New-to-me author review: Dragonsong

"Dragonsong" is written by Anne McCaffrey.

I'd stayed away from these books for years, partly because of the overhyping in my circles, but also partly because of some of the weirder things people associated with the series. Finally tried it. Glad I did.

As always, there may be spoilers behind the cut.

What I read in April

Books
This month had a couple big disappointments. Chief was The Secrets of Jin Shei. It was a, book whose main characters were all women, sharing a secret circle and a promise of friendship and support to one another. This is a sort of book I have been WAITING for. and it disappointed me. I suspect part of the problem was just my hopes for it outweighing what the book could have delivered, but some of the characters were barely characterized, some of the plot choices made no sense, and worst of all, the author repeatedly chose not to show us big important plot moments, but to have characters talk about those plot moments over tea later. Boo, I say.

The second big disappointment was the second Bob Moore book. The first was a fantastic if a little over-described superhero tale about a regular old PI working in a world full of supers. I thought it painted a great world and some interesting characters. But this one... well, it fell short. Partly because... no, MOSTLY because by the end I was left with a feeling of "so what?" It felt like the events of the plot had no real conclusion, no purpose.  I felt like I'd wasted my time. Disappointing. Not sure if I'll try the next book in the series. Maybe once I've got some distance on the disappointment.

Finally, I read Every Day for book club. I've seen a lot of people whose opinions I generally trust rave about this one, but I found it sort of... meh? The concept - that the main character wakes up every day in a different body, so0rt of like Sliders with a hard deadline and no established sense of self for the main character. But the main plot revolved around the main character trying to maintain a relationship with a young woman, and he does so in often very creepy ways that I think were meant to be sweet. I got actually uncomfortable reading this one.  

Not much to say on the Pirate King and The Beltway Boys. Pirate King is book 11 in a series, but I felt like most of it made sense without the first 10 and what didn't... well, I'm not sure I want to know how 70-year-old Sherlock Holmes came to be spending so much time with a young lady. Fun book though. May read more of the series later. And Beltway Boys? A book about the Nats' 2012 season. Engaging if you like the Nats and sports stats, decently well written, but in the end one good season wasn't really enough to have a general-audiences book on.


Continued my Dark Tower reread with Wizard and Glass, which was actually a little better than I remembered. This book is always saved for me by them presence of Cuthbert and Alain, whose characters I love despite their limited appearance in the series. Supplemented it with a reread of the Pyrdain books, starting with The Book of Three, which was decent but clunkier than I remember. It is YA, so that's part of it, and I do have to admit to really liking the characters. It's interesting though, to be reading these two fantasy juggernauts at the same time, and so close on the rereads of two others (I'm less than two years out of rereads of both Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings). Seeing the ways they feed off one another and the ways they diverge is fascinating.

Last book this month was a book club selection, Watership Down, which also happens to be one of my very favorite books. It may be about bunnies, but it's also about adventure, and friendship, and lonliness, and loyalty, and politics, and the power of stories, and the power of having something to protect, and... so much there. SO much. A fantastic book and everyone should read it.


 Manga
 This was a weird month for manga. I didn't read two books in the same series at any point in April, so I'm going to do this in list format. Not linking to GR since I don't tend to write much on Manga reviews.

- Angelic Layer Omnibus 2 - Angelic Layer is by its nature a kind of kidsy, girly story, and I was caught off guard by how much I likied the first part since girly is often not a terribly big selling point for me. But the main character is just so earnest and intense and dedicated and upbeat that I couldn't help but cheer for her and it made this ending very satisfying. :)

-Blue Exorcist 9 - It pleased me that Yukio and Rin are finally starting to open up to one another, but with some of the behind the scenes developments in the story, I suspect it may be too little too late. We shall see

-Fairy Tail 24 - Can I just say how happy I was to see Cana taking center stage for once? She's been sort of middle stage since the beginning and we know next to nothing about her, so this arc should prove to satisfy my curiosity on that score. 

-Toriko 5 - Left the series here. I had been listlessly following along because it wasn't a BAD series, it just wasn't grabbing me. I figured five books was enough. I may go back to this later - there were flashes, especially in this volume, of something I could really love. But for now, just too much else to sink my... eyes? .. into.

-The Color of Heaven - Goodness, this series. I love this series. The Color of Heaven continues and completes Ehwa's journey to understanding herself, her world, her body and the nature of coming to love another. I found the ending to be poignant and sweet.

-DuRaRaRa Saika 1 - I loved the first Durarara arc, but this one... vol. 1 blew me away, and I am super excited to continue reading. Things seem more extreme and faster paced. I guess it hepls that they're not introducing characters at this point really and can get right into the action, but still...

-Nabari No Ou 1 - Stopped reading Toriko and replaced it with this. Good move so far. There's nothing new here - ninjas with magic powers, a kid with a secret power hidden in him, spunky chick, steadfast friend, yadda yadda yadda. But just as unique ideas can make terrible books, so can worn out ideas make something that can give you a lot of enjoyment. I found the characters to be a lot of fun despite their familiarity of trope.

-Barbara - This is a weird one. I don't think this is one of Tezuka's better books, or even one of my favorites of his, but I think its interesting to see him trying out more adult themes and story directions. The idea of what a muse is and what it can do to an artist is long-trod ground, but the wild and unkempt way in which Barbara interacts with the worlds of those she chose really seemed to capture the idea better than a lot of others I've read.
 

 Comics
 The saddest book this month was Truth - it's both a sad book in its own right and its author died this month, which was what compelled me to do a reread of the book. I know a lot of people who hated this book for being too "heavy handed" (which I utterly disagree with) or because they felt the art didn't fit the story (still disagree but I can definitely concede that it's a matter of taste). I've always found it to be a strong central tale that adds a lot of shade and nuance to Isaiah that you won't see in his other appearances, where we see only what he became. This is use of continuity at its strongest.

My sister loaned me the first Oz comic from Marvel, and my GOODNESS the art is beautiful. I was never a big fan of the first book and I think the textual side of it seems to be a pretty good adaptation, but the main story was told in the art, the style, the expression, the colors. I loved it and will be reading on in the series.

Another revelation this month was City in the Desert, an independent book about a couple of monster hunters working out of a city that's set in a desert (obvs.) It's not a kiddie tale, and it does run through a range of themes about the importance of power, where it comes from, how it is weilded and why it's given to who it's given to in the first place (that is, largely power resides with the person who seems to have it).  The art was an unusual style but I thought it fit the book really really well.

Finally, I got the first Gambit trade of the new series, Just as much fun as I remembered from the individual issues, with the story being part Mission Impossible, part James Bond. A few lapses of weak writing kept it from being a truly excellent book for the fun factor, but I definitely continue to enjoy it. :)

New-To-Me-Author review: After Dark

"After Dark" is by Haruki Murakami.

It's the first of his books I've read, though I'm hoping it won't be the last. I may actually have to  come back to this one after I've read some others because... well, the review discusses it. :)

Retro review: Watership Down

This review can also be found at Goodreads. As always, there may be spoilers behind the cut.

En Media Res

I've done it again. I've picked up a book in the middle of the series and end up spending a while trying to work out what's going on.

In this case it's "Pirate King" by Laurie King.  For the first time, I actually had to step away from a book I was reading in this manner and go look up one detail - why Sherlock Holmes was in it and what his relationship was to our hero. 

That worked out, I've been enjoying the book thus far, but there's a part of me that's bothered at finally having been bested by a serial series. Most books are written such that things you can't work out are also not that important, and who knows, maybe this sticking point would have been addressed later in the book than I've gotten too. 

Of course, its not enough to make me start series at the start all the time. But it may make me a little more careful.

Books for March

Didn't get to as much as I'd hoped to last month, due in large part to an agonizingly slow read, one which I didn't even manage to finish up in March and will be on next month's list. Still, this was a moth with a lot of new and a lot of GOOD. I was very pleased :)

As always, there may be spoilers behind the cut.

Across the down

I'm rereading Watership Down for book club this week. I really wish I understood why this book appeals to me so much.

I guess part of it, like many of my favorite books, is that I remember it as a first - the first time I understood that I was reading an unreliable and limited narrative. There are many things in the world Hazel does not understand. There are many other things he initially mistakes or misreads. He makes mistakes and then comes later to the understanding of the truth.

I love that aspect of storytelling and wish more writers used it solidly and clearly. There's been a tendency in many of the books I've read recently for the POV character to either almost always be right or, when they are wrong, for the narrative to make it obvious and clear what the real truth is.

Of course, I can't accomplish that myself in my writing so I don't suppose I have any place to complain about other people. But I guess it's true what they say, those who can't do, criticize? :)

Three cheers for the jerk

I sometimes surprise people by saying my "favorite character" in some story or another is someone widely agreed to be a jerk. But I've often found jerks to be some of the most interesting characters, the ones that give you the most to think about. And the characters I like the most are the ones with depth and layers, the ones you can think about after the story is done and worry out how and why they acted that way.

As always, spoilers behind the cut.

Be careful what you wish for

I've been reading Secrets of Jin-Shei lately. I have been longing for books with strong femakle friendships lately and oh goodness, are such things ALL OVER this book.

As always, possible spoilers behind the cut.

Is this real life?

I don't read a lot of nonfiction. I've found a few that interest me and a few that sort of make me wonder what reality the writer is living in. But its been quite some time since something grabbed me the way King Peggy did.


As always, possible spoilers beyond the cut.

There are other worlds than these

I finished rereading The Waste Lands yesterday.

I don't know if I can properly describe the place this book has in my life - as a reader, and as a writer. As a reader, technically speaking, it's probably the book I have reread the most.  It's a book where I think the illustrations (I have a big old color-picture copy) really add something, isntad of just being a nice bonus. I think its a story that's fed my appetite throughout my life with the travelogue story, and with mashing westerns into jsut about anything you can think of.

I KNOW it's where my tendency to read books out of order came from. This was my first ever not only Dark Tower book, but Stephen King book as well. I was a little lost a the beginning - no matter how well an author tries to present the actions of previous books, there's always a lot of detail and nuance missing that makes for confusion -  but I quickly figured out how to compartmentalize things that were too confusing and to figure the rest out enough to enable me to go forward.

This is also, as a writer, a book that I look to when I want to study characterization. I've long been a fan of how King writes people - the diversity and the way he's more than happy to paint the bad along with the good in equal measures. Mental arguments? detailed alien-world description? this is the place I go to see how it's done. :)

I keep hoping I'll find another book that moves me as much and means so much to me, but I guess it's true what they say, your first is special...

Reading in February

As the shortest month, February always feels a bit cramped for reading.

It's a little like eating my vegetables

I have a hard time, sometimes, reading books I know I should read.

Currently, I have "One Thousand Year of Solitude" and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" sitting in my to-read pile, alongside things like a collection of horror short stories, a Doctor Who tie-in book and a Hawkeye trade. There's definitely, among those books, an imbalance of likely quality.

And yet, when I go to pick up one of those good books, the ones I know I should read, sometimes I find myself swapping over to the comics, or the manga, or the fluffy sci fi rather than reading what I fel like I should be reading.

I know part of this ties into my reasons for reading Fantasy and Sci fi almost exclusively. There's little escapism likely to be found in those books. But at the same time, reading is largely an entertaining pursuit, but its also a way to inform oneself of important matters. I *want* to read these books. I just never seem to be in a proper mood to seriously and deeply contemplate them. It took me positively ages to get to "The Air Between Us" or any Gaines.

Still, I have moved Angelou's book up, so I should be starting it soon. Maybe it the weather holds, it can be the first book that I read while I'm taking my afternoon walks.

Interestingly enough, I got that book at the library book sale a little bit ago. I'm somewhat amused that whoever gave it to the library neglected to take a number of things out of it, including a 15-year-old train ticket, a piece of paper with a memo on it and a bookmark with info on a bookstore in Philadelphia. It was a weird glimpse into the previous owner.

Aren't you a little young for unending despair?

Have you ever noticed how many stories of a dystopian future seem to center on kids?

I guess I get the urge. Kids are a symbol of innocence and purity, so showing how a dystopia affects them can be a powerful way to show just how screwed up things have gotten. But it's starting to get on my nerves a little - not in the sense of me not liking the stories, but me getting to the part where our protags are kids or perhaps teens and thinking to myself "again?"

It's a little bothersome, because one of my favorite books, "The Long Walk" is pretty much entirely made up of kids' place in a dystopia.  I'm also a pretty big fan of "Battle Royale" and for book club right now we're reading "The Darkest Minds." I'm enjoying it, but I can't stop thinking about how specifically so many of them focus on kids.

This is part of why I have yet to read the Hunger Games books. I know a great many people who have read them and enjoyed them deeply and have told me that I NEED to read them, or at least the first one. And I suspect they're right. they sound like good books and I would probably enjoy reading them. But this trope is just a little too... centered, maybe, right now. 

Maybe I'll give it a little time and put a no-kid-centered-dystopias rule on my book selections for a while and then see how I feel about it. :)


This week was the library book sale. I was both grateful and sad that I didn't find more to purchase while I was ther, because while I don't need more physical books trying to find space on my shelves, I like books and I like supporting the library. But now I am the proud owner of "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" and four of the first five volumes of "Pluto" because I am a total mark for anything with Tezuka's name on it other than Kimba and Astro Boy (and who knows, maybe eventually those too!"

Why I read fantasy

I love fantasy. A glance at my reading list on Goodreads tells anyone as much. I would submit that the lion's share of everything I read is a variation of fantasy, be it books, manga or comics. (Followed closely by sci-fi). And I love it that way.

Part of it is that I love worldbuilding. I love the idea that things where this story is taking place are different from here, and seeing how those changes affect the ways in which people interact. I love seeing the creative things people come up with. you'd never get something like allomancy in a our-world novel, and the dynamics of that system are amazing.

At the same time, I also like that while fantasy is a genre, it's more rightly a setting. It's a place into which any story, any characters, any themes and any plots can be fitted.

I've been reminded lately that a lot of people see fantasy as a fluff genre. It's not a wrong perception, really, since most writers in the genre kind of treat it that way as well. And there's a lot to be said for fluff. People want escapism, and there's a certain beauty in the way that fantasy and sci fi can allow us to look at real-world issues in a ... let's say less threatening way.

And for me at least, there's a beauty in being able to divorce the terrible things people do from reality. I work in newspapers. I don't need to pick up a novel to read about people in our world being horrible to one another or being kind to one another. I do that all week long. If I'm going to read a book, I need it it separated, at least a little, from that reality. Is that somewhat cowardly? Perhaps. But its a preference that hasn't changed in more than two decades of picking my own books :)

To like or not to like

Anyone who knows me, knows I love an unreliable narrator. I love the idea that we can't just trust that what the character whose head we're in thinks.

But it's really a fine line between  an unreliable narrator and an unlikeable narrator. I had that featured front and center recently as I read "The Magicians. As always, there may be spoilers under the cut!

FBFFs

I’ve been reading Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate books lately, in between other stuff. I described them to a friend as the “cream puffs of the book world” and I stand by that description.  They’re quick, fun and easy reads, but they don’t have a whole lot of weight to them (at least the first and most of the second) and consequently don’t really stick with you for very long.

However, there is one thing these books do well that is rare enough to warrant a mention and a bit of praise. They have something that so, so many steampunk stories and urban fantasy of many stripes don’t.

They have Ivy.

True they also have Madame Lefoux, but there are some issues surrounding the treatment of her character so far that make me uncomfortable with heaping praise on her, so it is on Ivy that I wish to focus – on the woman whose part in this series is simply that of a friend, a companion, a supporter and cheerleader and hat-sharer and gossip partner.

Why don’t we have more Ivy?

I have heard it said before that the reason there is so much romance and so little friendship outside the plot-functional in so much creative media has to do with friendships simply not being as interesting to read about. (The actual argument is that stories like that are for women, but we all know what “for women” is usually code for, I suspect).

But when we do get friendships, somehow it always feels like we get the guy friendships – the always-got-your-backs, the epic bromances, the we-can’t-admit-our-friendship-is-importants, a whole range. Whereas, it often feels like female friendships are limited to gossiping together, or using one another and, if your character is sufficiently modern, perhaps business associates as well. There aren’t that many Kirk and Spock-style friendships, a lack of Frodo and Sam devotion. In short, it feels like there is a lack of depth. It might just be that the spread of fiction I read happens not to include them and the fault is entirely mine, but some part of me feels like that’s not likely the case.

Which is why I love Ivy and Alexia’s relationship. They gossip. They both complain about things the other does they find tiresome. But they make time for one another. They share their thoughts and observations, both trivial and personal. And they show, through little gestures, that they truly care about one another. And you know what? That was NICE to read.

Bonus points also go to Jim Hines’ princess series and Seanan McGuire’s Toby Daye books for also making time for the female leads to have actual, real and meaningful friendships!

Anyone out there have any recs on this front?

Revisiting Mid-world

I try to reread at least one or two of my favorite series each year. I know some people are forever going ahead, reading new books, but for me, there's a sort of wonderful joy in returning to these old series. So the first series revisit this year is the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. There will be spoilers. You have been warned.

I'm going slow, sprinkling these books in between book club selections and other reading. But I finished the first book, The Gunslinger, today (review at Goodreads) and had a few thoughts about Roland, Jake and the concept of Ka.

Day of the Dragon

Title: Day of the Dragon
Author: Richard Knaak
My take: I can’t really recommend this unless you’re really into Warcraft lore
Spoiler-free synopsis: A wizard is sent on a dangerous mission, but he doesn’t realize he’s being used as a pawn by more than just the man who sent him.

Brandon Sanderson - Warbreaker

Title: Warbreaker
Author: Brandon Sanderson
My take: Felt rushed at the end, but the ride to GET to the end was fantastic – highly recommended if you like authors like Carey, Kay and Martin.
Spoiler-free synopsis: Two princesses travel to the capitol of the country threatening war against their homeland – one as a bride, as per terms of a years-old truce, and the other who seeks to save her. Both end up embroiled in much more than they expected. Looks at politics, prejudice and faith