Finished Shadow Unit 2. As I mentioned regarding the first Shadow Unit, the premise is a TV show in short story form, basically a TV show for the web. It shows too that they are thinking that way when you read it, as it always seems to me that the authors think you have a visual to go along with the flow of the stories. In this way, I found it hard to get a handle on the characters, especially because the liberally switch back and forth between real names, nick names and various combinations. Once you do get a handle on the characters, it is a much better read - but the authors threw in screen chats, adding screen handles to the mix, making it that much harder to follow who was saying what.
But it isn’t a bad read and for a few bucks it passes the time. I will likely read the 3rd installment.
I’ve switched to re-reading Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson after being reminded of their existence by this thread and coincidentally finding copies of eight Moomin books a couple of days later.
I haven’t read any of these books since I was around 12 or so, and I’m impressed; it’s as readable and as strange and, well, Finnish, as I recall it. And the illustrations are lovely. Good stuff if you enjoy quality child lit.
Just read Shaun Tan’s wordless, sepia-toned, incredibly evocative and ultimately delightful graphic novel The Arrival, a silent parable for the immigrant experience everywhere.
I got Shel Silverstein’s new one, Every Thing On It, and whipped through it in no time. I would say it’s as good as his other poetry books. I didn’t quite feel the old magic, but of course I’m thirty years older now than when I read the others.
I finished The Magicians. I liked it, but it’s definitely a flawed book. The protagonist isn’t really a likeable character, which can work, but I don’t know if it does in this book. Quentin’s all angsty and whiny and unhappy, and that gets old. His girlfriend’s right about him: he’s very reactionary, he doesn’t *do *anything. He can’t (or won’t) take charge of his life (and the moments that he does are some of the best in the book) and doesn’t act on her criticisms to change in any real way. When he finally does, the only change he makes is to close himself off from anyone and anything. It’s odd.
The other characters in the book aren’t much better. Most of his friends aren’t that great of people either. And the few that I did like tend to have Obi Wan written all over them. And again, flawed characters can really work in books, but mostly they fell flat here for me.
Grossman really succeeds at his descriptions of gifted students in classrooms - his characterization of Quentin (and his classmates) as usually effortlessly succeeding in school, and then being surrounded by others that were as accustomed to that same success and the competition that arises from that was spot on. And the ultimate theme of the book is really excellent - what happens next when you’ve been given everything you’ve ever dreamed of. However, it’s unfortunate that the characters felt so flat to me that ultimated I didn’t really care by the end.
I’ve reserved The Magician King from the library, but I’ll probably end up borrowing it from a friend to get to it a little faster. I’m hoping it’s better than this one.
Oooh, Flashy. I may turn to him for my next bit of fluff (which, as fluff goes, is not all that fluffy–at least you get some Victorian/British Empire history along with it).
At this very moment, I am doing a bit of fluff–Rex Stout’s The Rubber Band, part of my slow, ongoing project to work through the Nero Wolfe canon in publication order. (I’ve read individual books here and there, but it’s been scattershot and I can’t remember which ones I’ve done for certain, so I’m starting at the beginning and going through to the end. I’m not 100% certain whether this is my first time with The Rubber Band or not–parts seem familiar, parts don’t.)
The long-term reading projects that I need a bit of fluff now and then to escape from are The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Tristram Shandy. Tristram, really, is fluff to escape from Decline and Fall–but apparently my first-order fluff is sufficiently substantial that I need some second-order fluff to get away from it.
While on vacation earlier this month I polished off Walter Moers’s The Alchemaster’s Apprentice and (if I recall correctly) The League of Frightened Men. The former was good fun, but no Captain Bluebear–I rather doubt that Moers is going to hit that high again, though I feel that *Rumo *came closest.
Also on the agenda is Steven Brust’s Tiassa–I’ve fallen out of the loop on the Vlad books lately, but the oldest single book (not counting second-hands, of course) on my bookshelf is Jhereg. I plan to follow this series until it ends or Mr. Brust does.
I tried recommending it to others, which fell horribly flat. I must conclude that, contrary to what I thought, not everyone will get the same thing out of it … but to me, it’s an all-time artistic masterpiece.
I loved the artwork, and even more, in an age where so much is so cynical, I loved the ultimate feeling of hope.
Incidentally, have you ever *seen *Rex Stout? I happened to wiki him up to find the publication order for the Wolfe novels, and he totally did not look like what I had imagined. I think I basically always pictured him as Nero Wolfe… whom he most certainly was not.
Everything you said is true, but I get the feeling Grossman intended all of that. Maybe I’m wrong, but even so, it works as a sardonic skewering of all fantasy books.
Narnia, LotR, etc., would really be horrible things to live through. It’s like fantasy epics finally hit their Viet Nam.
People aren’t noble. Teenagers are selfish. Killing anthropomorphic animals would be a sickening affair.
The only thing I didn’t like about it was the very artificial setup for a sequel. Quentin should have drunk himself to death.
Just started Ender’s Game and The Haunting of Hill House. Both seem pretty promising. I’m also halfway through The Atheist’s Way by Eric Maisel. It’s annoyingly repetitive, but it makes a lot of good points.
Just picked up “Two Years Before the Mast” from the library and put “1493” on hold; there are 250 people waiting on 62 copies, so it will probably be March before I see it. On Kindle, I’ve started “Cannery Row”.
I must conclude that, contrary to what I thought, not everyone will get the same thing out of it … but to me, it’s an all-time artistic masterpiece.