Since I'm a Hugo voter and am reading through all the nominated works, I thought I'd do a quick blurb on each, if not a full review. Starting with the Novellas. It's hard not to spoil something so short, but I tried my best. Only the one couldn't be reviewed without any.
The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window - Rachel Swirsky
"[It] begins with the death of the title character, Naeva, a powerful sorceress. As she dies, she consents to have her spirit captured so she can be summoned after death, a decision made from misguided loyalty to her queen. At first, Naeva is a pawn in a struggle between the queen and a potential successor. But the ages begin to pass, and Naeva is subject to summoning by an ever stranger succession of future generations." - fantasticreviews.blogspot.com
Spoilery This was very good, however I felt that Naeva's character didn't grow the way I wanted her to. The story has a lot of commentary on gender politics, with Naeva being form a nation where women rule and men are "worms", but after going through eons of watching the evolution of society, she ends the story still hating men and still incapable of seeing them as anything but worms. I wished there had been some lesson she had learned.
Troika - Alastair Reynolds
"Troika tells the story of men and women confronting an enigma known as the Matryoshka, a vast alien construct whose periodic appearances have generated terror, wonder, and endless debate. During its third “apparition” in a remote corner of the galaxy, a trio of Russian cosmonauts approach this enigma and attempt to penetrate its mysteries. What they discover—and what they endure in the process—forms the centerpiece of an enthralling, constantly surprising narrative." Subterranean Press
Of the 5, I think this one works the best for me. I also think it would make a pretty good movie plot. In only 100 pages, you're given a great little framing story as well as the story in space, and Reynolds manages to makes each character stand out in their own ways. I was left wanting more, but in the good way.
The Lifecycle of Software Objects - Ted Chiang
"It’s a story of two people and the artificial intelligences they helped create, following them for more than a decade as they deal with the upgrades and obsolescence that are inevitable in the world of software. At the same time, it’s an examination of the difference between processing power and intelligence, and of what it means to have a real relationship with an artificial entity." - Subterranean Press.
I really enjoyed this one, though unlike Troika, I didn't feel like I wanted more when it ended. It tells a complete story though, so that isn't a bad thing. The avatars are interesting in that you can see both why people would become attached, but also why other people would become bored with them as toys. By the end, I struggled as much with the idea of how far one should go to protect them and how much freedom they should be allowed as the characters did. Very thought-provoking and interesting.
The Sultan of the Clouds - Geoffrey A. Landis
"Dr Leah Hamakawa & David Tinkerman, because of their experience studying Martian ecology, are invited by Carlos Fernando, the heir who will own practically all of the 1000s of orbiting human habitats of Venus. Only, several habitats don't owe him allegiance, & he's hatching a genocide conspiracy that David will foil." - Variety SF
This one left me cold. It wasn't bad, per se, but nothing stuck out at me that made it special. The Venusian flying cities, pirates and family dynamics were all cool to read, but as a story it didn't work for me. The pirates were still pretty cool though.
The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon - Elizabeth Hand
"A museum exhibit designer takes it upon himself to re-stage the first flight of the Bellerophon, a Heath Robinson-esque aircraft which crashed in mysterious circumstances, and of which only a few seconds of film footage survives." - Author's website
I really got into the characters with this one. Especially Leonard, who you really understood the motivation of, while also understanding that the man may be more than a little crazy. All of the characters felt realistic, as though you could meet them in real life and they wouldn't stand out. The plot itself is simple, but enjoyable and I liked that it left so much to the imagination.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Johannes Cabal the Necromancer
Author: Jonathan L. Howard
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Humour
Pages: 304 in hardcover edition
How I found it: Amazon recommendation
What it's about: Johannes Cabal is a scientist who sold his soul to Satan in order to gain the powers of necromancy. Unfortunately, he's discovered that being soulless in detrimental to his experiments and he wants it back. He makes a wager with Satan that he can get 100 people to sign over their souls in one year. If he wins, he gets his soul back, if not, he dies. With help from his vampire brother and Satan's power, Cabal starts a traveling carnival and goes from town to town looking for prospective souls.
What I thought of the book, spoiler-free: I started off really enjoying the book, especially its early humour, but in the end I found it unsatisfying. Too much of the action centered around seemingly random things getting in Cabal's way and none of them really stuck around long enough to have much baring on the story as a whole. Cabal as a character was interesting, but not fleshed out enough. Ditto for his brother and the carnival folk were just props for the plot or repeating jokes. The charm of the book wore off quickly. The last 30% of the book was quite a good little arc, but it wasn't preceded by much foreshadowing and it went too quickly for my taste. The humour was hit and miss, and feel like Howard should have either gone all the way with the humour or dropped it entirely.The book felt more like a loose thread of plot with a bunch of stuff thrown at it, but very little sticks. The book just didn't work as a package.
Notes from the Inner Writer:Unfortunately, this book had a lot of examples of what not to do. Many ideas and plots are risen, but then dropped entirely, or concluded with a single line of exposition. Many of the setbacks Cabal runs into are seemingly random, as they have little setup and are then defeated within the same chapter. One chapter is done as a child's school essay, which was cute at first, but the tone was inconsistent and the dialect was too strong, to the point of being unreadable. I don't have problems with a child being unable to spell, but this kid couldn't spell a single word right and yet understood Freudian ideas enough to reference them. The experiment was unsuccessful in my opinion.
Extra thoughts, with spoilers: Going into more detail about the seemingly random setbacks and lack of follow-through: Satan has a flunky burn down a 5th of the carnival, but instead of the story taking the time to show the fallout and letting Cabal overcome the setback, the story jumps months into the future and suddenly Cabal only needs 2 more souls and there is no mention of how they recovered from the fire. The reader can assume Cabal used more of the Satan power that has previously fixed the carnival, but this isn't a satisfying idea because it removes any sense of tension in the plot. The tension comes only from the question of "can Cabal get the signatures?" Any other setback is fixed with the same magic or is dropped as a plot point by a jump in time.
Similarly, the Rufus Maleficarum plot was pointless in that Cabal gets through the challenge quickly and then kills Rufus. The action takes only about 30 seconds in real time. Then we learn that Cabal takes Rufus' army of the insane into his carnival, signs over their souls and then they aren't mentioned again. The escaped murderers are treated much the same in that we are told there was a prison breakout and then chapters later we're simply told that Cabal took them all and we are expected to care about the one murderer who gets a name and is conveniently associated with the ex-police officer who figures into the finale. It really doesn't work, and in fact took me out of the plot.
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Humour
Pages: 304 in hardcover edition
How I found it: Amazon recommendation
What it's about: Johannes Cabal is a scientist who sold his soul to Satan in order to gain the powers of necromancy. Unfortunately, he's discovered that being soulless in detrimental to his experiments and he wants it back. He makes a wager with Satan that he can get 100 people to sign over their souls in one year. If he wins, he gets his soul back, if not, he dies. With help from his vampire brother and Satan's power, Cabal starts a traveling carnival and goes from town to town looking for prospective souls.
What I thought of the book, spoiler-free: I started off really enjoying the book, especially its early humour, but in the end I found it unsatisfying. Too much of the action centered around seemingly random things getting in Cabal's way and none of them really stuck around long enough to have much baring on the story as a whole. Cabal as a character was interesting, but not fleshed out enough. Ditto for his brother and the carnival folk were just props for the plot or repeating jokes. The charm of the book wore off quickly. The last 30% of the book was quite a good little arc, but it wasn't preceded by much foreshadowing and it went too quickly for my taste. The humour was hit and miss, and feel like Howard should have either gone all the way with the humour or dropped it entirely.The book felt more like a loose thread of plot with a bunch of stuff thrown at it, but very little sticks. The book just didn't work as a package.
Notes from the Inner Writer:Unfortunately, this book had a lot of examples of what not to do. Many ideas and plots are risen, but then dropped entirely, or concluded with a single line of exposition. Many of the setbacks Cabal runs into are seemingly random, as they have little setup and are then defeated within the same chapter. One chapter is done as a child's school essay, which was cute at first, but the tone was inconsistent and the dialect was too strong, to the point of being unreadable. I don't have problems with a child being unable to spell, but this kid couldn't spell a single word right and yet understood Freudian ideas enough to reference them. The experiment was unsuccessful in my opinion.
Extra thoughts, with spoilers: Going into more detail about the seemingly random setbacks and lack of follow-through: Satan has a flunky burn down a 5th of the carnival, but instead of the story taking the time to show the fallout and letting Cabal overcome the setback, the story jumps months into the future and suddenly Cabal only needs 2 more souls and there is no mention of how they recovered from the fire. The reader can assume Cabal used more of the Satan power that has previously fixed the carnival, but this isn't a satisfying idea because it removes any sense of tension in the plot. The tension comes only from the question of "can Cabal get the signatures?" Any other setback is fixed with the same magic or is dropped as a plot point by a jump in time.
Similarly, the Rufus Maleficarum plot was pointless in that Cabal gets through the challenge quickly and then kills Rufus. The action takes only about 30 seconds in real time. Then we learn that Cabal takes Rufus' army of the insane into his carnival, signs over their souls and then they aren't mentioned again. The escaped murderers are treated much the same in that we are told there was a prison breakout and then chapters later we're simply told that Cabal took them all and we are expected to care about the one murderer who gets a name and is conveniently associated with the ex-police officer who figures into the finale. It really doesn't work, and in fact took me out of the plot.
Monday, May 23, 2011
My Genre Preferrences and the Hierarchy of Importance
This is an important place to start, no? I mean, how do you know if I'm worth following, if you don't know if what I enjoy reading is aligned with your own tastes?
Were I to give a general idea of the most likely things to show up on this blog, I would say, steampunk, historical fantasy, historical fiction and high fantasy would be the big four. Those sub-genres seem to come up the most in my reading list, but I tend to jump around all over the fantasy genre. I've been reading a decent amount of Y.A. recently, so that will come up too.
As a supporting member of WorldCon, I also read most, if not all, of what is nominated each year. A lot of those will end up here as reviews.
The one genre I won't write about is hard sci-fi. Or really much in the way of science fiction at all. It is a genre that has never clicked with me, in that it tends to flip my hierarchy of what's important on its head.
My Hierarchy of Importance: Story -> Character -> Setting -> Ideas.
This is of course just a general idea of how I usually look at books and decide if I like them. A good yarn will always be the most important, as no matter how much I like the characters, they need to be doing something I care about. As long as I can picture a place in my head and the characters and story fit, I'm happy with setting. I don't require pages and pages of description. Ideas come last for me. I would much rather read a good plot with characters I like that also presents an interesting idea at its core, than a book where the idea is pushed to the forefront.
Hard sci-fi, at least for the most part, I usually find puts the ideas and setting first and even if I like the book, I'm often left a bit cold by the characters.
I also read the odd literary fiction, if I hear good things and if it sticks with me, I'll probably write a review.
Were I to give a general idea of the most likely things to show up on this blog, I would say, steampunk, historical fantasy, historical fiction and high fantasy would be the big four. Those sub-genres seem to come up the most in my reading list, but I tend to jump around all over the fantasy genre. I've been reading a decent amount of Y.A. recently, so that will come up too.
As a supporting member of WorldCon, I also read most, if not all, of what is nominated each year. A lot of those will end up here as reviews.
The one genre I won't write about is hard sci-fi. Or really much in the way of science fiction at all. It is a genre that has never clicked with me, in that it tends to flip my hierarchy of what's important on its head.
My Hierarchy of Importance: Story -> Character -> Setting -> Ideas.
This is of course just a general idea of how I usually look at books and decide if I like them. A good yarn will always be the most important, as no matter how much I like the characters, they need to be doing something I care about. As long as I can picture a place in my head and the characters and story fit, I'm happy with setting. I don't require pages and pages of description. Ideas come last for me. I would much rather read a good plot with characters I like that also presents an interesting idea at its core, than a book where the idea is pushed to the forefront.
Hard sci-fi, at least for the most part, I usually find puts the ideas and setting first and even if I like the book, I'm often left a bit cold by the characters.
I also read the odd literary fiction, if I hear good things and if it sticks with me, I'll probably write a review.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making
Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Genre: Middle-grade fantasy
Pages: 256 in hardcover edition
Series: Fairyland #1
How I found it: Multiple mentions in the book blogosphere, follower-of the author
What it's about: September is 12 years old and lives in Omaha. Her father has gone to war and her mother works in a factory making planes. One day the Green Wind appears to her and starts her on an adventure in Fairyland. She makes new friends and travels different, amazing locales, all while trying to help the natives free themselves from the Marquess' reign.
What I thought of the book, spoiler-free: I loved this book. I’ve read 3 Catherynne M Valente books including this one, and she has finally won me over completely. Palimpsest was interesting, with some very cool ideas and wonderful prose, but left me cold on the plot and characters, and Deathless won me over by the end, but I still suffered from some problems in connecting with the characters. But I loved this book. It manages to be a modern take on Oz, with a bit of Alice in Wonderland and yet still be something all its own. It’s not the sort of thing where you delve into character and plot, but just get swept along with the story and fall in love. It says a ton about growing up, and I’m totally going to read this to my future kids.
Notes from the Inner Writer: Nothing specific, but it’s such a good example of taking a small idea and turning it into something grand. Also an example of how to take something old and turn it into something entirely new while still respecting the tropes of the old.
Genre: Middle-grade fantasy
Pages: 256 in hardcover edition
Series: Fairyland #1
How I found it: Multiple mentions in the book blogosphere, follower-of the author
What it's about: September is 12 years old and lives in Omaha. Her father has gone to war and her mother works in a factory making planes. One day the Green Wind appears to her and starts her on an adventure in Fairyland. She makes new friends and travels different, amazing locales, all while trying to help the natives free themselves from the Marquess' reign.
What I thought of the book, spoiler-free: I loved this book. I’ve read 3 Catherynne M Valente books including this one, and she has finally won me over completely. Palimpsest was interesting, with some very cool ideas and wonderful prose, but left me cold on the plot and characters, and Deathless won me over by the end, but I still suffered from some problems in connecting with the characters. But I loved this book. It manages to be a modern take on Oz, with a bit of Alice in Wonderland and yet still be something all its own. It’s not the sort of thing where you delve into character and plot, but just get swept along with the story and fall in love. It says a ton about growing up, and I’m totally going to read this to my future kids.
Notes from the Inner Writer: Nothing specific, but it’s such a good example of taking a small idea and turning it into something grand. Also an example of how to take something old and turn it into something entirely new while still respecting the tropes of the old.
Friday, May 20, 2011
The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Author: Carrie Ryan
Genre: Young Adult, Zombie Fiction
Pages: 310 in the paperback edition.
How I found it: Podcast mention, don't remember which. Must start taking notes.
What it's about: Mary lives in a village where the only thing protecting them all from the the Forest of Hands and Teeth and the Unconsecrated who lurk there is the fences and the rules of the Sisterhood. But having grown up with stories of the world before the Return, Mary lives with the hope of seeing the ocean, and that maybe there is still a world beyond the Forest. When evidence that this might be true appears, she and a group of friends are forced to leave the village and search for the way out of the Forest.
What I thought of the book, spoiler-free:
Overall I enjoyed it, but nothing was particularly stand out about it. The world-building in the beginning was a little lax for me, in that I got a good feel of the Sisterhood and the Cathedral, but as for the village itself, I couldn’t really tell you what day-to-day life would be like for the average person. The Forest itself was pretty vivid in my head, but in terms of scenery, pretty repetitive. The other characters weren’t completely cardboard, but nor were they stand out and the love interest wasn’t fleshed out enough for me to care what direction the romance went in. There was a small mystery brought up with the Sisterhood at the beginning, but it was dropped fairly quickly. I assume it’ll come back in later books. All in all, it was kind of a middling read for me. I liked the story enough that I may pick up the other two books when in the zombie mood, but not enough to be in any hurry.
Notes from the Inner Writer: The choice of first person, present tense was interesting. It worked for me in the same way it did in The Hunger Games, causing the action to feel more immediate and removing any chance for the “future” version of the narrator to comment outside the narrative. This seems to be becoming more common, especially in Y.A. fiction. It could also work as a way to remove the feeling of “well obviously the main character survives, she’s telling the story!” that can sometimes come with first person in the classic past tense, adding to the tension of the story.
Extra thoughts, with spoilers:
Chain-link fences? Really? You mean to tell me that for at least four generations, the zombie hordes have been kept out of the village (and Forest paths) by simple chain-link fences? I get that the Guardians were in charge up maintenance, but there is a sequence in the second half of the book where the characters are trapped in an attic and the zombies pile themselves on top of one another until the mound is high enough that they can beat on the door until it breaks open. I actually loved the use of that idea, because that’s what zombies do, but by using it in that sequence, it brought the silliness of the fences into starker relief. If the zombies can get into the attic that way, why haven’t they simply piled themselves over the fences or pushed the fences over from the weight of so many pressing against them?
Genre: Young Adult, Zombie Fiction
Pages: 310 in the paperback edition.
How I found it: Podcast mention, don't remember which. Must start taking notes.
What it's about: Mary lives in a village where the only thing protecting them all from the the Forest of Hands and Teeth and the Unconsecrated who lurk there is the fences and the rules of the Sisterhood. But having grown up with stories of the world before the Return, Mary lives with the hope of seeing the ocean, and that maybe there is still a world beyond the Forest. When evidence that this might be true appears, she and a group of friends are forced to leave the village and search for the way out of the Forest.
What I thought of the book, spoiler-free:
Overall I enjoyed it, but nothing was particularly stand out about it. The world-building in the beginning was a little lax for me, in that I got a good feel of the Sisterhood and the Cathedral, but as for the village itself, I couldn’t really tell you what day-to-day life would be like for the average person. The Forest itself was pretty vivid in my head, but in terms of scenery, pretty repetitive. The other characters weren’t completely cardboard, but nor were they stand out and the love interest wasn’t fleshed out enough for me to care what direction the romance went in. There was a small mystery brought up with the Sisterhood at the beginning, but it was dropped fairly quickly. I assume it’ll come back in later books. All in all, it was kind of a middling read for me. I liked the story enough that I may pick up the other two books when in the zombie mood, but not enough to be in any hurry.
Notes from the Inner Writer: The choice of first person, present tense was interesting. It worked for me in the same way it did in The Hunger Games, causing the action to feel more immediate and removing any chance for the “future” version of the narrator to comment outside the narrative. This seems to be becoming more common, especially in Y.A. fiction. It could also work as a way to remove the feeling of “well obviously the main character survives, she’s telling the story!” that can sometimes come with first person in the classic past tense, adding to the tension of the story.
Extra thoughts, with spoilers:
Chain-link fences? Really? You mean to tell me that for at least four generations, the zombie hordes have been kept out of the village (and Forest paths) by simple chain-link fences? I get that the Guardians were in charge up maintenance, but there is a sequence in the second half of the book where the characters are trapped in an attic and the zombies pile themselves on top of one another until the mound is high enough that they can beat on the door until it breaks open. I actually loved the use of that idea, because that’s what zombies do, but by using it in that sequence, it brought the silliness of the fences into starker relief. If the zombies can get into the attic that way, why haven’t they simply piled themselves over the fences or pushed the fences over from the weight of so many pressing against them?
Getting Started!
I love my Kindle. There, it’s out there. Sure, I’ve always been a big reader, but between the inconvenience of having to go to Chapters every 3 days only to find they didn’t have what I wanted, or the wait for an Amazon package requiring me to pick it up at my parents’ home (since I’m in an apartment building), I never read nearly as many new releases as I do now. At any given time I have 15-20 books stashed in my “To Be Read” collection and can pick whichever I want depending on my mood. The most inconvenient thing about the Kindle is that some of the books I’d like to read aren’t available in Canada, but in that case, too bad publishers, you lost that sale.
Almost all the books I read now I’ve come to via book blogs or podcasts and I’m reading more quality genre fiction than ever. This year my goal is 100 new books and I am blowing through that goal very quickly.
For a while now I’ve been interested in the idea of a blog, but never felt strongly enough about a particular topic to make the blog last. I’m an aspiring writer, but much of the “aspiring” part results in being cranky at myself for not doing better and that hardly makes for a good blog. Then it hit me: why couldn’t I review some of the books I’m reading?
Part of wanting to be a writer is studying the craft through reading. Sure, not every book is going to teach me something new, but every good story can make one think about why it worked and I can learn from that too. So while I plan to review the books themselves, I will also have a special section on what my writer-self saw as particularly notable. In some cases this will probably be a case of what not to do. So that’s the plan. Each book will have a general, spoiler-free review, followed by what my Inner Writer thought and then if something particularly stands out to me (as a writer or as a reader), but is spoilery, a special section for that as well.
I won’t review every book I read, as some stand out more than others. No one is interested in a review that says “Well, I liked it, but it was nothing special”. If you’re interested in everything I’m reading, I always post a star rating on my GoodReads page and you can follow me there.
Almost all the books I read now I’ve come to via book blogs or podcasts and I’m reading more quality genre fiction than ever. This year my goal is 100 new books and I am blowing through that goal very quickly.
For a while now I’ve been interested in the idea of a blog, but never felt strongly enough about a particular topic to make the blog last. I’m an aspiring writer, but much of the “aspiring” part results in being cranky at myself for not doing better and that hardly makes for a good blog. Then it hit me: why couldn’t I review some of the books I’m reading?
Part of wanting to be a writer is studying the craft through reading. Sure, not every book is going to teach me something new, but every good story can make one think about why it worked and I can learn from that too. So while I plan to review the books themselves, I will also have a special section on what my writer-self saw as particularly notable. In some cases this will probably be a case of what not to do. So that’s the plan. Each book will have a general, spoiler-free review, followed by what my Inner Writer thought and then if something particularly stands out to me (as a writer or as a reader), but is spoilery, a special section for that as well.
I won’t review every book I read, as some stand out more than others. No one is interested in a review that says “Well, I liked it, but it was nothing special”. If you’re interested in everything I’m reading, I always post a star rating on my GoodReads page and you can follow me there.
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