John Donohue - Deshi
I read this on the train from DC to Philly, rounding out my trashy book week. Connor Burke is an Irish-American academic martial artist. His chosen martial art is kendo, the art of the sword, but it is implied that he is also a black belt in at least two other arts - judo and akido, I think. His brother is a New York City detective. Connor gets called in by his brother when an execution style murder scene includes some Asian calligraphy - Connor needs to translate, and then explain. This, of course, pulls Connor into a complicated mystery involving power among gangs in New York and honor among martial artists.
It's a creditable novel. Donohue (an Irish-American academic martial artist, oddly enough) knows his material. The martial arts are all well described (but not overly so - there were only a couple of places where I felt like "you know, I don't really need to know how that particular fight went down, thanks"), and the whole work held together very well. A good mystery, with a reasonable motive and a satisfactory ending.
This is the second book in what looks to be a trilogy. Donohue does an excellent job of giving enough detail from the first book that you know the connections between the characters, but not so much that you feel like you really should have read the first book. (Nor anywhere near so much that you feel that reading the first book would be unnecessary.) I'm going to look for the first book (Sensei).
Thomas Mullen - The Revisionists
A sci-fi spy thriller. The premise is twisty. Z has come from the future to our present. So, ok, you're thinking Terminator, right? And, ok, fine - think Terminator. But Z is not Kyle Reese. Z is the Terminator. His mission is to ensure that horrible thing happen to us so that his perfect society can blossom out of the ashes of our destruction. In particular, Z has been sent to protect a series of events from "hags" - historical agitators - who have come back out of some misguided attempt to "save" us from ourselves. Z is equipped with a replica of a present 9 millimeter, and some impressive skull based equipment, including a Genescan which allows him to see hags, and mental access to thousands of files in a database, which allow him to accurately predict when, where, and to whom things are going to happen.
Leo is ex-CIA. He may or may not have leaked information about torture at black sites to the New York Times. He is currently working for a civilian government contractor, doing more or less the same things he used to do for the CIA. His current job is to monitor the activities of an anti-war anti-government secrecy group (essentially wikileaks, but not quite). While shopping for groceries one day, he runs into a confused Indonesian woman also shopping for groceries, and discovers that she is the deeply unhappy (and sadly abused) servant of a South Korean diplomat. Sensing that this could be a way to redeem himself with his former superiors (and, frankly, wanting to get to know the woman better), Leo begins weaving a plot to get information out of the diplomat's residence.
Tasha is a young African-American lawyer working in a corporate law firm in order to pay off her law school debts. Her brother died in Iraq. She doesn't believe the official story of why. When she reads memos from a client of the firm indicating that they had delayed shipping equipment to soldiers in Iraq (including armored vests and ammunition) in order to save a little money, she agonizes for a bit, then leaks this information to the New York Times, where it causes a minor sensation, then vanishes. She becomes involved in periphery of the anti-war group that Leo is investigating. She also runs into Z, who is using the alias Troy Jones, and they begin a relationship of sorts.
So, it's a spy story. It's a political thriller. It's an odd utopian/dystopian sci fi story. All mooshed together in a delightful way, and then twisted until the reader isn't sure what's really happening, and who it's really happening to. Z, who is the only point of view character, is quickly shown to be an unreliable narrator. I'm going to mask some spoilers here (those who don't mind spoilers can decypher the following here - simply cut and paste into the obvious box, and click the button.):
Nobhg n lrne ntb, Ebova Ynjf ena n tnzr ba uvf yvirwbheany pnyyrq Natryf naq Bcrengbef. Vg jnf onfvpnyyl n pubbfr lbhe bja nqiragher tnzr. Rnpu jrrx, Ynjf jbhyq cbfg n yvggyr ovg bs gur fgbel, naq raq jvgu n fheirl; fbzrgvzrf gjb pubvprf, ohg bsgra sbhe be svir. Ernqref jbhyq ibgr va gur fheirl, naq gur bcgvba jvgu gur zbfg ibgrf nsgre n ernfbanoyr crevbq bs gvzr jbhyq or jung unccrarq. Gur punenpgre jr jrer pbyyrpgviryl cynlvat jnf n uhzna ntrag bs gur natryf. Gur natryf hfrq uvz gb svtug ntnvafg gur Bcrengbef, tenagvat uvz gur novyvgl gb frr Bcrengbef nf gurl gehyl ner haqre gurve uhzna qvfthvfrf. Ubjrire, jura gur ntrag jnf abg arrqrq ol gur natryf, ur erfvqrf va n zragny vafgvghgvba, jurer ur vf tvira n zrq juvpu gheaf bss gur novyvgl gb frr Bcrengbef... V qba'g npghnyyl erpnyy vs gur dhrfgvba bs "ernyyl na ntrag, be npghnyyl fpuvmbcueravp" jnf rire ernyyl erfbyirq, orpnhfr gung jnf gur prageny grafvba bs gur fgbel. Zhyyra qbrf fbzrguvat fvzvyne gbjneqf gur raq bs guvf obbx, naq qbrf abg erfbyir vg rvgure - rvgure M vf na ntrag bs fbzr shgher tbireazrag frag gb cebgrpg riragf va bhe cerfrag, naq znfdhrenqvat nf Gebl Wbarf va beqre gb svg va, be Gebl Wbarf vf na rk AFN ntrag jubfr oenva fanccrq jura uvf jvsr naq xvq qvrq va n pne nppvqrag, naq jub abj, va n fpuvmbcueravp shthr, oryvrirf uvzfrys gb or M, na ntrag bs n shgher tbireazrag frag gb cebgrpg riragf va bhe cerfrag.
In the end, it doesn't really matter. Either possibility results in the same excellent story, and the tension between the two possibilities merely makes the story that much deeper and twistier and, as I suggested yesterday, mind-fuckerier. Which it was to begin with.
It's a slow read, because the events are complicated. Also, expect to dream of spies and such for most of the week while reading it - at least, I did, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Some readers may find Mullen a little too cynical in re: current politics, and that may be a fair assessment - he has not, however, written a work of propaganda, so I didn't mind. There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" here - the pro-government and anti-government groups are equally a-moral and, almost, slimy. I'm ok with that.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Not a Friday Review Post, 1/20/2012
So, I said there would be a review post today. I lied. Sorry. Stuff happened - we went to look at a place to rent (there's a story. It's long. It has nothing to do with books, except the possibility that we might need to get rid of some in order to move, and yeah.) and then we had dinner out (and it was yummy) and then we came home and talked about moving, and getting rid of books, or possibly getting rid of other stuff that isn't books - do we really NEED two kids? (youngest turned one yesterday, incidentally, for those keeping score) - and, anyway, it's late now, and I don't feel like writing about the two books I have finished this week. Which were:
John Donahue - Deshi
which was excellent, and I'll tell you about it tomorrow
and
Thomas Mullen - The Revisionists
which was both excellent and really twisty in a mind fuckery sort of way. And I'll tell you about it tomorrow.
John Donahue - Deshi
which was excellent, and I'll tell you about it tomorrow
and
Thomas Mullen - The Revisionists
which was both excellent and really twisty in a mind fuckery sort of way. And I'll tell you about it tomorrow.
Something for the Font Fans
So, I don't know how many of you are font geeks like me, but here's an awesome thing for your inner font lover:
http://imprint.printmag.com/daily-heller/tree-of-type/
There will be a review post later, probably, certainly, maybe. (Yes, there will.)
http://imprint.printmag.com/daily-heller/tree-of-type/
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Tuesday Library Post, 1/17/2012
Admit it, you thought I forgot. You thought that, because I was away last week, I wouldn't post a Tuesday Library post this week - you thought that, and you would be wrong. (But only because I remembered at the last minute that I got books today.)
First up, as of next week, I will be switching back to Monday, because I'll be teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (and Wednesday evening, not that that signifies in any way) Those of you who schedule your visits around Tuesdays and Fridays (and my stats say that there are a number of you - thanks!) should take note.
Two books this week.
James S.A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes
George R.R. Martin calls it a "kickass space opera." I like kickass space operas. We've got large space going ships, we've got rebellion between the inner and outer planets of the solar system, we've got mystery and romance and danger and zero gravity and hard vacuum. I've loved all that sort of thing since I picked up Asimov and Cherryh, and this looks to hit all those lovely buttons at once. Plus, it's huge - 560 pages (so, you know, half of a Neal Stephenson book.) and I like big books (and I cannot lie...). Finally, there's this cover:
I rest my case.
William Fowler, Jr. - American Crisis
This is non-fiction, about the period between the British surrender at Yorktown (1781) and the actual end of the Revolution (1783), during which time the government (such as it was) dithered, and Washington averted a coup attempt from among his own officers. Yup, I'm teaching US I again this semester.
First up, as of next week, I will be switching back to Monday, because I'll be teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (and Wednesday evening, not that that signifies in any way) Those of you who schedule your visits around Tuesdays and Fridays (and my stats say that there are a number of you - thanks!) should take note.
Two books this week.
James S.A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes
George R.R. Martin calls it a "kickass space opera." I like kickass space operas. We've got large space going ships, we've got rebellion between the inner and outer planets of the solar system, we've got mystery and romance and danger and zero gravity and hard vacuum. I've loved all that sort of thing since I picked up Asimov and Cherryh, and this looks to hit all those lovely buttons at once. Plus, it's huge - 560 pages (so, you know, half of a Neal Stephenson book.) and I like big books (and I cannot lie...). Finally, there's this cover:
William Fowler, Jr. - American Crisis
This is non-fiction, about the period between the British surrender at Yorktown (1781) and the actual end of the Revolution (1783), during which time the government (such as it was) dithered, and Washington averted a coup attempt from among his own officers. Yup, I'm teaching US I again this semester.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Friday Review Post, 1/13/12
So, I should probably let you all know what I've been up to. This week, as you know, I've been doing research at the Library of Congress. Which is to say, I've been staring into the Past, with only the barest of filters between me and the raw, unadulterated chronos. I've been reading newspapers from 1945 and 1946, hunting for evidence of ... well, wait - here, I can link you in, and you can share. Brace yourself, and then click here to stare into the past.
Historically, this is actually pretty exciting. It's one of those things where you can ask questions about a thing, and get into arguments about it which have no logical conclusions, because the event is far enough ago that it has no meaningful effect on the current period. My contention is that this movement forms an important link between the movement for women's suffrage and the movement against atomic bomb testing in the early 1950s. But it really doesn't matter - it's just cool to look at, on some level.
Anyway, that's meant that I've been reading a lot this week. Trashy books, as usual. Here's the rundown:
William Deitz - At Empire's Edge
Have you ever wondered why folks from the northwestern US are so mellow? It's because Deitz has been hoarding the region's supply of exclamation points for decades, and the scattering them through his books. Only the Typeset Treaty of 1872 (which concluded the short but vicious Newspaper War of 1872) prevents him from tapping the strategic punctuation reserves in British Columbia, for which we can all be grateful. Oh, also? Deitz likes sentence fragments. So, this is a book about the last surviving member of an elite space police unit, forced to track down a homicidal shape shifter before said killer kills an important member of the Uman Empire's government. Oh, and avenge the death of his buddies. It has a lot of exclamation points. And sentence fragments. To indicate excitement and tension.
The characters weren't bad, but the writing was appalling. Save it for reading while drunk.
Simon Green - Ghost of a Chance
I've contended that Green writes trashy books as an exercise in cynical irony. That is, he writes trashy books because he knows he can get away with it. Green's books often feel derivative, with overly complex plots (often involving time travel) and needlessly intricate inside jokes (like sharing characters across different story lines). At the same time, the books are exceedingly well written, as if Green recognizes that he's writing a trashy book, and has decided to write the hell out of it. As a result, the books are highly entertaining, if a little disappointing. I've often suspected that he could write classy books if he wanted to. This book was, actually, kinda classy.
A team of oddball experts descends into the London Underground to figure out why a ghost has taken over one of the stations. Another team of oddballs is also in the Underground, seeking knowledge for their own nefarious purposes. The two teams end up having to cooperate in order to defeat a really big, nasty thing. So far, so "seen it before". But, the ghost-y stuff is actually pretty creepy, and I kinda liked the characters (which is good, because there will be sequels). Green does a good job of setting up a new series with new characters involved in new stuff. It's not like any other urban (dark) fantasy (horror) stuff I've seen, and I actually kinda liked it.
Alex Archer - Rogue Angel: Sacrifice
Oh. God. This book was awful. I mean, the Rogue Angel series isn't exactly high art to begin with, but this one didn't even live up to previous lows. Anja Creed (wielder, for some un-specified reason, of Joan of Arc's sword) is in the Philippines, held captive by Abu Sayyaf terrorists. Except, sometimes, they aren't Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists. Sometimes, they are Communist terrorists, for no discernible reason. Then, she escapes, and meets an American sniper, who just happens to be in the vicinity. And they get captured by a tribe of Philippine indigenes, who want to sacrifice them to some sort of creature in a pit.
So, yeah. The book has strong racist overtones. all Muslims are terrorists, or at least all terrorists are Muslims, or at least they pretend to be Muslims when they aren't being Marxist. All exotic locales have some sort of indigenous tribe type which will sacrifice you to their pagan god. It takes an American to save the day, preferably by shooting a brown person. But it's all ok, because the brown person's family gets money! Yay! Also, the book is misogynistic - which, given that the central character is a strong, independent woman, is saying something. Anja spends a great deal of time tied up - in the first scene of the book, she's handcuffed. There is an entirely unnecessary scene in which she has to pee in the jungle. Which then allows a tracker to find her and the sniper - because her pee is especially woman-y. Anja's attempt to solve problems by not shooting brown people almost results in Manila getting nuked (how like a woman!) - luckily, she gets herself out of the way in time for the shooting to happen. There is no sex in the book (despite strong overtones of sex). At the same time, there is no strange gluttony on Anja's part - that must just have been the one book. For all that these books epitomize trashy books, I think I'll skip them for the next trip. You feel free to skip them too.
Janet Evanovich - One for the Money
I liked this one - it was funny, with a strong early-90's vibe. Stephanie Plum as lingerie buyer turned reluctant bounty hunter is delightful. I really liked the characters. The plot was satisfying. The setting was, perhaps, a little overly described - I don't need to know the brand of coffee that Stephanie drinks (ok, it wasn't that bad, but close). I'm also not all that interested in the process whereby Stephanie gets ready for bed, or for going out in the morning. Still, the detail was evocative of Stephanie as a character - she's the sort of person who feels it necessary to describe her breakfast to her audience, so, good craft?
Less forgivable - Evanovich does this thing where she re-caps the previous chapter sometimes, at the beginning of the next chapter - as if she assumes you didn't read the previous chapter. This is a little annoying. Deitz does the same thing, actually - this implies something unpleasant about the way that the author sees their audience.
Despite that, I did enjoy the book, and I will pick up another of these.
Jean Rabe and Martin Greenburg, eds - Steampunk'd
So - an anthology of totally new steampunk short stories. Some of which were really really good. I am, however, going to maunder about steampunk as a genre for a minute before I discuss the stories themselves.
Right. I've talked about this before. The steam refers to the use of steampowered technology. Generally, it means steampowered technology in a Victorian (or Victorianesque) setting, but the technology is closer to our current technology than Victorian - steam powered computers, for instance, or things to that effect. The punk, when steampunk is done right, refers to the characters using steam powered technology to subvert the dominant paradigm - either the dominant paradigm currently in effect, or the paradigm in which they, the fictional characters exist, or both. The best works struggle with both paradigms. A story which doesn't struggle, though - that's just steam. Call it techno-Victorian, perhaps, or neo-Victorian, but it's not steampunk.
See, the thing about steam power is that it happened. The industrial revolution ran on steam power (and water power and wind power, but mostly steam). Our world is based in the steam powered machines of the Industrial revolution, and the mass-produced consumer product driven economy that those machines made possible. So, unless your characters are struggling against the flattening effects of mass-production, or against the crushing effects of rampant industrialization, or something of that nature, you aren't really doing anything new. You're just transposing existing genre bits into a steamy setting - steam powered ray guns! steam powered aliens! steam powered night vision goggles! yadda yadda yadda!
So. The stories I really liked from the collection:
Michael Stackpole - "Chance Corrigan and the TickTock King of the Nile"
Corrigan uses steam powered machines to improve the lot of the common Egyptian, while struggling with an industrialist who wants to use steam powered machines to make himself rich.
Jody Lynn Nye - "Portrait of a Lady in a Monocle"
A feisty lady proves that, despite Victorian thoughts about women, she is as capable an inventor as the next guy, even if she doesn't have a penis.
Paul Genesse - "The Nubian Queen"
Fantasy/sci-fi stories don't need to be set in lily-white Europe - they can happen in Africa! With an exploding zepplin and cannons carried by rhinos - why not!
Skip and Penny Williams - "The Imperial Changeling"
Who says that the hero has to be the one challenging the dominant paradigm? Here, technology attempts, and fails, to overthrow the European system of magic and monarchy - and that's ok.
Special mention to Robert Vardeman - "The Transmogrification Ray" - I haven't finished this story yet, but I loved that he includes a reference to Chance Corrigan from Stackpole's story - brilliant!
Special mention to William Dietz - "The Battle of Cumberland Gap" - nicely steamy, although not a lot of punk; basically steam enhanced mil-fic. With sentence fragments galore. But I liked the characters.
The remaining stories - it's not so much that a I didn't like them; for the most part they were fine. I had problems with characters in a couple, and plot in another, and a mild lack of punk throughout.
Final thought - that title! Someone picked that title! Punk'd and punk - not at all the same thing. Don't be put off, though; the stories are, generally, quite good - a nice place to begin playing with steampunk, if you aren't already.
That's all for now! I'll wrap up with some trashy books next week too, because I get to ride the train to Philly! Woohoo! So my reading is not done yet.
Historically, this is actually pretty exciting. It's one of those things where you can ask questions about a thing, and get into arguments about it which have no logical conclusions, because the event is far enough ago that it has no meaningful effect on the current period. My contention is that this movement forms an important link between the movement for women's suffrage and the movement against atomic bomb testing in the early 1950s. But it really doesn't matter - it's just cool to look at, on some level.
Anyway, that's meant that I've been reading a lot this week. Trashy books, as usual. Here's the rundown:
William Deitz - At Empire's Edge
Have you ever wondered why folks from the northwestern US are so mellow? It's because Deitz has been hoarding the region's supply of exclamation points for decades, and the scattering them through his books. Only the Typeset Treaty of 1872 (which concluded the short but vicious Newspaper War of 1872) prevents him from tapping the strategic punctuation reserves in British Columbia, for which we can all be grateful. Oh, also? Deitz likes sentence fragments. So, this is a book about the last surviving member of an elite space police unit, forced to track down a homicidal shape shifter before said killer kills an important member of the Uman Empire's government. Oh, and avenge the death of his buddies. It has a lot of exclamation points. And sentence fragments. To indicate excitement and tension.
The characters weren't bad, but the writing was appalling. Save it for reading while drunk.
Simon Green - Ghost of a Chance
I've contended that Green writes trashy books as an exercise in cynical irony. That is, he writes trashy books because he knows he can get away with it. Green's books often feel derivative, with overly complex plots (often involving time travel) and needlessly intricate inside jokes (like sharing characters across different story lines). At the same time, the books are exceedingly well written, as if Green recognizes that he's writing a trashy book, and has decided to write the hell out of it. As a result, the books are highly entertaining, if a little disappointing. I've often suspected that he could write classy books if he wanted to. This book was, actually, kinda classy.
A team of oddball experts descends into the London Underground to figure out why a ghost has taken over one of the stations. Another team of oddballs is also in the Underground, seeking knowledge for their own nefarious purposes. The two teams end up having to cooperate in order to defeat a really big, nasty thing. So far, so "seen it before". But, the ghost-y stuff is actually pretty creepy, and I kinda liked the characters (which is good, because there will be sequels). Green does a good job of setting up a new series with new characters involved in new stuff. It's not like any other urban (dark) fantasy (horror) stuff I've seen, and I actually kinda liked it.
Alex Archer - Rogue Angel: Sacrifice
Oh. God. This book was awful. I mean, the Rogue Angel series isn't exactly high art to begin with, but this one didn't even live up to previous lows. Anja Creed (wielder, for some un-specified reason, of Joan of Arc's sword) is in the Philippines, held captive by Abu Sayyaf terrorists. Except, sometimes, they aren't Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists. Sometimes, they are Communist terrorists, for no discernible reason. Then, she escapes, and meets an American sniper, who just happens to be in the vicinity. And they get captured by a tribe of Philippine indigenes, who want to sacrifice them to some sort of creature in a pit.
So, yeah. The book has strong racist overtones. all Muslims are terrorists, or at least all terrorists are Muslims, or at least they pretend to be Muslims when they aren't being Marxist. All exotic locales have some sort of indigenous tribe type which will sacrifice you to their pagan god. It takes an American to save the day, preferably by shooting a brown person. But it's all ok, because the brown person's family gets money! Yay! Also, the book is misogynistic - which, given that the central character is a strong, independent woman, is saying something. Anja spends a great deal of time tied up - in the first scene of the book, she's handcuffed. There is an entirely unnecessary scene in which she has to pee in the jungle. Which then allows a tracker to find her and the sniper - because her pee is especially woman-y. Anja's attempt to solve problems by not shooting brown people almost results in Manila getting nuked (how like a woman!) - luckily, she gets herself out of the way in time for the shooting to happen. There is no sex in the book (despite strong overtones of sex). At the same time, there is no strange gluttony on Anja's part - that must just have been the one book. For all that these books epitomize trashy books, I think I'll skip them for the next trip. You feel free to skip them too.
Janet Evanovich - One for the Money
I liked this one - it was funny, with a strong early-90's vibe. Stephanie Plum as lingerie buyer turned reluctant bounty hunter is delightful. I really liked the characters. The plot was satisfying. The setting was, perhaps, a little overly described - I don't need to know the brand of coffee that Stephanie drinks (ok, it wasn't that bad, but close). I'm also not all that interested in the process whereby Stephanie gets ready for bed, or for going out in the morning. Still, the detail was evocative of Stephanie as a character - she's the sort of person who feels it necessary to describe her breakfast to her audience, so, good craft?
Less forgivable - Evanovich does this thing where she re-caps the previous chapter sometimes, at the beginning of the next chapter - as if she assumes you didn't read the previous chapter. This is a little annoying. Deitz does the same thing, actually - this implies something unpleasant about the way that the author sees their audience.
Despite that, I did enjoy the book, and I will pick up another of these.
Jean Rabe and Martin Greenburg, eds - Steampunk'd
So - an anthology of totally new steampunk short stories. Some of which were really really good. I am, however, going to maunder about steampunk as a genre for a minute before I discuss the stories themselves.
Right. I've talked about this before. The steam refers to the use of steampowered technology. Generally, it means steampowered technology in a Victorian (or Victorianesque) setting, but the technology is closer to our current technology than Victorian - steam powered computers, for instance, or things to that effect. The punk, when steampunk is done right, refers to the characters using steam powered technology to subvert the dominant paradigm - either the dominant paradigm currently in effect, or the paradigm in which they, the fictional characters exist, or both. The best works struggle with both paradigms. A story which doesn't struggle, though - that's just steam. Call it techno-Victorian, perhaps, or neo-Victorian, but it's not steampunk.
See, the thing about steam power is that it happened. The industrial revolution ran on steam power (and water power and wind power, but mostly steam). Our world is based in the steam powered machines of the Industrial revolution, and the mass-produced consumer product driven economy that those machines made possible. So, unless your characters are struggling against the flattening effects of mass-production, or against the crushing effects of rampant industrialization, or something of that nature, you aren't really doing anything new. You're just transposing existing genre bits into a steamy setting - steam powered ray guns! steam powered aliens! steam powered night vision goggles! yadda yadda yadda!
So. The stories I really liked from the collection:
Michael Stackpole - "Chance Corrigan and the TickTock King of the Nile"
Corrigan uses steam powered machines to improve the lot of the common Egyptian, while struggling with an industrialist who wants to use steam powered machines to make himself rich.
Jody Lynn Nye - "Portrait of a Lady in a Monocle"
A feisty lady proves that, despite Victorian thoughts about women, she is as capable an inventor as the next guy, even if she doesn't have a penis.
Paul Genesse - "The Nubian Queen"
Fantasy/sci-fi stories don't need to be set in lily-white Europe - they can happen in Africa! With an exploding zepplin and cannons carried by rhinos - why not!
Skip and Penny Williams - "The Imperial Changeling"
Who says that the hero has to be the one challenging the dominant paradigm? Here, technology attempts, and fails, to overthrow the European system of magic and monarchy - and that's ok.
Special mention to Robert Vardeman - "The Transmogrification Ray" - I haven't finished this story yet, but I loved that he includes a reference to Chance Corrigan from Stackpole's story - brilliant!
Special mention to William Dietz - "The Battle of Cumberland Gap" - nicely steamy, although not a lot of punk; basically steam enhanced mil-fic. With sentence fragments galore. But I liked the characters.
The remaining stories - it's not so much that a I didn't like them; for the most part they were fine. I had problems with characters in a couple, and plot in another, and a mild lack of punk throughout.
Final thought - that title! Someone picked that title! Punk'd and punk - not at all the same thing. Don't be put off, though; the stories are, generally, quite good - a nice place to begin playing with steampunk, if you aren't already.
That's all for now! I'll wrap up with some trashy books next week too, because I get to ride the train to Philly! Woohoo! So my reading is not done yet.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Friday Review, 1/6/2012
The first review of 2012! I'm posting from Virginia, on the new laptop (the laptop is named Homer, incidentally.)
4 books this week.
Barry Eisler - The Detachment
John Rain is a Japanese-American assassin who works, mostly, from Tokyo. He combines the best of James Bond with the best of, I don't know, Chuck Norris? Anyway, he's suave and worldly, but he's also brutal when he kills people. He prefers to use methods that mimic natural death, which generally means up close and personal - not guns, but hands. This is the 7th book in the Rain series. As I mentioned earlier, Rain has been trying to retire for 3 or 4 books now. This book opens with Rain retired, and then drags him back into the job to prevent a coup in the United States.
I didn't really like this book. Rain should have stayed retired. Eisler was making a political point about the Global War on Terror and what it does to civil rights and such. Meh. Rain has, previously, been pretty a-political, operating outside of the real world (to some extent) in a sort of every-time setting. There has been some commentary on post 9-11 in the last couple of books - the difficulty of travelling with weapons, mostly - but this is the first book to explicitly address the politics of the current moment.
I'm not suggesting that I necessarily disagree with Eisler's political point - the powers that be have been degrading the civil rights of Americans in the name of safety - I just think that it made for a less than compelling narrative. Perhaps the job should have been given to some other operative - let Rain enjoy his retirement, as much as it's possible for Rain to enjoy anything.
Helen Oyeyemi - Mr. Fox
Mr. Fox is a novelist. He has a nasty habit of killing off his female characters. He is also a decidedly unpleasant man, especially as regards women in general. One of the first things we see him think is that he has "fixed" his wife of complaining by telling her that one of the things he loves about her is that she doesn't complain. Bleh. Mary Foxe is Fox's muse - the personification of the little voice in his head. Foxe has taken bodily form to "cure" Fox of his misogyny. To do this, she drags him into his own writing to expose him to the nastiness of his narratives.
So. I didn't like this book either. The premise was interesting, but the ultimate experience of reading was that Oyeyemi had a collection of short stories, and wasn't sure how to present them. Perhaps she would have done better if she had just offered them as a collection of short stories, because the nesting narrative format didn't really work here. Now, consider, I really enjoyed Cathrynne Valente's The Orphan's Tales, where the narratives absolutely nested - each story was inside another story, and had a story inside of it - people kept stopping a narrative in order to tell their own story. Lots of people found this a little jarring, but I enjoyed it. I was hoping for something like that here, and didn't get it. What Valente did that Oyeyemi didn't (as far as I can tell) is that Valente had a cohesive narrative which kept the whole string of pearls together. Oyeyemi seemed not to do that. An example - one of the stories in the collection was clearly set in "now", with jet planes and the internet. But the framing narrative seemed to be set in the mid 1930's, with Mr. Fox musing on his experiences in WWI. So, ok - either Fox (or Foxe) is psychic and predicted the current state of technology (and how people would use the internet to vet potential romantic engagements) or the book is set now, and the 1930s stuff is a narrative conceit of Foxe (or Fox). But it isn't clear which is the case, and that's a problem.
The other problem I had was that all of the characters were odious. Fox is a misogynist, of course, but all of the other men in the stories were equally bad - philanderers, murderers, milksops, or some combination thereof. The women are all victims, or manipulative hags, or limp, or some combination thereof. I couldn't engage with any of them - not good.
That said, there were a couple of good stories in the mess. I liked the story of the Husband School - that had potential; indeed, it worked by itself. The story of the florist was ok. The story set in the "now" was fine as well. I liked the story of the Blue and the Brown woman. As a collection of short stories, with hints of connection (periodic appearances by Renardine, for instance) I would have been happy with this. Well, happier. The stories were often bleak and ugly, but they worked individually - just not as bits of a novel.
Ursula Vernon - The Danny Dragonbreath collection
My eldest has been collecting the Danny Dragonbreath books, which I had not read previously. On the grounds that the books were very "me", I was urged to read them, which I did. These books are fantastic!
Danny is a dragon. He lives in a community with a bunch of other reptiles. His best friend is an Iguana. They go to a school with a bunch of lizards and snakes and such. Danny is not a particularly good student - he has an overly active imagination, and doesn't really like to do his school work. Wendell, Danny's friend, is a much better student, although he is also interested in the comic books and movies that Danny likes. Danny and Wendell get into some odd situations, which generally end up teaching them things.
In the first book, Danny and Wendell go to visit Danny's cousin, a sea monster in the Sargosa Sea, to help Danny with a report on the ocean. In the second book, they visit Mythic Japan with the new exchange student, to cure an infestation of ninjas. In the third book, they venture into the sewers to find a sentient potato salad in order to fight off an invasion of werewolveshotdogs. In the fourth book, they travel to Mexico to visit another of Danny's cousins who works with bats. (All of the trips out of town take place via city bus - "it's a very good bus system!") Each book gently teaches a little about the subject (I'm not sure what we learned in Curse of the Werewiener, but I'm sure there was something there). The tone of the books is lightly ironic - there's enough wry humor to appeal to full grown adults, but the vocabulary is safely at the 8 or 9 year old level, and there's enough action to keep a young reader engaged.
The truly novel element of these books is the use of graphic novel snippets. Every couple of pages, there is an illustration which serves both to illustrate the narrative and to further the plot, with speech balloons and such. The books are not graphic novels - the bulk of the narrative is in traditional written form - but the cartoonish bits act as a nice transition between the two genres. The books are fantastic for emerging readers more comfortable with comic books, but ready to move onto something with a little more meat to them. Plus, they're funny! Delicious!
Chris Moriarty - The Inquisitor's Apprentice
Sacha Kessler is a young Jewish immigrant to New York (in the early 20th century). But the New York that Sacha lives in is not our New York. No - it is a New York where magic works, where Vanderbilt is Vanderbilk and Morgan is Morgaunt. Where Edison has invented a machine which can detect witches. In which the New York Police has a branch to investigate illegal use of magic - a branch which recruits Sacha when it becomes clear he can see magic being done. Delightful premise!
I really liked this book. The characters are excellent, from Kessler and Lilly Astral (Astor), the apprentices to Inquistor Wolf (their mentor), to Rosie DiMaggio (I loved Rosie!) Edison's assistant (and hoochiecoochie dancer), to the villains - J.P. Morgaunt and the other Wizards of Wall St, mustache twirlers all. Sacha, Wolf, and Lilly work to protect Edison from a dybbuk, a mythical Jewish creature; a soul-eating monster who can be summoned by a Rabbi to assail an enemy, eating the enemy soul and then replacing the enemy. But, Sacha's grandfather informs him, no Rabbi would actually summon one - so who could have summoned this one? And, if it's attacking Edison, why doesn't it look like Edison?
I loved the world building - it's sometimes tricky to take a historical setting and gently twist it, but Moriarty has done an excellent job; keeping the historical feeling, while spicing things up nicely. Excellent stuff! Moriarty includes a historical note (I love that!), and her research is clear throughout the work, in big ways and in little ones. A nice touch, I thought - Sacha tells his father that he expects to be able to contribute some of his wages to the family, much like his older sister, Bekah. Sacha's father tells Sacha that the family would never accept money from Sacha - boys need to be able to use their wages to better themselves, and thus improve the lot of the family generationally. This is a fairly accurate depiction of gender roles in the city at this point - a little thing, a couple of lines of dialogue, but a sign of some research - delicious!
Helping with the world building are illustration by Mark Edward Geyer. These simple line drawings bring the setting to life - they look like newspaper engravings, adding to the period feeling of the work. I love illustrations in a book - I'm sure I mentioned this in the Leviathan reviews earlier - and I wish more people used them.
My wife and I did have some problems with the ending of the book. The work builds very slowly for most of the book. Then, suddenly, after a "training montage", the action shifts abruptly to full steam, and we advance, a very few chapters, to the climax, and then the conclusion. The book does conclude, mostly, but it's clear that there will be further books in the series. This is great - the characters are delightful, and I want more - but the book has a strong unfinished quality to it which is a little frustrating. The villain lives to fight another day, Sacha has a Destiny to live up to, or avoid, and some stuff happens that isn't really well described, almost as if the ending was a little rushed. Despite that, an overall strong book, and I'll be watching for the next one eagerly.
4 books this week.
Barry Eisler - The Detachment
John Rain is a Japanese-American assassin who works, mostly, from Tokyo. He combines the best of James Bond with the best of, I don't know, Chuck Norris? Anyway, he's suave and worldly, but he's also brutal when he kills people. He prefers to use methods that mimic natural death, which generally means up close and personal - not guns, but hands. This is the 7th book in the Rain series. As I mentioned earlier, Rain has been trying to retire for 3 or 4 books now. This book opens with Rain retired, and then drags him back into the job to prevent a coup in the United States.
I didn't really like this book. Rain should have stayed retired. Eisler was making a political point about the Global War on Terror and what it does to civil rights and such. Meh. Rain has, previously, been pretty a-political, operating outside of the real world (to some extent) in a sort of every-time setting. There has been some commentary on post 9-11 in the last couple of books - the difficulty of travelling with weapons, mostly - but this is the first book to explicitly address the politics of the current moment.
I'm not suggesting that I necessarily disagree with Eisler's political point - the powers that be have been degrading the civil rights of Americans in the name of safety - I just think that it made for a less than compelling narrative. Perhaps the job should have been given to some other operative - let Rain enjoy his retirement, as much as it's possible for Rain to enjoy anything.
Helen Oyeyemi - Mr. Fox
Mr. Fox is a novelist. He has a nasty habit of killing off his female characters. He is also a decidedly unpleasant man, especially as regards women in general. One of the first things we see him think is that he has "fixed" his wife of complaining by telling her that one of the things he loves about her is that she doesn't complain. Bleh. Mary Foxe is Fox's muse - the personification of the little voice in his head. Foxe has taken bodily form to "cure" Fox of his misogyny. To do this, she drags him into his own writing to expose him to the nastiness of his narratives.
So. I didn't like this book either. The premise was interesting, but the ultimate experience of reading was that Oyeyemi had a collection of short stories, and wasn't sure how to present them. Perhaps she would have done better if she had just offered them as a collection of short stories, because the nesting narrative format didn't really work here. Now, consider, I really enjoyed Cathrynne Valente's The Orphan's Tales, where the narratives absolutely nested - each story was inside another story, and had a story inside of it - people kept stopping a narrative in order to tell their own story. Lots of people found this a little jarring, but I enjoyed it. I was hoping for something like that here, and didn't get it. What Valente did that Oyeyemi didn't (as far as I can tell) is that Valente had a cohesive narrative which kept the whole string of pearls together. Oyeyemi seemed not to do that. An example - one of the stories in the collection was clearly set in "now", with jet planes and the internet. But the framing narrative seemed to be set in the mid 1930's, with Mr. Fox musing on his experiences in WWI. So, ok - either Fox (or Foxe) is psychic and predicted the current state of technology (and how people would use the internet to vet potential romantic engagements) or the book is set now, and the 1930s stuff is a narrative conceit of Foxe (or Fox). But it isn't clear which is the case, and that's a problem.
The other problem I had was that all of the characters were odious. Fox is a misogynist, of course, but all of the other men in the stories were equally bad - philanderers, murderers, milksops, or some combination thereof. The women are all victims, or manipulative hags, or limp, or some combination thereof. I couldn't engage with any of them - not good.
That said, there were a couple of good stories in the mess. I liked the story of the Husband School - that had potential; indeed, it worked by itself. The story of the florist was ok. The story set in the "now" was fine as well. I liked the story of the Blue and the Brown woman. As a collection of short stories, with hints of connection (periodic appearances by Renardine, for instance) I would have been happy with this. Well, happier. The stories were often bleak and ugly, but they worked individually - just not as bits of a novel.
Ursula Vernon - The Danny Dragonbreath collection
My eldest has been collecting the Danny Dragonbreath books, which I had not read previously. On the grounds that the books were very "me", I was urged to read them, which I did. These books are fantastic!
Danny is a dragon. He lives in a community with a bunch of other reptiles. His best friend is an Iguana. They go to a school with a bunch of lizards and snakes and such. Danny is not a particularly good student - he has an overly active imagination, and doesn't really like to do his school work. Wendell, Danny's friend, is a much better student, although he is also interested in the comic books and movies that Danny likes. Danny and Wendell get into some odd situations, which generally end up teaching them things.
In the first book, Danny and Wendell go to visit Danny's cousin, a sea monster in the Sargosa Sea, to help Danny with a report on the ocean. In the second book, they visit Mythic Japan with the new exchange student, to cure an infestation of ninjas. In the third book, they venture into the sewers to find a sentient potato salad in order to fight off an invasion of were
The truly novel element of these books is the use of graphic novel snippets. Every couple of pages, there is an illustration which serves both to illustrate the narrative and to further the plot, with speech balloons and such. The books are not graphic novels - the bulk of the narrative is in traditional written form - but the cartoonish bits act as a nice transition between the two genres. The books are fantastic for emerging readers more comfortable with comic books, but ready to move onto something with a little more meat to them. Plus, they're funny! Delicious!
Chris Moriarty - The Inquisitor's Apprentice
Sacha Kessler is a young Jewish immigrant to New York (in the early 20th century). But the New York that Sacha lives in is not our New York. No - it is a New York where magic works, where Vanderbilt is Vanderbilk and Morgan is Morgaunt. Where Edison has invented a machine which can detect witches. In which the New York Police has a branch to investigate illegal use of magic - a branch which recruits Sacha when it becomes clear he can see magic being done. Delightful premise!
I really liked this book. The characters are excellent, from Kessler and Lilly Astral (Astor), the apprentices to Inquistor Wolf (their mentor), to Rosie DiMaggio (I loved Rosie!) Edison's assistant (and hoochiecoochie dancer), to the villains - J.P. Morgaunt and the other Wizards of Wall St, mustache twirlers all. Sacha, Wolf, and Lilly work to protect Edison from a dybbuk, a mythical Jewish creature; a soul-eating monster who can be summoned by a Rabbi to assail an enemy, eating the enemy soul and then replacing the enemy. But, Sacha's grandfather informs him, no Rabbi would actually summon one - so who could have summoned this one? And, if it's attacking Edison, why doesn't it look like Edison?
I loved the world building - it's sometimes tricky to take a historical setting and gently twist it, but Moriarty has done an excellent job; keeping the historical feeling, while spicing things up nicely. Excellent stuff! Moriarty includes a historical note (I love that!), and her research is clear throughout the work, in big ways and in little ones. A nice touch, I thought - Sacha tells his father that he expects to be able to contribute some of his wages to the family, much like his older sister, Bekah. Sacha's father tells Sacha that the family would never accept money from Sacha - boys need to be able to use their wages to better themselves, and thus improve the lot of the family generationally. This is a fairly accurate depiction of gender roles in the city at this point - a little thing, a couple of lines of dialogue, but a sign of some research - delicious!
Helping with the world building are illustration by Mark Edward Geyer. These simple line drawings bring the setting to life - they look like newspaper engravings, adding to the period feeling of the work. I love illustrations in a book - I'm sure I mentioned this in the Leviathan reviews earlier - and I wish more people used them.
My wife and I did have some problems with the ending of the book. The work builds very slowly for most of the book. Then, suddenly, after a "training montage", the action shifts abruptly to full steam, and we advance, a very few chapters, to the climax, and then the conclusion. The book does conclude, mostly, but it's clear that there will be further books in the series. This is great - the characters are delightful, and I want more - but the book has a strong unfinished quality to it which is a little frustrating. The villain lives to fight another day, Sacha has a Destiny to live up to, or avoid, and some stuff happens that isn't really well described, almost as if the ending was a little rushed. Despite that, an overall strong book, and I'll be watching for the next one eagerly.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
The Books of Christmas Series, the ultimate Book
OK. Yesterday was January 4 - the feast day of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first US born saint. Seton started the first Catholic school in the US, and is popularly regarded as the patron saint of Catholic schools, although not officially. (I don't know how one becomes an official patron saint - presumably by performing a miracle within the environs of the place, right?) Anyway, that's why so many Catholic schools are called Seton.
Yesterday's book:
William C. Dietz - At Empire's Edge
Scifi Mil-fic - bioengineered cops chase shape-shifting robbers at the behest of the Uman Empire. I'm tossing it in with my trashy books. Classic cover art, though:
It's apparently the first of a pair of books - Bones of Empire is the second book, and it is published and available. Which is nice.
Today is January 5, which is the 12th day of Christmas. That means that tonight is 12th Night. 12th Night is a feast of mis-rule - the lord turns over his power to the peasants, the low become high and the high become low and etc etc. It's lots of fun. I don't have a book for 12th Night, because there isn't one. Yet. Perhaps, for 12th Night, I should not get a book. I should get the opposite of a book - a DVD, or a video game or something. Perhaps I should be required to buy a book for myself. In fact, I was going to do that, but Barnes and Noble didn't have the book I was looking for in a format that fit what I've already got (I want the most recent Steven Brust - Iorich, which B&N had in trade paperback, but not mass market. The rest of my Brust are in mass market paperback [MM is smaller than trade] and I'd rather not mix my formats if I don't have to.) We shall see!
Tomorrow's Friday post from Virginia.
Yesterday's book:
William C. Dietz - At Empire's Edge
Scifi Mil-fic - bioengineered cops chase shape-shifting robbers at the behest of the Uman Empire. I'm tossing it in with my trashy books. Classic cover art, though:
 |
| Can't go wrong with a guy two blasters falling off a thing into space... |
It's apparently the first of a pair of books - Bones of Empire is the second book, and it is published and available. Which is nice.
Today is January 5, which is the 12th day of Christmas. That means that tonight is 12th Night. 12th Night is a feast of mis-rule - the lord turns over his power to the peasants, the low become high and the high become low and etc etc. It's lots of fun. I don't have a book for 12th Night, because there isn't one. Yet. Perhaps, for 12th Night, I should not get a book. I should get the opposite of a book - a DVD, or a video game or something. Perhaps I should be required to buy a book for myself. In fact, I was going to do that, but Barnes and Noble didn't have the book I was looking for in a format that fit what I've already got (I want the most recent Steven Brust - Iorich, which B&N had in trade paperback, but not mass market. The rest of my Brust are in mass market paperback [MM is smaller than trade] and I'd rather not mix my formats if I don't have to.) We shall see!
Tomorrow's Friday post from Virginia.
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