired, unsurprisingly, by Persepolis) I read this; I would love to read more good books about Iran and the Iranian experience.
174. InterWorld, Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves — A young adult novel based on an idea for a TV show Gaiman and Reaves could never get off the ground, this reads like the pilot for said TV show. It introduces a really fascinating world, one in which the main conflict is between the forces of magic and science, both of which have representatives who are trying to achieve dominance over the multiverse. Then from an Earth quite like ours comes Joey Harker, who discovers he is a Walker, with the power to move between universes and fight to keep those essential forces in check. The story is a lot of fun, and the potential Horrible Fate that could befall Joey and his friends is really, legitimately terrifying, but the first person narrative is much weaker than Gaiman's usual authorial voice, and ultimately, more questions are raised than answered. I want to know why Joey and all his infinite variations are special! Instead it's kind of frustrating that things leave off where they do. This would have made an even better show than a book, dammit.
175. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab, Gideon Defoe — I found the humor in The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists kind of one-note, so I'm really not sure why I read the sequel. It's been a few weeks now and I've almost completely forgotten it. But I believe I was somewhat pleasantly diverted for about an hour at the time?
176. These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer — Most fandom people I've talked to either love or at least rather like this book, but it seems it's my turn to feel all "bwah?" and left out, as
runpunkrun does with The Dreyfus Affair and siriaeve does with Swordspoint. I hated it. I despised pretty much all the characters, other than Hugh and Rupert—Leonie was irritating, and Avon was just creepy. I know he was supposed to be "Satanas"—the devil of a man who isn't really that bad, but I found him neither enjoyably naughty nor charming; he was just kind of slimy. The idea of him and Leonie being together really skeeved me out, not because of the age difference—I actually like an age difference, when it's done well—but because of the power dynamic, I guess. All the power was Avon's, both practically and emotionally, and throughout the whole book Leonie was worshipful of him and he condescending towards her. Ew. I also didn't see the slash at all; Hugh was one of the few nice characters, as I said, so I guess it could be construed that he put up with Avon because he was in love with him, but Avon didn't seem particularly gay to me—he was just an 18th Century dude who lived in France and was a bit of a vain ass. The overall package was not appealing, and neither was this book, which is too bad, because I really enjoyed the only other Heyer I've read, The Masqueraders.Before I read These Old Shades, I was planning to read The Grand Sophy soon, but now I'm not so sure; Shades turned me off, and I also heard that Sophy has a really ugly Jewish stereotype in it. Those of you who've read it: what do you think?
177. The Kid, Dan Savage — The story of how sex columnist Savage and his boyfriend Terry come to adopt a kid. Savage writes with great humor, even (especially?) when he's clearly angry: the attitude toward gay men and women in the United States is still so ridiculously backwards, especially when it comes to things like wanting to have a family. Savage does a great job exploring the issues of adoption, open adoption, gay adoption, and modern families in general, and balancing all of that discussion with his own story. This book was unexpectedly, wonderfully moving—I actually teared up toward then end during the scenes where Dan and Terry hold their son for the first time, and when they react to having to take him from the mother who's unable to care for him. The whole book is a fascinating, engaging, political, emotional read. I really recommend it.
181 & 184. Over Sea, Under Stone & The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper — Rereads. I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie—and more importantly, I saw
darcydodo's furious reaction to the trailer for the upcoming movie, and I realized that I didn't remember these books well enough to be properly furious myself. I'd read them, in the opposite order, when I was much younger, but didn't recall being particularly engaged by them, which was why I never continued with the series. I figured that, rereading them as an adult, I'd see the error of my ways.Sadly, I didn't. I still don't find these books very engaging. Over Sea, Under Stone is, as even Darcy admits, only so-so: the setting is great (the rambling old Cornish house, the standing stones perched on their cliffs, the sea-cave), and at least one of the siblings (Barney) is spunky and entertaining, yet the treasure hunt-plot is oddly slow, and the conclusion completely unsatisfying in my mind. (They give the grail to a museum and get 100 quid? Barney has his "Dude! Merlin!" revelation? Yawn.) I thought The Dark Is Rising would be better, but it didn't do much for me, either. There's a lot of portentous stuff, but I felt that every scrape Will gets into he gets out of either through the intervention of an adult or thanks to a deus ex machina. Meanwhile, the Dark Rider and the Dark in general seemed oddly unthreatening to me, while being an agent of the Light did not seem particularly exciting or pleasurable. I never wished I was there: with, say, the Narnia books, I wanted SO BADLY to go through a wardrobe or a painting of my own, even if it was dangerous; but being an Old One mostly seems dull and chanty to me, to the point that if the position were offered on craigslist, I think I might pass. What is wrong with me?
Because I really do feel, having this reaction, that there must be something wrong with me and not the books: so many people—and people whose opinions I trust—love them. Oh well. I suppose I didn't like The Lord of the Rings, either.
182. The Commitment, Dan Savage — The story of how sex columnist Savage and his boyfriend Terry try to decide whether they want to get married. Not as focused or quite as good as The Kid, as much of the book involves Dan and Terry and Dan's mom and Dan and Terry's son D.J. and Dan and Terry's various other relatives going back and forth (and back and forth) on the issue, giving the narrative less forward momentum and impetus than the other book. Still, I really enjoyed Savage's frank, intelligent, humorous, but impassioned analysis of the issues at hand, and the insights into his life as well. (The story about the margaritas was so good I had to share it soon after reading.) I'm looking forward to reading more of Savage's work.
183. Serenity: Those Left Behind, Joss Whedon, et. al. — I think the biggest problem with this for me is that I just now got to read it; it may have had more of an impact if I'd actually read it BEFORE watching Serenity, but alas. Post-movie, it's kind of pointless: it fills in some of the gaps between the series and the film, but not in any way the film fails to. The plot resurrects a character that in my mind should have stayed dead, only to kill him again, and makes very poor use of the Two by Two, Hands of Blue guys. Also, the art annoyed me. Some comic book artists are very good at conveying action, but the way the fights were drawn in this I couldn't actually figure out what was happening. I mean, I'm glad to have finally read this, I guess, but it was really not worth the desperate efforts to get it over the last several years.
185. The Sharing Knife: Legacy, Lois McMaster Bujold — The continuing adventures of Lakewalker patroller Dag and his new farmer-girl bride Fawn, which
fairestcat was nice enough to lend me since I was number 65 or something on the library wait list. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed this less than Beguilement, the first part of the duology. This one starts out, as that book ended, with a lot of domestic/culture clash stuff, but the Lakewalkers giving Fawn the cold shoulder was much less interesting that the farmers getting all up in Dag's face. The book really picked up when a new malice pops up, and that entire sequence—Dag riding off through Fawn's eventual entrance into the fray, as it were—was fabulous and exciting. However, the way the story finally wrapped up was frustrating to me: the jerks in the camp mostly get away with being jerks, whatever's going on with Dag's "ghost hand" is never fully explained, and, most disappointing of all for me, the relationship between Fawn and Dag doesn't really progress or change at all beyond the point it was at when Beguilement ended. All the conflict is external; apparently there is no more internal conflict once you're happily married.This book was still totally worth reading, and I'm really glad I got the chance to (thank you so much,
fairestcat!), but I felt, especially since Bujold is such a good writer who creates such interesting characters in such fascinating worlds, that the plot of this book could have gone somewhere more interesting. Maybe if Fawn and Dag had set out on their journey a little earlier. Or maybe that's a book she still intends to write? I'd definitely read it.186. The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch — This book took me forever to read—through no fault of its own, I think. It's a fast-paced fantasy set in a world I am ACHING to read an entire history about; you can tell Lynch has really thought about this society and this city and this landscape he's created, and he doles out information about it in little bite-sized bits that leave you hungry for more rather than rolling your eyes at dialogue of the "Well, Locke, as you know it's been seventeen years that we've known each other; we of course met after you escaped from the plague and my parents died in a fire..." type. You really get to know Locke and his fellow Gentleman Bastards, the finest Camorri con men; their banter is fantastic, and you really do care about them. I think my biggest problem with this book is that it's incredibly, shockingly violent: there are numerous descriptions of torture that still make me shudder if I chance to think about them (...dammit). I keep wanting to say, "This would make a fantastic movie!" but I'd be honestly afraid to see some of this stuff on screen. Still, the novel is exciting, full of creativity and verve and sharp wit, and the relationships between the characters, especially Locke and Jean, make the "gah!" moments well worth it. I've already gotten my hands on the sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies, and am most pleased.
187. Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill — Aging rock star Judas Coyne (surprise twist! not his real name), a collector of strange and macabre items, learns about a ghost up for sale on an "eBay knockoff" and decides he has to have it. The ghost is transported to him via the dead man's suit, wrapped in a heart-shaped box, and almost immediately Jude begins to experience buyer's remorse.
The beginning of this book—the first hundred pages or so—was truly frightening to me. A secret: vampires, werewolves, mummies, sea monsters, demons, zombies, killer clowns—these things don't scare me. Ghosts scare me. They don't even have to do anything: there's just something about them, intangible but there, watching, that scares the crap out of me. So this book freaked me out the most—in that wonderful, shivery, brrr kind of way—when the ghost wasn't doing anything, when it was just sitting in Jude's hallway, its hat in its hand, two mad, black scribbles where its eyes should be.
Then the plot happened. See, there's a reason Jude came to find out about this particular auction; Jude's ex-girlfriend's family is blah blah blah...okay: all of this is actually pretty interesting. The action did lag in the middle, when there were just a lot of instances in a row of the ghost trying to convince Jude and Jude's new girlfriend, Georgia, to kill themselves, but it does pick up again, and the whole book is generally captivating. However, as soon as the plot engages, the book stops being scary. At least to me: once its motivations are explained, the ghost became a creepy dude out for a revenge, and a lot of the otherworldliness, the inexplicableness, went away, and with it the scary. There were still things I enjoyed: Jude and Georgia are both interesting, flawed characters, and I liked how their relationship developed; I even liked the slightly unrealistic ending. (It made me happy, okay? I'm a sap; shut up.) But the book lost something for me when it stopped being frightening, and devolved from something creepy and unusual to something much more done, almost an ordinary, average horror/thriller. So it's a good novel, yeah, but not a great one; I really do wish Hill's spark of originality could have burned a little bit longer. Maybe in the next one.
188. Prime Times, Ed. by Douglas Bauer — The concept is interesting: twenty-three writers discuss their favorite TV shows. The execution...sadly less so. Almost all the shows discussed were Before My Time; I think the only ones that had any personal relevance to me were The West Wing and Mystery Science Theater 3000 (with half a point each for The Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek). Also, a lot of the writers seemed to take this as a great opportunity to be windbags; nobody likes pretentiousness, but I especially dislike pretentiousness about pop culture. I am already on the side of people writing about pop culture—I do think it's an important topic, worthy of writing about! So please don't make yourself sound like an asshole by talking about the "oikos" of the Enterprise—or if you must do so, at least do so with a sense of humor. Some people did: I liked Nick Horby's West Wing essay, and April Bernard about Secret Agent; I even liked some of the more serious ones, like David Shields' discussion of Monday Night Football (really!) and Lan Samantha Chang writing about how growing up Chinese-American in Wisconsin was kind of like Gilligan's Island (no, really!). But there was a way-too-high percentage of windbaggery, or just dullness; too much, "My knowledge of Ancient Greek: let me show you it." Also, dear editors: please do not introduce your essay collection by summarizing all the essays therein. Thanks.
I feel like this same idea could be done in a much more interesting way. Maybe when fandom finally takes over the world?
Total Books: 188
And finally, something that cheered me up and made my whole week better:
The Doctor, Martha, and the Master, meeting Rodney and Vala as space pirates. Possibly at an alien cantina? by
anna_luna. This is possibly the greatest piece of fanart, ever in the history of fanart. *loves insanely*