We’ve all read this book before: this guy can see dead people, something terrible happens, a plan to make money…
Except here, it splinters and dives away. This novel is dizzying and beautiful. Nothing is as expected.
When was the last time I got home from work, and instead of diving into something else, sat and read to finish a book? A long time ago, I think.
#23-25: The Jump 225 Trilogy (Infoquake, MultiReal and Geosynchron; David Louis Edelman)
This series starts off as a business adventure tale — a young software star rising to the top via dirty tricks! — and then kind of moves sideways into a political thriller — our young entrepreneur stumbles into something he doesn’t really understand and gets caught up in big, weighty affairs!
Unfortunately, then it stumbles. The ideas are still fascinating, but it loses the fun and energy of the first novel to never really find a replacement. Things become quite muddled; too much time is spent with characters it is hard to care about. The big action set-piece at the end of the whole thing is told from the viewpoint of characters we’ve never even met.
The trilogy is named after a throw-away dream sequence in the first book, never really returned to or explored, only referenced sideways with no recognition on anyone’s part. I really had a lot of fun with that first book, and wish I wasn’t so disappointed with where it all wound up. I actually felt a little bit, at the end, like I’d wasted my time.
An It Got Away interlude: Kraken (China Mieville)
I really like China Mieville, I do. But much like King Rat, I just couldn’t find anything to hang on to in this book. Nothing hooked me at all, and I found myself returning to it unable to really remember what had been going on. Plus, the whole “know-nothing chased by two evil supernatural hunters” thing had already been done, much more engagingly, by Neil Gaiman. I hate to give up on a book, but the Eight Deadly Words were clearly in effect.
#26: The Cellar (Richard Laymon)
(Dammit, Ray, this one is all your fault. Why’d you have to do it?) I randomly bought three Laymon novels at Half-Price Books, and wanted popcorn after failing with Kraken. Laymon is popcorn, if predictable and slightly-rancid popcorn. Nothing much of note about this one. Interesting to see the twist endings already firmly in place in his first published novel. Kinda dissapointed nobody got called a woos.
I resisted moving on to The Beast House, the next book in this almost-series, although it’s still riding around in the back of my car…
#27: The Fuller Memorandum (Charles Stross)
Another Laundry novel. While that’s perfectly descriptive, the book probably deserves more than that. Just like the others, it is a highly-enjoyable cross of James Bond, H. P. Lovecraft and The Office. Engaging and well-written enough to let me ignore it’s faults (it succumbs to both beat-the-crap-out-of-the-protagonist-itis and same-plot-syndrome), and I ended actively looking forward to the next one. It’s between this and the Dresden Files books for my favorite urban fantasy series. (Sorry, Charlie, if you’re unhappy with that tag, but I calls ‘em like I see ‘em.)
#28: The Little Stranger (Sarah Waters)
Yet another book recommended in a post on tor.com. A good read, an almost ghost story set in the period just after World War II. A little predictable, maybe, but a fun trip to get there.
#29: Pandemonium (Daryl Gregory)
An alternate universe, where demonic possession becomes commonplace in the late 50s. In current times, psychologists have identified over 100 disorders, or strains of demon; The Truth, the Kamikaze, the Hellion, Smokestack Johnny, the Little Angel. Del was possessed as a child, and has a growing suspicion that his demon may still be hanging around…
An imaginative novel, at its best when dropping little details about how the demons have changed our world, at its worst when giving big broad hints about things it doesn’t want to come right out and say. The ending comes out of left field and explains not much of anything, but as an idea book, it’s fascinating.
(Seven books in one post. Longest article I’ve written here in years.)
#18: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Stieg Larssen): Slight but satisfying follow-up to the first two in the series. Too many distracted sideplots, and disappointing in that it keeps Blomkvist and Salander apart far too long.
#19 – 21: The Liveship Traders (Ship of Magic, Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny) (Robin Hobb): A second sprawling fantasy trilogy set in the same universe as the last Hobb books I read. Maybe a little unsatisfying in the way it wrapped everything up — after 2400 pages, spending a little longer on the ending wouldn’t've hurt. I am amazed, however, that I didn’t figure out the Big Obvious Secret way earlier. It made me happy when I did, though.
#22: Dead in the Family (Charlaine Harris): The Sookie Stackhouse books have reached this really odd point where they don’t really have a plot any more. Yeah, things happen, and there’s a story moving behind there, but it’s not really the point. Sookie is mostly passive, and the overall storyline wrapped up at the end isn’t really even all that compelling. Still compelling, for whatever reason; a giant snickerdoodle of a book, over and done with in a day and a half.
(This trilogy consists of Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assasin’s Quest.)
Massive three-part fantasy trilogy. Excellently written, or at least well-written enough for me to get past a psychically-bonded wolf familiar and, in the last book and a half, a protagonist who quite willingly aids the idiot plotting by being as dense as he possibly can each and every time something suggestive happens. I end the trilogy satisfied with the ending, frustrated with the plotting, and wanting to move on to the next trilogy in the same universe…
…sometime. In the meantime, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest came out today, so I’ll be taking at least that aside.
#12: Black Magic Sanction (Kim Harrison)
It is possible, I suppose, that Black Magic Sanction suffered unduly from being read immediately after a smart and self-aware urban fantasy, but I kind of doubt it. The book is lazily written (the crazy repetition from the last installment survives to this one, people’s uncomfortableness with their lungs’ reconstitution being added to hunter’s pocket heaters on the list of things I never want to read about again), lazily plotted (the book doesn’t even start get going ’til half-way through, screeches to a halt for an aside, and just kind of limps to a conclusion), and especially inconsistent with characterization (if a character isn’t reduced to one trait, they are a cipher, a blank presence where the character used to be, Ivy being the worst instance of this). So frustrating and disappointing. I think I may give up on this series.
#13, 14: Soulless; Changeless (Gail Carriger)
Boy, supernatural romances are very popular, aren’t they? You know what else is popular? Steampunk! Well, now…
Despite having such obvious origins, these are particularly tasty popcorn, once one moves past the fairly twee tone to the writing. I was convinced after the first chapter that I wouldn’t like Soulless, but three chapters in and I was caught. Some interesting, original ideas and a very likable main character. I hope the running gags don’t get in the way later.
Sometimes, the mind craves popcorn; and for that craving, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books are some of the best. A fairly long series that is planned to be REALLY long, this book is what the title promises, a lot of change, most but not all wrought by violence. Once again, charming witty writing and characterization overshadows any niggling problems I have with repetition and sameness in the urban fantasy genre; I only really said “What, again?” once during the book. (I’ve seen Harry fight his way out of enough dark burning buildings, thanks.) Most impressively, the book has a large action climax that really works and is genuinely thrilling.
I have to protest at Butcher treating me quite cruelly, though; at one point the book seems to promise a Dresden-and-Bob-on-the-run scenario, and I cackled with glee. I think I shouted “Finally some Bob!” on the bus which must’ve confused some people. 20 pages later, Bob was buried in a hole and didn’t reappear until the very last bit of the book… but I’m not bitter about it because what happens then is truly a present for Bob fans. Seriously, Jim, the books need more Bob. New friends are great, but not at the expense of the old.
It’s hard to really talk about a book like this. It’s the twelfth in a series, for crying out loud. If you are reading the Dresden Files, you’ll want to read this one; it’s everything one might reasonably expect and more. If you aren’t, and like urban fantasy, for goodness’ sake don’t start with this one. The weight of 11 volumes of backstory will totally kill any interest it might hold. Go way way back and read the first, remember that Butcher is improving as a writer as time goes by, and read ’til it stops being fun.
Chronic City is maddeningly elliptical. Set in a New York City just to the right of ours, uncertain in time, beset by mysterious problems (among them a fog that has for two years enveloped downtown; a giant rampaging tiger, destroyer of buildings and water mains; gobs and buckets of unseasonal snow). The nominal protagonist, Chase Insteadman, a former child actor, drifts up against the book’s other characters, looking in his own fairly ineffectual way for the truth of what is happening around them. The book eventually comes to a conclusion that is even satisfying, in its way, many things tied up indirectly, many things left to mystery. Not my favorite of Lethem’s novels — and maybe, just now, I’m not really ideally set for this kind of indeterminate stuff — but, nonetheless, time well spent.
The second of this mystery trilogy. Some things about Lisbeth Salander’s past come to light in this book, and some of her recent actions come back to be trouble. Much more a sequel than a stand-alone mystery.
One of the most notable things this book does is to explain a traumatic time in its troubled heroine’s past, but not have that trauma be the source of her problems; in essence, Lisbeth was broken before All The Evil even happened.
I saw the Swedish movie of …Dragon Tattoo, and it was nice to see that a seemingly out-of-place sequence in that movie actually had roots in this book. It’s a pretty good movie overall, if a bit brutal, and Noomi Rapace’s portrayal of Lisbeth Salander is quite amazing. There are two unfortunate things about the movie: the wondering it causes about the inevitable American version of the movie, and the fact that the second and third movies were made all in a rush on a shoestring budget and, apparently, without the fidelity to the source material that this first movie shows.
The third book isn’t out yet in English, gah, and won’t be until May. On the pre-order list it goes…
