Booklog of the impossible
Jan. 23rd, 2010 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneDone done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done DONE!
201. Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, Neil Gaiman — I’ve never been much of a Batman girl; I find him and his world just so relentlessly depressing, while at the same time the concept is just so inherently ridiculous. (Just you try saying the name “Batman” out loud. Or better yet, “The Batman.” No wonder the Joker is in constant hysterics!) But I liked the way Gaiman plays with the deadly serious/inherently ridiculous dichotomy here. The bit with Alfred, especially, is absolutely brilliant.
The older stories that are collected in this volume are mostly notable for how appallingly bad the art is. Overall, it’s a fun read, but an unessential one—unless you are a Batman guy or girl. (Does the ability to say “The Batman” with a straight face come with time or practice?) I’m not sorry I read it, but I probably didn’t need to buy it.
202. Ms. Hempel Chronicles, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum — This is a short story collection disguised as a novel. All the tales follow the same character, a young middle school English teacher named Ms. Hempel, and I quite liked a number of them individually. However, as a whole, the book is too fragmentary to be really satisfying to me. Too many major events happen "off-stage"—between the various short stories; I wanted to experience these crucial moments, not just their shadowy echoes. So while this is a quick, and at times compelling, read, I found it far from a fully gratifying one.
203. Jane Bites Back, Michael Thomas Ford — In which it turns out that Jane Austen is not, in fact, dead, but is instead a vampire bookstore owner living in upstate New York. Okay, this seemed promising for about the first chapter, in which Jane is forced to deal with the author of one of the many, many books (like this one!) cashing in on Austenmania: she grits her fangs until she just can't take it anymore, then helps herself to a little snack. Funny! Of course, chapter two reveals that Jane did not in fact kill the snotty author, and also she's the type of vampire that's unaffected by sunlight—typical wuss-out stuff like that. I suppose we should be grateful she doesn’t sparkle. Anyway, things get worse when the book tries to develop a plot, with the last novel Jane wrote before she was turned finally receiving attention from an editor, which results in what seems to be the most unrealistic experience of getting published that I've ever seen. It doesn't help that the excerpts from this supposed Jane Austen novel—one written at the time of her death, mind, not almost two centuries later—could not read less like Jane Austen, except perhaps if Dan Brown penned it. And then there are several deeply embarrassing if not outright insulting appearances by Charlotte Bronte, and the deeply unsexy and unrealistic RPF pairing of Jane Austen/Lord Byron. Oh, and the funny's totally left the building by this point, too. Bleck.
Well, once again I fell for it: the potentially crackishly entertaining premise and the amusing first chapter both. At least this means I can issue a warning to others: do not make the same foolish choices—they’ll come back and bite you in the ass.
204. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson — A charming English comedy of manners—heavy on the charm, very heavy on the English. Simonson has quite the creation in Major Pettigrew (Ret.), and she does an excellent job peeling away the surface layers of his stuffy old-fashionedness to reveal the quiet humor, the essential goodness, and even the romantic streak underneath. The meeting of minds and blossoming romance between Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali, a local shopkeeper of Pakistani extraction, forms the emotional core of the book, and my heart leapt along with the Major’s every time Mrs. Ali came on stage. I was less enchanted by the sections that deal with the Major’s ambitious son, Roger, whom I found deeply unpleasant—and not in the manner in which some literary characters can be enjoyably unpleasant as, say, Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Collins often can. Roger’s obnoxious behavior made me seriously question the Major’s abilities as a parent, and I was always relieved when he went away and once again enabled the narrative to focus on village politics, Mrs. Ali’s volatile extended family, and of course, the delightful Mrs. Ali herself. When she and the Major are in the spotlight, this book is as warm, cozy, and comforting as the numerous cups of tea the not-so-young lovers enjoy together.
205. Under the Covers and Between the Sheets, C. Alan Joyce & Sarah Janssen — Surprisingly well-written and funny book of literary factoids. I enjoyed this immensely.
206. Metal Angel, Nancy Springer — This starts out enjoyably crackish, with the angel Volos falling to Earth and attempting to reinvent himself as a man (he accidentally forgets to omit the wings)—and not just any man, a rock star! Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed the bits I could imagine were a Castiel AU fic. But the ending gets seriously melodramatic. Meanwhile, Springer made me quite uncomfortable with her treatment of homosexuality in this book, which really surprised me coming from the author of the wonderful Larque on the Wing. And yet here we have Volos trapped in a relationship with the villainous and nasty Mercedes—a gay dude who’s repeatedly referred to as “womanish” or “womanly”—from which he of course can only be rescued by the love of a good woman and her no doubt magical vagina. Urk. At the end of the book, Volos still considers himself bisexual, but—yeah. Like I said. I was uncomfortable.
I think I’d really rather read the Castiel AU fic instead. Especially if it features Dean’s magical penis.
207. Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku — My mood vacillated wildly while reading this, as I shifted from enjoying learning about the science behind my favorite sci-fi concepts, to being disappointed and underwhelmed by how far away we are from most of the cool stuff and how small most of the “amazing progress” and “great advancements” we’ve made actually are. I really liked Kaku’s categorization of the types of advanced societies (modern Earthlings are a sorry Type 0, still dependent on fossil fuels), but that’s one of the few pieces of information I really took with me. Kaku is much more engaging in person. And as usual, science fiction is much more thrilling to me than science reality.
208. English Lord, Ordinary Lady, Fiona Harper — I read this book because I was looking for a nice culture clash romantic comedy. The title, however, is deceptive: the "ordinary lady" is not, in fact, a commoner who shacks up with the titular Lord, but rather a wealthy Lady herself—simply one who’s run away from home and is working at the cafe on the Lord’s estate. So I guess the title’s true in fact if not in spirit. But the resulting book is utterly boring to me, and frankly, I can’t believe that romance readers or Harlequin or whatever else is still so dominated by class-conscious snobs that the hero and heroine of this book have to be on the same social “level.” Is this the 19th Century? NO.
So, yeah. I'm so glad two rich white people could manage to get married, despite horrible struggles like one of them liking to—gasp!—dye her hair pink! *rolls eyes*
Good culture clash rom-coms: please rec them to me?
209. Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev -- The first book I remember actively disliking was one called The Chocolate Touch. I was in first or second grade when I read it, and I remember being shocked that a book could be bad—and so very, very bad: illogical, amateurish, convoluted, unrealistic. Bad. Reading Eyes Like Stars brought that experience back in full Technicolor glory.
This book is bad in a way I can't quite wrap my mind around. The protagonist—I can get as far as identifying the protagonist—is a girl named Beatrice Shakespeare Smith, who’s spent her whole life that she can remember in the Théâtre Illuminata, which is apparently where every character from every play resides. (Although except for a few token mentions, it’s really only Shakespeare characters that appear.) The characters, I think, spend their time putting on their plays, although it's never clear who for, as it is also—and most disappointingly—never clear what type of space the Théâtre Illuminata really is. I could never get a sense of scale (though it must be vast? bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? something?) or any idea what the Théâtre looks like at all. This is where the entire book is set, and from Mantchev's descriptions, I was never able to picture anything more vivid than a blank stage.
The plot, meanwhile, is both minimal and near incomprehensible, and the characters ridiculously thin—and this is when apparently all the greatest characters ever written for the stage are available for walk-on parts! Instead there's a random pirate from Treasure Island or something (that was a play?), an unconvincing Ariel, and Ophelia, who manages to almost be interesting when she isn't performing her drowning scene, which, ahem, does not actually occur in the play. Whoa, time for another flashback! I also had to point out the fact that Hamlet does not contain a scene in which Ophelia drowns to a person in my college creative writing class, who then suggested that her actress main character could just fake-drown in the wings. RIGHT. This book was obviously written by someone with a commensurate amount of skill.
It is utterly baffling to me that this book was published as it is. I feel like I’m in first grade again and my nice, ordered world in which books made sense and were good has been upended. What the hell’s happening?
210. The Magicians, Lev Grossman — Is it better for an author to be aware or unaware that his protagonist is a dick? If he doesn’t know, then his whole conception of his work is out of whack, and that’s bad. But if he does know, then he’s inflicting this jerk on the reader on purpose. That can work, I suppose, if the main character is really supposed to be unsympathetic, but asking one’s readers to put up with a douchebag protagonist for 400-plus pages is no small thing.
The main character of The Magicians nearly killed the book for me, and while I am pretty sure that Grossman meant to make Quentin at least a bit of a jerk, I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend his dickishness to have quite such far-reaching power or consequences. I sympathized—actually, make that empathized, and strongly—with Quentin’s initial plight: he’s a smart guy who feels dissatisfied with his life, in large part because he never got to go to the magical, (supposedly) fictional land ofNarnia Fillory. Dude, I feel you. Where Quentin (and to some extent Grossman) loses me, however, is in continuing to be a sour, arrogant prick even after he gets accepted to an elite magical college he never knew existed. Some of this is, I am sure, intentional—part of the point of the book is that nothing satisfies Quentin—but that knowing that didn’t make me want to smack him any less. Or make me less want to shout, “You ungrateful ass! Why must I be stuck spending the entirety of this narrative with you?”
Because Quentin aside, it is a narrative with some serious perks. Grossman’s system of magic is fully-realized and really impressively seriously dangerous. There are some fabulous sequences, both at the magical university and outside of it. But there is, on balance, also a lot of tell instead of show—long, summarizing passages. And I really wish the last third of the book had instead been the last half.
It’s a flawed novel, no question, and sometimes it drove me absolutely, throw-it-against-the-wall nuts. But it was also at times emotionally affecting, contained some thoughtful meta, and made me consider how I want to approach fantasy conventions in my own work. Step one: skip having a total douche as my protagonist. And how ’bout this: make the main character a woman for once.
And that, I think, is my big lesson for 2009.
Total Reviews: 210/210 \o/
Year-in-review post forthcoming. (Probably.)
201. Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, Neil Gaiman — I’ve never been much of a Batman girl; I find him and his world just so relentlessly depressing, while at the same time the concept is just so inherently ridiculous. (Just you try saying the name “Batman” out loud. Or better yet, “The Batman.” No wonder the Joker is in constant hysterics!) But I liked the way Gaiman plays with the deadly serious/inherently ridiculous dichotomy here. The bit with Alfred, especially, is absolutely brilliant.
The older stories that are collected in this volume are mostly notable for how appallingly bad the art is. Overall, it’s a fun read, but an unessential one—unless you are a Batman guy or girl. (Does the ability to say “The Batman” with a straight face come with time or practice?) I’m not sorry I read it, but I probably didn’t need to buy it.
202. Ms. Hempel Chronicles, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum — This is a short story collection disguised as a novel. All the tales follow the same character, a young middle school English teacher named Ms. Hempel, and I quite liked a number of them individually. However, as a whole, the book is too fragmentary to be really satisfying to me. Too many major events happen "off-stage"—between the various short stories; I wanted to experience these crucial moments, not just their shadowy echoes. So while this is a quick, and at times compelling, read, I found it far from a fully gratifying one.
203. Jane Bites Back, Michael Thomas Ford — In which it turns out that Jane Austen is not, in fact, dead, but is instead a vampire bookstore owner living in upstate New York. Okay, this seemed promising for about the first chapter, in which Jane is forced to deal with the author of one of the many, many books (like this one!) cashing in on Austenmania: she grits her fangs until she just can't take it anymore, then helps herself to a little snack. Funny! Of course, chapter two reveals that Jane did not in fact kill the snotty author, and also she's the type of vampire that's unaffected by sunlight—typical wuss-out stuff like that. I suppose we should be grateful she doesn’t sparkle. Anyway, things get worse when the book tries to develop a plot, with the last novel Jane wrote before she was turned finally receiving attention from an editor, which results in what seems to be the most unrealistic experience of getting published that I've ever seen. It doesn't help that the excerpts from this supposed Jane Austen novel—one written at the time of her death, mind, not almost two centuries later—could not read less like Jane Austen, except perhaps if Dan Brown penned it. And then there are several deeply embarrassing if not outright insulting appearances by Charlotte Bronte, and the deeply unsexy and unrealistic RPF pairing of Jane Austen/Lord Byron. Oh, and the funny's totally left the building by this point, too. Bleck.
Well, once again I fell for it: the potentially crackishly entertaining premise and the amusing first chapter both. At least this means I can issue a warning to others: do not make the same foolish choices—they’ll come back and bite you in the ass.
204. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson — A charming English comedy of manners—heavy on the charm, very heavy on the English. Simonson has quite the creation in Major Pettigrew (Ret.), and she does an excellent job peeling away the surface layers of his stuffy old-fashionedness to reveal the quiet humor, the essential goodness, and even the romantic streak underneath. The meeting of minds and blossoming romance between Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali, a local shopkeeper of Pakistani extraction, forms the emotional core of the book, and my heart leapt along with the Major’s every time Mrs. Ali came on stage. I was less enchanted by the sections that deal with the Major’s ambitious son, Roger, whom I found deeply unpleasant—and not in the manner in which some literary characters can be enjoyably unpleasant as, say, Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Collins often can. Roger’s obnoxious behavior made me seriously question the Major’s abilities as a parent, and I was always relieved when he went away and once again enabled the narrative to focus on village politics, Mrs. Ali’s volatile extended family, and of course, the delightful Mrs. Ali herself. When she and the Major are in the spotlight, this book is as warm, cozy, and comforting as the numerous cups of tea the not-so-young lovers enjoy together.
205. Under the Covers and Between the Sheets, C. Alan Joyce & Sarah Janssen — Surprisingly well-written and funny book of literary factoids. I enjoyed this immensely.
206. Metal Angel, Nancy Springer — This starts out enjoyably crackish, with the angel Volos falling to Earth and attempting to reinvent himself as a man (he accidentally forgets to omit the wings)—and not just any man, a rock star! Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed the bits I could imagine were a Castiel AU fic. But the ending gets seriously melodramatic. Meanwhile, Springer made me quite uncomfortable with her treatment of homosexuality in this book, which really surprised me coming from the author of the wonderful Larque on the Wing. And yet here we have Volos trapped in a relationship with the villainous and nasty Mercedes—a gay dude who’s repeatedly referred to as “womanish” or “womanly”—from which he of course can only be rescued by the love of a good woman and her no doubt magical vagina. Urk. At the end of the book, Volos still considers himself bisexual, but—yeah. Like I said. I was uncomfortable.
I think I’d really rather read the Castiel AU fic instead. Especially if it features Dean’s magical penis.
207. Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku — My mood vacillated wildly while reading this, as I shifted from enjoying learning about the science behind my favorite sci-fi concepts, to being disappointed and underwhelmed by how far away we are from most of the cool stuff and how small most of the “amazing progress” and “great advancements” we’ve made actually are. I really liked Kaku’s categorization of the types of advanced societies (modern Earthlings are a sorry Type 0, still dependent on fossil fuels), but that’s one of the few pieces of information I really took with me. Kaku is much more engaging in person. And as usual, science fiction is much more thrilling to me than science reality.
208. English Lord, Ordinary Lady, Fiona Harper — I read this book because I was looking for a nice culture clash romantic comedy. The title, however, is deceptive: the "ordinary lady" is not, in fact, a commoner who shacks up with the titular Lord, but rather a wealthy Lady herself—simply one who’s run away from home and is working at the cafe on the Lord’s estate. So I guess the title’s true in fact if not in spirit. But the resulting book is utterly boring to me, and frankly, I can’t believe that romance readers or Harlequin or whatever else is still so dominated by class-conscious snobs that the hero and heroine of this book have to be on the same social “level.” Is this the 19th Century? NO.
So, yeah. I'm so glad two rich white people could manage to get married, despite horrible struggles like one of them liking to—gasp!—dye her hair pink! *rolls eyes*
Good culture clash rom-coms: please rec them to me?
209. Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev -- The first book I remember actively disliking was one called The Chocolate Touch. I was in first or second grade when I read it, and I remember being shocked that a book could be bad—and so very, very bad: illogical, amateurish, convoluted, unrealistic. Bad. Reading Eyes Like Stars brought that experience back in full Technicolor glory.
This book is bad in a way I can't quite wrap my mind around. The protagonist—I can get as far as identifying the protagonist—is a girl named Beatrice Shakespeare Smith, who’s spent her whole life that she can remember in the Théâtre Illuminata, which is apparently where every character from every play resides. (Although except for a few token mentions, it’s really only Shakespeare characters that appear.) The characters, I think, spend their time putting on their plays, although it's never clear who for, as it is also—and most disappointingly—never clear what type of space the Théâtre Illuminata really is. I could never get a sense of scale (though it must be vast? bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? something?) or any idea what the Théâtre looks like at all. This is where the entire book is set, and from Mantchev's descriptions, I was never able to picture anything more vivid than a blank stage.
The plot, meanwhile, is both minimal and near incomprehensible, and the characters ridiculously thin—and this is when apparently all the greatest characters ever written for the stage are available for walk-on parts! Instead there's a random pirate from Treasure Island or something (that was a play?), an unconvincing Ariel, and Ophelia, who manages to almost be interesting when she isn't performing her drowning scene, which, ahem, does not actually occur in the play. Whoa, time for another flashback! I also had to point out the fact that Hamlet does not contain a scene in which Ophelia drowns to a person in my college creative writing class, who then suggested that her actress main character could just fake-drown in the wings. RIGHT. This book was obviously written by someone with a commensurate amount of skill.
It is utterly baffling to me that this book was published as it is. I feel like I’m in first grade again and my nice, ordered world in which books made sense and were good has been upended. What the hell’s happening?
210. The Magicians, Lev Grossman — Is it better for an author to be aware or unaware that his protagonist is a dick? If he doesn’t know, then his whole conception of his work is out of whack, and that’s bad. But if he does know, then he’s inflicting this jerk on the reader on purpose. That can work, I suppose, if the main character is really supposed to be unsympathetic, but asking one’s readers to put up with a douchebag protagonist for 400-plus pages is no small thing.
The main character of The Magicians nearly killed the book for me, and while I am pretty sure that Grossman meant to make Quentin at least a bit of a jerk, I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend his dickishness to have quite such far-reaching power or consequences. I sympathized—actually, make that empathized, and strongly—with Quentin’s initial plight: he’s a smart guy who feels dissatisfied with his life, in large part because he never got to go to the magical, (supposedly) fictional land of
Because Quentin aside, it is a narrative with some serious perks. Grossman’s system of magic is fully-realized and really impressively seriously dangerous. There are some fabulous sequences, both at the magical university and outside of it. But there is, on balance, also a lot of tell instead of show—long, summarizing passages. And I really wish the last third of the book had instead been the last half.
It’s a flawed novel, no question, and sometimes it drove me absolutely, throw-it-against-the-wall nuts. But it was also at times emotionally affecting, contained some thoughtful meta, and made me consider how I want to approach fantasy conventions in my own work. Step one: skip having a total douche as my protagonist. And how ’bout this: make the main character a woman for once.
And that, I think, is my big lesson for 2009.
Total Reviews: 210/210 \o/
Year-in-review post forthcoming. (Probably.)
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Date: 2010-01-24 01:24 pm (UTC)