I’m nearing the end of Stross’s The Atrocity Archives and it’s so-so. Not great and not bad. The DK-issued The Sherlock Holmes Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) is still good and I’m enjoying it. I’m also now about halfway through McCullough’s very engaging The Path Between the Seas; it’s 1901-1902, and Congress is debating the merits of a Nicaragua vs. a Panama canal. I have a feeling I know what they’ll decide…
Oh my gosh, this was so good, y’all. Although the loose ends of this tale tie up, I see it’s to be the first of a series. I’ll definitely pick up the next one.
And now, kiddies, for something completely different! I started this GORE-ning off FRIGHT with a graphic novel of EC comics by Jack Davis, T’aint the Meat…It’s the Humanity! So far, all I can say is heh heh heh…
A Hero of France, by Alan Furst. It was fine, but I’m not quite getting the acclaim for him. There was never any real tension in the story, and the main character was just too good to be interesting.
Borne, by Jeff Van der Meer. If you’ve read any of his stuff before, you know that he puts the WTF in the New WTFeird fiction genre. This was less bizarre than the Annihilation trilogy, but still way freaky–in the first couple of pages you meet the five story tall ravenous wingless genetically engineered flying bear, but it’s not nearly the weirdest part of the book. Still, it’s beautifully written, and the story follows a more traditional arc than other stuff I’ve read by him. I definitely recommend it.
Now, I’m almost done with The Devourers, a werewolf (sort of) novel set in past and present-day India. Bloody and brutal, as befits the genre, but also very well written. Still, I’ve been stuck in the last two chapters for a few days; I think the momentum sort of peters out near the end.
Working my way, slowly, through Sara Paretsky’s latest novel, Fallout. I generally like the VI Washawski private investigator books (this is a part of the series) and I’m liking this one too. Unlike the others, it doesn’t take place in Chicago, VI’s home turf–she goes somewhat reluctantly to Kansas to track down a couple of missing people. Seeing VI in a small-city environment, out of her element in so many ways, is kind of fun.
VI is an interesting character. I am not by nature confrontational, and VI is very confrontational, and I find myself wincing sometimes when she goes out of her way to be rude or snarky to people. Then again, VI knows that she sometimes gets herself into more trouble than she needs to be in with this little habit. VI is a flawed person, in this way and others, and that makes her worth reading about.
I do have a couple of complaints. First, the book seems to be leading up to some kind of coverup/conspiracy between the big bad military and a big bad corporation, and this is a very old theme in Paretsky’s work, and I’m a little weary of it. I agree with her politics, mainly, but it’s a little overdone. Second, many of the books seem to have a headstrong and enthusiastic young woman to whom VI serves as a kind of mentor; this one is no exception. Maybe it’s just me, but I find them annoying, and one of them has just showed up in Kansas on page 267. Oh well. I’m enjoying the book anyway, and hopefully that will continue.
Started this one yesterday: Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson. I’m about halfway through, should finish tonight or this weekend. I like it a lot so far. The story is told from the perspective of Mary, a 16-year-old girl in a group home, who is there because, when she was nine, she was convicted of killing a three-month-old infant. Her life appears hopeless, but hints start dropping: did she actually do what she was accused of?
Some reviews were disappointed in the ending, which I haven’t reached yet, but I’d highly recommend it based on what I’ve read so far.
Currently reading Some Remarks by Neal Stephenson, it’s sort of a collection of his thoughts and short pieces over the years aggregated together and edited. It contains one of my favorite passages regarding his epic three-fight showdown between him and William Gibson. Quite enjoying it, but I enjoy nearly everything from Stephenson.
Also reading The Attention Merchants (the epic scramble to get inside our heads) by Tim Wu, a sort of synopsis view of mass advertising’s birth and eventual globe-devouring spread with interesting sidelines into some neuroscience of attention and historically significant figures in the history of attention-grabbing, which includes genuine artists as well as the expected perfidious business-types. I’d recommend this to anyone interested in why so much of what we see has advertising on it, it’s pretty good so far.
Finished Night of the Cooters and More Neat Stories by Howard Waldrop. Best Waldrop collection I’ve read yet. Best stories are the title one (which is War of the Worlds, but in Texas) and “The Passing of the Western”, which is an alternate history inside another alternate history. Also includes the first story in the Wild Cards series.
Finished Memoirs of Solar Pons by August Derleth; not good. Basically it’s Sherlock Holmes if Doyle couldn’t write.
Most of the way through Anno Dracula 1899 and Other Stories by Kim Newman. The first few stories aren’t bad, but then he has an awesome zombie one and I don’t usually like zombie stories. There are other great stories too. Usually when I read story collections the best ones are at the beginning.
Finished The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer’s first novel and based partly on his experience with the 112th Cavalry Regiment during the Philippines Campaign in World War II. The doings of a platoon of soldiers on the fictional South Pacific island of Anopopei. Very good overall, but I found the use of “fug” for “fuck” a little distracting – fug, fugging, motherfugger. It didn’t seem to be a regional usage since everyone used it, Southerners and Yankees alike. I wonder if that was simply needed to assuage the public mores of 1948, when the book came out. One bit that was annoying was the philosophical discussions between the general and his aide. Such interactions always ring false with me, and they certainly did in this case. But here it was limited to only a couple of brief passages. Still a good story. Reminded me somewhat of The Thin Red Line, James Jones’ 1962 novel based on his Pacific experiences in WWII.
Next up is The Wrong Side of Goodbye, by Michael Connelly, I see from his post of a couple days ago that Chefguy has a slight head start on this.
Our local indie bookstore does a book club and this month’s pick is “A Dirty Job” by Christopher Moore. I read when it first came out so I thought I’d read it again to refresh my memory…and see if I still loved it.
Also on my “plate” is John Constantine Hellblazer Original Sins" a new compilation of the first nine Hellblazer comics plus the two short stories from Swamp Tuhing that introduced John Constantine. (I met him in Sandman Volume2)
I’m almost finished with Conspiracy the 4th Emperor’s Edge book. It doesn’t seem quite as engaging and the last three, but she’s beginning to wear my patience on the “romance” such as it is…
I’m about a third of the way through The Golem’s Eye by Jonathon Stroud. I much prefer the Lockwood & Co books but these are interesting in that you sympathize with the demons instead of the humans. I wish his world building was better though, people act like they’re Victorians but they drive cars…
I was very surprised to find that it was actually a completely unrelated story set two centuries later, and the story is as much a legend in the time of the book as it is today. The book was written in 1929, and won the Newbery Medal. I wasn’t completely happy with it, but it was reasonably well done.
Now I’m reading David McCulloch’s The Wright Brothers. It’s well-researched and well-written, but I observe that he doesn’t mention John Stringfellow among the Wright brother’s predecessors ( John Stringfellow - Wikipedia ) He’s also incredibly dismissive of the claims of Gustave Whitehead, saying he doesn’t know why anyone takes him seriously. But there is quite a lot supporting Whitehead’s claim ( see Gustave Whitehead - Wikipedia ). There’s quite a lot against him on the internet, as well. But a replica of one of Whitehead’s aircraft was built and flown over twenty years ago: Gustave Whitehead's airplane (replica) in flight, Oct 4, 1997 - YouTube
I finished Charles Stross’s The Atrocity Archives and liked it well enough, but am not champing at the bit to read more of the series. As with his Saturn’s Children, a clever premise but meh writing.
David McCullough’s excellent The Path Between the Seas is still holding my attention. I’m up to 1903 and the eve of the U.S.- and French-orchestrated uprising that would give Panama its independence from Colombia.
I’ve just started Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House by Sally Bedell Smith, which is OK but so far hasn’t told me much I don’t know already.
You might like God’s Demon by Wayne Barlowe, an oddly touching novel about a rebellion in Hell by the fallen angels who yearn to return to the presence of God in Heaven.
I’ve read it, and have it unabridged on audio, and have listened to it multiple times. Great book. I picked it up after reading The Great Bridge. I’ve since sought out all of his books.
I’ve posted this before, but McCullough went to my high school, many years before I did. I’ve met him twice at book signings, many years apart, and introduced myself as a Shady Side Academy graduate. He beamed both times.
FINALLY finished Conspiracy by Lindsay Buroker, itwasn’t a bad book but the middle couldn’t quite keep my attention for long stretches. However, there is a LOT to say about beginning a series once it is completed cough damn evil cliffhanger cough
I just put down two books: Terranauts, by TC Boyle, seemed way too interested in being an ironic soap opera set in the nineties. Mexican Fly Boy was written by someone who spent far too much time paging through the thesaurus.
This afternoon I picked up Collapsing Empire, by Scalzi. It’s exactly what I expect from a Scalzi book: briskly paced, funny, political, not Great Literature but fine entertainment.
Finished Seven Flowers and How They Shaped Our World, by Jennifer Potter and Epigenetics: The Ultimate History of Inheritance by Richard C. Francis. Both reasonably good combinations of history and science. Not really interesting to me, though.
Now I’m midway through Down Among the Sticks and Bones, the prequel to Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire.
