Monday Library Post, 5/7/2012

What? What?! A library post on a Monday? Will wonders ever cease? No, probably not. Two books this week.

Michael Thomas Ford - Jane Vows Vengeance


The third of Ford's "Jane Austen as vampire" series. I don't believe I need to say anything more about that, do I?

Thomas Frank - Pity the Billionaire


Frank is the author of What's the Matter with Kansas?. This is about the current economic situation in the US, and I'm expecting a screed, frankly. But a well written screed can be entertaining.

Friday, 5/4/2012

May the 4th be with you, and etc.

Library yesterday, got two books:

Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson - The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism


Skocpol is a leading political/cultural historian, and Williamson is (clearly) one of the luckiest PhD candidates on the planet. This is their analysis of the Tea Party movement and what it means. Skocpol (it's pronounced scotchpole, btw), I have found, tends to be somewhat dense in her prose, but the introduction and the beginning of the first chapter seem clear enough - I shall (as I have in the past) evaluate this as a book for historians and for non-historians.

Darynda Jones - First Grave on the Right


The third book in this series (Third Grave straight Ahead) was on the new book shelf, so I thought I'd grab the first one and take a look. It's about a Grim Reaper who dabbles in private detecting - could be delightful, could be cheesy, could be delightfully cheesy....

I also read two books this week:

Actually, I've been picking at the Fritz Leiber collection, but his work doesn't lend itself to a rapid reading - and there's a lot in the book. But, on Sunday, I needed something a little more portable, because I was going off to an event where I expected a certain amount of downtime. So I grabbed something I have been meaning to re-read -

C.J. Cherryh, The Pride of Chanur


I adore Cherryh's books, but I was a little nervous. It's been some time since I read this one - the last time I looked at it was in the "golden age" of science fiction (15-20, or thereabouts) and I was afraid that it would not have aged well. I'm happy to report that I was wrong to be nervous - this is still a fantastic book.

The book describes a first contact (between humans and aliens), from the perspective of the aliens. Cherryh plays with similar themes in Cuckoo's Egg, but this is a little more action-y, and a a little lighter in the themes. The "Chanur" of the title refers to a family of hani - basically bipedal lions, although, since the whole book is from the point of view of the hani, they are never described that way - who operate in the "Compact Space" universe - a network of trading partners, all non-human, all space faring. The "Pride" is the name of the space craft central to the story. Pyanfur Chanur is the captain of the ship. At the beginning of the story, an alien gets onto the ship, and, through the use of basic counting symbols, indicates that si is sentient. Tully, the alien, is a human. He is described entirely in terms of reference from the point of view of the hani - he has less of a mane than the hani, he has features which are closer to those of the mahendosat, etc etc. Tully has escaped from some other ship. His arrive on The Pride pitches Pyanfur and her crew into a trans-galactic mess involving several species in the Compact, and threatening the fabric of the galaxy, and the hani way of life.

The book is fast paced. Cherryh has obviously given some thought to the science of interstellar travel, but not so much that the science bogs the story down. She is also a master of world-creation, so her galaxy sparkles, and the various races a excellent - each unique, each recognizable. The book has politics (on several levels), it has space ships shooting at each other, it has intrigue and adventure. Although there is a trilogy (and another stand alone novel) in the Trade Pact setting (all featuring the Chanur family), this book stands entirely alone, and is a perfect place to enter into the universe. I highly recommend it.

[edited - "Trade Pact" is, of course, not Cherryh, but Julie Czerneda - also excellent, but not the same.]

Bryce Moore - Vodnik


Another excellent novel. Moore spins a delightful yarn about a young man who returns, with his parents, to Slovakia. There he discovers a world of myth and folklore that is far more complicated than he expected, as well as a "real" world which is full of perils ranging from decaying Communist infrastructure to enduring anti-Roma (gypsies, but gypsy is crazy rude - the equivalent of the n-word) racism.

Tomas and his family have had a tough life. They left Slovakia when he was five, due to an accident which has left Tomas disfigured with burns.  When their house in the US burns down, the only viable option is to return to Slovakia, which they do. Tomas quickly discovers that he is in peril - he is threatened by a fire vila (sort of like a fairy, tied to an element), a water spirit (vila are the elements, spirits are of the element, if that makes sense), and a vodnik (a Slovakian water vampire - they drown people, and then keep the souls of the drowned in tea cups for all eternity.) At the same time, Tomas is visibly part Rom - his skin is darker than the general population - and suffers periodic attacks from a trio of local bigots. On the plus side, Tomas' uncle works at the local castle, and gets Tomas a job as an English speaking tour guide. Tomas' cousin, Katya, quickly becomes Tomas' friend, and that helps, especially once he is able to give her a potion allowing her to also see the fantasy world. Oh - Death also features, in the person of a wise-cracking embodiment of the Slovakian death goddess, Morena.

Moore gleefully and delightfully knits the real world and the fantasy world together. His characters crackle and fizz, and are exactly the right level of snarky. Moore prefaces each chapter with a snippet from a guide book for "deaths" - the folks whose job it is to collect souls - which are fantastically amusing, and sometimes even relevant. The story line is relatively simple, but there's plenty of action, and enough twists that predictions are difficult. This was an entirely enjoyable read, an amazing first novel (well, second, but perhaps the first doesn't count?), and you should go and read it. Right now! Your life may depend on it...

Filler, mostly, 4/1/2012

Happy May Day! Wave your red flags!

In-laws were in town yesterday, so the library trip was entirely a drop off the books that are due back so they don't become over due type trip. But there will probably be a trip later this week, and I'll tell you which books I grabbed then.

A Friday Post! 4/27/2012

Three books.

Christopher Priest - The Separation


Priest, you may note, is the author whose rant about the Clark Awards resulted in some notoriety recently. Having not read any of his work prior to that, I decided to see how it was. It's not bad - but I'm not sure I would class this book as science fiction. Spec fic, certainly, but there's no science here.

The premise is this - Stuart Gratton is an historian. He is famous for his histories of World War Two, which draw heavily on first person interviews - oral history. He is doing research for his latest work, focusing on a singular mystery - one J.L. Sawyer, who was both a conscientious objector and a bomber pilot. Gratton has found a reference to this in some works by Winston Churchill, and decides to track down the mystery.

It soon becomes apparent that J.L. Sawyer is two different people, twins, with the same initials. (This is all on the dust jacket, so I'm not going to tag it as a spoiler - it's only really a mystery to Gratton). It also becomes apparent that Gratton is not writing history in our version of reality, because in his reality, the war between Germany and England ended in a peace treaty in 1941. (Germany and the US subsequently slug it out over the Soviet Union; Germany voluntarily de-Nazifies, and the US plunges into a lengthy depression. But this is largely unimportant.) As we read further in the book, we learn that the brothers exist in both Gratton's history and in ours, with the key difference being that, in our history, the bomber pilot survives a plane crash, and in Gratton's history he does not.

So far, so good. Were this science fiction, there would be some effort to resolve this rift, but Priest doesn't do that. Indeed, at the end of the book, matters are much more muddled than they were at the beginning. This is a shame, because it makes the book feel unfinished (or worse, finished in a rush), and the rest of book is entirely delightful. Priest's writing is clear and light, his historians sound like historians, and his historical figures sound like historical figures - all very good. Ending the book in an unresolved way may be avant garde (or something), but it spoiled the work for me.

Terry Pratchett - Snuff


Pratchett presents the topic of slavery in his own particular style. Goblins feature. It's a Sam Vimes novel. I haven't really loved the Vimes novels since Night Watch, which was phenomenal and deeply moving. Since then, the books have focused too much on Vimes and not enough on the Watch - a shift from a police procedural to a lone detective type situation. This book wasn't bad, but it wasn't radiant, and that's a shame.

I think there were two flaws, primarily. I think the book took too long to get to the action, and then took too long after the action was done. However, the action was very good, the jokes were funny, and the writing was, for the most part, pretty strong.

A final thought - Pratchett is dying, which is very sad. I think everything by him suddenly gets dropped into the context of "if this is the last novel by Terry Pratchett, will I be happy?" Which isn't really fair, because I certainly don't apply that metric to any other author, but it's entirely possible that any novel I read will be the last novel a particular novelist produces. Hmmm. Anyway, if this is the last Pratchett novel ever, I'm a little sad, because it isn't as strong as some of his less recent works.

Quentin Dodd - Princess of Neptune


This book was zany. The whole thing felt like one of those round robin works, where the story is passed from author to author, which each author trying to leave the next author in the most awkward position possible. It features a punk girl drummer, her bratty brother, some highly dubious scientists (their motto is "Knowing Things is Good!"), giant cockroaches from the moon, and a whole host of aliens from all over the place. And a talking fern. And a battle of the bands. On Neptune. Because, why not? It was good fun, with some slap-stick action, and it was zany. Good for after some heavy works - otherwise, too fluffy for words.

Library Wednesday? 4/25/2012

Ok. I missed Friday. I missed Monday. Now it's Wednesday. Here's what I'm going to do. Instead of posting a great big post of library retrieval stories and left over reviews, I'm just going to do the library bit. Then, on Friday, I'll do a big review post (promise!), so that I'm back on track. Otherwise, I'll make a big review post, and on Friday I'll have nothing to review, because I'm not going to finish a book between now and Friday, and then I'll skip Friday, and suddenly it will be Wednesday again, and I'll be doing this again. So.

On Monday, I did go to the library. I did find two books.

Gary Younge - Who Are We? - And Should it Matter in the 21st Century?

Every picture of a man in a hat is "Daddy", apparently

To be honest, the baby helped me pick this one - she liked the cover. It's got little people on it. Some of them are wearing hats. So I grabbed it. I should really write something about judging books by their covers, shouldn't I?

Andrew Lane - The Rebel Fire (Sherlock Holmes, the Adventure Begins)

This is the second of the "Sherlock Holmes as young teenager" series, authorized by the Doyle family. The first one was not bad, so I didn't hesitate too long before grabbing this second one.

Big post of updatery, 4/17/2012

Ummm, so, there was a week last week? And stuff happened? And I read some stuff.

I finished my Lenten book:

Tee Morris and Lisa Lee - Moravi


So, as I mentioned, I've met Tee, and he's pretty cool. This was his first book. Parts of it are really excellent, and it gets progressively better over the course of the book. Even the bits that are not quite excellent are pretty good. Still, it's a first book, and it has some flaws. Some of the dialogue is stilted. Ok, actually a lot of the dialogue is stilted - like, scary-clown-at-the-circus-teetering-two-stories-up stilted. That makes a little sense; Rafe Rafton is a gentleman of Henry VIII's court, and Askana is the queen of a highly ritualized (vaguely Asian) other-worldly society. Both can be expected to speak somewhat artificially. Still. It gets a bit much in places.

The action, which is by far the strongest part of the book, is abundant and highly cinematic. There is a lot of swinging on chandeliers, flashing blades, and well timed explosions. Morris and Lee clearly had fun with this part, and equally clearly want their readers to have fun with it as well.

There is some depth to the main characters as well. Both grow as people over the course of the novel, and that is highly satisfying. However, the secondary characters are less well rounded, and beyond that narrow inner circle the characters may as well not have names. Additionally, I found the death scene of Rafe's First Mate to be in poor taste - he's a Moor, a Muslim, and he blows himself up with a barrel of gunpowder. I don't think it was intentionally in poor taste, I think it was accidentally in poor taste, but regardless of the reasons ... ick.

So. Parts of this book are really really good, and those parts make reading the less good parts worth doing. I'm not planning on keeping the book, but rather than donate it to a library, I thought I might do another give away. Which means I have to think of a way to do that. So, watch for that.

Saladin Ahmed - The Throne of the Crescent Moon


This was an entirely delightful book.  Ahmed offers a delightful new fantasy setting - Arabian Nights type background, without being specifically in the Middle East - a whole cast of exceedingly well rounded characters (deeply complex, with complicated motivations, moral quandaries, and general humanity - fantastic), and a really creepy villain. Ahmed plays with some zombie tropes - and, if my wife and I are a good measure, you WILL dream of zombies after finishing this book - but with some setting specific tropes. The magic is consistent with the setting, the combat is fast paced and breathlessly swashbuckly, everything works, and nothing doesn't work. Go, now, read this book.

Oh. I guess I should mention the cover art. It is sadly misleading - the characters are very cartoony, and that makes me sad, because it's not a cartoony book, not at all. In fact, consider this a trigger warning - the violence and the horror elements are a little shocking, they start right at the beginning of the book, and if you go in expecting something lighter, based on the cover, you're going to be doubly shocked. So, in this case, Mom was right - you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

See? Cartoony. Gorgeous, but misleading.

Holly Black - Tithe


Fairy courts converging in New Jersey to enact a once every seven years tithe to the independent fae, in order to keep them in line. Black is playing with the Tam Lin story, and she does a highly competent job of it. She translates the classic fairy tale tropes nicely to the modern world, she includes enough darkness to satisfy modern readers (which is, of course, entirely consistent with the sources - fairies, traditionally, are not nice!). On some level, the book is like Laurel K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry, but without the outrageous sex - Merry Gentry lite, for an YA audience. Enjoyable, but a little fluffy. I'll read the second book, though.

Heather Donahue - Growgirl


This is the one with the scandalous cover art - Donahue, naked, behind a pot plant. Donahue is, perhaps, best known as "that girl from The Blair Witch Project," but, sometime in the early 2000's, she decided that she wanted to make a clean break from that limiting past, and ended up in Northern California, growing (legal) medical marijuana for a year. This is the story of that year.

As with any memoir worth reading, Donahue struggles with her new life. The struggles are presented in the most entertaining light possible. Donahue is a good writer, and the book is decidedly easy to read. She invites readers to laugh at her predicaments, to cheer on her triumphs, and to cry at her abject failures. Throughout, she explains the process of growing marijuana. She ends the book with a short essay in which she passionately calls for a wide scale decriminalization of marijuana as a source of restoring the US economy.

Look, you probably wouldn't be able to read this if it weren't for the Blair Witch thing, but the book stands entirely on its own, and is well worth reading as a year in the life of a somewhat average mid-30s Californian girl who finds herself in an unusual situation. Go, find a copy, read it.

Oh, and in the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" theme - if you're going to read this book on public transit, especially if you're female and don't want unsolicited proposals from your male fellow passengers, you probably want a Kindle version, or a plain dust jacket - the back cover is, if possible, more provocative than the front:

Ok. So those are reviews. I did go to the library on Monday, I did grab a book:

Martin Greenburg, ed - The Leiber Chronicles


Ahmed's book was compared to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (perhaps a little overly enthusiastic; there are elements, but Ahmed is clearly writing his own work; not a rehash of Leiber), and so I wanted some Leiber, and this is what the library had. I'm pretty sure I've read most of these short stories and novellas before, but that doesn't hurt, sometimes.

Library Post plus a thing to drool over, 4/10/2012

Two books last night:

Terry Pratchett - Snuff


It's a Sam Vimes book - Sam takes a vacation, and finds a mystery to solve. That's all I know, and all I need to know.

Quentin Dodd - The Princess of Neptune


Looks quirky - a teenaged punk rock drummer in training and her brother get caught up in some complicated science scheme involving some sort of conspiracy about the food in a fast food restaurant, and aliens. Or something. I poked at it briefly last night, it seems fluffy - my wife seems to have stolen it to read during the long boring training she's doing today.

And here's the thing to drool over:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306330334/cartes-infernales

Ariana Osborne is planning to restore a series of images from Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal (link goes to wikipedia), and then print them on a series of over-sized cards (to be used however you wish - you can do divinations with them, keep them as a curio, incorporate them into a role playing game - you could pretend to be Giles from Buffy - the possibilities are endless). The images are funky pictures of medieval demons and such:

See? Funky!

You may recall the family tree of fonts I posted some months back - I snagged that from Ariana as well.


ETA: Ariana says that if she sells the cards after the kickstarter process, they would retail for $45-50, plus S&H.