Tag: books

Review – Cosmocopia

Posted September 29, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cosmocopia, Paul Di Filippo
Received to review via Netgalley

I have no earthly idea of what to compare this novel to, apart from China Miéville’s New Crobuzon books. There’s something akin in the worldbuilding, in the weirdnesses. But where other people are comparing this to an acid trip and whatever, well, I’ve never taken drugs in my life and even feverish dreams aren’t this bizarre but at the same time carefully drawn.

I wasn’t particularly engaged by the first third of the story, but I loved the second part. The world created was so different from almost anything I know of, and yet still Di Filippo managed to create characters and stakes that you could care about.

The last part was… almost an anticlimax. It was still weird, but I didn’t care so much for it, and despite covering more time/space, it paled compared to the second part. I don’t know how I wanted the story to end, but perhaps I wanted it to surprise me again — and this didn’t, somehow. It seemed almost half-hearted, really, like the important part of the story was the central part and the rest, eh.

Despite all that, it’s not difficult to read at all, and is straight-forward to follow. It’s the ideas that are bizarre, not the execution. Still, if you prefer a good solid novel that goes from A to B — more Neil Gaiman than China Miéville — then it probably won’t be for you. On the other hand, I’d have said that before reading this, and it got under my skin.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – FF: Fantastic Faux

Posted September 28, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

FF: vol. 1, Fantastic Faux, Matt Fraction, Mike Allred, Laura Allred

I think this one definitely requires more background. It might be volume #1 of the FF Marvel Now books, but it clearly follows an ongoing story involving the Fantastic Four and… possibly a lot of other people? I had no idea who a lot of these people were, other than Johnny Storm and Scott Lang. (Where does that fit with Young Avengers? Isn’t he Cassie’s dad, and isn’t he dead? Or did he come back amidst the timeline crossing?)

Anyway, there were fun aspects to this — the line “All of you pale before our hetero-normative cisgendered classification of family!” is a winning one, and there’s some other good one-liners. Which I’d kind of expect from Matt Fraction, really. There was a really nice bit where he fit in a trans* character, dealt with sensitively, yet in such a normal way — it barely caused a blink, and yet it worked well. I liked that bit a lot. Oh, and She-Hulk is great.

Overall, though, I don’t have enough context to really enjoy this. Too bad the library’s collection of comics is generally spotty.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel

Review – Wherever You Go, There You Are

Posted September 27, 2014 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn

If you’re looking for something about meditation and mindfulness that’s devoid of spiritual interpretations and the like, this is one of the closest approaches I’ve seen that still focused on the meditation aspect and not just generally being “more aware”. It has some helpful suggestions for visualisation, including details not just of picturing things but of feeling things, like his suggestions for standing meditation of imagining yourself as a tree, the part where he mentioned approaching the practice with dignity, etc.

Overall, I doubt it’s going to convince anyone who is highly sceptical to begin with, or help anyone start a practice ex nihilo. But it’s worth reading, and sitting with, and thinking about, if you can put aside scepticism and just try it.

One thing I especially liked was that Kabat-Zinn doesn’t have any thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots about this. There’s recommendations, suggestions, but also reminders that any moment of mindfulness in the day, however short, is valuable.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Stacking the Shelves

Posted September 27, 2014 by in General / 12 Comments

I haven’t gone on such wonderful buying sprees this week, but I did go to two different libraries (go on, guess how many library cards I have). So it is not particularly a small haul, all the same. And I did get some books — my partner spoils me.

Ebooks

I read Graceling a few years ago, and liked it well enough, but I wasn’t bowled over. I’m going to give Kristin Cashore another chance, evidently; my ex-housemate Ru will be pleased with me. The Language of Spells was a somewhat random choice, while Fair Game is necessary for me to read last week’s review copy of Fair Play.

Review copies

I tried to have restraint this week, see?

Library books

More Heyer, which surprises no one; I keep meaning to read Sarah Addison Allen and since I’ve misplaced Garden Spells, I may as well start there; archaeology! paleontology! and… Matt Fraction. My usual hectic mix.

What’s everyone else been up to?

Tags: books, comics, non-fiction, SF/F, Stacking the Shelves

Review – The Human Age

Posted September 26, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Human Age, Diane Ackerman

I got a proof copy of this from Bookbridgr, so I’m not sure how many of the issues are going to be dealt with before the completed book is rolled out. There were still a lot of errors at this stage — a bit where some words were struck out, problems with punctuation, etc. I think the purple prose will be there to stay, though; the writing isn’t terrible, but it’s rather overloaded, and I’m not keen on Ackerman’s flights of imagination. It’s one thing to imagine the trace we’re leaving on the earth for future archaeologists, it’s another to imagine those future archaeologists. That’s science fiction, which I don’t have any argument with, but I don’t tend to like it when that crosses over into my supposed non-fiction.

Ackerman picked an interesting topic, though, and aside from the blizzard of adjectives, this book is an easy read. It’s not a pessimistic humans-are-destroying-the-world sort of book; at one point she mentions the idea of (some) industrial landscapes being beautiful, which is apparently a growing tourist thing in some parts of the world.

Her chapters are short, though her sentences are long, and all in all it’s a quick one. I’m not impressed by her writing style, but I would like to read more on the same topic with a similar outlook.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – Bath Tangle

Posted September 25, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Bath Tangle, Georgette Heyer

I’m not entirely sure how to rate this, because I did enjoy it a lot, but it’s still not on par with The Talisman Ring or The Grand Sophy for me. Having finished it, I was just a little relieved that all the tangles of the love interests were sorted out, and that everyone got to where they intended to go (though, I would almost have enjoyed it more if someone had made an irrevocable mistake, even if it were just Gerald and Emily; the way it came out was too good to be true, and Rotherham far too in control of the whole situation).

You’ve got to like that this isn’t just a story with a tempestuous male character pulling everyone along; Rotherham may well remind the gentle reader of Rochester from Jane Eyre with his manners. Lady Serena is no Jane, however, and she gives as good as she gets. I liked that their romance is not some insipid mutual regard, but something real and passionate.

I especially like that Heyer manages to bring in a spread of characters across social class and attitudes. Obviously, Lady Serena and her cohort are privileged as heck and don’t know it, but I don’t really expect an older book like this to really deal with that aspect. I liked the realism of Serena’s indifference to class while Fanny, equally likeable, has more difficulty with being snobbish. The way Heyer handles show-don’t-tell is pretty instructive, too; scenes like Serena holding the thorny flowers, or Fanny and Kirkby, etc.

Of course, the situation itself is one of Heyer’s typical tangles, with Serena’s father putting her under the guardianship of a man she jilted. It could be pretty creepy, to be honest, but Heyer handles it well — Rotherham never takes advantage of the guardianship, and is prepared to let Serena make her mistake if necessary, even if he is manipulative.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Georgette Heyer

Thursday Thoughts: Novellas

Posted September 25, 2014 by in General / 1 Comment

This week’s prompt from Ok, Let’s Read is about novellas.

What are your general opinions on novellas or short stories in a series or otherwise? Have you read any novellas? Do you always make sure to read the novellas in a series? Do you read them where they belong (i.e. between the correct two books) or are you not too bothered about that sort of thing?

They can be interesting. Sometimes they drive me mad because they’re in some obscure anthology, which I only want for that one story. Or they’re just not available anymore. Still, they can add something interesting to a series, and I do try to read them where they belong in a chronological order. Sometimes, that really doesn’t work — I read The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, by Sarah J. Maas, for example, back before the first novel was released, and I didn’t really care enough. It’s an interesting method of trying to whet people’s appetites, but you have to make it really good if you’re going to do that.

I have a lot of opinions about short stories because I like to write them. You can’t just think of them as a watered down novel; they’ve got to have all the elements of a good novel, but concentrated. You’ve got to tighten up the writing until every word is important, every paragraph advances something. I don’t mean just plot-wise; a good paragraph could help build up the world, the characters, or yeah, the plot.

For sci-fi fans, I’d definitely recommend Alastair Reynolds. I loved Troika, which is a 100 page-ish novella, and I remember being very enthusiastic about Diamond Dogs, as well. Reynolds has that knack of taking an idea that could fill a whole novel and focusing in on it, staying with it without getting distracted, and delivering something really powerful.

Tags: Alastair Reynolds, books, Thursday Thoughts

What are you reading Wednesday

Posted September 25, 2014 by in General / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?
FF: Fantastic Faux, by Matt Fraction. Which is heavily linked to the Fantastic Four title in the Marvel Now lineup, which I haven’t read, so made very little sense. On the other hand, Fraction deals very deftly with a transgendered character, making it so normal and the transition so well done that it barely registers as a big issue at all.

And you’ve gotta love the line “All of you pale before our hetero-normative cisgendered classification of family!”

What are you currently reading?
The Fellowship of the Ring. Oh, Tolkien. Oh, Frodo.

The Enchantment Emporium (Tanya Huff). Can’t remember if I mentioned this last week, but so far it’s very fun. I do have to switch my brain onto the Mary Stewart/Georgette Heyer cousin-marrying-is-okay frequency, but I do have that frequency, so that works. Casually queer, all kinds of family stuff, interesting magic.

What will you read next?
Well, Tolkien aside, I’m gonna dig back into We Are Here (Michael Marshall Smith) and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Thomas Sweterlitsch), since I’m halfway through both and certainly owe a review for the latter.

Tags: books, comics, Marvel, Michael Marshall (Smith), reading meme, Tanya Huff

Review – The Hobbit

Posted September 24, 2014 by in Reviews / 9 Comments

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Yesterday — or, by the time this goes live on my blog, the day before yesterday, the 22nd — was Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday, so naturally that constituted the final bit of excuse I needed to reread Lord of the Rings. And it never quite feels right without starting with The Hobbit. It doesn’t have quite the same cleverness that I enjoy with Lord of the Rings — Tolkien hadn’t come up with, or didn’t see the need to explain, his complicated text provenances, for example — but I still enjoy the narration, the sense of being told a story, and the fact that he expects you, dares you, to be on the ball. As a kid, I didn’t notice some of the flaws in Bilbo’s plans at all, but Tolkien’s narration gives you the benefit of the doubt there. Self-deprecating, almost.

I think the reason I dislike the Hobbit films so much is because they are adapting the book I love to blend with the films they’ve made already. I can see why they’re doing that, and why people enjoy it, but I don’t feel the desperate need to rationalise the difference between the tones of the two books. I like my dwarves goofy, the hero’s journey a little less blatant; I like that Bilbo makes his way through all the adventures because he’s a hobbit, with hobbit-sensibilities, not just a hero in hobbit form. I love that hobbits are basically Tolkien taking aspects of himself and letting them run around in this fantasy world without the illusion that of course he’d be the heroic type. It’s still wish fulfilment, but it’s a kind of wish fulfilment where the hero probably would be better off as a grocer or something else quiet, and manages despite that.

I mean, I bet a very small percentage of self-insert fanfics have the sense to admit that in reality, they’re more like the hobbits than the typical heroes. I really enjoy that Tolkien quite blatantly did that with his layers of authorship and the characteristics of hobbits as a race, and didn’t give in to the urge to over-romanticise it — while still making hobbits endearing, funny, brave, worth reading about, still pulling out aspects of character from even the most countrified bumpkin that could make them a hero.

And, let’s be honest, I just don’t understand people who don’t see the skill in Tolkien’s writing, in the way he builds up the world. Even here, where it isn’t taking the main character very seriously, he still takes the world seriously, shadowing it with the threat of the Necromancer, the Ring, the great alliances of the orcs — hinting at twisted dwarves and the complicated history of the elves, deftly bringing in little bits of lore so that they’re natural when we come to them in The Lord of the Rings. Not because he was planning it, but because he knew his world and knew how to show it to the reader.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, J.R.R. Tolkien, SF/F

Review – Rewire Your Anxious Brain

Posted September 23, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Rewire Your Anxious Brain, Catherine M. Pittman, Elizabeth M. Karle

Received to review via Netgalley.

I didn’t read this from cover to cover, as I’ve read other books like it before. My main interest was in seeing how solid the scientific basis of this is — one of the authors has a PhD, but I could have a PhD in literature, which would by no means qualify me to speak on neuroscience — and how helpful I thought it might be for other people who end up in the same position I’ve been in. The good news is, from my knowledge of science and my intimate knowledge of anxiety disorders, there’s a lot here that’s useful. It doesn’t just focus on targeting the conscious part of anxiety generated by the cortex — which people often try to target on its own, with CBT — but also acknowledges the contribution of the amygdala.

Generally, it seems a sympathetic and credible book that someone with curiosity and determination could work through to help cope with anxiety, whether it’s a full blown disorder or just something that crops up more often than you’d like. It’s not an exhaustive reference book of information mentioning every single disorder, every single type of medication, but it is somewhere to start. And it quite rightly encourages the reader to get the help of medical professionals, and it doesn’t dismiss the uses of medication.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, mental health, non-fiction