Monday Library Post, belated - 8/3/10

First post of August! And it's late! Well, everything slows down in the summer, right?

Anyway, two books from yesterday:

Bruce Cummings - The Korean War
I teach this period of US history, so expanding my personal knowledge base about the conflict is always a good idea.

And, because grabbing the Cummings suggested to me that I hadn't read much military history recently,

John Keegan, The First World War
This is supposed to be the definitive text on the war, and I've never read it, so I thought I'd take a crack at it.

Friday Review 7/30/10

Four books this week.

Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families
There is a divide between red (conservative, Republican) and blue (liberal, Democrat) states in the US. This is a widely accepted, if rather simplistic, view. "Traditional" family models are under stress - another broadly accepted idea.  Cahn and Carbone accept both these premises, and back them up with legal precedents and strong statistical analysis. They then propose a solution. If marriage as an institution is to be saved, they argue, the institution must be expanded to as broad a group as possible - same sex marriage is vital to preserving the idea of marriage, and restricting marriage to hetero-normative couples actually weakens the institution by forcing the creation of lesser forms of social unions short of marriage. If families are to remain the locus of child-rearing, comprehensive sex ed is vital. Our education driven, information based economy is not friendly to young couples with a kid straight out of high school, so we need to empower couples to postpone childbirth until they are able to support themselves. (An interesting point made here - Cahn and Carbone suggest that sex ed should not stop in high school - that it should extend into the early 20s, because that is where the current bump in pregnancies is). Finally, the authors advocate some sort of mandated civil service - military or civilian - for teens coming out of high school to serve as a buffer between high school and the "real" world.

The book was interesting. The ideas espoused were not really new ones for me, but I don't think I'd seen them all put together like that before. However, there was a strong sense of preaching to the choir - I don't think the ideas would go over well if you were not already inclined to accept them. Cahn and Carbone acknowledge this - they state that their "fixes" for marriage will satisfy neither the staunch traditionalist nor the radical who argues that marriage as an institution should be abolished. This, however, creates a sense of glibness - "see, we've fixed the problems if only you are willing to accept our point of view" - which is both defensive and off putting. Since the groups arguing for a traditionalist view of marriage and families are one of the larger, or certainly louder, groups in the political arena today, perhaps a greater effort needed to be made to bridge towards them. Ultimately, I think the book is ineffective, despite the fact, or perhaps because of the fact, that I agree with nearly everything within it. I am convinced - but I am not the group which needs to be convinced.

That was a little disappointing, but the only thing I really didn't like about the book was the choice of illustrations. Periodically, the authors - or, possibly, the editor - attempted to break up walls of text with some cartoons which had tangential connections to the text (at best), and they added nothing. In deed, to the extent that the cartoons were ugly and largely irrelevant, they may even have detracted from the text.

David Gordon - The Serialist
Harry Bloch is a pulp writer somewhat down on his luck. He earns his rent and grocery money by writing a variety of semi-popular genre series under pseudonyms, including a series of sci-fi novels (soft porn, clearly a spoof of the Gor novels), a series of "urban" novels (where urban = African-American), and a series of vampire romance novels (for some reason, popular right now). Oh, and he also writes essays for rich kids in prep schools. As the novel opens, Bloch is having his photo taken for the vampire novels. He is dressed as his own mother (who's name and image are the pseudonym he writes those books under), and his 15 year old manager/accomplice hands him a letter from a notorious serial killer. Said killer asks Bloch to ghost write the true story of the killer's killings - an "as-told-by". Bloch takes the commission, and suddenly a new series of killings begins, much like those of the killer for whom Bloch is writing. This launches Bloch, who is already a complicated mess of a man, into a complicated mess of an investigation.

"Complicated mess" actually describes this book quite well. It's fairly densely layered, playing with several different genre's, while taking the air out of a literary contempt for genre fiction. Gordon is playing a dicey game, one that writers like Michael Chabon do quite well - writing literary novels in a genre-esque style, and getting away with it. Gordon stumbles a little on the getting away with it - his voice is snarky (which is good) but sometimes verges on snide (which is bad) - but on the whole the book was enjoyable. One caution - it's somewhat gory in places, so some might not like it for that reason. Additionally, I would totally read the urban crime novels that Bloch excerpts, although the vampire novels and the soft porn sci fi, not so much.

David Liss - The Devil's Company
Oooo, I like Mr. Liss. This is the 3rd of his novels about Benjamin Weaver, a Jewish prize fighter turned thief catcher in 17th century London. Weaver walks a fine line between detective and thug, and Liss walks an equally fine line between detective novel and historical novel (and, in this book, spy story). The detailed descriptions of 17th century London life, especially within the Jewish sections of the city, are as gorgeous as in previous books. The plot, involving the East India Company, and politics, and France, and silk, and fashion, is delightfully twisty and kept me guessing up to the end, which is a good thing in a book of this nature. So, yes, I liked this book a great deal, and would recommend it highly. The only thing lacking is a historical note - Mr. Liss, this is what is lacking from ALL of your historical works, including The Coffee Trader and The Whiskey Rebellion - I want to know what your thoughts on the period are, I want to know what your sources are, I want to know where you diverge from the facts, and where you embroider material which is otherwise lacking. Other than that, a fine book, indeed.

Amal El-Mohtar - The Honey Month
I've had this sitting around for a while, but Amal was just interviewed by CBC Radio in Ottawa (the interview is about half-way down the scroll box, and will probably won't be there for very long, so go, listen, now!) so it seemed fitting to read it. I know Amal - not all that well, but well enough that it feels odd to review her book. Seriously, what if it was awful? How do you say that a book was awful, when you know the author? Luckily, I am spared that problem, because this book was delightful.

The premise - last February, Ms. El-Mohtar set out to taste 28 different types of honey (there are 28 different sorts of honey? I boggle.) and write something inspired by each. The result is a compact work full of lush descriptions of the honey (how each sample looks, how it smells, how it tastes) and then a poem or a piece short short fiction inspired by the honey. Amal is clearly influenced by Catherynne Valente - the short fiction echoes Valente's style and deep (and deeply odd) descriptive voice - but this work is in no way derivative. The whole collection sparkles, but I especially liked the two sonnets (ed - I am informed that they were not actually sonnets, but rather villanelles. Sonnets have 14 lines, villanelles have 19, and if I had counted, I would have noticed that.), and the story about the ring, and the story about the ravens.

My only complaint has entirely to do with my reading style - I devoured this in less than a day, and that was wrong. Just as consuming 28 different samples of honey over the course of a few hours would leave you feeling a little nauseous, so too, consuming the book in a few hours left me not nauseous, but a little overwhelmed. Perhaps I will return to the book in February, and just sip at it over the course of the month. Perhaps some of you will join me. Perhaps there will be honey?

Belated Library Post for 7/26/10

A rare trip to the library without any of my family members along, which means I came out with only a small handful of books rather than a bulging sack. (I only record the books that I borrow for me, incidentally - generally I also borrow a small stack of picture books and easy-reading novels for the kid, and sometimes stuff for my wife that I don't plan to read.)

Anyway, today, three books:

K.E. Mills - The Accidental Sorcerer
Mills is a pen name for Karen Miller, and I nixed the first book from her Kingmaker,Kingbreaker duology earlier - this looks better. It looks like it will be funny, in the vein of Pratchett.

David B. Coe - The Horseman's Gambit
Book 2 of the Blood of the Southlands books. I recall that I found the first book a little dry, we'll see how this one goes. I also recall that I liked the villain in the previous book, which is a god sign.

Deborah Blum - The Poisoner's Handbook
I'm fairly sure I heard a review of this on NPR, and it sounded good. This is a non-fiction book about the birth of forensic medicine in the 1920s.

Friday Review, 7/23/10

I think I've only actually finished two books this week, which is mildly alarming, to say the least.

Laurie King - A Monstrous Regiment of Women


This is the second in a series of books re-imagining Sherlock Holmes as he would be shortly after WWI. The protagonist is a young theological student, a woman named Mary Russell. I enjoyed the book, mostly for the descriptions of post-WWI England in terms of gender mores and social structures. There is a romance between Russell and Holmes - I gather this prompted some criticism of the series as a whole, they end up married - and it might have worked better if I had read the first book. However, in this second book, there seemed to be very little preamble. My wife is currently re-reading the original Holmes stories, and remarked on how interesting it is that a) so few of the stories feature a murder and b) how often the supplicant to Holmes goes away only partially satisfied. This book, by contrast, is a murder mystery (as most mysteries post Holmes have been), and the clients get what they were looking for, more or less. So, an interesting period piece, relatively well researched, and perhaps it would have worked better if it had not included Holmes. I have, however, ordered the first book, to see how it goes.

Thomas Sniegoski - Dancing on the Head of a Pin


This one is also a mystery. The twist here is that the detective is a fallen angel - not fallen unto Hell, but no longer welcome in Heaven either. Sniegoski has done some interesting things with the character - I especially liked the interactions between Remy Chandler and his labrador dog. It is also, interestingly enough, not really a murder mystery. In fact, it fits better as a spy novel, almost - Chandler is a detective, yes, but he is also a critical go-between between Heaven and Earth, and between Earth and Hell - someone who can do things that neither side in the longest cold war can or are willing to do. When you look at it in those terms, it works differently. Anyway, this was an enjoyable and quick read, and I'll certainly pick up a book 3, if there is one.

Both of those books were fairly quick reads. Since then, I've been somewhat bogged down in Red Families, Blue Families, which is somewhat heavy going. I will review it next week, have no fear.

Library Monday, 7/19/10

Just one book from the library today,

David Gordon - The Serialist
The premise looks interesting - an author of serials using a variety of pen-names is contracted to write the memoir of a notorious serial killer, but gets caught up in investigating a series of copy-cat murders. The back material describes it as a "love story to books," and the first couple of chapters are intriguing.

Currently, however, I am reading Thomas E. Sniegoski - Dancing on the Head of a Pin, which I picked up when I was in Virginia back in May. I think it was May. Anyway, I needed something light last night (too tired to read a heavy non-fiction, which was next on my list) and this fit the bill.

Trashy Book Post, 7/16/10

I have spent the week in Washington, DC, doing research at the Archives and at the Library of Congress. This entailed a lengthy train ride each day - about an hour each way - which meant plenty of time to read. The research meant that I didn't really want books which would engage my mind; I wanted books which would help shut down my mind, allowing me to semi-consciously work through the material I had been looking at. Or, you know, fall asleep on the train - I did both. So, a round of trashy books ensued. I picked six, but I didn't get to one of them, so there are only five reviews.

Alex Archer - Rogue Angel: Eternal Journey
Oh my, very formulaic. I mean, the author is a pseudonym. Lots of action, but the whole thing didn't really work, in my mind. Look, you've got a heroine who is wielding Joan of Arc's sword, and she works on a TV show called "Tracking History's Monsters", which is about tracking down evidence of historical monsters, but she ends up fighting deluded human terrorists? I was hoping for a mummy or something.

The premise - Anja Creed is in Australia to film a bit on a recent arcaelogical dig which purports to have uncovered evidence of Egyptians in Australia (there is some tenuous evidence, actually - the same sort of evidence that proves that Egyptians and Romans and etc were in the US before Columbus - hard to explain, but not overwhelming), and then her camera man disappears. And there's some evidence which looks like it might be supernatural - but in the end, no, it's just Arab Terrists (tm). Tanya Huff did it better.

Plus, several references to the fact that Anja eats a lot, but remains skinny through extreme physical exercise - is the author attempting to cover one appetite with another? Because Anja, although described as entirely desirable, has no sex at all in the book, even though sex would be entirely appropriate given the genre. I may have to read another one from the series to see if this holds up for the whole thing, but I bet it does.

I did like that Anja is actually slowed down by injuries, even though she gets on a bus covered in blood, and no one calls the cops. Do people in Australia not HAVE cell phones? Seriously?

Iain Pears - The Titian Committee
I really liked this one, actually. Mystery novel, set in Venice, art historians showing up dead, unconventional detectives trained to deal with art theft rather than murder, but solve the murder anyway. It had a good flavor - it felt Italian, if that makes any sense - the plot made sense, the motive made sense, I didn't feel cheated. Good character development, a believable romance that didn't end up getting consummated, which didn't matter. Some interesting discussions of justice. Was there a formula? Perhaps, but I didn't see it - maybe if I read more Italian inspired art history mysteries, I might have.

Kay Hooper - Blood Sins
I like Kay Hooper. She writes romance, but this was not a romance. This is part of her Special Crimes Unit books - the SCU is a unit of psychics in the FBI who hunt psychic serial killers. This is the second book in a trilogy, I have not read the first book, and it didn't matter much. Hooper has broadly drawn characters, so it's not hard to pick up a book in the stream, as it were. She also does good back story throughout, so you've got enough to hang the plot on - I imagine that it's not enough to feel re-hashed if you have read book 1.

Hooper's psychics are well thought out, she has a good idea of what they can do, and what they can't do, and why they can do the things they can do, without getting bogged down in specific pseudo-science details - the whole process runs on handwavium, basically. Hooper is building up to a big big big finale - this book was pretty big itself, pushing "over the top", so the next book promises to be explosive. She's definitely playing the whole "wheels within wheels" bit, where connections between groups and such are only slowly doled out.

This wasn't a deep book by any stretch, but it did what it did nicely and well. I will probably look for the first and third books.

Ralph McInery - The Third Revelation

The premise is this - a retired CIA spy is called back into service to solve a double murder in the Vatican (actually, a quadruple murder, but two of them don't really count). He had served in the Vatican when he was active, and had written the CIA report on the attempted assassination of John Paul II. So, spy thriller/detective novel, maybe some conspiracy stuff involving the Catholic church - yes, we've seen this before, but I wasn't necessarily looking for good literature this week. Which is good, actually, because in this book, I certainly didn't get good literature. This book was awful - I got about a quarter of the way in, and that was only because I was on the train with nothing else to read.

The characters were flat. Further, McInery introduced characters left and right, leaving me bewildered as to who was important to the plot and who was not. Should I care about the random woman who has discovered Catholicism after college, or is she a chapter long diversion that I should ignore? Indeed, at some point I lost track of the retired spy character who the back material suggested the whole plot revolved around - not a good sign.

The pacing was entirely wrong - a taut mystery/thriller only works if there is a sense that the detective/spy character is constantly in motion, searching for clues and such. I did not get that impression. Characters went off on vacations, on which they did nothing, advanced the plot in no way, and returned to a situation which was entirely unchanged. Further, it was impossible to tell if a scene was supposed to be a flash back or "present" - McInery wandered without a break from a character musing on the past to a current dialog without indicating that there was a shift at all.
Finally, there was at least one gross continuity error - the spy's secretary was first described as not knowing what the spy did when not working at his cover job, and then, later, she did know what he did when not working at his cover job. The author repeated information that didn't need to be repeated, but didn't include information that would have been nice - for instance, a central plot point is the three prophecies of Mary granted at Fatima - it would have been a good idea to, I don't know, tell the reader what they were? Instead of hinting at them?
After Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code hit it big, one of the criticisms was that Umberto Eco had done it better, which was true. Well, Dan Brown did it better than this truly awful book. Bah.

Sandra Hill - Viking Unchained


I learned about these books from Questionable Content, and so when I saw a copy at the library, I just had to grab it. The premise here is ... absurd, frankly. Viking time travelers arrive in the the present day, and become Navy SEALS. That being said, it's no less plausible than a lot of the other stuff I read, as it stands, I suppose.

More specific premise - Thorfinn's wife, Luta, ran off with some Saxon merchant shortly after giving birth to Miklof, Thorfinn's first son. She took Miklaf with him. The ship they were on was lost at sea. When Thorfinn hears reports that suggest that Luta and Miklaf might not be dead, he goes to Baghdad to investigate. All of this is in the 11th century, by the way. (Vikings did, actually, travel that far from Norway in the 11th century - Hill has clearly done research on vikings and on Navy SEALS.) While there, he is beset by some locals who don't like the way he looks at women. In the fight, he is transported to present day Iraq, where he is rescued by Torolf - his cousin, who, it so happens, has also traveled through time, and is now a Navy SEAL, in Iraq to kill generic Arab-type terrorists; 11th century ones are fine by him. Thorfinn is taken back to California, where he resolves to also become a Navy SEAL. At a bar, he meets Lydia Denton. Lydia's husband was a Navy SEAL who died in Iraq 5 years ago. She has a 4 year old son, Michael. Thorfinn reminds Lydia of her dead husband - they have the same eyes - so she picks him upLydia and Thorfinn "hook up", screw like "lustfilled rabbits," and eventually fall in love. Somewhere in the middle, there's a terrorist attack, but noone is killed except the terrorist, so that's ok.

Ok. This wasn't the best book I read all week, but I finished it, and it had some high points. The scenes of Thorfinn struggling to grasp 21st century technology were fun. There were some moments of teasing which I found amusing. There was a great deal of sex, from the beginning of the book all the way through - not a bad thing in a romance novel, I suppose.

There was also a lot that I didn't like. The relationship between Thorfinn and Lydia really didn't work for me all that well - they were clearly sexually compatible, but there didn't seem to be much reason for them to fall in love and get married. I suppose it's asking a bit much for deep, realistic love from a romance novel - although, really, isn't that what these are supposed to be about? Anyway, there was too much dominance/submission game playing for my taste - not in a kinky way, but in a creepy, surely that's not how Ms. Hill sees gender relationships sort of way.

That was my big objection. Smaller ones - I didn't like the generic terrorist, but I suppose the subplot made sense in context. Ms. Hill is not, perhaps, writing ageless prose, but the whole act of tying the book to the Iraq War means that the book will age poorly. There was no really plausible explanation for the whole time travel thing - it wouldn't have taken much, but Hill doesn't even describe any special effects - it just happens. And, clearly, it's been happening a lot, as there is a whole community of vikings living in California and elsewhere in the US. A continuity issue here too - there is a reference, midway through, to a previous book in which the viking SEALS et al travel back to the 11th century and save Thorfinn from some evil villain. And yet, early on, Thorfinn is baffled by the people he is meeting, as if he's never seen them before. It's not a full blown continuity error, but it smacks of poor editing. Also, Hill repeats basic information in a couple of places - reminding us within a chapter or two of character points that really didn't need to be brought up again - slack editing, or sloppy writing.

In the end, I was amused, the plot mostly satisfied, and the characters were at least interesting. I don't know that I'd search out the rest of Ms. Hill's time travelling viking books, but I'd probably read one, given no other choice.

Friday Review, 7/9/10

Three books this week. I swear I used to be able to read more books in a week. Of course, when I was taking classes, I often had to read two or three texts over the course of a week, but those were gutted and skimmed, mostly. Still.

Holly Black - White Cat

Oh, I love the premise of this book - our world, but magic works within a limited scope. "Curse Workers" have to touch you with their bare hands, and different "workers" can achieve different effects, from minor changes in luck up to transformation. Black put a lot of thought into how that would affect society, and a little thought into how it would have affected history. As such, everyone wears gloves always - at one point, the protagonist is looking through some porn, and the shocking thing is not the nudity, per se, but the lack of gloves. "Workers" are both elites and second class citizens - there's a political movement to force them to register, and a political movement opposed to it. "Workers" are often a key element of weddings (where luck would be nice to have) and christenings, for instance. In terms of history, Black includes a few notes about how previous societies dealt with the whole concept of magic - I would have liked more of that. At any rate, A+ for world building.

This book is also a caper novel - the hero is a con artist in a family of con artists, and he runs cons to get what he wants. Delicious, I love this particular genre, and Black describes some very nice cons, and includes some very good descriptions of legerdemain - she doesn't leave her audience in the dark about what's going on in the con scenes, either. That's a tactic which works very well on screen, but comes across as irritating in a novel, I find. So, A+ for capers, too.

The book is fairly twisty, but the twists are telegraphed well in advance. B+ for twists.

I didn't like some of the character building, especially the hero. Some of his motivations are messed up for obvious reasons within the context of the novel, but others are just messed up. Some of his reactions are off, too. He discovers some major secrets about himself, but seems to take them in stride far too easily - I didn't buy the shock. C+ for the protagonist.

I will happily read a second book in this world, because I really want to see what Black does with the background material. I want more history, and I want a deeper appreciation of the social environment. I'm not sure I'm keen on reading a lot more about this set of characters, however.

Albert Castel - The Presidency of Andrew Johnson


Johnson was a fascinating president. Castel wrote this political biography during the 1970s, and it comes at the end of a series of scholarly works dealing with Johnson, many of which were highly critical of Johnson and especially his approach to Reconstruction. Castel is mildly sympathetic towards Johnson - he doesn't deny Johnson's many flaws, but presents the man in a sympathetic light.

I learned some details about Johnson and the period in question, but nothing hugely enlightening.  While I still feel that the 14th Amendment was well conceived, I think that some of the strategies used to get the Amendment ratified were questionable. That is, I applaud the ends of the Republican Congress in the late 1860s, but deplore their means. Castel is mildly cynical about the Radical Republicans - seeing that they had a great deal to gain from the policies of Reconstruction in the form they championed - but agrees that at least some of their motivation was ideological rather than pragmatic.

As a scholarly work, this book was quite accessible, I would recommend it to a general audience. Castel is informative, and his knowledge of Johnson and Reconstruction is exhaustive. He includes detailed end notes, and abundant (but not to the point of being distracting) quotations. The final chapter is an excellent historiography, up through the 1970s, detailing the odd trajectory that Johnson's story has taken since the 1870s.

Jim Hines - The Mermaid's Madness


I really liked this novel. This is the second of the "Princess" novels. Hines is documenting the story of what happened to fairy tale princesses after their "happily ever after". His protagonists are Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty woke to find that everyone she knew and loved was dead, and that a rival neighbor had taken over the kingdom, and forced her re-awakening so that the last possible restraint upon them could be removed. Her fairy given gifts translate nicely into martial arts - grace in dancing = grace in fighting, for instance. Snow White was raised by a powerful witch, and makes use of said witch's training in her use of mirror magic - she is a powerful self-taught sorceress. And Cinderella has the magical protection of her mother (later revised into a Fairy God Mother, but originally, Cinderella was protected by her mother, who inhabited a tree in Cinder's backyard.), currently embodied in a magical glass sword.

This novel opens with the princesses travelling to provide a token tribute to local mermaids - or undines, as they prefer to be called - only to discover that the political situation has changed rather significantly over the winter. The adventure which follows involves twists, back stabbing, treachery, magic, fencing, and a great deal of other fantastic stuff.

What I like: Hines has thought out his characters very well. They have entirely realistic motivations, even given their fantastic origins. He has done excellent world building as well, considering the implications of mermaids - how do they work? What motivates them? - etc. The book is a quick read, but has some depth for all that. This is a well thought out and well written book.

What I didn't like: Very little. I did find the inclusion of Christianity to be a little odd - it threw me out of the world briefly, and really, given the world building, doesn't make a lot of sense. Oh well - it was a minor point, and not nearly enough to prevent me from recommending this book quite highly.