Liviu has
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| # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages | avg rating | num ratings | date pub | date pub (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | recommender | comments | votes | read count | date started | date read |
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date purchased | owned | purchase location | condition | format | ||
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37
| 
| 1451638450
| 9781451638455
| 4.17
| 2,447
| Nov 06, 2012
| Nov 06, 2012
|
Fun and smart Lois Bujold romantic adventure novel, part of the Vorkosigan Saga though as is obvious from the title/blurb, a side novel in may ways. Wh...more Fun and smart Lois Bujold romantic adventure novel, part of the Vorkosigan Saga though as is obvious from the title/blurb, a side novel in may ways. When Ivan gets entangled with Tej and offers to marry her so she can escape a sticky situation on Komarr - marriage to be dissolved asap on Barrayar when Tej's trip to safety could be continued properly - little does he know that he actually marries in the galactic scale version of the mob with all the colorful in-laws he will ever want; actually to be more precise he knows it "theoretically", but well, like in the various "in laws" comedies, actually meeting the in-laws turns out to be a bit different than anyone expected Highly recommended for a light and fun adventure with great characters, a bit of wish fulfillment and considerable entertainment value(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Feb 25, 2013
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Feb 24, 2013
| Hardcover
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2
| 
| 9782811207359
| 3.75
| 12
| May 18, 2012
| May 18, 2012
|
First volume in the definitive edition of the original Almoha series and containing first two installments, Sentinelles d'Almoha and Jardin du Secrets...more
First volume in the definitive edition of the original Almoha series and containing first two installments, Sentinelles d'Almoha and Jardin du Secrets - now a tetralogy as the author finally manged to publish the original stories written in 1973-1977 before his career took off in the early 80's. So the first part in this book has been in a few incarnations, some more toned down than others and some explicitly destined for the YA market, but this one is Brussolo without compromises, with his adult language and themes and take no prisoners attitude. I discussed the first part earlier here in the standalone 94 edition: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80... so now a few words about the second volume,Le Jardin du Secrets (Garden of Secrets) while sfnal in concept, the book veers closer to fantasy with lots of magic, flying clouds, disembodied souls, though there are spaceships and robots too Nath, Sigrid and Neb Orn leave Solterra (Nath's hill city where he returned only to be used by the Sentinel Ghun for legitimacy in his nefarious plans which finally were thwarted mostyl by chance, though Nath's action and Sigrid's "nomads" group helped to some extent) to explore and find the fabled wall that splits Almoha in 2 at Equator and on whose other side a green paradise is supposed to exist contrasting with the ocean of mud we know about However travel on the Ocean of Mud is tricky and the 3 soon are in huge trouble, though a pirate cloud ship saves them at the last moment at a price of course; later while Sigrid is taken to the wizard pirate Mastrazaa whose magic keeps all alive at the high altitudes that would turn usually brain into mush due to Almoha's high g, Nath and Neb Orn have to contend with nasty captain Zoid Vorkan and barely manage to stay alive day to day while working for the pirates and repairing the cloud ship from the depredations of the predator birds that try and destroy it... And so it goes, while later as expected Nath and Sigrid manage to reach the wall and then the other side only to fond that paradise can actually be so close to hell as not to be distinguishable... Another ending that begs a continuation and luckily the second volume The Oath of Fire (Serment de Feu) with parts 3/4 (The Forbidden Zone and The Warriors of the Rainbow) is at hand Overall, same inventiveness and lack of sentimentality typical of Brussolo in a very entertaining hybrid of sf and fantasy and adult and YA literature A quick translation of the blurb above: "What is this impassable wall that cuts the kingdom Almoha? North reign heaviness that turns humans into monsters or pathetic flat heads, south ... Nobody knows what is in the south. The legends speak of a country where everything is wealth and beauty. One day, Nath decides to quit his daily hell and try to conquer heaven. But the wall is hiding more than one secret, more than one terror and Nath will learn that at his own expense..." (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Dec 28, 2012
| Jan 07, 2013
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Dec 28, 2012
| Paperback
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36
| 
| 0224097377
| 9780224097376
| 3.43
| 12,758
| Aug 23, 2012
| Aug 23, 2012
|
This is quite an entertaining and flowing novel that does what it advertises - romance, cold war politics and spying and interesting characters; close...more
This is quite an entertaining and flowing novel that does what it advertises - romance, cold war politics and spying and interesting characters; closer to what one calls a "beach read" than a December one, but an easy and reasonably uplifting novel (less)
| Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Dec 15, 2012
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Dec 16, 2012
| Hardcover
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35
| 
| 9789734632688
| 4.00
| 4
| Nov 27, 2012
| Nov 27, 2012
|
The collected short stories of the author in what may be definitive form - most appear in volume 2 of her collected works but there are a few extras a...more
The collected short stories of the author in what may be definitive form - most appear in volume 2 of her collected works but there are a few extras and changes/additions here is volume 2 which has the stories and the novel Intalnirea which i reviewed there http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13... While some of the shorts are too short so to speak to leave a lasting impression, the backbone of the book formed by four longish stories (title one, title one - Gara de est - of the earlier book mentioned, and then O plimbare scurtă după orele de serviciu and Dăruieşte-ţi o zi de vacanţă) is just superb; like in Provizorat the life of our parents and the one I dreaded I would have to live (would have done anything to escape West but of course one never knows) and 1989 spared me... (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Nov 30, 2012
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Nov 29, 2012
| ebook
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16
| 
| 9789734632560
| 3.70
| 56
| Nov 19, 2012
| Nov 19, 2012
|
excellent so far (about 1/2) but quite dense; I see how hard it is to translate the author in English and why I was only so-so on his other two books...more
excellent so far (about 1/2) but quite dense; I see how hard it is to translate the author in English and why I was only so-so on his other two books as I had only the English editions which do not capture the complexity and subtlety of his prose finished the book and it was quite good though it lacked full balance as the parts narrated by Emil Stratin, a retired engineer in his early 60's at the start of the book in 2000 are considerably better and more interesting than the relatively inane narration of his protegee boy Lucian from the small mountain town where the engineer retired the back story from his 1940 earthquake birth to the April 4, 1944 terrifying bombardment, to the communist takeover and the arrest of his father (history teacher) and grandfather (famed jeweler), to their release a few years later and their family slow return to normality and even relative prosperity as the services of the master jeweler grandfather become quite in demand for the communist nomenklatura, to his 1961 marriage to a medicine student and later their troubled marriage mostly due to long separations as Emil has to work on the various communist "cutting edge" building projects far and away while his wife slowly ascends to the Bucharest medical elite etc, is excellent as a chronicle of life under communism without too many political overtones except the ones coming from the biographies of the people the present story as mentioned is largely silly and Lucian the 12 year old boy to start is quite annoying on occasion as dumb narrators are not my favorites; his narration has a clear whiff of the Wimpy Kid series and while i don't expect the author to have read this popular dumb-ish children series, the similarities will strike anyone familiar with it Overall the book could have been a masterpiece, but the boy narrator makes it only pretty good(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Nov 21, 2012
| Dec 08, 2012
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Nov 21, 2012
| ebook
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25
| 
| B00A92CWOQ
| unknown
| 3.57
| 23
| Nov 17, 2012
| Nov 17, 2012
|
I finished Bound in one continuous reading session as it is a fast paced novel that makes one keep turning the pages; highly recommended and a full re...more
I finished Bound in one continuous reading session as it is a fast paced novel that makes one keep turning the pages; highly recommended and a full review in a week or two. The blurb gives one a good idea of what the book is about at least to start with and I will have more later. For now I will note that the novel ends at a good stopping point with promise of a lot to come - the big picture in other words just starts coming into focus, while the novel's main storyline is solved more or less, though of course this leads to deeper questions. As content I would say that the Collegia Magica series by Carol Berg is a good reference, while as style Paula Brandon's (Volsky) recent trilogy is a good comparison. The next book in the series is of high interest as I want to see where things go!(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Nov 26, 2012
| Nov 27, 2012
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Nov 20, 2012
| ebook
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3
| 
| 0374266743
| 9780374266745
| 3.68
| 374
| Jan 27, 2011
| Nov 13, 2012
|
Of all the posthumous - of course not including 2666 - R. Bolano releases this is the best hands down despite its incompleteness as the wonderful pros...more
Of all the posthumous - of course not including 2666 - R. Bolano releases this is the best hands down despite its incompleteness as the wonderful prose and vast knowledge of the author are on full display; the five component parts - whose origination is discussed after the end of the book - are of three kinds; the first 3 follow the semi-picaresque adventures of a Latin American study academic and his teenage daughter as he is booted from place to place when his homosexual inclinations are discovered by his bosses, so he ends in Santa Tereza after a last cushy spot in Barcelona where he meets (and beds) a wannabe charismatic poet who has a lasting impression on him. The academic is called Amalfitano same as in 2066 but of course the life path is different as for the writer below the 4th part discusses the work of Arcimboldi which has a similar name with the enigmatic writer of 2066 and is structured as a series of reviews of his novels, though here the writer is French not German the last part titled Killers of Sonora is related to the Savage Detectives yes the book is unfinished but it offers in the first 3 parts a full experience while parts 4 and 5 read very well both as novellas and as connection with the author's earlier work Highly, highly recommended FBC Rv http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com...(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Nov 18, 2012
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Nov 17, 2012
| Hardcover
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8
| 
| 0575094567
| 9780575094567
| 3.62
| 50
| Oct 01, 2012
| Oct 18, 2012
|
The end of the original Thief Apprentice series though of course characters from here will continue to appear in the next volume (Dragon Queen or so);...more
The end of the original Thief Apprentice series though of course characters from here will continue to appear in the next volume (Dragon Queen or so); 2 years from the end of the last book and Berren escapes from his indenture as a "skag" on a ship somewhere far away from home because he sees his former master Syannis - presumed dead or imprisoned - on another ship Later Berren joins a mercenary force, gets involved with the efforts of Syannis and his brother Talon to retake Tethis, meets the warlock Kuy again and much more... "The Bloody Judge" with nine fingers off all things too, now Berren is very far in capabilities from the scared youth of the first two volumes, though inside he is as conflicted as ever; the book contains so much stuff that I really do not want to spoil it, but it moves very well and you cannot stop turning the pages. There are some little logic miscues here and there - as Berren (and others) really should realize some stuff rather than act sullen and surprise at the bloody finale and the last third of the book covers a lot of time and events in a very condensed "one battle is as another" way, but the book works well and has narrative power with an ending that wraps things up while opening new avenues for the future In some ways this book is so different from the first two to seem as being from another series, a much darker, bloodier and more adult ones; and in the author's noted style, the novel has almost no get out of jail cards, characters die and no one is safe... Highly recommended, borderline top 25 of mine as the clear best of the 3 and arguably the author's best at least since his still awesome debut Adamantine Palace (have not yet read Black Mausoleum as of now) FBC review (above plus a little but tidied considerably): http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com...(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Oct 18, 2012
| Nov 08, 2012
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Oct 18, 2012
| Paperback
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18
| 
| 1408828685
| 9781408828687
| 2.90
| 163
| Aug 30, 2012
| Aug 30, 2012
|
utterly funny so far (and much better than Finkler Question though it's true that one had a very good first half, but the politics from the second hal...more
utterly funny so far (and much better than Finkler Question though it's true that one had a very good first half, but the politics from the second half took it down)' a few passages but the whole book so far (some 75 pages in) is like that ‘I’m gratified you found her death moving,’ I said. She was quivering with that rage you encounter only among readers. Was it because reading as a civilised activity was over that the last people doing it were reduced to such fury with every page they turned? Was this the final paroxysm before expiry? ‘Moved?’ I feared she might strike me with my berk. ‘Who said I was moved? I was envious. I identified with her because I’d been wishing I was dead from the first word." "Even allowing for my naivety, that’s a measure of how things have changed in twenty years. Then, no matter with what foundation in truth, it was possible to believe that being a writer was a glamorous occupation, that two beautiful women might travel up again from Knutsford sometime soon to renew their acquaintance with a man in whose head words cavorted like the Ballets Russes. Now, one has to apologise for having read a book, let alone for having written one. Food and fashion have left fiction far behind. ‘I sell suits by Marc Jacobs in Wilmslow,’ I’d say today if I wanted to impress a woman, ‘and when I’m not doing that I’m practising to be a short-order chef at Baslow Hall. This fiction shit is just a way of killing time.’ Finished the novel and while it becomes darker and more serious in the last part, the first 2/3 or so are among the funniest prose I've read in a while. Overall, if you appreciate a good rant with a lot of uncomfortable truths about this or that aspect of the reading universe (the skewering of YA genre is another part I greatly enjoyed as it was really funny and I will give some quotes in the final FBC rv) you will greatly enjoy this one, otherwise, the "now I won the Booker, I can let it rip and show what I really think" aspect may make one wish they did not read this book FBC Rv: INTRODUCTION: The only novel that I have previously read from Howard Jacobson was his 2010 Booker winning The Finkler Question, which I found quite funny and entertaining for its first half or so, but then its descent into political stuff and the author's barely veiled personal opinions on such that were inserted there, turned me off in the last part. So Zoo Time was not that high on my priority list, but a few weeks ago when in a mood to read something funny I requested a review copy on a whim from Net Galley, and I was surprised at how I could not put the book down when I started reading it. As with The Teleportation Accident before, a warning: do not read Zoo Time while drinking water or eating as you may choke from laughing! "Novelist Guy Ableman is in thrall to his vivacious wife Vanessa, a strikingly beautiful red-head, contrary, highly strung and blazingly angry. The trouble is, he is no less in thrall to her alluring mother, Poppy. More like sisters than mother and daughter, they come as a pair, a blistering presence that destroys Guy's peace of mind, suggesting the wildest stories but making it impossible for him to concentrate long enough to write any of them. Not that anyone reads Guy, anyway. Not that anyone is reading anything. Reading, Guy fears, is finished. His publisher, fearing the same, has committed suicide. His agent, like all agents, is in hiding. Vanessa, in the meantime, is writing a novel of her own. Guy doesn't expect her to finish it, or even start it, but he dreads the consequences if she does. In flight from personal disappointment and universal despair, Guy wonders if it's time to take his love for Poppy to another level. Fiction might be dead, but desire isn't. And out of that desire he imagines squeezing one more great book. By turns angry, elegiac and rude, Zoo Time is a novel about love - love of women, love of literature, love of laughter. It shows our funniest writer at his brilliant best." OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Zoo Time is an utterly funny novel for about two thirds, while its last part becomes moving drama with terminal illnesses and tragedy and offers a good emotional counterbalance to the more farce-like earlier content. The author lets it rip and pulls no punches in the words of alter-ego, (former bestselling), "literary" writer Guy Ableman whose first person narrative we follow throughout the book. Making his splash with "Who Gives a Monkey’s" a funny novel about zookeepers and some of their alleged weirder practices about whom he had learned from a former girlfriend, Guy, former salesman in his family high end clothes shop, got the girl (Vanessa), the fame and the literary career he had always wanted, only for things to start unraveling with the present day "revolution" in publishing and the changing tastes of the readers towards genre... While the following may strike some as overwritten hyperbola, anybody who follows more closely the "reading universe" - the whole reviews, forums, Goodreads, blogs etc scene - will actually find this paragraph very familiar: "‘I’m gratified you found her death moving,’ I said. She was quivering with that rage you encounter only among readers. Was it because reading as a civilized activity was over that the last people doing it were reduced to such fury with every page they turned? Was this the final paroxysm before expiry? ‘Moved?’ I feared she might strike me with my berk. ‘Who said I was moved? I was envious. I identified with her because I’d been wishing I was dead from the first word."" Not that the writing profession, the editors or the publishers get a gentler treatment: ""Even allowing for my naivety, that’s a measure of how things have changed in twenty years. Then, no matter with what foundation in truth, it was possible to believe that being a writer was a glamorous occupation, that two beautiful women might travel up again from Knutsford sometime soon to renew their acquaintance with a man in whose head words cavorted like the Ballets Russes. Now, one has to apologize for having read a book, let alone for having written one. Food and fashion have left fiction far behind. ‘I sell suits by Marc Jacobs in Wilmslow,’ I’d say today if I wanted to impress a woman, ‘and when I’m not doing that I’m practising to be a short-order chef at Baslow Hall. This fiction shit is just a way of killing time.’" And for good measure the current rage in YA gets its skewering - the chapter dealing with that is just hilarious but as I can quote only a few lines, its beginning below should give you a feel for how it goes: "The subject of the Oxford symposium I’d bolted from was the role of children’s literature. In what? The education of children? There was no education of children. If there was education of children – if there were education of children – there’d be proof of it in educated adults. But then what did I know? I’d been invited only to be publicly humiliated – an adult sacrifice on the altar of the adolescent paragraph. The short, adolescent paragraph." Overall, if you appreciate a good rant with a lot of uncomfortable truths about this or that aspect of the reading universe, you will greatly enjoy Zoo Time (highly recommended novel of 2012 for me), otherwise, the "now I won the Booker, I can let it rip and show what I really think" aspect may make one wish they did not read this book, so beware! (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Sep 20, 2012
| Sep 26, 2012
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Sep 20, 2012
| Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
11
| 
| B008UXLK3K
| 4.12
| 26
| Aug 23, 2012
| Aug 23, 2012
|
wow, a new unexpected C. Cameron in 3 installments; awesome and a buy asap finished this in an hour or so as it was a fun read; nothing that unpredicta...more wow, a new unexpected C. Cameron in 3 installments; awesome and a buy asap finished this in an hour or so as it was a fun read; nothing that unpredictable and of course it is part one only (just found out tonight about it as of course it is the release day of Poseidon's spear which is another automatic buy on publication date, but Sept 20 and October 18 are marked now as i plan to buy and read parts 2/3 on the release day) the blurb gives a good idea of what the story is about, while I would only add that the detail, accuracy and the no sentimentalism expected from the Greek World books from the author are present here and I hope the shorts work out well so we get more FBC Review: The blurb gives a good idea of what the story is about, and I would add that the detail, accuracy and the no sentimentalism expected from the Greek World books from the author are present here. Our hero, Tom Swan, illegitimate son of an English Cardinal and prince and a tavern keeper, educated both in the ways of tavern by his mother and later at court by his father and finding himself at loose ends after the death of the Cardinal, decides to follow a patron from the nobility on the field of glory in France at the tail end of the 100 Years War. Of course the field of glory turns into the mire of defeat, his patron dies in the final battle at Chatillon which shattered the English claims in France and the brutal character of this last campaign - brutal even for the times - means that prisoners are given no quarter and the book starts with their methodical execution, Tom being there in line and awaiting the inevitable... "For good or ill, Thomas Swan had been one of the first men into the French gun positions and one of the last to be taken. So he was on the right of the line of captives as the blood-maddened crowd of peasants and foot soldiers killed Englishmen. Swan was too tired to struggle. He thought about it. By the time he’d watched them kill a couple of men-at-arms worth far more than he was worth, he realised that they were all going to die." However, by luck, Greek Cardinal Bessarion - a refugee from Constantinople and one of the main promoters of the union of the Greek and Catholic Churches as a last ditch effort to save the city from Islamic occupation, union that ultimately would be rejected by the Greeks who in quite famous words, would prefer the Prophet to the Pope - passes by and Tom tries a desperate gamble, begging for mercy in Greek... "Swan pushed through his despair. It couldn’t hurt. It might even help. ‘Kyrie eleison, Pater! Kyrie, Agie Pater!’ he shouted in Greek. All that learning ought to be good for something" The gambit works and later Tom lies his way into being taken as a rich prisoner from a noble family who would pay a lot to ransom him, while the "money challenged" Cardinal bites the hook and takes Tom with him toward Paris where the ransoms are arranged. Of course things happen and Tom attaches himself to the Cardinal's party for good. An excellent first part of what I hope to be a long series... (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Sep 12, 2012
| Sep 13, 2012
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Sep 12, 2012
| Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||||
4
| 
| 162040169X
| 9781620401699
| 3.24
| 2,329
| 2011
| Oct 16, 2012
|
A short, powerful novel that just "lives" through its characters and its narrative pull; from the Booker 2012 longlist my 3rd favorite novel and from...more
A short, powerful novel that just "lives" through its characters and its narrative pull; from the Booker 2012 longlist my 3rd favorite novel and from the shortlist 2nd - I would not mind it winning however unlikely that is. The setup is explained well in the blurb though there quite a few tidbits that are sprinkled throughout the novel and add a lot and yes there is this feeling of "incompleteness", of author could have written 400 pages and still have something to say about the 4 main characters of the book (the 57 year old poet Joe Jacobs - JHJ - Holocaust survivor and haunted by his perceived abandonment in a Polish forest at age 5 by his parents, however rationally known that was done to save his life as the parents and his young sister died in the Nazi extermination camps, his war correspondent mostly absent wife Isabel, their 14 year old daughter Nina and the young Kitty Finch who comes and wreaks even more havoc in their unsettled lives) but so what, the book lives powerfully this way too and shows once again the distinction between books that pull one in and books that are crafted to win prizes A full review to come later(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Sep 11, 2012
| Sep 12, 2012
|
Sep 11, 2012
| Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
14
| 
| 0805093257
| 9780805093254
| 3.78
| 403
| 2010
| Aug 07, 2012
|
This is a book that attracted my attention by its cover and then after the blurb seemed ok and I opened it, just took over my reading for a while. Aft...more
This is a book that attracted my attention by its cover and then after the blurb seemed ok and I opened it, just took over my reading for a while. After that though I had quite a few other books to read but I knew I wanted to get back to it soon and I finally finished it. A first person narrative from quite an unusual narrator ("Me" who has problems with "you" and with projecting subjectivity and has big cognitive issues, but has some genius level characteristics, most notably the ability to empathize with animals - not that it stops "Me" to be a sort of humane slaughterer in various meat related industries from pigs to fish, though she does not eat flesh - and to focus on a given subject) Heart warming, funny and with lots of notable moments, the odyssey of Karen Nieto (see the blurb which is generally accurate and offers all the story detail one needs) is one of the surprise highly recommended books of 2012 for me - fast read with narrative pull and very life affirming, the book is also highly recommended if in need of an uplifting novel(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 03, 2012
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Aug 07, 2012
| Hardcover
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26
| 
| 0374169918
| 9780374169916
| 4.02
| 3,179
| 2010
| Apr 24, 2012
|
unexpectedly good, kind of took over my reading; read some reviews that suggested that but until opening it wasn't sure... I finished HHhH and it a ver...more unexpectedly good, kind of took over my reading; read some reviews that suggested that but until opening it wasn't sure... I finished HHhH and it a very compelling "nonfiction novel" and hard to put down when reading it, but also a little unsatisfying in the end as it's "I show only the facts, but wait i try to imagine stuff, but oh no it is wrong to do that when presenting history" takes itself too seriously and becomes almost a parody of itself on occasion. The author/narrator may be puzzled at the success of The Kindly Ones as he confesses in one of the mini chapters dealing with other works related to his topic, but the answer is that simple ; The Kindly Ones is a novel and a powerful work that will be read for a long time, while HHhH is clever but I predict it will be forgotten much sooner precisely because of its cleverness as we are dealing here with humans and their motivations and not with hard science - and however unlikely Max Aue is a very powerful narrator/character whose tale is much more emotional and brings much more vividly the dark Nazi era to life than the clever HHhH Personally only the fact that HHhH deals with Heydrich' career and generally with the rise of Reich, rather than the assassination per se (about which there are a few non fiction books that tell it well enough like say Callum McDonald's work which i read years ago) kept me interested and of course the author's generally strong narrative pull, but again I think that sometimes there is such a thing as trying too hard to be clever Another thing to mention is the oft quoted but still sadly true, that "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" so works that personalize tragedy will have much more impact than works that try to remain "objective" Still a highly recommended book of the year for its narrative pull and exhaustive research(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Aug 06, 2012
| Aug 12, 2012
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Aug 06, 2012
| Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
5
| 
| 0340998423
| 9780340998427
| 3.55
| 797
| Jul 19, 2012
| Jul 19, 2012
|
INTRODUCTION: When the 2012 Man Booker longlist was announced, three novels from it were talked about as being sffnal and as mentioned in my post on t...more
INTRODUCTION: When the 2012 Man Booker longlist was announced, three novels from it were talked about as being sffnal and as mentioned in my post on the topic, I decided I would take a look at them when I have a chance. With the wonderful cover above, the intriguing blurb below and an opening paragraph I will quote shortly and which will surely make the planned follow up post to my original "Some Memorable First Lines" from 2009, The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman was the clear choice to start. HISTORY HAPPENED WHILE YOU WERE HUNGOVER When you haven't had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that is happening to anyone anywhere. If you're living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn't. But that's no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: whether it was really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, the great Renaissance stage designer Adriano Lavicini; and why a handsome, clever, charming, modest guy like him can't, just once in a while, get himself laid. From the author of the acclaimed Boxer, Beetle comes a historical novel that doesn't know what year it is; a noir novel that turns all the lights on; a romance novel that arrives drunk to dinner; a science fiction novel that can't remember what 'isotope' means; a stunningly inventive, exceptionally funny, dangerously unsteady and (largely) coherent novel about sex, violence, space, time, and how the best way to deal with history is to ignore it. LET'S HOPE THE PARTY WAS WORTH IT OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Warning: do not read The Teleportation Accident when eating or drinking as you risk choking from laughter! "When you knock a bowl of sugar on to your host’s carpet, it is a parody of the avalanche that killed his mother and father, just as the duck’s beak that your new girlfriend’s lips form when she attempts a seductive pout is a quotation of the quacking noise your last girlfriend made during sex. And so it starts, while the follow-up lines that introduce our hero, Egon Loeser, a stage designer in Berlin 1931, all around "loser" but like the picaresque heroes of yore, gliding through all, are as hilarious and clever as the previous ones and they are quite tame compared with what follows. After a few introductory pages, his quest to bed Adele Hitler ("no relation"), his former fat teen pupil turned "femme fatale" in the Europe of the 1930's becomes the consuming obsession of his life and we follow him from Berlin, to Paris and finally to Los Angeles. "When the telephone rings in the night because a stranger has given a wrong extension to the operator, it is a homage to the inadvertent substitution of telegrams that terminated your adulterous cousin’s marriage, just as the resonant alcove between the counterpoised struts of your new girlfriend’s clavicle is a rebuttal to the apparent beauty of your last girlfriend’s fleshier décolletage. Or this is how it seemed to Egon Loeser, anyway, because the two subjects most hostile to his sense of a man’s life as an essentially steady, comprehensible and Newtonian-mechanical undertaking were accidents and women." The Teleportation Accident is divided into three main parts and to top it all, it finishes with a "four endings" final part, that brings the novel full circle in a definite sense, while adding a clear sfnality to it. The Berlin, Paris and the first Los Angeles chapters are just full riot and I have not laughed as hard reading a novel in a long time. Full of quotable lines and with characters that are one zanier than another, there is a clear hint of the darker undertones of the era but it generally follows the traditional picaresque structure, with Egon cluelessly facing various dangers or embarrassments and getting out of them mostly by the workings of chance. From his gay best friend Achleitner, to the English would be novelist Rupert Rackenham who later turns out to be both Egon's nemesis in the ways of love, but also his savior in the ways of the world and then to the American crook in Paris Scramfield, who recruits Egon to play the part of a Russian society doctor and to Egon's literary idol, American noir writer Stent Mutton or Los Angeles magnate, the cognitively impaired Colonel Gorge, the characters are just memorable and larger than life. And then there is the 17th century connection with genius set designer Lavicini (another obvious play on names), his patron de Gorge (no coincidence), or the sfnal connection with Troodonians, Lovecraftian creatures, secret Army projects involving a "phasmatometer" and of course the various Teleportation Devices, theater props or would be real ones... Here is Achleitner, introducing Egon to Rupert, while later correcting his misunderstanding about Rupert's relationships with women: ‘I’d love to introduce the two of you,’ said Achleitner, nodding at the Englishman, ‘but I’m afraid on this napkin next to your telephone number I seem just to have written “London, blond, incomparable ***”. ‘As everyone knows, all those English public-school boys are Gillette blades. They cut both ways" In the third part, The Teleportation Accident becomes considerably darker and more serious, the picaresque starts morphing into true drama and danger, serial killers and spies appear and Egon starts developing a backbone. The transition from levity to the stark reality of the era is handled very well and while the laugh-out riot becomes real suspense, the book only gains from that. Overall, The Teleportation Accident is an extraordinary novel that is witty, funny and inventive, but also dark and serious when it counts. A top 25 novel of mine and while I still would love seeing Tan Twan Eng winning the Booker as unlikely as that probably is, I would not mind if this one wins either! (less) | Notes are private!
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| Aug 02, 2012
| Aug 10, 2012
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Aug 02, 2012
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24
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| B007RS2E8O
| 3.64
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| 2012
| Apr 05, 2012
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as i did not have enough asap books to read, bought this one too; could be a quick engaging read but will see - finished the book as it was a relativel...more as i did not have enough asap books to read, bought this one too; could be a quick engaging read but will see - finished the book as it was a relatively short, fast and generally engaging read which promises a lot if the author will continue the story - it reminded me to a large extent of the early Honorverse books especially when the shift moved from the character in the blurb to the other main character, who is a young ship captain, not originally from the aristocracy but with protectors there (and now of course a member of it as all ship officers and pilots are), up and coming etc etc - there are some major differences in so far the Hegemony is completely dominated by the aristocracy who are all neural net humans (there is a good setup explaining the one way transition from flesh to quantum state which can be embodied but not duplicated, the way the Church treats it etc) - the opposition are a sort of atheist People's Republic with (generally dumb but powerful) commissars on board and set on conquest and on mischief - there are pirates and corrupt hegemony officials as well as some that believe that the power structure that prefers the 'zombies" not the flesh humans is wrong.. - the info dumps are Weberian on occasion too and the author does not quite have (yet) the narrative pull but there is a lot of promise so I really hope the series gets continued - the book itself solves its main storyline and ends at a good point though of course there is a huge TBC The full FBC rv below (pretty much the above but done coherently) INTRODUCTION: "The Hegemony of Suns is the greatest of the empires of mankind that have spread out through space from an abandoned and dying Earth. The Hegemony's vast warships dominate the skies over a hundred worlds, protecting its subjects and enforcing its will. The interceptor pilots of the Hegemonic Fleet are the cutting edge of the Hegemony's military might, the tip of the spear. In a split second, they can decide the outcome of a battle that can affect the fates of whole star systems. The life expectancy of an interceptor pilot is measured in minutes. It's debatable if they're still human. It's debatable if they're even alive to begin with. Alekzandra Neel has attained what she sought; a place among the stars, a chance to be an interceptor pilot of the Hegemonic Fleet. She doesn't expect it to be safe or easy. But as war clouds gather and billions look to the skies with nervous fear, she has no idea what the real cost could be." On looking through recent Smashwords novels, I encountered Mark Kalina's debut, Hegemony, which attracted me by its blurb and then by the sample. As I did not have enough asap books to read, I bought this one too expecting a quick engaging read and while it indeed proved to be such, it was also more as the book starts a series with an extremely compelling universe. OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: From the way it started - freighters making FTL transit to an important but isolated location and an all around sense of quiet menace, Hegemony strongly reminded me of the early Honorverse books, while later when the novel's center of gravity shifted from Alekzandra (Zandy), to Demi-Captain Freya Tralk, a young up and coming ship captain, not originally from the aristocracy but with powerful protectors there and now of course a member of it as all ship officers and pilots are, the similarities deepened. However, there are also some major differences in so far the Hegemony (the Polity here, not the novel of course) is completely dominated by the aristocracy who in a quite original twist, are all neural net humans.There is a good explanation of the setup explaining the one way transition from flesh to quantum state which can be embodied in avatars, but not duplicated, the way the Church treats it, the way it works in practice - costs, benefits, reasons and that is one of the major strengths of the novel. The opposition who so far seem to be all bad guys with no subtlety - though again it is early - are a sort of atheist People's Republic with generally dumb but powerful commissars on board and set on conquest and on mischief. They have a structural disadvantage to the Hegemony as their ideology regards the neural net humans as "missile guidance units with delusions of humanity", so their ships are crewed by flesh humans, hence much lower accelerations, time needed to recover between high-g burns and all that vulnerable flesh implies... In addition there are pirates and corrupt Hegemony officials as well as some that believe that the power structure that prefers the "zombies" not the flesh humans is wrong. The info dumps are quite Weberian on occasion too and while the author does not quite have (yet) the narrative pull to make one turn the pages through them too, there is a lot of promise so I really hope the series gets continued. Hegemony solves its main storyline and ends at a good point though of course there is a huge TBC sign and the series has depth for a long run if successful. Overall Hegemony was a relatively short, fast and quite engaging read set in a very interesting universe, very Weberian in overtones and "philosophy" and with narrative pull that on occasion comes close to the Honorverse and for that it makes the list of my highly recommended novels of 2012.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Aug 22, 2012
| Sep 11, 2012
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Aug 02, 2012
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21
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| 0007454767
| 9780007454761
| 3.13
| 150
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very interesting stuff; literary and needs time to process, but I see why it got nominated; hope to finish it this week INTRODUCTION: "A city in ten c...more very interesting stuff; literary and needs time to process, but I see why it got nominated; hope to finish it this week INTRODUCTION: "A city in ten chapters. Every city is made of stories: stories that intersect and diverge, stories of the commonplace and the strange, of love and crime, of ghosts and monsters. In this city an asylum seeker struggles to begin a new life, while a folk musician pays with a broken heart for a song and a butcher learns the secrets of the slaughterhouse. A tourist strays into a baffling ritual and a child commits an incalculable crime; private detectives search the streets for their archenemies and soulmates and, somewhere in the shadows, a figure which might once have been human waits to tell its tale. Communion Town is a city in ten chapters: a place imagined differently by each citizen, mixing the everyday with the gothic and the uncanny; a place of voices half-heard, sights half-glimpsed and desires half-acknowledged. It is a virtuosic first novel from a young writer of true talent" When the 2012 Man Booker longlist was announced, three novels from it were talked about as being sffnal and as mentioned in my post on the topic, I decided I would take a look at them when I have a chance. I read, loved and reviewed The Teleportation Accident and I opened, hated and put down Umbrella by Will Self - all capital words and exclamation points everywhere are things I strongly dislike - while Communion Town turned out to be a remarkable experience overall, but with two caveats: first that it is not a novel even in the loose way of The Islanders or Things We Didn't See Coming, but a collection of unrelated stories set in the imaginary city of the title. And then as the style of each story varies so much, some will work better than others, but that will be quite a personal experience in a way a more stylistically unified work would not. The stories will mesmerize you, they will tease you, they will offer promises and then they will end... OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Here I will offer a short discussion of each story and its first few lines as proof of the extraordinary stylistic range Sam Thompson shows in the book: I - Communion Town In the opening act we are introduced to the City through the voice of an all-knowing bureaucrat spying on two newcomers: "Do you remember how you came to this city, Ulya? Think back, because we need to agree on what happened right from the start. I want to help him out as much as you do, believe me. I know you’re worried, and in your place I’d be the same – but I can promise you that conditions are actually quite tolerable in there. So let’s approach this calmly. When I’ve said what I have to say, I’m going to offer you an opportunity, and I hope you’ll feel able to respond." This opening paragraph is another one that will make an updated "memorable first lines" post and which made Communion Town a must read. The story delivers on its promise and more. II - The Song of Serelight Fair The longest and best of the 10 stories; poor boy, rich girl, music. Awesome and I wish this story did not end... "I saw her on the street today. Another pedestrian pushed in front of me and she was there, already moving past, carrying a takeaway espresso and grasping the strap of her shoulder bag. She’d bought a smart new coat for the autumn, and her hair was cut above the shoulders, but it was the old shade of red again. I ducked towards a news-stand as if I were studying the magazines. She’d prefer that, I thought. She had somewhere to go. For the space of a single footstep, there was nothing in between us but air, and I could have spoken to her without raising my voice, but then the space widened and rush hour commuters filled it, pushing us further and further apart. I followed her for a short distance, just to see if I could stay close, but she outpaced me and I lost her as she boarded a tram. As I watched her disappear a song came into my head, an old song I used to know. I’ve been singing it to myself ever since." III - The City Room The first story narrated in third person; a boy living with his grandmother, his toys, his imagination and an adventure you decide its reality or lack of such. Another hit of the book and my second favorite story. "In from the street, through the hall and down, one palm making a squeak on the bannister, his feet pattering softly on the stairs, he can go at such a speed and still be so quiet. As he enters the dim corridor his eyes crowd with blocks of a colour that doesn’t have a name, a colour that no one else has discovered." IV - Gallathea Noir; well, sort of as the detective's investigative target may or may not exist in the same temporal place with him. This is the second longest piece of the book and the first somewhat disappointing one for me as it was quite predictable after a while. Back to first person and while indeed the voice is Chandlerian, I kind of outgrew that a long time ago. "Let’s try this one more time, kid. Let’s get this straight. Why did you do it? 1. Breakfast with Violence That day, the day the Cherub boys came looking for me, I was down at Meaney’s." V - Good Slaughter Now, this is how dark fiction should be written to convey suspense and well, darkness; an expert butcher's musings on life on the "slaughter line" and his growing suspicions that his unlikable boss is the famous serial killer "the Flaneur" that has been stalking the city for a long time and who may or may not be real. Excellent stuff and while I prefer a few other more intimate stories, this is a highlight of the book. "Work stopped a heartbeat back. There’s no hush like the hush when the machinery shuts off. It’s an uproar of silence. We keep our thoughts private. The workers remove their goggles, hard hats and earplugs, peel off their spattered overalls, scrub their hands at the sanitary stations and file to the exits. The concrete gleams. Clear droplets form on steel points, swelling and falling, mechanical, slower and slower. They don’t want to count away the time that’s left." VI - Three Translations Back to third person in a story that brings a "foreign view" to the city, as former school friends Dawn - working for a couple of years in Communion Town - and Andie, just visiting, meet by chance. However it is Andie who sees and understands more, while Dawn seems stuck in a forever translating role. This is a good story with a lot of subtle touches and undercurrents, but I felt something was missing to make it a truly great one. "Dawn was walking home along the seafront when a voice called her name. As she looked around, a tall, fair-haired girl hefted a rucksack on her shoulder and started forward, shading her eyes against the hard sunlight, almost colliding with a cyclist as he zipped by. The tall girl, whose name was Andie, called out again. A man selling treats from an icebox slung across his chest was watching with interest." VII - The Significant City of Lazarus Glass Holmesian pastiche, but well done and very inventive and entertaining, though you can see the denouement quite a way out. Still a highlight of the book and the most straightforward "accessible" story as style goes. "Exquisite enigmas, mysteries sinister and bizarre: for Peregrine Fetch these were at once a vocation and the keenest happiness in life. As an archive of the gruesome and the perplexing his casebook is without peer and yet, even there, the details of his final adventure must strike the interpreter as anomalous. It may be that we have yet to grasp the whole pattern of the crimes." VIII - Outside the Days Short but excellent and another example of how to write suspense without any overt violence. The good looking, interesting, well connected, seemingly successful Stephen and the less socially adept narrator in a role reversal... "When Stephen’s message came I had nearly forgotten him. Time passes, and on most days he never entered my thoughts, or if he did it was faintly and far off. But without warning now he wanted to see me again, and, although he didn’t say why, I could find no way not to agree. I found myself walking along Impasto Street on a dark afternoon in mid-December when some influence had sent people out into the city in large numbers, jostling to spend money, zealous and hard-faced, shouldering each other aside." IX - The Rose Tree Another story that tries to "rough it out" and in consequence, it did not really work for me. The least favorite story of mine and one I thought the book could do without. "A few of us were in the café that night. On this side of town there aren’t many places to go, so when we feel the need of a drink or some quiet company through the hours of darkness, we come here, where Dilks keeps serving till dawn. For as long as the season lasts, everyone knows that once dark has fallen you don’t go out again before morning." X - A Way to Leave Back to third person and the intimate. This is a quieter story and it contains for once two points of view as we see both Simon and Florence's perspectives as a seemingly mismatched couple. But there is more subtlety involved than Simon's whining from the first few pages implies and I actually liked this one quite a lot in its understated prose. A good way to leave indeed... "Simon knelt with his body locked from groin to throat until the muscles opened and he succeeded in pouring out a caustic mixture of liquid and gas. When he could breathe again he flushed away the waste, rinsed his mouth and stood in front of the mirror, trying to decide whether the pain had lessened. The left side of his head throbbed from the eye-socket to the roots of the teeth.His migraines had been getting worse, forcing him to spend whole days lying half-awake in the darkened bedroom. In his dream Florence had murdered him but everyone had agreed that he was to blame." Overall, Communion Town is a highly recommended book that offers an exquisite reading experience with its many voices in an imaginary city that vividly comes to life.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Aug 02, 2012
| Aug 15, 2012
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Aug 01, 2012
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34
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| 9781848633230
| 4.07
| 15
| Apr 01, 2012
| Apr 01, 2012
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The Architect is a short novel that is mesmerizing and makes you turn the pages once you open it. While the story reveals itself soon as a pretty fami...more The Architect is a short novel that is mesmerizing and makes you turn the pages once you open it. While the story reveals itself soon as a pretty familiar one after a somewhat mysterious beginning where both the origins of the cult that is central to the novel and of the architect of the title are presented, the power of the book lies in the captivating style and the slowly turning up of the pressure and the stakes. I plan to add a few more thoughts and have a more coherent on FBC this month or next month, but I would strongly recommend to at least check a sample of this one and see if the powerful imagery inside transfixes you too This is the first book i read by Mr. Connell and it intrigued me quite a lot so I want to try more of his work starting with The Life of Polycrates(less) | Notes are private!
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| Jul 05, 2012
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Jul 05, 2012
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7
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| 0230748783
| 9780230748781
| 3.80
| 35
| Jun 07, 2012
| Jun 07, 2012
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FBC Rv INTRODUCTION: Scottish sf writer Gary Gibson burst onto the scene in 2004 with a very ambitious debut Angel Stations which made me a big time fa...more FBC Rv INTRODUCTION: Scottish sf writer Gary Gibson burst onto the scene in 2004 with a very ambitious debut Angel Stations which made me a big time fan. While having some debut flaws like lack of balance and even too much ambition for the relatively limited page count, Angel Stations is not your "average" debut, but a very complex and mature novel that pays several close readings. His second novel, Against Gravity, quite different in tone was another hit with me and then turning his hand to "popular" new space opera on a galactic canvas and with all the associated paraphernalia, Mr. Gibson completed the Shoal trilogy of which its debut Stealing Light was my top sf novel of the year. While planning a return to the Shoal universe at some point, Gary Gibson developed another fascinating universe, "The Founder Network" one - in the 22/23 rd centuries humanity develops wormhole based ftl, only to find a sophisticated ancient system of wormholes, built by the hypothetical aliens named "Founders", system that goes far away in space and time but comes with potentially major dangers as we learn in Final Days. OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Thousand Emperors is set in the same universe with Final Days some centuries after the events there and while there are some cool references to it at some point and of course the Founder network and tech is important even indirectly, the book is really a standalone as everything needed is explained. As structure, the novel is part action adventure, part investigation of the powerful with the attending risks, part sense of wonder all written in the wonderful style that made Gary Gibson one of the top sf authors of today with all 7 books to date read by me the moment I got them, either on publication or occasionally as advanced reading copies. Most of The Thousand Emperors takes place in Tian Di, a semi paternalistic space empire modeled on the successful semi-democratic Asian states of today like Singapore - led by a council of elders that achieved effective immortality with clones and transcribing personality, protected by an elite force of warriors - the Sandoz - who also benefit by the same treatments. Separated a few centuries ago from the Western-like Coalition after a successful revolution on its worlds and the severance of the wormholes connecting Tian Di's worlds with the Coalition, Tian Di's people enjoy generally tranquil and prosperous lives but there are some trouble spots and then there is what some perceive as stagnation with science and technology managed by the Council, while the Coalition is rumored to be leaps and bounds ahead. So despite Joseph "Father" Cheng's wishes - the leader of the Council though not without internal opposition - and even of most of the 85 "inner" members of the Council, there is a seemingly inevitable "reunification" with the Coalition with the first wormhole connecting Tian Di's capital Temur to Darwin the Coalition's capital to be opened soon. Explaining this better here is an excerpt from the Prologue, which in pure sf tradition is itself a purported "Excerpt from A History of the Tian Di: Volume 1 – From Abandonment to Schism by Javier Maxwell." "The decades following the Abandonment were hard, lean times, but barely half a century later starships carrying new, retro-engineered transfer gates were already being sent out to reconnect the colonies one to another. It is in this period that the template for the modern political order was laid down. Although the Western Coalition – by this time, simply the Coalition – had seized political and military control of the colonial governments, the general populations of those worlds had been predominantly drawn from member nations of the former Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Coalition–Sphere relations were already deeply antagonistic prior to the Abandonment, and became more so, inevitably flowering into a full-fledged revolt a century after the Coalition’s takeover. The uprising proved to be bitter and protracted, but ended with several worlds finally achieving autonomy from Coalition rule. These worlds – Da Vinci (now Benares), Newton (now New Samarkand), Franklin (now Temur), Galileo (now Novaya Zvezda), Yue Shijie, and Acamar – became known collectively as the Tian Di, and were ruled from Temur by a council of revolutionary leaders numbering nearly a thousand. Although far from being a democracy, this Temur Council provided much-needed stability in the post-revolutionary period. While the Tian Di and the Coalition co-existed in relative peace over the next several decades, they rapidly diverged both culturally and technologically. The Coalition first renewed and then stepped up its exploration of the Founder Network, despite increasingly alarmed protests from the Temur Council, whose members were afraid of a repeat of the events leading to the Abandonment. It is undoubted that the Temur Council lacked for effective leadership in the years immediately preceding what we now call the Schism, and the power vacuum following Salomón Lintz’s forced resignation as the Council’s Chairman offered a clear opportunity for a man as ruthlessly determined as Joseph Cheng. Cheng soon swept to power on the wave of a popular coup, and the promise that he would sever all transfer gates linking to the Coalition to prevent any possible repeat of the Abandonment. Cheng soon fulfilled his promise and, within days of becoming Permanent Chairman of the Temur Council, the human race was effectively split in two. Those few members of the Temur Council who had openly opposed Cheng’s rise to power, including, most prominently, myself and Winchell Antonov, were either imprisoned, forced into exile, or executed on trumped-up charges. It cannot be denied that the period immediately following the Schism was marked by unprecedented peace throughout the Tian Di. The quality of life for our citizens improved by such leaps and bounds that there was, for a long time, little to no demand throughout the Tian Di for moves towards more democratic representation. The one real exception, of course, was Benares – a world of limited resources, cruelly under-represented within the Council. It was on Benares that Winchell Antonov, having escaped his imprisonment, founded the Black Lotus organization. Antonov is also credited with giving Cheng’ls Council the less than flattering sobriquet The Thousand Emperors." Coming back to the book itself, the story follows "master archivist" security investigator Luc Gabion whom we see (nominally) leading a Sandoz strike force closing in the last hideout of Winchell Antonov, hideout that was found by Gabion's painstaking investigation of years. The book just explodes from its first "proper" page - after the prologue quoted above - and it just does not stop for over 300 pages that "demand" end to end reading, so absorbing they are. "‘Gabion.’ Luc turned to see Marroqui stabbing a finger at him from across the hold, his face dimly visible within his helmet. ‘Close your visor, Goddamn it,’ said Marroqui, his voice flat and dull in the cramped confines of the hold. ‘Depressurization in less than thirty seconds. We’re landing.’ Luc reached up and snapped his helmet’s visor into place, ignoring the smirking expressions of the armour-suited Sandoz warriors arrayed in crash couches around him. They were crammed in close to each other, bathed in red light." There are a lot of nice touches - eg Tian Di seems very "real" reflecting the author's true experiences (meaning doing real work and mingling with the local population not only with the bigwigs in flyby "research" trips...) of living in the east, the sense of wonder is vivid and the action feels mostly "realistic" too with few over the top moments. There are also a few quieter moments and the characters "have also lives", the lack of which is one the main failings of action-adventure sf... "Luc arrived back at his apartment without incident and found several messages waiting for him from Eleanor. This time, instead of ignoring them he sent back an immediate response. He had a sudden desperate urge to see her, to hold her in his arms." The one negative of the book is the lack of ambiguity in the main villains who after a while are quite easy to pinpoint as they almost wear the well known "villain hat", while also being real unsubtle about it as in an emphatic "I am in for me", but I mind this much less in sf than in fantasy and the novel delivers so well in all the other aspects (action, sense of wonder, world building, characters, style...) that this niggle is quite minor. A top 25 novel of mine for 2012 and another Gary Gibson winner!(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Jun 07, 2012
| Jun 09, 2012
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Jun 07, 2012
| Hardcover
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12
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| 0312359845
| 9780312359843
| 3.73
| 375
| Jan 01, 2012
| Jun 05, 2012
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FBC Review: INTRODUCTION: Outside speculative fiction, no contemporary writer is more appreciated by me than Steven Saylor for his wonderful Roma sub R...more FBC Review: INTRODUCTION: Outside speculative fiction, no contemporary writer is more appreciated by me than Steven Saylor for his wonderful Roma sub Rosa series with its main character Gordianus "the Finder" who is my current #1 fiction hero. I summarized my impressions to the Gordianus novels HERE and I reviewed Empire, the second installment in the author's take on Roman history by following about 11 centuries of the fortunes of a patrician family entrusted with a special religious symbol. What about the author's highly awaited return to Gordianus' adventures in The Seven Wonders? Read on for my take on it, but in brief I have to say that it fulfilled my expectations and even surprised me a bit towards the ending which opens the possibilities of more from Gordianus' early career before his brilliant entrance in the Rome of the high and mighty helping Cicero's stinging Sulla's dictatorship in Roman Blood. OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Seven Wonders consists of short stories - most published last year in various magazines and anthologies of which I have previously read some four - glued together with an introduction in Rome where we get to see Gordianus father and an epilogue in Alexandria, where Bethesda appears in the hero's life. The topic of the stories is self-explanatory and the blurb above covers the needed details more than adequately, so I will talk about the general feel of the book rather than of each adventure individually. There is a mystery - sometimes more obvious, sometimes more thriller-like than puzzling - but in each case the setting and the secondary characters are the highlight in addition of course to the still wise-cracking narration of Gordianus. Structurally The Seven Wonders has an unifying thread of the Mithridatian menace to Rome which leads to the ambiguous of motivations of various characters and giving a subtle feeling to the book as a while which cannot be discerned by reading the stories in separation on original publication. Also as hinted throughout the series, Gordianus is not averse to men either and here he comes out - to us of course as the classical antiquity's mores where different and trickier; I really loved that part and I would just note that more than anything, this shows the difference between the 1990's and 2012 in US social mores and of what is deemed appropriate to publication in mainstream books... Gordianus' voice at 18 still compelling and while he is appropriately youthful and overall I think I prefer his more mature and wiser voice of the novels, the book gets the balance well in this regard. Also the Rome introduction and the Alexandria finale are outstanding as historical fiction on their own, so there is scope for more young Gordianus, both in Egypt and at Rome, though I still want that promised novel with Gordianus warning Caesar on the Ides of March... Since most of the stories were published earlier they obviously need self-containment, so by necessity tend to be simplistic as mysteries and lack the powerful unity of the novels, while the continual switching of venues tends to break the narrative flow but that was to be expected in what is essentially a "fix-up" novel. I would have really loved more about the travel itself as Gordianus and Antipater cover quite a distance in visiting the Seven Wonders and occasionally interesting venues in their neighborhoods - the time is done well, no flying so to speak -but the travel details are skimped on and I missed that. Overall, The Seven Wonders (highly recommended novel of 2012) is a very good introduction to Gordianus. While not at the level of the best novels in the series, the book does quite a good job within its parameters that impose quite a few restrictions, while managing to have a unifying thread and excellent first and last parts. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Jun 03, 2012
| Jun 07, 2012
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Jun 03, 2012
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32
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| 1936661748
| 9781936661749
| 3.67
| 211
| Jan 01, 2012
| Jun 19, 2012
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FBC Rv: INTRODUCTION: As a huge series fan and also as I own the art books inspired by the novels, I was very curious about this essay book since I hea...more FBC Rv: INTRODUCTION: As a huge series fan and also as I own the art books inspired by the novels, I was very curious about this essay book since I heard about it some months ago. While the recent A Feast of Ice and Fire is a bit "too out" for my interests, the upcoming map book "The Lands of Ice and Fire" is another huge asap, so this year we will have been treated with a lot of ASOIAF material, from the excellent HBO series, to three related works including the one discussed here! Note that Beyond the Wall contains spoilers about the series up to and including A Dance with Dragons, though I will avoid such below. OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "Beyond the Wall" contains 16 essays including the foreword from RA Salvatore and the introduction from the editor, both worth reading by themselves too and they group naturally in a few categories: The fan explorations of the wonderful ASOIAF universe which are the core of the book and are excellent and make the book totally worth reading. Here we have exceptional contributions: from Adam Whitehead on the mythical nature of Westeros' chronology: "In A Song of Ice and Fire, characters live in a world whose very history is uncertain and ill-defined, where myth and legend are hopelessly and inextricably entwined with accounts of real events.The predominant feature of Westerosi history is vagueness.", from Linda Antonsson and Elio Garcia on the perennial Lyanna-Rhaegar question and more generally on romanticism in a Byronic sense: "The most prevalent manifestation of romanticism is the view of the past espoused by many characters in the novel. It seems a part of human nature to idealize the past, to suppose things were somehow “better” in days gone by. The same can be said about how characters view the past of Westeros, citing examples of how the realm was once better off and has now declined.", from Andrew Zimmerman Jones on the multiple and quite intricate religions of the series: "In fact, the religions portrayed in A Song of Ice and Fire are reflections of the religions in our own world. They require a leap of faith, because the effects of belief are so intangible. The religions of Westeros claim to dictate absolute, perfect truths through imprecise, flawed institutions and beings—just like the religions we encounter every day", from Jesse Scoble on the way George Martin uses magic in the series: "What’s intriguing about this is that Martin’s world of the Seven Kingdoms is steeped in magic. But it is not used in a “traditional fantasy” sense." and from Gary Westfahl on the Egg and Dunk stories, essay which starts a bit ponderously with some generic talk about types of tales as seasons - talk that is very vague and even self-contradictory - but then rights itself with a wonderful appreciation of the three prequel stories to date and of course noting how GRRM actually does not really fit in such a rigid schemata anyway: "Interestingly, there is evidence in the third novel of A Song of Ice and Fire, A Storm of Swords, suggesting precisely such a desire to heighten the import of the Dunk and Egg stories." There are also three essays that are on the border between the pretentious and the interesting, but overall they fall on the interesting part mostly because they do not follow a particular pet-theory or ideology of the essay author, but stick to discussing the books and their universe. In Men and Monsters, Alyssa Rosenberg tackles quite reasonably the nature of sexual violence in the series - as I note below, imho, any (faux) medieval world is a world steeped in violence especially in times of trouble as surely we have in Westeros at the end of Robert's reign and men are also tortured and mutilated casually - as we see vividly in the books and the essay author to her credit points this out and makes the discussion more balanced. In "The Brutal Cost of Redemption", Susan Vaught has a good discussion of the moral nature of the series and I really liked this passage which summarizes my feelings too: "Westeros is not built upon a shifting foundation of chaos. True, there is no clearly marked, brightly lit path to salvation. Yet characters face a painful retributive justice, born of moral absolutism, that lends reality and depth to the medieval society portrayed in the series." Actually this topic is one of great interest as I think here the divide between the nuanced fantasy of GRRM and the "four legs good, two legs bad" fantasy especially pre-Martin but also today, is clearest. In "A Different Kind of Other" Brent Hartinger discusses the role of freaks and outcasts in ASOIAF, and while the essay starts very anachronistically (hey the world of ASIAF is an aristocratic one where even the handsomest man or the most beautiful woman does not really count unless they have the noblest blood) with: "Who doesn’t love an underdog? As humans, most of us seem to be instinctively drawn to outsiders, to the excluded. At least on some level, most of us sympathize with those who are denied even the opportunity to prove their full worth. We recognize that’s just not fair." After this very 21st century quote which denotes the author's lack of experience of any society beyond the wealthy modern western one, the essay gets better and has some good stuff to say about its topic, but the beginning jarred badly. Then there are three essays following a pet modern theory (feminism, PTSD, pop-psychology) which imho are both useless and anachronistic. While they contain the occasional gem they generally read like debating angels on a pin as for example people in a world like Martin's have an exposure to violence which is almost infinitely higher than ours in the modern world so we cannot really comprehend their mindset from that point of view. Similarly the world of ASIAF is a world where the powerless and the fallen from power are treated with no mercy and women and children (and the poor and non-noble) are part of the powerless, so feminism which is a modern western doctrine has very little relevant to say about the books beyond what can be said about any "realistic" faux-medieval stuff. Pop-psychology mercifully has not been invented in Martin's world so notions like psychopaths are just silly. Of course such essays by Mike Cole, Caroline Spector and Matt Stags may appeal to some, so from that point of view their inclusion broadens the book despite that I found them quite uninteresting. Finally there is general stuff like the Foreword, the Introduction, the essay about where ASOIAF stands in the "genre wars" - the usual bellyaching and moaning of some sff writers that they are "disrespected" by the literary establishment, when imho the correct answer is let the generally mortified canon die in peace and celebrate the vibrancy of genre - which actually here is treated quite well and rationally by Ned Vizzini: "Martin thus fights the genre wars by sidestepping them. Working from within the system, refusing to apologize for what came before, he writes books that are too bloody, unexpected, and relentlessly story-driven to be ignored. In doing so, he elevates other fantasy along with his own." Here I would also include the niche essays about adapting ASOIAF to graphic form by Daniel Abraham and the one about collecting the books by John Jos. Miller, neither of which are of particular interest to me, but they provided a good overview of the respective issues. Overall Beyond the Wall exceeded my expectations and it's a highly recommended book of 2012 and a great companion to any lover of the series though keep in mind the spoiler note above if you have not read all five books to date! (less) | Notes are private!
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| May 25, 2012
| Jun 17, 2012
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May 25, 2012
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1
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| 0230750052
| 9780230750050
| 4.05
| 1,384
| Sep 01, 2012
| Sep 27, 2012
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1087 pages !! - UK arc edition Only a few points for now with a more detailed review later: I finished Great North Road by Peter Hamilton and on the who...more 1087 pages !! - UK arc edition Only a few points for now with a more detailed review later: I finished Great North Road by Peter Hamilton and on the whole I am a little mixed; addictive but very self-indulgent, a new universe and a somewhat fresh take on the author's usual themes (long life, the rich, sense of wonder, detailed world building, alien aliens...) but also a lot of repetitions... This is truly a book that should have been slimmed down considerably and could have easily done with much less from the Newcastle police investigation which takes probably about half the novel and gets very boring after a while. Also lots of mannerisms that are funny once or twice but get tired quite fast, with "pet" the worst offender by a lot. If you are a fan of the author, you will most likely enjoy this though I bet you will shake your head at the self indulgence (editor, editor, editor!!!), otherwise go and read Reality Dysfunction, Pandora's Star, the Dreaming Void, the Mandel books and even Fallen Dragon which had some great stuff despite its structural weakness Edit: I went fast again through the book and on the second read it definitely improved in so far I knew to avoid the large chunk dealing with the Newcastle police investigation and just focus on Angela's saga which is actually excellent; so I am changing to a recommended book as about half the book - though it mostly starts after about 300 pages or so - is indeed the vintage PF Hamilton I had expected, while the rest which should have been compressed to about a fifth is skip-able without missing that much. Read Angela's story and browse through the Newcastle investigation and you will have a much better experience reading the book and will appreciate it more; a superb PFH is hidden in this self-indulgent way bloated novel and this is the way to discover it One more edit after a second reread of the part of the novel outside the police procedural (so about 600/1100 pages which clarified why I felt so let down to start with and why my opinion has improved dramatically since: If you get stalled into the book, start at page 232 (and look up the chapter with Angela early in prison etc) and then skip everything that takes place in Newcastle (no loss as anyway what happens there is updated for the heroes of the space opera part in a few lines every now and then) except towards the end and you will have one of the most gripping reads of PFH - I reread once more those parts yesterday and I was even more impressed and if the book would have consisted only of those probably 600 pages or so, it would have been awesome and one of the best PFH; the police procedural though that takes the other 500 or so pages is just booo-ring to the nth power except for the last couple of chapters or so... The problem is that of the the first 232 pages, most are the police stuff and i easily see people being turned off and putting the book down when they read the nth detail about how to track a taxi and the like (less) | Notes are private!
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| May 23, 2012
| May 26, 2012
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May 23, 2012
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19
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| 1841499900
| 9781841499901
| 4.23
| 3,581
| Jun 26, 2012
| Jun 26, 2012
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I finished Caliban's War by James Corey; in short, I liked it and as it is in large parts a repeat of Leviathan wakes with a different side plot and 3...more
I finished Caliban's War by James Corey; in short, I liked it and as it is in large parts a repeat of Leviathan wakes with a different side plot and 3 new pov's, I guess people's reaction will mirror the reaction to the first book. While I liked the new pov's - for various reasons, not least having a better gender balance the lack of which was a reasonably legitimate criticism of the first book, so now two of the three new pov's are female, both with great power in their own ways as one is a tough Martian marine and the other an ethnic Indian politician who is one of movers and shakers on Earth - the action lacked the freshness and the sense of wonder from Leviathan wakes and the book was a more standard action-adventure-space thriller without the sfnal mysteries of the debut. A great wow ending and of course I want more asap, while overall i would rate the book as a highly recommended one of me for 2012 but not quite a top 25 Full FBC rv to come this month(less) | Notes are private!
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| not set
| Jun 12, 2012
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May 21, 2012
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29
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| 0307952959
| 9780307952950
| 4.03
| 1,321
| Sep 18, 2012
| Sep 18, 2012
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Life of Alexandre Dumas the father of the celebrated novelist, black general (son of a French aristocrat and a Haitian black slave) of the Revolution...more
Life of Alexandre Dumas the father of the celebrated novelist, black general (son of a French aristocrat and a Haitian black slave) of the Revolution who later fell out with Napoleon, was imprisoned in a dungeon and while he was later freed, his health was broken and he died forgotten in 1806 Excellent reconstruction of a life, of a period and of the subtleties of racial relations in the late 18th century; reads like a novel and it is very hard to put down, while the research is impressive and well presented. (less) | Notes are private!
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| May 15, 2012
| May 18, 2012
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May 15, 2012
| ebook
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13
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| 0805090037
| 9780805090031
| 4.28
| 13,906
| 2012
| May 08, 2012
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A major novel - sequel to Wolf Hall - and i would say a shoo-in for a Booker nomination. Continuing the saga of Thomas Cromwell, this time in a relati...more
A major novel - sequel to Wolf Hall - and i would say a shoo-in for a Booker nomination. Continuing the saga of Thomas Cromwell, this time in a relatively short period of time (mid 1535 till May 1536) and dealing with the downfall of Anne Boleyn, but the book is about much more - there is a quick recollection of the events in Wolf Hall for example - while the writing is just masterful and draws you in; this time the narration is less convoluted than in Wolf Hall and follows Cromwell through his machinations, his larger than life lifestyle and his generosity with the common people, but does not gloss over his ruthlessness - he needs bodies for the scaffold, he makes sure he gets his enemies and not his friends despite that Anne seems to be involved with both kinds... Should have a coherent full review with quotes this month, but in the meantime I strongly recommend to check this one and see how high class literature that is genre-like in subject is written. This short dialog between Cromwell and his nephew Richard encapsulates well the novel: "The hours to that event seem long. Richard hugs him; says, ‘If she had reigned longer she would have given us to the dogs to eat.’ ‘If we had let her reign longer, we would have deserved it.’"(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| May 09, 2012
| May 12, 2012
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May 07, 2012
| Hardcover
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30
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| B005HJV8KA
| unknown
| 3.85
| 194
| May 01, 2012
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INTRODUCTION: Together with Alan Furst's historical novels about the immediate pre-WW 2 period, David Downing's John Russell novels which start on New...more INTRODUCTION: Together with Alan Furst's historical novels about the immediate pre-WW 2 period, David Downing's John Russell novels which start on New Year's day 1939 in Zoo Station and so far cover the period up to New Year's Day 1946 at the end of Lehrter Station are big favorites that combine superb historical fiction - atmosphere, characters - with a dash of intrigue and action. Here is the blurb and more about it below. "Paris, November 1945. John Russell is walking home along the banks of the Seine on a cold and misty evening when Soviet agent Yevgeny Shchepkin falls into step alongside him. Shchepkin tells Russell that the American intelligence will soon be asking him to undertake some low grade espionage on their behalf—assessing the strains between different sections of the German Communist Party—and that Shchepkin’s own bosses in Moscow want him to accept the task and pass his findings on to them. He adds that refusal will put Russell’s livelihood and life at risk, but that once he has accepted it, he’ll find himself even further entangled in the Soviet net. It’s a lose-lose situation. Shchepkin admits that his own survival now depends on his ability to utilize Russell. The only way out for the two of them is to make a deal with the Americans. If they can come up with something the Americans want or need badly enough, then perhaps Russell will be forgiven for handing German atomic secrets over to Moscow and Shchepkin might be offered the sort of sanctuary that also safeguards the lives of his wife and daughter in Moscow. Every decision Russell makes now is a dangerous one." OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Lehrter Station is the fifth John Russell novel and it was still captivating and making me want the next installment asap - and there will be a next and probably as many as the market will bear since there is so much stuff that's going on and as the hero puts it: "Rather to his surprise, he felt more sanguine about his new espionage career than he had when the Soviets first came to call. Wondering why, he realized what had changed. While the Nazis had flourished, he’d had no ethical room for manoeuvre. Helping them, or hindering their enemies, were not things he could live with. Or not with any sense of self-worth. But that black-and-white world had vanished with Hitler, and the new one really was in shifting shades of grey. He could make arguments for and against any of the major players; in helping one or the other he had no sense of supporting good against evil, or evil against good. If, in personal terms, Yevgeny Shchepkin was almost a kindred spirit, and Scott Dallin someone from a distant unfriendly planet, he had no illusions about Stalin’s Russia. And though American help was his only way out of the Soviet embrace, that didn’t mean he wanted a world run by money and big business" Coming back to the book, first let's note that the blurb is wrong since it's London November 1945, John and his extended family (Effi - his longtime German actress girlfriend who missed escaping with him from Nazi Germany in late 1941 and spent the rest of the war in Berlin acting the part of an old woman and working for the underground that tried saving Jews and regime opponents, Rosa - their 7 year old Jewish "adopted" daughter assuming of course that her father is not to be found in the ruins of Germany, Paul - his 19 year old son and scarred veteran of the Reich's army, Zarah - Effi's sister married with a former mid/high ranking Nazi bureaucrat presumed dead or arrested, Lothar - her 11 year old son) are living in modest circumstances there, though Zarah and Paul are adapting better, while John is sort of blacklisted by the British press and Effi wants to act again (noting that while she did not act in a movie since 1941, she acted for her life in Berlin 1941-1945). The first Soviet team (ironically the NKVD team, Dynamo) to visit the UK (and mostly trashing the British footballers on home ground) brings Yevgeny Shchepkin and his sinister boss Nemedin to London with an offer John Russell cannot refuse as trading atomic secrets to the Russians for his family above while understandable at a personal level can still lead to the gallows or the electric chair depending which of the two countries he is citizen of gets to try him; though of course Yevgeny wants out too so they form an alliance and John starts playing the double agent role though it is not yet clear for whom yet as the quote above notes... The offer included John getting back into journalism and Effi back in movies, both of course back in occupied Berlin and the story moves there and continues to a very good ending point a few months later for what is the first of hopefully many postwar novels. Here is another memorable quote: "The war had only been over six months, but the British and the French were already irrelevant – there were only two real powers in the city, or in the wider continent. And as luck would have it, he was working for both." The journalism part starts involving the Jewish underground routes to Palestine and trips to Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia and the kicking of the local Germans back to the Reich, but as usual the book is about atmosphere and the author is just a master at that recreating Berlin late 1945 and its myriad inhabitants, transients and occupants superbly; there are a few loose threads from older novels that are finally tied here (the fate of Miriam Rosenthal and of Rosa's father occupy John and Effy for most of the book), dangerous gangsters, ambiguous allied officers and of course the "jobs" John has to do for his American and Soviet masters... While the usual danger moments and suspense occur here and there, the novel is mostly historical fiction that lives and breathes through its characters, mainly John and Effi who split the pages between them. As mentioned the novel ends at a good stopping point and I am really looking forward to the next installment as new storylines are introduced, new loose ends develop and new secondary characters of interest appear in addition to many secondary characters from the previous 4 novels. Excellent stuff and highly recommended. And to end, another great quote that now looks to the future and has John and Albert Wiesner (whom John helped escape Nazi Germany through his Soviet connections after his eminent Jewish physician father has been murdered by the Nazis in 1939 and Albert assaulted some Gestapo officials and became a fugitive, while later John helped his mother and sister emigrate to London using this time his UK intelligence connections - note that here it is still late 1945, so the state of Israel is still in the future) discussing the future of the surviving European Jews: "‘Says who? I didn’t think you were religious.’ Albert grinned. ‘I’m not.’ ‘I don’t think you can use the Bible as a title deed,’ Russell insisted. ‘Some people do. Like the Europeans who conquered the Americas – being in touch with the right God made everything okay.’ ‘You don’t believe that.’ ‘I think that’s what will happen.’ Russell thought about that. ‘Maybe it will,’ he conceded. ‘A friend of mine suggested emptying Cyprus – the Greeks to Greece, the Turks to Turkey – and then giving it to the Jews. Lovely beaches, good soil, not that far from Jerusalem.’ Albert propped his head up on one arm and gave Russell a look. ‘We already have our homeland.’ ‘Yes, I expect you do.’ ‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ Albert said. ‘I understand why the Poles are expelling the Germans from their new territories. And I understand why they’re making it impossible for the Jews to return. If my friends and I have our way, the Arabs will all be expelled from Palestine. Anything else is just storing up trouble for the future.’ ‘That will put a bit of a strain on the world’s sympathy, don’t you think?’ `Once we have the land, we can do without the sympathy.’"(less) | Notes are private!
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| May 06, 2012
| May 10, 2012
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May 04, 2012
| Kindle Edition
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33
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| B007WHHYT4
| 3.53
| 17
| Apr 21, 2012
| Apr 21, 2012
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Investments (originally published in a less polished form in an anthology - see the author's explanation http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2012... ) wa...more
Investments (originally published in a less polished form in an anthology - see the author's explanation http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2012... ) was first read by me pretty much on original publication and in-between the 2nd and the 3rd (delayed) Dread Empire novel; I wanted to have it in standalone form so i bought the ebook on recent reissue and I re-read the novella and greatly enjoyed it again. Investments is set a few years after the end of the first Dread Empire's trilogy, though it is not likely the series will get continued as it was not that successful in the market and the 3rd volume was almost dropped being finally published with a delay - which is a pity as I really liked the trilogy, especially volumes 1/2, volume 3 was a competent ending but I think showed a little the fact that the series got cancelled - There was great promise in the universe with the first trilogy just scratching the surface and i really wish the author would write more in the series and go independently. The novella continues the story of one of the main two characters of the series, presents a good overview of what its universe is about (an aristocratic multi-species/multi-planet future universe in the shadow of very powerful but now all dead aliens that created the society, while the trilogy deals with the fallout from the death of the last such) and offers a part space opera, part mystery, part hard sf tale. Most of the characters' dynamic has more meaning if you read the original trilogy (eg the rivalry between the two Martinez brothers and the relationship between Gareth and his wife Terza), but even if not, the novella is quite enjoyable on its own and makes for a good introduction to both the author's writing style and to the Praxis universe. Highly recommended - also I will note that you can check about 20% of it for free on Smashwords(less) | Notes are private!
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| Apr 26, 2012
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Apr 25, 2012
| Kindle Edition
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6
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| 030795711X
| 9780307957115
| 3.65
| 1,339
| Aug 04, 2011
| Mar 06, 2012
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Gods without men is a very fascinating book though it left me a little dissapointed in the end as I expected more coherence. It is easier to set up an...more Gods without men is a very fascinating book though it left me a little dissapointed in the end as I expected more coherence. It is easier to set up an intriguing premise and throw in more and more complications and tantalizing stuff but harder to either bring some sense of completion or just keep things rolling but performing a magic trick on the reader so he or she is happy enough with the local resolutions. David Mitchell did it in his masterpiece Cloud Atlas to which Gods without men compares - though here the unifying thread is a magical desert location as opposed to the story discovering story of Cloud atlas while the narrative range has breadth but still does not reach the Mitchell polyphony - and this book comes close but ultimately the tapestry remains unfinished This being said the book is a joy to read and the various storylines read quite authentic for their times. Overall a highly recommended novel though there were moments of sheer brilliance that left me expecting another Cloud atlas masterpiece and the novel stopped a little short of that(less) | Notes are private!
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| Apr 05, 2012
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Mar 18, 2012
| Hardcover
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22
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| 1451638108
| 9781451638103
| 4.19
| 84
| May 01, 2012
| May 29, 2012
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FBC Rv replacing older and rawer review as it is just an edited version of it: OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS Mark Van Name's debut "One Jump Ahead" introduced Jon...more FBC Rv replacing older and rawer review as it is just an edited version of it: OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS Mark Van Name's debut "One Jump Ahead" introduced Jon Moore mercenary ex-soldier and a man of many secrets that are so dangerous that he must live alone and make no attachments, and partner Lobo, personal AI warship (PCAV) mooning as park statue/exhibition on an obscure world, an AI ship of many secrets of its own, secrets that would not do for anyone to know either. "No Going Back" is the 5th Jon and Lobo adventure and it came two years after the previous installment rather than at the one year schedule of the first 4. The novel returned to the more classic adventure feel of the first three books and while the darker and weightier Children No More was very good, I think the original tone works better especially now that the author has it down pitch perfect. What makes No Going Back stand out is precisely what the title literally means, namely that from now on it is no going back to the older days as the series finds here focus and a narrative pillar. The super-competent hero with extraordinary powers trope revived so well in this series gets one more dimension, a clear goal and I am really interested to see how the author handles it. Of course Jon and Lobo are such great characters as the first person narration of which Lobo gets a little share here in this book, has worked so well to have established and any new series installment is still a huge asap, get the e-arc on the spot and read it immediately notwithstanding how many other books I have in the queue. As style goes, the novel is a gripping read from the first pages when Jon is in the process of trying to crash a party of rich old pedophiles - party where 10 children are auctioned off - on an obscure planet with great natural beauty but harsh physical characteristics. In the link above you can read the first 15 chapters on Baen's site and see how smooth everything goes. The structure of No Going Back is a bit different from its predecessors, with chapters numbered "x days from the end" mixed with the 100+ year old backstory that continues Jon's memories from long ago, now from the time in his youth immediately after escaping the hell of his native - now quarantined - planet when he was not understanding his powers and trying to get the time needed to do so, while Lobo's interludes offer more insight into the AI's special human-like personality, the why's of which having been set-up in "Overthrowing Heaven". No Going Back functions well as a standalone as all earlier books' story lines are recounted briefly here and there, while the salient facts about Jon and Lobo are also gone through, so you can start delving in the saga here, though from the way things end, I suspect the next volumes will become much more tightly connected in both plot and secondary characters. As my usual, positional rankings go, this series is in my top tier, get/read asap any installment, while No Going Back is probably the best executed to date, though Children No More was "more serious". The clear series focus established here should only add to the pluses in the future when new Jon and Lobo adventures will appear. Overall No Going Back still remains a pretty classical space adventure sf novel with modern style and sensibilities and with the the generally expected stuff implied by such, very well done but nothing previously not seen and it is one of my highly recommended novels of 2012.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Mar 13, 2012
| Mar 14, 2012
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Mar 13, 2012
| Hardcover
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9
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| 1400069483
| 9781400069484
| 3.46
| 2,005
| Jun 01, 2012
| Jun 12, 2012
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Read Mission to Paris and it was vintage Furst with a return to the non-pro agent (an Austrian-American actor) like in Blood of Victory or Dark Voyage...more
Read Mission to Paris and it was vintage Furst with a return to the non-pro agent (an Austrian-American actor) like in Blood of Victory or Dark Voyage. Of the two more recent ones, I loved the Warsaw novel but the Balkans one was less interesting for some reason; this one was excellent and while Dark Star is still Furst supreme and one of the best ever pre-WW2 novels I've read, this is top tier; a lot of predictability true but still very enjoyable as character and atmosphere rather than action of which is generally little, are Furst strong points Again full review in due time but if you read the latest 3-4 Furst novels (especially Blood of Victory, Dark Voyage, Spies of Warsaw) you will recognize the themes - relatively successful and charismatic male lead, femme fatale(s), less glamorous but more intellectual woman as main attraction, the dangerous spying game against the Nazis, the quiet assassins, the well meaning but unable to do too much officially persons of importance, the Balkan corruption and of course here Paris is as much a star as the main characters and we get too see a movie production to boot too. Full FBC Rv below: "It is the late summer of 1938, Europe is about to explode, the Hollywood film star Fredric Stahl is on his way to Paris to make a movie for Paramount France. The Nazis know he’s coming—a secret bureau within the Reich Foreign Ministry has for years been waging political warfare against France, using bribery, intimidation, and corrupt newspapers to weaken French morale and degrade France’s will to defend herself. For their purposes, Fredric Stahl is a perfect agent of influence, and they attack him. What they don’t know is that Stahl, horrified by the Nazi war on Jews and intellectuals, has become part of an informal spy service being run out of the American embassy in Paris." INTRODUCTION: Alan Furst is the acclaimed author of the Night Soldiers cycle of novels that mostly take place during the late 1930's and the early 1940's. The novels are all standalone except for a pair that follows the same main character, a small time French businessman/crook who becomes a Resistance hero, but they tend to cross-pollinate with secondary characters, places and events in common. Actually, Night Soldiers, the first novel in the cycle and which gave its title, is a little different as the main hero, a Bulgarian waiter in Paris (and many other things, but as a waiter he participates in an event that sort of resonates throughout all the 12 novels to date) starts relatively young and green and the action follows him to the end of the war, but the rest of the novels tend to have older men - late 30's to late 40's - as heroes, of different nationalities (Polish, Italian, French, Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Austrian-American) all pretty accomplished in a way or another, with a taste for sophisticated and interesting women and who are mostly civilian - journalists, diplomats, navy captains, the small time businessman/crook mentioned above and the actor in the blurb here, though there are a few professionals too like the French intelligence officer in The Spies of Warsaw or the Greek policeman in Spies of the Balkans. The books take place all over Europe - again the titles are pretty indicative of that and I can safely say that we get to see most of Europe in that crucial 1937-1940/1 period, though Paris plays the role of the positive attraction pole of the series, with Nazi Germany its dark opposite. The women of the series are also quite interesting - while none of the books features a female lead, there are a lot of very important women in the books, both as spies and event manipulators on their own as well as participants in the heroes' adventures and intrigue. Finally the bad guys tend to be mostly crude and arrogant but not stupid Nazis and their tools, though of course corrupt politicians, businessmen and Stalinist executioners populate the books also. I have read all 12 novels in the series so far, the first few in the late 90's when I discovered this wonderful author and the rest on publication and these books are of three kinds: pretty good, very good and superb, with Dark Star being on my all time favorite lists as one of those "read and read again and still want to read it another time novels" that populate that list. At various times in the past several years, I planned to do an overview of the series and I hope this introduction will entice you to check the books especially that they can be read in pretty much any order except for the "duology" mentioned above. OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: After the lengthy introduction above I could do a one paragraph review of Mission to Paris: top-tier Furst with a return to the non-pro agent (an Austrian-American actor) like in Blood of Victory or Dark Voyage. Relatively successful and charismatic male lead, the femme fatale who competes for his attention with ulterior motives, the less glamorous but more intellectual woman as main attraction, the dangerous spying game against the Nazis, game including a successful Russian emigre actress who walks on a knife's edge in the Nazi leaders lair, the quiet assassins, the well meaning but unable to do too much officially persons of importance, the Balkan corruption and of course here Paris is as much a star as the main characters and we get too see a movie production to boot too. However let me add a few more details. Mission to Paris actually starts with a minor French bureaucrat who realizes his grave mistake in trying to cheat his Nazi masters of a good sum of money and then his bumbling attempts to escape their retribution give us the first view of some of the main villains of the piece, Nazi executioners Herbert and Lothar; the quote below should give you the first idea why Alan Furst's prose is so successful in its quiet understated way: "Slim, well-dressed, quiet, Herbert made no particular impression on anybody he met, probably he was some kind of businessman, though he never quite got around to saying what he did. Perhaps you’d meet him again, perhaps you wouldn’t, it didn’t particularly matter. He circulated comfortably at the mid-level of Berlin society, turning up here and there, invited or not—what could you do, you couldn’t ask him to leave." After this interlude we start with the main story and our hero, Frederic Stahl, makes his apparition on a liner that sails the Atlantic between America and France. "It was true that he’d “wandered about the world.” The phrase suggested romance and adventure—something like that had appeared in a Warner Bros. publicity bio—but it didn’t tell the whole story. In fact, he’d run away to sea at the age of sixteen. He was also not really “Fredric Stahl,” had been born Franz Stalka, forty years earlier in Vienna, to a Slovenian father and an Austrian mother of solidly bourgeois families resident in Austria-Hungary for generations. ... It was said of him by those who made a living in the business of faces and bodies that he was “a very masculine actor.” Stahl wasn’t sure precisely what they meant, but he knew they were rich and not for nothing. It referred, he suspected, to a certain inner confidence, expressed by, among other things, a low-pitched voice—assurance, not just a bass register—from an actor who always sounded “quiet” no matter how loudly he spoke. He could play the sympathetic lawyer, the kind aristocrat, the saintly husband, the comforting doctor, or the good lover—the knight not the gigolo." Why would such a successful Hollywood actor come to Europe in 1938 when the dark clouds are evident to anyone? Well, we immediately see some hints - what Jack Warner wants, Jack Warner gets - and from there the book just rolls and I simply could not put it down till the end. The loving descriptions of Paris and its high life in which Frederic is soon co-opted is definitely part of the attraction, but the novel also moves to Berlin, North Africa and even Hungary and Romania, so we cover quite a lot of territory physically too. Frederic Stahl starts quietly as almost literally the cliche American uninterested in Europe's troubles - despite his heritage, Frederic is content to be the good "quiet" American - but his distaste for the Nazi brutalities soon gets amplified when he is confronted directly with their unsubtle attempts to "recruit" him to do their PR and from there he is "in" the direct opposition game, but the question of "can he get out" becomes paramount as the pressure ratchets up... Mission to Paris (top 25 novel of 2012) is vintage Furst and among his best work in the series, while being a good starting point for people not familiar with the wonderful world of Night Soldiers!(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Mar 13, 2012
| Mar 15, 2012
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Mar 13, 2012
| Hardcover
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15
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| 0345524527
| 9780345524522
| 3.94
| 2,579
| May 15, 2012
| May 15, 2012
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Any China Mieville novel is a huge event and while last year's Embassytown was excellent, no book of his so far recaptured the genius of PSS and The S...more
Any China Mieville novel is a huge event and while last year's Embassytown was excellent, no book of his so far recaptured the genius of PSS and The Scar. For the first half, Railsea was the most inventive Mieville book since those two mentioned above. Genius world building (think rails/trains and underground monsters instead of oceans, ships, whales and sharks - two kinds of land types and two kinds of sky types, mix and match of tech, some in the Roadside Picnic advanced aliens garbage kind) and very literary style while the storyline was building a lot of suspense. The second half is more conventional - the storyline reverts to the familiar like in Embassytown and starts again treading on known ground with a lot of predictability and the book starts veering a little more in YA territory (YA is for me when children or YA have agency independent of adults in "big, world changing events" or in which the storyline is about their limited world/concerns like school and the like). So for example if you read something like Eternity Road by J. McDevitt you will have a good idea of where Railsea goes and even - wqith the appropriate changes of course - how the plot will develop as the logic of this kind of story is followed by Mr. Mieville pretty directly. Still the writing remains top notch and the action is fun with some more superb world building, but the sense of the limitless, of the "what is next?" is lost a little so Railsea is ultimately an excellent novel and a top 25 of mine, but not a once in a long time milestone like PSS or The Scar. Highly recommended of course and fun, enjoyable to the end, no question about it As usual, I will try to have a coherent review towards the publication date as the above are just raw thoughts, while incidentally the book is pure sf, no fantasy -nal elements(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Mar 12, 2012
| Mar 21, 2012
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Mar 12, 2012
| Hardcover
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