Booklog to the Future
Dec. 15th, 2008 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneI will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year. I will catch up by the end of the year.
201. Superfolks, Robert Mayer — Considered to be the original “retired superhero” tale, the inspiration for more well-known works like Watchmen and The Incredibles. Too bad it sucks. Mayer’s sense of humor seems to be based almost entirely around bad puns, and on naming his main characters after famous people. (Our protagonist: David Brinkley.) Not only is this not funny, it’s confusing: when someone like Richard Nixon is mentioned, who are we then supposed to assume he means?
There’s also just something…unpleasant about this book. Little nuggets of sexism and racism that I’m sure Mayer would say are part of the “satire,” but which just made me feel icky. So while this book may be groundbreaking, personally, I’d rather break in the opposite direction.
202. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins — 202. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins — Well, I officially don’t get Tom Robbins. People have recommended him on the basis of comparisons to Douglas Adams, but Adams is, you know, funny. Here’s what seems to pass for humor in a Tom Robbins novel: beets (the very existence of), a woman getting stung in a delicate place by a bee, and lesbians (the very existence of). And here’s the kind of prose you can look forward to:
The sky, layered with thin altostratus clouds and smog, appeared to reflect human suffering and failed to awaken in Claude visions of paradise. (Page 13)
The sky was a velvety black paw pressing on the white landscape with a feline delicacy, stars flying like sparks from its fur. (Page 36)
With the absence of the cloud cover that normally caused the sky over Seattle to resemble cottage cheese that had been dragged nine miles behind a cement truck, the city, for the first time in memory, would have an unobstructed view of one of nature’s most mystical spectacles. (Page 47)
When Claude glanced at the sky, he saw that the text of Les Miserables had been painted over by Salvador Dali. The sun was so round and glossy and black that had it a figure eight on it, well, it would have validated a lot of long-standing philosophical and theological complaints, underlining once and for all just where we earthlings sit on the cosmic pool table. (Page 81)
A few flat clouds folded themselves like crepes over fillings of apricot sky. Pompadours of supper-time smoke billowed from chimneys, separating into girlish pigtails as the breeze combed them out, above the slate rooftops. Chestnut blossoms, weary from having been admired all day, wore faint smiles of anticipation. (Page 201)
And of course:
Above Seattle, the many-buttocked sky continued to grind. (Page 312)
And that’s just me culling annoying descriptions of the sky. Imagine 350 dense, unrelenting pages of this crap. I never thought a book about immortality—one of my favorite subjects—could ever inspire in me such a desperate desire for it all to please just end.
203. Bonk, Mary Roach — Fun and fascinating exploration of the science of sex. Roach writes, as usual, with verve and humor, which made this book a blast to read. I say this despite the fact that there are many discussions of bizarre and unpleasant medical problems herein, and as usual when learning about anything of that sort, I tend to walk away from my reading convinced I have all of them. (Does it matter that I do not have a penis? No. I am sure I have every possible penis disease.)
Roach kind of loses her focus toward the end—I’m not sure what her overall point was supposed to be; it’s more like “Some interesting facts about sex: let me show you them.” Which means this book doesn’t attain any depth beyond being interesting and educational. But you know? That’s okay.
204. Alive in Necropolis, Doug Dorst — There are more people dead than living in the Northern California city of Colma, a community centered almost entirely around cemeteries. (Where else are the people of nearby San Francisco going to bury their dead?) Rookie cop Mike Mercer has recently taken over a graveyard beat after his predecessor died, and just like the man he replaced, he soon starts hearing and seeing things he shouldn’t be. And by ‘things’ I naturally mean ‘dead people.’ Paging Haley Joel Osment!
The somewhat rambling narrative that follows is peppered with a wonderful cast of characters, from Mike—who is at times reminiscent of a less overwhelmingly competent Benton Fraser—to Mike’s combative but charming partner to an assortment of the cemeteries’ notable residents. Phineas Gage even makes an appearance! I can’t help looking favorably on any book that references Phineas Gage. Besides which, this book represents a less pretentious form of magical realism that I can really get behind.
205. Civil War: Wolverine, Marc Guggenheim — Or what Wolverine was up to while the rest of the Marvel universe was asploding. Turns out: mostly he was beating the shit out of people. Which, okay: I don’t turn to Wolverine for discussions of Proust, but the action/character development ratio in this wasn’t to my liking. Also: man, that is some distractingly ugly art. I know, I know—it’s a comic book, but does that really mean everyone has to look so ridiculously cartoonish?
206. Half a Crown, Jo Walton — The final book in the Small Change trilogy. It’s now the 1960s in Walton’s alternate and deeply disturbing Britain. Carmichael is now the head of the Watch, England’s answer to the Gestapo; he’s also heading up a resistance organization on the sly. His 3rd person POV alternates with the 1st person observations of his adopted niece, Elvira, who despite coming across as much sharper than either Lucy or Viola, the previous two books’ narrators, is very obviously and distressingly a product of her times—a bright little fascist-in-training, in other words. There isn’t a murder mystery at the core of this book, as there was with the two previous, but with all the political maneuverings going on, and the truly dire circumstances the characters find themselves in, there’s more than enough happening to keep the plot breathlessly suspenseful. Rarely have I read a series of books where I felt there was more at stake.
This unfortunately leaves Walton very few options when it comes to wrapping things up. There’s the 1984 route, or… I was truthfully very relieved that she didn’t go Orwell-bleak—I’m not sure I could have handled it; nevertheless, I did find the climax a bit too abrupt, too easy in some respects. However, that doesn’t make this trilogy any less of a worthwhile read. All three books are heartbreaking, chilling, and suspenseful. I heartily recommend them.
207. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman — Though I’m a long-time Neil Gaiman fan(girl), I did not have particularly high expectations for this book. That’s because my first exposure to it was through one of its chapters, “The Witch’s Headstone,” broken off and separated from the rest of the narrative as a short story and published in the anthology Wizards (and I believe in Gaiman’s own collection M Is for Magic, which I’ve never sought out because I was pretty sure I’d read all the stories elsewhere.) (Turns out I was correct, save one. Oops.) While well-written and somewhat intriguing, “The Witch’s Headstone” makes almost no sense as a short story—it’s really hard to tell who (or rather, what) the protagonist is, not to mention who’s after him, etc. It raises more questions than it answers, and not in a fun way.
However, once that chapter is reunited with the rest of the story to which it belongs, The Graveyard Book finds Gaiman back on form. This is my favorite thing I’ve read from him in a while—much better than Interworld or Eternals. In paying tribute to The Jungle Book, Gaiman creates a wonderful, humorous, spooky, tragic little world—a real community, full of great characters. I read the whole thing on Halloween night, and I can’t think of a group of ghosts I’d rather have spent the evening with.
208. An Echo in Time, Sherry Lewis — Romance in which a 19th century cowboy travels forward in time to find true love with a 21st century female sheriff. This wasn’t awful; it was mostly just bland. I got the most enjoyment out of the opening, when Sam’s terribly confused by everything modern and Taylor thinks he’s insane; as usual, once they start to fall in love, I got bored. The problem with a lot of one-shot romance novels, I guess, is that I’m just not invested enough: the characters have to be pretty damn dynamic for me to care about them gazing dopily at each other for 250 pages, especially if there’s nothing that exciting about the external tension. Here, Taylor’s trying to get reelected sheriff, but since she didn’t seem to care all that much about winning (that’s actually a plot point—that she doesn’t care about winning as long as she has Sam, which, while possibly healthy, really rubbed me the wrong way), neither did I. So, I read this for the time travel LOLs, but once those were over, there was just nothing here to keep me involved.
209. Angels on Fire, Nancy A. Collins — Reread, brought about by the fact that people weren’t writing good Dean/Castiel fic fast enough. (They still aren’t.) This was…dumber? than I remembered it from my last reading, age 15 or thereabouts. Not that it’s bad, exactly: Collins creates a unique version of heaven and hell. But I guess it feels very created, unnatural and inorganic. As a piece of world-building, it was never something I could lose myself in.
The characters never really worked for me, either. Lucy’s kind of stupid and shallow and annoying; she’s supposed to have the potential to be one of the greatest artists of all time, but I just couldn’t see it. As for Joth: well, beyond having a stupid name, he’s pretty much a blank slate. Which is sort of the point—angels don’t have free will or personality before they fall—but as a potential love interest, that doesn’t make him very exciting, does it?
I don’t know. A lot of this is Fridge Logic; I didn’t have nearly this many problems while I was actually reading the book, which zips along nicely—at least until it crashes up against its ridiculous tacked-on epilogue. ARGH. I just…you know what, forget it. Anybody have any REALLY GOOD angel romances to recommend?
210. Do You Remember the First Time?, Jenny Colgan — English chicklit which I read for the time travel/deaging. Except it’s not really time travel OR deaging; it’s kind of trying to be both (or neither?), so it’s basically all a muddle with no internal logic. Also the end’s a big cheat—why set up one of those “the protagonist must be clever and phrase her wish EXACTLY THE RIGHT WAY” scenarios if you’re just going to let her wish any old thing and have it come out peachy keen? While breezily written with some humorous bits and flashes of interesting characterization, this suffers badly from being a fantasy written by someone clearly unfamiliar with common fantasy tropes and even basic fantasy RULES. I’m all for breaking the rules, but you have to understand them first. If not…well, like I said, what you end up with is a total muddle.
Total Reviews: 210/262
201. Superfolks, Robert Mayer — Considered to be the original “retired superhero” tale, the inspiration for more well-known works like Watchmen and The Incredibles. Too bad it sucks. Mayer’s sense of humor seems to be based almost entirely around bad puns, and on naming his main characters after famous people. (Our protagonist: David Brinkley.) Not only is this not funny, it’s confusing: when someone like Richard Nixon is mentioned, who are we then supposed to assume he means?
There’s also just something…unpleasant about this book. Little nuggets of sexism and racism that I’m sure Mayer would say are part of the “satire,” but which just made me feel icky. So while this book may be groundbreaking, personally, I’d rather break in the opposite direction.
202. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins — 202. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins — Well, I officially don’t get Tom Robbins. People have recommended him on the basis of comparisons to Douglas Adams, but Adams is, you know, funny. Here’s what seems to pass for humor in a Tom Robbins novel: beets (the very existence of), a woman getting stung in a delicate place by a bee, and lesbians (the very existence of). And here’s the kind of prose you can look forward to:
The sky, layered with thin altostratus clouds and smog, appeared to reflect human suffering and failed to awaken in Claude visions of paradise. (Page 13)
The sky was a velvety black paw pressing on the white landscape with a feline delicacy, stars flying like sparks from its fur. (Page 36)
With the absence of the cloud cover that normally caused the sky over Seattle to resemble cottage cheese that had been dragged nine miles behind a cement truck, the city, for the first time in memory, would have an unobstructed view of one of nature’s most mystical spectacles. (Page 47)
When Claude glanced at the sky, he saw that the text of Les Miserables had been painted over by Salvador Dali. The sun was so round and glossy and black that had it a figure eight on it, well, it would have validated a lot of long-standing philosophical and theological complaints, underlining once and for all just where we earthlings sit on the cosmic pool table. (Page 81)
A few flat clouds folded themselves like crepes over fillings of apricot sky. Pompadours of supper-time smoke billowed from chimneys, separating into girlish pigtails as the breeze combed them out, above the slate rooftops. Chestnut blossoms, weary from having been admired all day, wore faint smiles of anticipation. (Page 201)
And of course:
Above Seattle, the many-buttocked sky continued to grind. (Page 312)
And that’s just me culling annoying descriptions of the sky. Imagine 350 dense, unrelenting pages of this crap. I never thought a book about immortality—one of my favorite subjects—could ever inspire in me such a desperate desire for it all to please just end.
203. Bonk, Mary Roach — Fun and fascinating exploration of the science of sex. Roach writes, as usual, with verve and humor, which made this book a blast to read. I say this despite the fact that there are many discussions of bizarre and unpleasant medical problems herein, and as usual when learning about anything of that sort, I tend to walk away from my reading convinced I have all of them. (Does it matter that I do not have a penis? No. I am sure I have every possible penis disease.)
Roach kind of loses her focus toward the end—I’m not sure what her overall point was supposed to be; it’s more like “Some interesting facts about sex: let me show you them.” Which means this book doesn’t attain any depth beyond being interesting and educational. But you know? That’s okay.
204. Alive in Necropolis, Doug Dorst — There are more people dead than living in the Northern California city of Colma, a community centered almost entirely around cemeteries. (Where else are the people of nearby San Francisco going to bury their dead?) Rookie cop Mike Mercer has recently taken over a graveyard beat after his predecessor died, and just like the man he replaced, he soon starts hearing and seeing things he shouldn’t be. And by ‘things’ I naturally mean ‘dead people.’ Paging Haley Joel Osment!
The somewhat rambling narrative that follows is peppered with a wonderful cast of characters, from Mike—who is at times reminiscent of a less overwhelmingly competent Benton Fraser—to Mike’s combative but charming partner to an assortment of the cemeteries’ notable residents. Phineas Gage even makes an appearance! I can’t help looking favorably on any book that references Phineas Gage. Besides which, this book represents a less pretentious form of magical realism that I can really get behind.
205. Civil War: Wolverine, Marc Guggenheim — Or what Wolverine was up to while the rest of the Marvel universe was asploding. Turns out: mostly he was beating the shit out of people. Which, okay: I don’t turn to Wolverine for discussions of Proust, but the action/character development ratio in this wasn’t to my liking. Also: man, that is some distractingly ugly art. I know, I know—it’s a comic book, but does that really mean everyone has to look so ridiculously cartoonish?
206. Half a Crown, Jo Walton — The final book in the Small Change trilogy. It’s now the 1960s in Walton’s alternate and deeply disturbing Britain. Carmichael is now the head of the Watch, England’s answer to the Gestapo; he’s also heading up a resistance organization on the sly. His 3rd person POV alternates with the 1st person observations of his adopted niece, Elvira, who despite coming across as much sharper than either Lucy or Viola, the previous two books’ narrators, is very obviously and distressingly a product of her times—a bright little fascist-in-training, in other words. There isn’t a murder mystery at the core of this book, as there was with the two previous, but with all the political maneuverings going on, and the truly dire circumstances the characters find themselves in, there’s more than enough happening to keep the plot breathlessly suspenseful. Rarely have I read a series of books where I felt there was more at stake.
This unfortunately leaves Walton very few options when it comes to wrapping things up. There’s the 1984 route, or… I was truthfully very relieved that she didn’t go Orwell-bleak—I’m not sure I could have handled it; nevertheless, I did find the climax a bit too abrupt, too easy in some respects. However, that doesn’t make this trilogy any less of a worthwhile read. All three books are heartbreaking, chilling, and suspenseful. I heartily recommend them.
207. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman — Though I’m a long-time Neil Gaiman fan(girl), I did not have particularly high expectations for this book. That’s because my first exposure to it was through one of its chapters, “The Witch’s Headstone,” broken off and separated from the rest of the narrative as a short story and published in the anthology Wizards (and I believe in Gaiman’s own collection M Is for Magic, which I’ve never sought out because I was pretty sure I’d read all the stories elsewhere.) (Turns out I was correct, save one. Oops.) While well-written and somewhat intriguing, “The Witch’s Headstone” makes almost no sense as a short story—it’s really hard to tell who (or rather, what) the protagonist is, not to mention who’s after him, etc. It raises more questions than it answers, and not in a fun way.
However, once that chapter is reunited with the rest of the story to which it belongs, The Graveyard Book finds Gaiman back on form. This is my favorite thing I’ve read from him in a while—much better than Interworld or Eternals. In paying tribute to The Jungle Book, Gaiman creates a wonderful, humorous, spooky, tragic little world—a real community, full of great characters. I read the whole thing on Halloween night, and I can’t think of a group of ghosts I’d rather have spent the evening with.
208. An Echo in Time, Sherry Lewis — Romance in which a 19th century cowboy travels forward in time to find true love with a 21st century female sheriff. This wasn’t awful; it was mostly just bland. I got the most enjoyment out of the opening, when Sam’s terribly confused by everything modern and Taylor thinks he’s insane; as usual, once they start to fall in love, I got bored. The problem with a lot of one-shot romance novels, I guess, is that I’m just not invested enough: the characters have to be pretty damn dynamic for me to care about them gazing dopily at each other for 250 pages, especially if there’s nothing that exciting about the external tension. Here, Taylor’s trying to get reelected sheriff, but since she didn’t seem to care all that much about winning (that’s actually a plot point—that she doesn’t care about winning as long as she has Sam, which, while possibly healthy, really rubbed me the wrong way), neither did I. So, I read this for the time travel LOLs, but once those were over, there was just nothing here to keep me involved.
209. Angels on Fire, Nancy A. Collins — Reread, brought about by the fact that people weren’t writing good Dean/Castiel fic fast enough. (They still aren’t.) This was…dumber? than I remembered it from my last reading, age 15 or thereabouts. Not that it’s bad, exactly: Collins creates a unique version of heaven and hell. But I guess it feels very created, unnatural and inorganic. As a piece of world-building, it was never something I could lose myself in.
The characters never really worked for me, either. Lucy’s kind of stupid and shallow and annoying; she’s supposed to have the potential to be one of the greatest artists of all time, but I just couldn’t see it. As for Joth: well, beyond having a stupid name, he’s pretty much a blank slate. Which is sort of the point—angels don’t have free will or personality before they fall—but as a potential love interest, that doesn’t make him very exciting, does it?
I don’t know. A lot of this is Fridge Logic; I didn’t have nearly this many problems while I was actually reading the book, which zips along nicely—at least until it crashes up against its ridiculous tacked-on epilogue. ARGH. I just…you know what, forget it. Anybody have any REALLY GOOD angel romances to recommend?
210. Do You Remember the First Time?, Jenny Colgan — English chicklit which I read for the time travel/deaging. Except it’s not really time travel OR deaging; it’s kind of trying to be both (or neither?), so it’s basically all a muddle with no internal logic. Also the end’s a big cheat—why set up one of those “the protagonist must be clever and phrase her wish EXACTLY THE RIGHT WAY” scenarios if you’re just going to let her wish any old thing and have it come out peachy keen? While breezily written with some humorous bits and flashes of interesting characterization, this suffers badly from being a fantasy written by someone clearly unfamiliar with common fantasy tropes and even basic fantasy RULES. I’m all for breaking the rules, but you have to understand them first. If not…well, like I said, what you end up with is a total muddle.
Total Reviews: 210/262
