Whatcha Readin' Dec 2012 Edition

What’s the price? Spoiler it, please.

Agree on Garner.

And agreed on the 50 books a week, I can’t suspend my disbelief that far either.

I started Murder Most Medieval yesterday. Martin H Greenburg is one of my favorite anthologists, I’ve collected every one I can find…

Since spoilers appear in e-mail notifications, I’ll leave some extra space.

As near as I can tell, the price involves an exchange/sharing of genetic material. I’d have to re-read the pages where the alien explains it to Lilith. (Which is another thing that bugged me – naming the main character Lilith.) Anyway, the aliens have already tampered with the humans they’re helping. The man who tries to rape Lilith says he’s fathered/donated sperm for 70 children that he’s never seen.

ETA: Some of the Amazon reviewers say that the first book is the weakest of the trilogy, that the second and third are better.

I loved the Xenogenesis Trilogy (Lilith’s Brood omnibus)! I thought it was fascinating. It made me an Octavia Butler fan.

Mea culpa! As for Jo Walton’s presumed prolific reading as a teen: upon re-reading that passage, I realize that her character was ordering 50 books a week, not sure if she was reading them all. But hey, there be fairies, so anything’s possible. I’d be happy to finish one book a week, and can’t for the life of me understand how people finish a typical book in 4-5 hours. But I’m probably wrong about that too. :stuck_out_tongue:

As for Alan Garner and other fantastic early works in general: I buy them, know they’re great, but am constantly tempted by newer stuff. In response to this tendency, this afternoon I’ve gathered all my unread, older or YA books into a prominent location where I will be reminded to read them.

I literally have a floor-to-ceiling bookcase of “To be read sooner”, prioritized books to help me sift through all the unread books I have on my other shelves, when choosing my next read. Having so many books on hand to choose from thrills me, but also makes me despair of ever reading them all.

Wrapped up Hallucinations today. Good, but didn’t knock my socks off. A step behind Musicophilia, IMO. Who would’ve thought hallucinations would be so mundane? On the other hand, I learned that apparently I’m fairly special in being able to imagine smells.

Last week I discovered that the Brit oddball Robert Rankin’s books were available on Kindle. Before, I only got to read them when my local B&M happened to get a UK edition by accident. The wacky Monty Python-style surreal humor and the constant winks at Crowleyan occultism make these perfect for me. I picked up The Book of Ultimate Truths and have barely cracked it.

Finished Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes by Bernard J. Schaffer. Purists of Sherlock Holmes fans (as I am) will probably not like this. Mr Schaffer seemed to be trying to combine Conan Doyle’s and Thomas Harris’ genres and in doing so, did neither one justice.

For most of the book Holmes is a pathetic drugged loser, Watson is a wimpy sad-sack, and Lestrade is a brutish thug who beats his prisoners. Schaffer goes into way too much detail of Jack The Rippers crimes - and IMO, spoils the “feel” of a good Holmes mystery.

Had this not been a birthday gift, I would have likely put it down.

While I stand by my review - I did not enjoy the book overall - I will say that the last few chapters where quite touching. They did not redeem the book for me, but still I liked them.

This quote from the author should have been a clue:

As I have said in the past, if you cannot properly honor the original, why bother? Why not create your own characters?

I will certainly avoid anything by this author in the future.

Thanks, AuntiePam, for the spoiler. You might like Butler’s short story “Bloodchild,” as well. I read it in the mid-Eighties and it’s stuck with me.

For those who enjoyed Cloud Atlas, here’s a new trailer for the movie: Cloud Atlas - Extended First Look [HD] - YouTube

Yes, do read The Name of the Rose. A wonderful book.

I’ve been travelling, so I’ve been reading a lot.

I finished Arthur, King of Britain, that collection of original texts and criticism that I’ve been looking for, for ages. I also read Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. I picked up Bill Maher’s When you Drive Alone, You Ride with Osama, only a decade after it came out. And the anthology By Any Other Fame, a collection of alternate-history stories that looked promising (Franz Kafka visits Marie Curie’s lab and is bitten by a radioactive cockroach! Mae Westt as an Abbess (with W.C. Fields as bishop)! Groucho Marx plays Rhett Butler!), but it was disappointing

I also read The Tangram Book by Jerry Slocum. For years I’ve heard how the stories told about the ancient roots of this puzzle aren’t really true*, but I’ve therefore wondered how old it really is. Jerry Slocum, the author, was apparently a puzzle lover and collector with money enough to buy and store lots of old puzzles and the wherewithal and connectrions to research it. He turns up how old the puzzle really is, what its origins were, where the name “tangrams” really comes from, whether or not it really was “Napoleon’s favorite game”, and lots of other tantalizing questions. He also includes a LOT of tangram puzzles, and their solutions. High;ly recommended.

*Robert H. Van Gulik included Tangrams among the games played by his fictional version of the historical Judge Dee, but the game didn’t exist in T’ang dynasty China – although such rearrangement puzzles DO have a long history in East and West.

For those who need some of the answers fast, see the Wikipedia page, which doesn’t give them all: Tangram - Wikipedia

I finished Murder Most Medieval this morning. I’m impressed there was really only one story in the collection that I thought wasn’t up to the rest of the collection. And I enjoyed the Margaret Frazer story far more than any of the Dame Frevisse books, so I’m rather interested in hunting up one of her Joffrey books now.

I just finished Hitler Victorious, a pretty uneven collection of alt hist short stories edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg; the best stories in it are “Thor Meets Captain America” by David Brin, and “Valhalla” by Benford himself. Then this morning I finished Report to JFK by Richard Neustadt, about the 1962 Skybolt Crisis in U.S.-British relations. It seemed padded and almost plodding by the end. Meh. Still reading and enjoying Robert A. Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones with my son, and have just begun The City’s End by Max Page, about pop culture’s enduring fascination - in books, short stories and movies - with the destruction of New York City.

Finished A Mencken Chrestomathy, edited and annotated by HL Mencken. A selection of his essays from 1912 into the 1940s. I took my time reading it, as I didn’t like it as much as I had hoped. Much of it was okay, but even in his early 30s he was just a Cranky Old Man. He hated the New Deal, hated FDR. His seeming contempt for higher education prompted me to look him up to see if he’d actually had any. No he didn’t, but he did take a class from one of the early correspondence schools, and oddly enough he lit into how useless such schools and their students are in one of his essays. I didn’t care at all for his references to FDR as the Fuehrer. Granted, it was before World War II broke out, but I suspect he privately kept thinking of him that way even after. Claimed at one point that he was thankful not to be a Republican, but he sure sounded like one, except that – and to his credit – he also had absolutely no use for religion. All in all, it was okay to read, but I don’t think I need to read any more of him.

Checked out a bunch more Michael Connelly from the library, and next up is The Poet (1996), his first novel featuring Jack McEvoy.

I started SPQR 5 Saturnalia John Maddox Robert’s 5th book in his mystery series set in Ancient Rome. Well not too ancient it’s the time just before Julius Caesar took power right now. I loved the two short stories about Decius Metellus so I bought some of the books to read.

I loved book 1, hated 2& 3 and ripped through 4 like wild fire, laughing the whole way through it. 5 seems to fall somewhere left of love and right of hate…

Roberts does seem to be rather on and off as far as humour and character attitude goes. I’m hoping he brings back the snark for book 6.

Finished The Book of Ultimate Truths a few days ago. I’m finding that Rankin is quite uneven–sometimes he knocks it out of the park, like The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse or Waiting for Godalming, and sometimes it’s a snoozefest, like Knees Up Mother Earth. This was somewhere in the middle–hilarious bits with the heroes displaying brilliant genre savvy, and rather pedestrian stretches. Lots of those latter, really. Decent read, but not really recommended.

Now I’m starting in on Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals. Listened to a Diane Rehm episode with the author and found it fascinating, and as a critter-lover who’s dreamed every day of being able to talk to the animals, it was too good to resist.

Aside: Has anyone had problems with the Goodreads iPad app? I was at my local having a beer and decided to try to write my review of the Rankin novel. Unfortunately, when it brought up the review entry dialog, it wouldn’t accept any typing! This is the second time this has happened, and I’m curious if it’s the app or peculiar to me.

I’m about three-quarters of the way through Tuf Voyaging. It’s more of a collection of novellas than one entire novel. The stories are entertaining, but I could not care less about the main character (Tuf). He may as well be a robot.

I’m really enjoying Up Jim River by Michael Flynn. The main character is a former agent/spy of some sort. His brain was tampered with and there are several personalities in his head. There’s a Brute, a Pedant, an Inner Child. A woman (also an agent) has disappeared and he’s helping the woman’s daughter look for her.

They’re traveling to different worlds, all settled by humans but without any sense of unity. It seems that when we went to space, we took our prejudices with us. Flynn’s having a lot of fun with this, especially with language. One of the major civilizations is on Eireann (Ireland, I’m guessing) and the language is Gaelactic. I wish I knew more languages, because I’m sure I’m missing a lot.

It’s a long time in the future, and apparently a lot of human history was lost, or transferred orally. I think the plot involves DNA but they don’t know it’s DNA, and there’s talk of the mighty Kondrians.

I think there was an earlier book with these characters, but I don’t feel like I’m missing a lot by not having read it.

Did you read The January Dancer? I reluctantly gave up on that, and am wondering if Up Jim River is better.

No. Is that the one that ties in with Up Jim River?

The only downside to this book is that I don’t care if they find the girl’s mother or not. But I’m not sure if I’m supposed to care. I’m very entertained – by the language, by the people in this guy’s head, and by visiting all these different worlds.

I’m about halfway through and haven’t been bored for a second.

I finished “The Time Machine” last night. It was a fun read. I’m now on to “Watership Down.” I’ve joined a new book club at the library and it’s our first selection. It’s not something I probably would have chosen for myself (rabbits?), but I’m hoping I enjoy it anyway.