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Iain Banks, Dan Brown, Harlan Coben, Jasper Fforde, Laurell K. Hamilton, Diana Wynne Jones, David Lodge, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Joss Whedon, sf and horror anthologies, and ancient Japanese poets.
The Bridge, The Business, and A Song of Stone, by Iain Banks. Banks is one of those authors, like Ken McLeod seems to be, who inspires quite intense and divided reactions. I enjoy his sf books about a future civilization (or two, or three) a lot. These three books are more mainstreamish, as indicated by the absence of his middle initial. The Bridge is about a man who finds himself on a seemingly endless bridge, with no memory of his past and no real place in the elaborate social structure of the bridge. The back of the paperback gives way too much away, and I found the sex and the metaphors boring and ill-conceived. The Business was the best of the lot. Not a very thick story, it concerns a woman who's in the higher levels of a global uberbusiness that's sort of like a very secular Order of the Knights Templar, and even older. As I said, not much happens, but I'm a sucker for lines like "The building owed something to Frank Lloyd Wright. Probably an apology." If you like Banks' sf, this might be worthwhile. On the other hand, I despised A Song of Stone. Set in a nameless and vague European country in the midst of a Balkans-like civil conflict, it follows the misadventures of a lord and lady who, trying to abandon their castle, are instead captured by a troupe of soldiers and led back to the castle. There's a deep secret that I figured out way too early, and the narrator, despite Banks' undeniable gift for the bon mot, is repulsive. I need heroes. I need them flawed, but by G-d there ought to be something worthwhile in a protagonist or POV character, and I couldn't find that here. (This also explains why I didn't like Gaddis's A Frolic of His Own or Bonfire of the Vanities.)
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. I bought this because Salon liked it. I learned some things about Da Vinci and Catholic heresies, and if you like books that give you lots of information about obscure but neat topics, this definitely fills that niche. The coincidence fairies have far too much work to do, especially at the end. I also figured out an important plot point too soon – I used to be terrible at this; I had no idea who Keyser Soze was until 60 seconds before the film ended, but then I got The Sixth Sense about 15 minutes in and now it happens to me all the time; am I getting better or are plots just getting stupider? It was okay, overall, but nothing to make you go out of your way or buy hardcover.
Gone for Good, by Harlan Coben. I don't normally read non-genre fiction, but there I was in Borders with my gift certificates and my teacher's discount and I took a chance. This book is a thriller about Will Klein, whose ex-girlfriend was murdered years back. The chief suspect was Will's older brother, who disappeared. Will discovers evidence that his brother is still alive, and is drawn back into the mystery. The story moves quickly. The coincidence fairies are in rapt attendence, though no more so than in the standard thriller. As my parents say, it's the kind of thing you'll like if you like that kind of thing. If I were in an airport bookstore with limited selection, I might buy another of Coben's books; this would definitely pass the time as you sat on the runway.
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde. I read a bunch of very clever books in a row a while back, including the Max/x Barry and Daniel Handler books reviewed earlier in this space. I got a little sick of cleverness, so I'm glad I gave myself a break before The Eyre Affair, an extremely clever, entertaining story about Thursday Next, a true literary detective, working in law enforcement in an alternate universe where Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens et al. are pop culture heroes – the aside in which Next and a friend attend a Shakespeare play performed Rocky Horror-style is itself worth the price of admission. Next has a nemesis, Acheron Hades, the weakest part of the book, and has to stop him from doing the unthinkable to Jane Eyre (who, in this "reality," never went back to Mr. Rochester). Once you suspend your disbelief, and then do it again, and then a third time, the book is charming. I'll definitely get the sequel, Lost in a Good Book, when my to-be-read bookcase gets a bit less full.
Cerulean Sins, by Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm not sure for whom this review is intended. If you like Anita, you've probably read it already. If you hate her or have given up on her, this book will not bring you back. As I've said repeatedly, I love Anita and love her journey into sociopathy. I even think that the erosion of her rigid sexual code and her slide into an increasingly sexualized/oversexed existence is a fascinating character development. The problem: Anita makes noises about the problems with these changes, but doesn't take them seriously, just keeps having sex and putting on pretty/kinky outfits. The first chapters of this book offer some hope that she'll deal with her transformation, when Anita nearly goads a hit man into drawing on her just so she can see if she can take him, then realizes what she's doing. But that subplot just dissolves, later to reappear in an unconvincing resolution. Anita, my deadly nightshade, go off with Edward and get down with your bad self. Really. Because sex, blood and rock'n'roll just aren't cutting it any more.
Archer's Goon, by Diana Wynne Jones. First of all, let me say that Witch Week ruined me for Harry Potter. It's just so much richer, and populated with children of greater plausibility. Archer's Goon is not quite on the level of Jones's Chrestomanci stories, but it's fun enough. Howard Sykes comes home one afternoon to discover Archer's Goon in his kitchen. The Goon is big, uncouth and dangerous – a fit complement to Howard's little sister – and he wants Howard's father to do something that Howard's father refuses to do: write two thousand words. Things go from bad to worse; it's not clear whose side the Goon is on, or whose side Howard ought to be on, and he (and his sister) have Adventures on the way to finding out. The resolution lacks the moral that one might have thought was coming, and that feels like a weakness, but the whimsy of the setup compensates for it. Not a great Jones, but in my opinion an average Jones is worth one's time.
Thinks..., by David Lodge. Ralph Messenger, a university professor, narrates his stream of consciousness to a recorder, while Helen Reed, an author visiting at his university, keeps a computer diary. Their thoughts on consciousness, the knowability of another's thoughts, infidelity, and assorted other issues contrast and conflict in interesting ways, as they themselves do. Lodge has always had an unflinching eye for academics and their follies, and he is up to his usual standards here. This is definitely a novel that doesn't meet my usual standard for plot – it's just about people and how they think and fuck and do the things in between – but I liked it anyway.
The Disappeared, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. It's a future with easy space travel and uneasy politics. Humanity is a latecomer to space and has confronted extremely alien cultures with mixed results, something like David Brin's Uplift universe, though without the whole client/patron races thing. People who violate alien law are subject to alien punishments, even if human law doesn't consider what they did a crime. As a result, agencies that help human criminals evade alien law by "disappearing" them have sprung up. Now Disappeareds are starting to turn up dead. Elsewhere, a woman flees for her life, and a child is kidnapped. There are several POV characters, but the most likeable is Miles Flint, a Moon cop trying to put the pieces together. The premise is intriguing and the execution sound; I look forward to reading more set in this universe.
Once More, With Feeling, the script book, by Joss Whedon. What more need I say? I don't know if they'll ever do full script books for S6, but this has some nice interview extras and pictures, so I doubt I'll feel cheated if this ends up being re-released in one of the 6-packs they've done for S1 & S2.
Future Crime, ed. by Cynthia Manson & Charles Ardai. I picked this up at the Strand, and was happy to have done so. The anthology topic is self-evident and the names are pretty big. Only the C.J. Cherryh, George Alec Effinger, and Alan Dean Foster stories are new to publication, but the others are from far-flung sources. I particularly enjoyed Orson Scott Card's "Dogwalker" (despite the intro, I don't find the story "uncharacteristic" of Card, but I agree that it's "moving"), Cherryh's "Mech," and John Varley's "The Barbie Murders." The law-enforcement innovation of Doug Larsen's "Ryerson's Fate" was particularly interesting as far as speculative fiction goes. As a side note, I bought the book and formed my opinions before discovering that I know one of the editors.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (2002), ed. Stephen Jones. Hmm. I didn't feel particularly good about this one. Too much Lovecraft imitation for my taste, particularly stories by Richard A. Lupoff and Thomas Ligotti. The first of two stories by Chico Kidd, "Mark of the Beast," was a pretty good story about a one-eyed captain whose loss of vision has enabled him to see ghosts and other nasties; "Cats and Architecture," mostly about one of the captain's descendants, was much less interesting. Poppy Z. Brite's almost cute story about a coroner, "O Death, Where Is Thy Spatula?", managed not to annoy me, a rarity for Brite. As always, the "Horror in 2001" introductory survey of horror books and other media was both informative and frustrating; informative because I learned lots of names/titles of interest, and frustrating because of the minimal editorial comment except for the occasional derogatory word. I like the feature, but I'd like more review-ish content.
The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, trans. Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani. My sister the converted conservative Catholic meat-eating heterosexual (by "converted" I mean she was none of those things before college) gave me this. I can't say I enjoyed it much. The poems are very short and elegant, and the notes explaining the references (often oblique) are helpful, but my taste in poetry runs to Auden, Empson, Housman, Plath and Stevie Smith. If you're interested in Japanese culture, though, this might be a neat little book to read. It's quite short.
The Bridge, The Business, and A Song of Stone, by Iain Banks. Banks is one of those authors, like Ken McLeod seems to be, who inspires quite intense and divided reactions. I enjoy his sf books about a future civilization (or two, or three) a lot. These three books are more mainstreamish, as indicated by the absence of his middle initial. The Bridge is about a man who finds himself on a seemingly endless bridge, with no memory of his past and no real place in the elaborate social structure of the bridge. The back of the paperback gives way too much away, and I found the sex and the metaphors boring and ill-conceived. The Business was the best of the lot. Not a very thick story, it concerns a woman who's in the higher levels of a global uberbusiness that's sort of like a very secular Order of the Knights Templar, and even older. As I said, not much happens, but I'm a sucker for lines like "The building owed something to Frank Lloyd Wright. Probably an apology." If you like Banks' sf, this might be worthwhile. On the other hand, I despised A Song of Stone. Set in a nameless and vague European country in the midst of a Balkans-like civil conflict, it follows the misadventures of a lord and lady who, trying to abandon their castle, are instead captured by a troupe of soldiers and led back to the castle. There's a deep secret that I figured out way too early, and the narrator, despite Banks' undeniable gift for the bon mot, is repulsive. I need heroes. I need them flawed, but by G-d there ought to be something worthwhile in a protagonist or POV character, and I couldn't find that here. (This also explains why I didn't like Gaddis's A Frolic of His Own or Bonfire of the Vanities.)
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. I bought this because Salon liked it. I learned some things about Da Vinci and Catholic heresies, and if you like books that give you lots of information about obscure but neat topics, this definitely fills that niche. The coincidence fairies have far too much work to do, especially at the end. I also figured out an important plot point too soon – I used to be terrible at this; I had no idea who Keyser Soze was until 60 seconds before the film ended, but then I got The Sixth Sense about 15 minutes in and now it happens to me all the time; am I getting better or are plots just getting stupider? It was okay, overall, but nothing to make you go out of your way or buy hardcover.
Gone for Good, by Harlan Coben. I don't normally read non-genre fiction, but there I was in Borders with my gift certificates and my teacher's discount and I took a chance. This book is a thriller about Will Klein, whose ex-girlfriend was murdered years back. The chief suspect was Will's older brother, who disappeared. Will discovers evidence that his brother is still alive, and is drawn back into the mystery. The story moves quickly. The coincidence fairies are in rapt attendence, though no more so than in the standard thriller. As my parents say, it's the kind of thing you'll like if you like that kind of thing. If I were in an airport bookstore with limited selection, I might buy another of Coben's books; this would definitely pass the time as you sat on the runway.
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde. I read a bunch of very clever books in a row a while back, including the Max/x Barry and Daniel Handler books reviewed earlier in this space. I got a little sick of cleverness, so I'm glad I gave myself a break before The Eyre Affair, an extremely clever, entertaining story about Thursday Next, a true literary detective, working in law enforcement in an alternate universe where Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens et al. are pop culture heroes – the aside in which Next and a friend attend a Shakespeare play performed Rocky Horror-style is itself worth the price of admission. Next has a nemesis, Acheron Hades, the weakest part of the book, and has to stop him from doing the unthinkable to Jane Eyre (who, in this "reality," never went back to Mr. Rochester). Once you suspend your disbelief, and then do it again, and then a third time, the book is charming. I'll definitely get the sequel, Lost in a Good Book, when my to-be-read bookcase gets a bit less full.
Cerulean Sins, by Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm not sure for whom this review is intended. If you like Anita, you've probably read it already. If you hate her or have given up on her, this book will not bring you back. As I've said repeatedly, I love Anita and love her journey into sociopathy. I even think that the erosion of her rigid sexual code and her slide into an increasingly sexualized/oversexed existence is a fascinating character development. The problem: Anita makes noises about the problems with these changes, but doesn't take them seriously, just keeps having sex and putting on pretty/kinky outfits. The first chapters of this book offer some hope that she'll deal with her transformation, when Anita nearly goads a hit man into drawing on her just so she can see if she can take him, then realizes what she's doing. But that subplot just dissolves, later to reappear in an unconvincing resolution. Anita, my deadly nightshade, go off with Edward and get down with your bad self. Really. Because sex, blood and rock'n'roll just aren't cutting it any more.
Archer's Goon, by Diana Wynne Jones. First of all, let me say that Witch Week ruined me for Harry Potter. It's just so much richer, and populated with children of greater plausibility. Archer's Goon is not quite on the level of Jones's Chrestomanci stories, but it's fun enough. Howard Sykes comes home one afternoon to discover Archer's Goon in his kitchen. The Goon is big, uncouth and dangerous – a fit complement to Howard's little sister – and he wants Howard's father to do something that Howard's father refuses to do: write two thousand words. Things go from bad to worse; it's not clear whose side the Goon is on, or whose side Howard ought to be on, and he (and his sister) have Adventures on the way to finding out. The resolution lacks the moral that one might have thought was coming, and that feels like a weakness, but the whimsy of the setup compensates for it. Not a great Jones, but in my opinion an average Jones is worth one's time.
Thinks..., by David Lodge. Ralph Messenger, a university professor, narrates his stream of consciousness to a recorder, while Helen Reed, an author visiting at his university, keeps a computer diary. Their thoughts on consciousness, the knowability of another's thoughts, infidelity, and assorted other issues contrast and conflict in interesting ways, as they themselves do. Lodge has always had an unflinching eye for academics and their follies, and he is up to his usual standards here. This is definitely a novel that doesn't meet my usual standard for plot – it's just about people and how they think and fuck and do the things in between – but I liked it anyway.
The Disappeared, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. It's a future with easy space travel and uneasy politics. Humanity is a latecomer to space and has confronted extremely alien cultures with mixed results, something like David Brin's Uplift universe, though without the whole client/patron races thing. People who violate alien law are subject to alien punishments, even if human law doesn't consider what they did a crime. As a result, agencies that help human criminals evade alien law by "disappearing" them have sprung up. Now Disappeareds are starting to turn up dead. Elsewhere, a woman flees for her life, and a child is kidnapped. There are several POV characters, but the most likeable is Miles Flint, a Moon cop trying to put the pieces together. The premise is intriguing and the execution sound; I look forward to reading more set in this universe.
Once More, With Feeling, the script book, by Joss Whedon. What more need I say? I don't know if they'll ever do full script books for S6, but this has some nice interview extras and pictures, so I doubt I'll feel cheated if this ends up being re-released in one of the 6-packs they've done for S1 & S2.
Future Crime, ed. by Cynthia Manson & Charles Ardai. I picked this up at the Strand, and was happy to have done so. The anthology topic is self-evident and the names are pretty big. Only the C.J. Cherryh, George Alec Effinger, and Alan Dean Foster stories are new to publication, but the others are from far-flung sources. I particularly enjoyed Orson Scott Card's "Dogwalker" (despite the intro, I don't find the story "uncharacteristic" of Card, but I agree that it's "moving"), Cherryh's "Mech," and John Varley's "The Barbie Murders." The law-enforcement innovation of Doug Larsen's "Ryerson's Fate" was particularly interesting as far as speculative fiction goes. As a side note, I bought the book and formed my opinions before discovering that I know one of the editors.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (2002), ed. Stephen Jones. Hmm. I didn't feel particularly good about this one. Too much Lovecraft imitation for my taste, particularly stories by Richard A. Lupoff and Thomas Ligotti. The first of two stories by Chico Kidd, "Mark of the Beast," was a pretty good story about a one-eyed captain whose loss of vision has enabled him to see ghosts and other nasties; "Cats and Architecture," mostly about one of the captain's descendants, was much less interesting. Poppy Z. Brite's almost cute story about a coroner, "O Death, Where Is Thy Spatula?", managed not to annoy me, a rarity for Brite. As always, the "Horror in 2001" introductory survey of horror books and other media was both informative and frustrating; informative because I learned lots of names/titles of interest, and frustrating because of the minimal editorial comment except for the occasional derogatory word. I like the feature, but I'd like more review-ish content.
The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, trans. Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani. My sister the converted conservative Catholic meat-eating heterosexual (by "converted" I mean she was none of those things before college) gave me this. I can't say I enjoyed it much. The poems are very short and elegant, and the notes explaining the references (often oblique) are helpful, but my taste in poetry runs to Auden, Empson, Housman, Plath and Stevie Smith. If you're interested in Japanese culture, though, this might be a neat little book to read. It's quite short.
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