How to tell if you are reading a Brian Evenson story:
1. Are the characters often nameless? 2. If the characters have names, are they often Scandinavian...moreHow to tell if you are reading a Brian Evenson story:
1. Are the characters often nameless? 2. If the characters have names, are they often Scandinavian or Eastern European or otherwise non-American-seeming? 3. Is the story quite short? 4. Does the story involve a horrifying conceit, cf. bees inserted into throats, people without faces, cave Chthulhus? 5. Is it extremely difficult to summarize the content, nature, and impact of the story? 6. But do you nevertheless feel satisfied, cf. Yes, that was a story? 7. And do you also feel unnerved? 8. After reading the story, do you feel less comfortable in your own body? 9. Do you find yourself imagining the possibility of, if your ear were surgically reattached to your head, simply pulling it off like a pop top? 10. What if it's not your ear? 11. But it is your head? 12. Do you find yourself thinking of H.P. Lovecraft or Terrence Holt (the writer, not the football player) while you read? 13. Do you find yourself thinking, "This can't end well."?
If you answered yes to all of the above, congratulations. You are reading a Brian Evenson story! Enjoy not sleeping tonight. (less)
Summary: Whitehead takes a genre premise (zombie apocalypse) and surrounds it with literary aspic.
I didn't...moreSo, I have many thoughts about this book.
Summary: Whitehead takes a genre premise (zombie apocalypse) and surrounds it with literary aspic.
I didn't love this book. There were parts that frustrated and annoyed me--mostly when I felt held hostage to Whitehead's literary performances, which mostly consisted of dislocating time and indulging in long, long, long tangents describing stuff without doing much for plot or character. I'm not sure if Whitehead's now to the point where he gets a hand-wave from his editor, but there are plenty of sentences I would have red-penned if I'd had the chance. Faulkner is allowed to multiply his adjectives, because he's Faulkner. The rest of us have to pick an analogy and move on. Three or four analogies, multiple adjectives, long weird side trips down unrelated mental alleyways in the middle of a sentence or scene...they're like being trapped at the dinner table with your boring uncle who thinks he's The Wit of The Family.
I haven't read reviews yet but I imagine that people are going to say that these literary Bataan marches are evocative of the new human mentality--everyone's afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder (or post-traumatic apocalypse disorder, PASD, as Whitehead styles it in the book), living half in the present and half in the past, constantly free-associating from the current horrors to the lost, nostalgic, good old days. And that the genius of the book is in its non-action, its rejection of Romero-esque zombie battles in favor of a reflective story about the grim, rote days of reconstruction. To some extent I can buy that. But there are degrees. A hundred pages into the (259-page) book, I had read only a small handful of actual scenes. This is not a book to read if you're allergic to summary, is what I'm saying.
On the other hand, Whitehead does take on an interesting challenge (see above: genre premise, literary aspic.) His narrative tone is drily funny and pretty personable, when it's not pirouetting for attention. I wish to hell he hadn't named his guy Mark Spitz, because it seems like an up-yours to the reader who cares about character development. But I still liked Mark Spitz okay (always Mark Spitz, never just Mark or Spitz, and never the actual name he was given at birth, just this nickname that hangs tenuously from a not-very-good anecdote retrospectively related about three-quarters of the way through the book, and therefore never any access to the true character, always this clever verbal screen shielding his identity which he lost in the old world along with everyone he loved I get it oh my God please give the guy a real name.) I liked how Whitehead handled race--no mention of it except for one single conversation in the near-final pages, revealing that Mark Spitz is black. (Excellent, smart, loved that, carry on.)
Overall, the book has thematic and emotional heft. I questioned some of the plot decisions, like the notion that in a devastated world, the para-military forces of reconstruction wouldn't take whatever they needed from the ruined city, but would outlaw looting/scavenging unless they could get permission of a representative of the company that owned the item, i.e., a "sponsor" of reconstruction. The logistics of that alone are mind-boggling. But I liked Whitehead's decision to show a world that had stopped convulsing, at least for a while, and to focus on the small personal story of a single man in the new reality. By the end of the book, I felt a kind of existential/nihilistic/really depressing hopelessness about life in general, and our prospects as a species more specifically. So, success on that front.
I've followed Whitehead's work since his first novel, The Intuitionist, which had a brilliant premise and a slightly-less-than-brilliant-but-still-engaging execution. I think he's a smart, funny, and talented writer. If he writes another genre-bending novel (which seems likely, since Ben Percy Justin Cronin Michael Chabon etc etc) I'll probably read it. I'd love him to get a little more comfortable with the genre side of genre-bending though. Mr. Whitehead, you know you love this stuff, and so do we. No need to disavow. Tell us a good story with depth and emotion and intelligence, and nobody will care if you leave out some literary flourishes. We'll just read it and love it, full stop.(less)
I grabbed this out of the ether, from someone's mention here on Goodreads. England between the wars, a female protagonist, a haunting...hey, I loved ...moreI grabbed this out of the ether, from someone's mention here on Goodreads. England between the wars, a female protagonist, a haunting...hey, I loved The Little Stranger. What more could I want?
Well, this is less of a literary novel and more of a Gothic historical romance. If that's a thing. It's also a fast read. The setup pulled me in, and the writing is smooth and proficient. The author definitely relies on some tropes--our first-person POV heroine is not above noticing the sooty eyelashes of her male companions, or running through the nighttime woods in a white nightgown. And it's for sure a romance--there's the overall feeling that this ghost thing is a classy MacGuffin and that the real story is about lady + dude = mackage. (And more!)
But I'm not complaining about that. There's enough substance to the ghost story that I could hang with it, and hey, if a book wants to toss me some steamy, not-quite-explicit-but-still-definitely-adult love-times along with its plot...well, I'm okay with that. (Although I have to say, in a couple of those scenes, dude's technique be suckin'.)
Where I do get a little bored/frustrated/disappointed is in a major thread of the plot...
It's maybe not really spoilery, since it's clearly implied by the jacket copy and early in the novel itself, but Maddy's ghost is restless because she was gang-raped, strangled, and left for dead. So. The trope of the horribly ravaged and damaged woman (or girl, in this case) whose trauma serves as a plot point to fuel the story is...weak. It's definitely not new. See under: , Rape as Drama, Rape as Backstory, Disposable Woman, Distressed Damsel, and on and on and on.
We have a whole cultural canon built on the brutalization, victimization, and/or disposal of women, from Kill Bill to pick-your-CSI franchise to God-forbid Twilight to Maid Marion and Guinevere and...yeah. There are essays on this. And yes, women are indeed often brutalized and victimized in the real world. Tru dat. I still object to a book that trades so heavily on this tired-ass formula. I don't mind seeing some recycled genre elements in my story--a brooding but sensitive anti-hero and a murder of crows can really move things along. But this is not the place to economize.
Basically, my feeling is that we live in a rape culture, and that stories like this both trade on the assumptions that come along with that culture, and reinforce it in the process. The more we tell each other stories about mute, brutalized girls and women, the more accustomed we are to seeing them as standard story elements, like Gothic castles or long-suffering butlers. The difference in real-world terms is, I hope, obvious.
So, this book is equal parts romance, light historical fiction, quasi-Gothic ghost story, and revenge tale. There are lots of satisfying moments, and I didn't even mind our butter-wouldn't-melt heroine too much (although I thought she could have been more developed.) On the other hand, I don't think this book passes the Bechdel Test, at least not in any meaningful way. And that, I guess, may tell you whether this version of historical-gothic-revenge-romance is for you. (less)
A nostalgia re-read. I still remember being a teenager and reading those first few lines... This book had a kind of minimalist, noir quality to it tha...moreA nostalgia re-read. I still remember being a teenager and reading those first few lines... This book had a kind of minimalist, noir quality to it that I loved, and that still stays with me. King's foreword disclaims a bit: he wrote this when he was pretty young, and as he says, it has the flaws of a young man's book. Yeah, it does. Our hero Roland is pretty determinedly one-dimensional, the kind of Shane-like romantic anti-hero that young, emotionally immature dudes will forever cherish. He's too stoic to talk! He has a tortured past! A heavy weight rests on his shoulders! He must forever move on in pursuit of his lonely world-saving goal! Of course, I kind of loved all that junk too. And to some extent, still do.
On the other hand, the inevitable corollary of this kind of character and setup is the Deep Unspeakable Batman Pain of the Fridged Woman, and King falls into that trap liek woah. Not only does this not pass the Bechdel test, I don't think there's a female character in it that isn't basically there to move the plot along by having sex with some man. Usually (always?) she is then punished horribly for doing so. So yeah, young man's book.
I was a little surprised, too, that I got kind of bored in parts of the story. It's a short novel, a very linear plot, but I still felt as though there was a bit in there, about 5/8ths of the way through, that could have been cut. For King this book is practically a haiku, so I guess I shouldn't push my luck. It's also possible that my old-lady attention span is just too short to handle books these days. That's sad.
Weird side note: this book will always make me think of America's "Horse With No Name," and vice versa.
Note 1: I grabbed an early copy of this from NetGalley. Thanks, NetGalley! And thanks, Scholastic!
Note 2: Reading this w...more**SOME SPOILERY DESCRIPTIONS**
Note 1: I grabbed an early copy of this from NetGalley. Thanks, NetGalley! And thanks, Scholastic!
Note 2: Reading this without a physical copy or any background research, I wasn't sure whether it was YA or adult. Most books with teenaged protagonists are YA--and I think this one is too. But I guess there's a YA continuum, or I'm old and out of touch*, because there's a lot of violence and cussing in here. I guess in a world where PG-13 movies regularly have people getting blown to pieces, that's just how it goes. Anyway, Y/A or adult--does it matter? A conversation for another day.
Quick summary: Banyan is a 17-year-old boy who lives in a world where nothing grows but the GM corn of GenTech. Banyan builds trees from scrap metal, a trade his father taught him before disappearing and leaving Banyan to fend for himself. The book follows Banyan as he gets entangled in a search for the last living trees on earth.
Overall, this felt a little hurried to me. The prose felt a bit flat, and while the plot hit its beats I could see many of the twists coming from a ways off. At one point, where things were going from bad to worse, I checked the Kindle progress bar and...yup, we were at 66% exactly. So, kudos for structuring the story so that it delivered on its promises, but no kudos for prose and characters that didn't keep me engaged enough to forget what we were doing.
The spine of the book, it seems to me, is the creation and examination of a world in which corporate biotech has taken over all creation. After twenty years of Darkness, the only crop that will grow is corn, and only GenTech is allowed to grow it. Each kernel on an ear is stamped with the purple GenTech logo, and anyone caught planting or trading corn illegally is killed.
The scope of the world here is a little hard to grasp, in part because our narrator is only 17 and is busy trying to stay alive and save the world. There's not a lot of time for him to ponder questions like: is the whole world in this shape? Does GenTech own corn production in every country? How do people breathe, if there are literally zero trees and no other plants besides corn? What's going on with the atmosphere? Are pelagic algae making up for the loss of land-based plant life? And if there are no plants, and no animals besides locusts, where is GenTech getting the raw materials to flavor its wide-distribution microwaved popcorn food? Can a whole planet really survive on nothing but chemicals and corn? How long could that possibly last? And so on.
Howard does address some of the fallout issues of his treeless world. The ocean has become a raging Surge, eating steadily away at any exposed land because there are no roots to secure the earth. Some people suffer from a lung-crusting disease that makes it hard to breathe, but it's unclear whether this is due to a change in the atmosphere, or chemicals used to grow the GM corn, or...?
I admit, while I was reading this book I found myself becoming more conscious of the trees in my life. I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a lot of trees, right next to one of the largest wilderness parks in the nation. I'm married to an architect who has schooled me on all the ways that trees improve our cities and our lives. I'm definitely pro-tree, but Howard's book still made me think a little differently about them, and feel a little more grateful for all that they do. It also made me ponder how close we may be coming to a world in which genetically modified, proprietary plants start to crowd out their wild, independent cousins. That...would not be a good world.
The final third of the book feels a little formulaic to me, complete with family revelations and a Hollywood-style uprising of the masses. I have taken issue before with the trope of the easily-accomplished revolution, and I take issue with it here. I don't really understand why storytellers feel like they should do this. The idea that a huge (multinational?), entrenched, heavily resourced organization could be toppled by a few scrappy upstarts willing to risk it all...to me this feels tired and implausible. Some readers may find it satisfying, since it treads a familiar path. For myself, I would have been more interested in less hype and more depth. Howard has another book already in the pipeline, so maybe next time?
Warning: minor plot spoilers & also some possibly trigger-y stuff about sex and violence.
****
The use of the word "masterpiece" to describe this bo...moreWarning: minor plot spoilers & also some possibly trigger-y stuff about sex and violence.
****
The use of the word "masterpiece" to describe this book is to stretch the meaning so thin that you could read the classifieds through it.
This translation of Kawamata's sixteenth novel (which won at least one major Japanese genre prize) is out of the U of Minnesota, so it comes larded with critical hoo-haw on both sides (foreword and afterword.) In between is a novel that reads sort of like this:
The woman was reading the novel.
She had seen the book listed in a university press catalog, and ordered it specially in advance of its general publication date.
It was supposed to be a fascinating mix of Japanese SF, mystery, and literary genres, which she found intriguing.
But the novel itself was not enjoyable to read. It made every sentence or two into a paragraph. The critics seemed to consider this "explosive," and "daring," or something.
The woman found herself skimming.
No kidding, every sentence is pretty much a paragraph, and the sentences are oddly generic and repetitive. Apparently this is a stylistic tic of Japanese popular novels, designed to give the reader nothing to dwell on in any particular sentence, thereby propelling her onward into the story. To which I say: Jesus Christ, that's a bad idea.
The book was published in 1984 and I don't know the order of precedence, but the underlying concept here--a surrealist poem that intoxicates and poisons people, killing them or possibly transporting them to another dimension--is very Ringu. If Kawamata came first, good for him. That idea is about the only interesting thing about this book, which declines to sully its hands with things like character development or ennobling language.
This is also a book with major gender trouble, a fact that I didn't see addressed in its critical apparatus. It looks to me as though everyone involved with bringing this book to market has a y chromosome, which might explain why nobody calls Kawamata on his bullshit. In a relatively short book that strips the narrative down to the barest essentials, we nonetheless get the following scenes:
* A detective strips a woman and finger-rapes her to extract a hidden item from her vagina, then shoots her in the head. * Another detective tells a woman he's accosted that he'll let her go if she has sex with him. She has sex with him, dies anyway. (We get an explicit description of her genitalia before she dies.) * The only female employee of a publishing company is repeatedly ogled by every man who meets her, complimented on her good looks, etc. She presents herself as the secretary of the boss for a business meeting, although she's an editor. She ends up marrying the editor in chief and quitting her own work, for no apparent reason. Not sure why she's in the book, actually. * There are pretty much no other women in the book. There are basically no women with significant roles.
So. Maybe 1980s Japan wasn't the most egalitarian place, but this is a book translated and published in 2012. Seems to me like this is something worth mentioning, even if just to say, "Look, we think this is a great book but we know it has some weaknesses, try to take it with a grain of salt."
Anyway, if you're super-duper-into the Surrealist movement, enjoy bare-bones prose and nonexistent characterization, read mainly for concepts, and can put up with a lot of what the translators and editors consider challenging, bold stylistic moves and what I consider dropped plot threads, vague ideas, tense shifts, poorly-constructed scenes, and so on--and if you like a healthy dose of lady-bashing in your noir...this one's for you!!! (less)
This is a strange, interesting, uneven book. McDermott's prose is lovely in places, and he writes with assurance. His fantastic world is several angle...moreThis is a strange, interesting, uneven book. McDermott's prose is lovely in places, and he writes with assurance. His fantastic world is several angles off from our own, and he pulls us into it without laborious explanations or coddling.
We open in first person, in the voice of a woman/wolf who's hunting, together with her husband, the trail of a dead demon-child. In other words, a man of demonic ancestry has been killed and they're following up to find who killed him, and to purify anything and anyone he's touched. At first this seems like it might be a reveal waiting to happen--but in fact the demon child really is a demon child, and his blood and bones do corrupt and sicken others. The twist is that he wasn't actually an evil creature, just a man of unfortunate parentage. Not a very nice man, but just a man. That doesn't matter to the hunters. They spend the whole book tracing him and igniting anything he's touched. Whole buildings get torched to keep the demon's taint from sickening more people.
Most of the story is third-person, told through the memory connections that the wolf/woman hunter makes with the dead man's bones. She recounts his life, his crimes, his fears, his eventual meeting with other demon-seed people. The world he lives in is brutal, a Breughel painting crossed with a noir Dickens novel. He's a member of the king's guard, basically a brute in a uniform, who patrols the poorest neighborhoods. At night--demon-children never sleep--he's co-opted into serving as an assassin for the shady Night King, who threatens to reveal his identity and have him and his mother burnt alive.
It gets even more complex from here. This is a dense book, and at times a fairly sickening one. There's nothing in here that doesn't stem directly from the miserable conditions for the poor in early industrial England or America, for instance--filthy tenements and muddy basement apartments, women and children exploited and abused, casual violence and cruelty everywhere. It's just grueling to read two hundred pages of it. There are some good characters--Jona, the demon-child king's guard, gets particularly rich treatment--and some really lovely details. The world feels mature and fully imagined, as well as really original.
I like a story that doesn't spoonfeed me, but at times this one crossed over into incomprehensibility. There were plot points I didn't quite get, scenes I had to read and re-read and occasionally give up on. Plot threads didn't always follow through. And in retrospect, there's an awful lot of the book's middle that feels like description and character exploration without much action. By the final few pages, when the hunters are actually on the move, I was reading much faster and more avidly, because something was actually happening. (Unfortunately, I didn't quite understand what it was.)
This is the first book in a trilogy, but I don't think I'll read the others. I admired this book but I didn't much like it. It's sort of like an elderly relative who continually tells stories of the bad old days. You believe the stories, you respect the teller for how well he tells them--but in the end it's all kind of a downer, and you don't really want to go back for more.
And a note to small publisher Night Shade--thanks for bringing this book to press, but please copyedit more closely! I found lots of typos, and I don't think we can afford to depress this author any further. (less)
Loved this. A retelling of Senegalese myth, done in a funny, unhurried, authoritative voice. Sometimes metafictional flourishes turn me off--the narra...moreLoved this. A retelling of Senegalese myth, done in a funny, unhurried, authoritative voice. Sometimes metafictional flourishes turn me off--the narrator calling attention to herself, or commenting on the text while it's happening--but here it felt lightly done, cheeky, and inclusive rather than look-at-me-aren't-I-clever. Great language, great story. I need to see if Lord has other books, now. (less)
I picked this up because I saw, in passing, someone's mention of the movie made from the title story. It raised up for me some misty memories of havin...moreI picked this up because I saw, in passing, someone's mention of the movie made from the title story. It raised up for me some misty memories of having seen the movie, with Donald Sutherland racing through the streets of Venice, chasing a phantasmal little girl in a red cloak...creepy stuff. I have a sideline in creepy, particularly as written by smart women like Shirley Jackson and Sarah Waters. It's a surprisingly small stable, and I'm always looking for more folks to add to it.
Du Maurier is sort of in the stable, for me. She's smart and she writes well, but her stories overall have a more contained, controlled feeling than Jackson's do. While Jackson can make an ordinary day in a housewife's life into a flesh-crawling voyage through the uncanny, Du Maurier seems more concerned with writing up ideas. Many of her ideas are good and interesting--"The Way of the Cross" comments on Christ's last days through the misadventures of a group of self-centered English tourists in Jerusalem, for instance--but at the end of the story, they feel like just that. Ideas, written out to their conclusion.
Some are better-executed than other. In "A Border-Line Case"* the twist ending is obvious well before it's revealed, and in "The Breakthrough," all the tension is unaccountably let off at the end of the story, through a main character's change of heart. "Don't Look Now" is arguably the best story in the bunch, although even it feels a little stale in spots.
Du Maurier is a very capable writer: the way she handles point of view and reader sympathies in "The Way of the Cross" is masterful. Her voice is authoritative and confident. But her stories feel more like exercises than true explorations into a frightening, uncontrolled world beneath or beyond our own. In other words, she's no Shirley Jackson. But apart from Jackson herself, who is?
If you love Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle), please read this. Here it is:
After the end of the second...moreIf you love Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle), please read this. Here it is:
After the end of the second World War, a remote English country house called Hundreds is falling to pieces around the Ayres family. A country doctor is called out to see to the ailing maid. He acquaints himself with the elderly Mrs. Ayres and her daughter Caroline, begins to treat her son Roderick for a war injury, and slowly becomes a fixture. After a while, strange things start to happen.
On one level, this is a ghost story. The strange, unsettling things that happen at Hundreds might be caused by a poltergeist, or an unhappy spirit, or possibly some psychospiritual manifestation of the unhappy family themselves. The story is measured (i.e., a little slow--but I loved it) and builds suspense nicely. As a ghost story, this is as good as Jackson or James.
But it's also quite obviously a story about class. Doctor Farraday is a member of the labouring classes, who pulled himself up to his profession thanks to the hard work of his parents. (His mother once served in Hundreds as a governess.) With so many houses destroyed in the Blitz, and so many people displaced, England's new Labour government is struggling to supply housing. The huge, ailing estates of the formerly-rich (most now penniless) are a natural target. As Farraday becomes a part of the household, so does the modern, workaday world encroach on the family's land--and housing begins to be built on the grounds that Farraday remembers loving as a boy. So, it's complicated.
There's another level of the story, though, which involves spoilers--but which I'd love to discuss more with someone who's read the book.
Farraday is an unreliable narrator, albeit an incredibly articulate and reasonable one. Only when matters reach absolute crisis does he begin to act at all erratically, and to operate based on emotions he doesn't fully understand or explain. His love for Caroline is acquisitive and dark, and tied inevitably to the possession of Hundreds. His refusal to allow the family to consider giving up the house becomes unreasonable past a certain point. And his endless scientific "explanations" for the odd occurrences wear very, very thin.
The "little stranger" seems very much aligned with Farraday himself--if not literally, then at least symbolically. He invades the house, both wants it and doesn't want it, wants to keep the family there and wants control over them. He dreams about coursing through the estate grounds, and finding darkness where the house should be. And the final scene of the book is Farraday seeking the "little stranger" in the abandoned house, and seeing in the mirrors only his own "lonely, questing" face.
Waters handles the ghost story so subtly, I don't want to reduce it to a single, simple cause. But Farraday's unreliability is so creepy and unselfconscious, I was surprised I didn't see more people comment on it in reviews.
This is, besides a scary book, also a lovely, bittersweet book. Waters has powers of description that amaze me. She pays attention to all the right details--in how people behave, in how the house looks, in everything. Four big shiny stars for this one.
A kind of redemption story, in the bleakest possible terms. Cass Neary (cf. Cassandra of Greek myth) is a washed-up ex-punk photographer who lives fro...moreA kind of redemption story, in the bleakest possible terms. Cass Neary (cf. Cassandra of Greek myth) is a washed-up ex-punk photographer who lives from bottle to bottle, stocking boxes in the back room of the Strand. She gets a call to go to a remote island in Maine, to interview a mysterious icon of photography, Aphrodite Kamestos, who's holed up there since the 1960s. Cass makes her self-destructive, stumbling way through the frozen wasteland of the "real" Maine, where the economy has tanked and people regularly wash up on the beaches, drowned and frozen. She gets no warm welcome from anyone she meets, and gradually starts to recognize a sinister pattern of missing people that none of the locals seem to see.
This is a book about seeing and witnessing, as well as about making decisions and acting. Palimpsests recur over and over, often in sinister terms: a horrible photograph scratched to reveal something else beneath, clouds spinning in the sky like an iris opening, the suggestion that the world we see is just a thin veil over something else that only reveals itself to the artist or the visionary. It's a tense, building read with a dramatic, satisfying conclusion. Cass is a complicated antihero, someone who does horrible things but who had my attention and sympathy regardless--and in the end, she's the only person who can do what needs to be done.(less)
This is the second in a trilogy, with the third book not yet out. The first book established protagonist Nyx as a hard-ass loner and emotionally repre...moreThis is the second in a trilogy, with the third book not yet out. The first book established protagonist Nyx as a hard-ass loner and emotionally repressed (super)hero. This one picks up several years later, after the dust of those adventures has settled. Nyx is older, creakier, approaching an age that almost no-one in her line of work ever reaches. She's getting a little more reflective, a little less certain. She's also, possibly, getting a little idealistic in her old age--or at least developing deeper conflicts about Queen and country, and the never-ending war.
The story clicks along at a great pace, with plenty of action and intrigue. Because this is the second act of a three-act work, we also see the characters at some of their lowest points. Nyx took a boatload of punishment in the last book, but it's nothing to what she (and others) go through now. Hurley has fully learned the lesson that you have to make your characters bleed.
There are some new developments in the world-building here, which are satisfying and (as always) interesting. Hurley is an amazing world-builder, a real original. One of the greatest pulls for me in these books is just living in her world for a while. I'm fascinated by how she takes elements of our own world and extends, transforms, or otherwise mutates them into her own. Her work doesn't feel didactic--it's not trying to teach me that, say, the repression of women is wrong. Instead, it takes elements of our own familiar patriarchal system, upends them, what-ifs them, and ends up with a complicated, multi-layered world that doesn't look much like ours at all, and has plenty of its own problems.
There are a couple of copy-editing glitches along the way, which are frustrating when they jump out. And the resolution of a final scene felt a little forced and abrupt to me--but came with high drama and realism that satisfied in other ways. I'm curious to see where Hurley will take this in the final book. When does that come out? Soon, I hope.(less)
Like the stars say, I liked this fine. It was a quick read (a single day), and it hit a lot of the points that I think speculative YA novels try for t...moreLike the stars say, I liked this fine. It was a quick read (a single day), and it hit a lot of the points that I think speculative YA novels try for these days. There's a strong young female protagonist whose character develops over the course of the story; a hunky, mysterious love interest dude; a bunch of improbably nasty bad guys and a totally unfair, semi-suicidal set of activities to pass through to triumph. Many of the scenes seemed highly movie-ready (and indeed, I think this is already optioned and on its way to the imagination palace, with generous room left for a sequel) and the romance is frankly rote and predictable. On the other hand, strong young female protagonist. So... The writing is about standard for this kind of thing, which is to say bleah.
The scenarios are often ridiculously unlikely, as is the whole setup--a dystopic post-apocalyptic Chicago in which all residents are categorized as one of five temperamental "factions," with their dress, duties, quarters, and everything else defined by that characteristic. There's a lot of violence, often described in such paper-thin prose, and with such slight knowledge of how fights, guns, or knives actually work, that it's all laughable. If our heroine really did go through half of what she describes, she'd be in a trauma unit and psychiatric care for the rest of her life--but such is the legacy of The Hunger Games, I think. Maybe I should be glad that young women are reading about a girl who can take a punch and keep running, instead of a girl who folds up and dies when her boyfriend leaves town? I guess so.
The premise of the book ain't no 1984 but it's interesting enough. I wish it could have been executed with a little more care and attention--to the writing, not to the movie options.(less)
This is an interesting book--you don't see a lot of stories about gay teenaged girls at all, let alone gay teenaged girls bad-assing their way around...moreThis is an interesting book--you don't see a lot of stories about gay teenaged girls at all, let alone gay teenaged girls bad-assing their way around the world in pursuit of a group of immortal mystical beings. (There should definitely be more of these.) This is a quick read--it ate up a single day for me--and after some hinky pacing at the outset, it settles into a good adventure story. The two main characters, Gilly and Sam, are well-drawn and complex, and they face down very real challenges. There's some sex, minimally described but emotionally complicated, and loads of drugs. Also plenty of bad language. I'm not actually sure this is a YA novel, although I think it's marketed as one. I give this one points for verve and originality, for breaking a little more ground for LBGT stories, and for casting Christopher Marlowe as a kind of immortal pirate king, forever crossing the globe in search of a good, or at least interesting, time. (less)
I like how Rambo does speculative fiction. Her span is great: there are tragic robots in here as well as enslaved centaurs and zombie girls. There's a...moreI like how Rambo does speculative fiction. Her span is great: there are tragic robots in here as well as enslaved centaurs and zombie girls. There's a beautiful, sad story about Jumbo the elephant (the real one, from Barnum & Bailey's circus) which I highly recommend: "Towering Monarch of His Race." There's a creepy, tragic tale of pioneers suffering through a deadly winter: "Events at Fort Plentitude," also highly recommended. There's humor and epic fantasy and fairy tales and pirates. It's all stuff you might also come across in Steven Millhauser or Kelly Link or George Saunders, but Rambo has her own distinct, highly readable take on it, and I gobbled this collection up in just a few days. Delicious. (less)
The "steampunk" in the title is a little misleading, which is fine by me--I'm not super-interested in clockwork and steam engines for their own sake....moreThe "steampunk" in the title is a little misleading, which is fine by me--I'm not super-interested in clockwork and steam engines for their own sake. Many of the stories aren't really even about ghosts, or at least they don't seem particularly "ghosty" to me. There are Satanic enclaves, mad inventors and their hideous machines, mummies, and time travel, all loosely bound together with phantasmagoric ties. The real throughline of the collection is the nineteenth century, that spooky, obsessive period of colonial expansion and industralization. The stories are all well-written, though some fall short of truly chilling effects. Standouts for me were Laird Barron's "Blackwood's Baby," and Peter Beagle's "Music, When Soft Voices Die." Garth Nix's "The Curious Case of the Moondawn Daffodils Murder" is a light, funny takeoff on Conan Doyle, and a break from the generally grim proceedings. A solid collection, with good representation from Australia and the UK--though of 17 stories, 14 are by men. (We do notice these things, folks.) (less)
I picked this up after reading the first few sentences online:
"Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.
Drunk,...moreI picked this up after reading the first few sentences online:
"Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.
Drunk, but no longer bleeding, she pushed into a smoky cantina just after dark and ordered a pinch of morphine and a whiskey chaser. She bet all of her money on a boxer named Jaks, and lost it two rounds later when Jacks hit the floor like an antique harem girl."
That is a kick-ass entry to a story, if you ask me. Hang on, this is a long review.
This is...science fiction adventure noir, maybe? It's a world of (mostly) post-apocalyptic Muslims of varying degrees of recognizability, in which most technology is driven by insects. Yes. Also, the two major nations of the planet have been at war forever, and partly as a result of this women have come to dominate society. Men get drafted as boys and sent to the front--and women volunteer to fight, too. But on the home front, at least in the country where we spend the most time, women are soldiers and politicians and businesspeople and pretty much everything else. They're also brutal to each other--the main pastime seems to be boxing, and just about every woman we meet has some violent tendencies or history. This isn't a pacifist Hertopia kind of world.
That's one of the things I loved about this book--its bold creation of a world where women dominate, and where women are socially, physically, and in all other ways tough and capable. Setting aside the fact that this is a world where magicians use bug technology to repair amputations and mortal injuries, the women in this world are bad-ass. Or maybe they're just people. It's a sad statement that it's so unusual to read about women in roles that men would usually fill, kicking asses and getting their asses kicked--but it is unusual. And Hurley does a great job of making her women real.
I appreciated so many things about this book--that the dominant religious ideology was Muslim rather than Christian, that the main characters are almost all non-white, that our antihero Nyx isn't a stick figure, and that she doesn't stay pretty. There's a phenomenon in novels and movies that feature "strong" or "kick-ass" women (cf. Tomb Raider, Charlie's Angels, Kill Bill, Underworld, et al)--let's call it the "reasonable facsimile" phenomenon. It's when authors or directors decide they're going to capitalize on a trend provide a strong female role model--and they do so by casting a skinny white girl in a tank top, and telling her to look brooding. Usually the reasonable facsimile doesn't have a realistic or profound story arc, or much character development (if she's a secondary character she may be defined solely by a skill, like rock climbing), or much to do besides fake-fight guys who would kick her ass in real life, because she has wrists like twigs and has clearly come from the Fighting School of Pilates. Seriously, watching Michelle Rodriguez decline from her tough, meaty role in Girlfight to the dumb bullshit action stuff she does now...that's the reasonable facsimile tragedy, right there.
But anyway. I loved that this book doesn't dredge up the reasonable facsimile. Nyx, as a protagonist, is thorny and crude and rebarbative, she's physically large and strong, she carries weight both literally and figuratively. She has a full, complete character arc, a history, and (presumably) a future--since this is the first book in a trilogy. I admit I didn't follow all the political intrigue in this one, but that's me--I tend to read lightly over that stuff, and dwell more in the scenes. And it's possible that some of that explanation got a little convoluted, in an effort to propel us to the ending. I can forgive that, because the world of the book is so original and well-imagined, and because I liked the characters that live in it.
The second book, Infidel, just came out in October. A third is in the works. I have a feeling I'll be reading 'em.(less)
I read it. I admit. I picked it up for free at the library's take-one-leave-one shelf, thinking: I should read one of these mass-market books by Highl...moreI read it. I admit. I picked it up for free at the library's take-one-leave-one shelf, thinking: I should read one of these mass-market books by Highly Successful Authors. They must know some useful things about plot and pacing, right? People buy their books! In mass market quantities! There must be some there there!
So, this does have a plot and it's briskly paced. It keeps characterization to a bare minimum (one woman is pretty much fully characterized by the fact that she's a rock climber) and fulfills most expectations. People like it when books fulfill their expectations, I guess. That's a good lesson to learn.
I hear Sphere is pretty good. Maybe I should have read that.(less)
Read it, didn't think much of it. Except that Ellen Datlow, career anthologist and editor, earns her keep. Most of the stories here felt like they nee...moreRead it, didn't think much of it. Except that Ellen Datlow, career anthologist and editor, earns her keep. Most of the stories here felt like they needed more work to make them really shine. I just finished Datlow's Supernatural Noir, and even though some of the authors are the same, the difference seems very obvious. Editing is hard, maybe especially for a genre like horror, which can so easily clang. This one clanged for me.(less)
I picked this up in the Powell's in the PDX airport, on our way to Austin for the weekend. I was hooked by the first paragraph, and if we hadn't been...moreI picked this up in the Powell's in the PDX airport, on our way to Austin for the weekend. I was hooked by the first paragraph, and if we hadn't been on our way to a friend's bachelorette party and wedding I would have finished it the same day. As it was, I snuck it along on the party barge the next day. Clever, light, witty, funny. Definite tones of Douglas Adams, but with the geekiness dial maybe turned down one notch, the focus a little more on character arc and story. Definite shades of Mel Brooks, especially Blazing Saddles. The action never stops, the characters are sketched but recognizable and memorable, and the story has all the right parts and pieces. Rakes and rogues show their true (stalwart) colors, damsels make sardonic comments, monsters are multi-tentacular. Most recommended.
ETA: Re-read in 2012 and enjoyed it just as much second time around. Father in law also got a big kick out of it. Passing it along to my dad and brother next...it's a crowd-pleaser!(less)
I've been meaning to read this for years--since Stephen King dropped Richard Matheson's name as an influence in some early novel--and today I grabbed...moreI've been meaning to read this for years--since Stephen King dropped Richard Matheson's name as an influence in some early novel--and today I grabbed a used copy at Powell's. I started reading it as I waited for the bus (5:30 pm) and finished it about half an hour ago (9 pm?) It's a short book, and it cooks. If you've seen the Will Smith movie or the Charlton Heston Omega Man schlockfest, they have pretty much nothing to do with the novel, which is more introspective and slower-paced. It's also a leetle zany as we get to the end, but hey. It's the first science fiction/horror crossover (according to the back copy on the book I got.) It's a literate post-apocalyptic vampire novel that shows you where Stephen King picked up some of his obsessions. And it's kind to dogs. What more do you want? (less)
Some good stories in this collection--Datlow is a career anthologist and she can put 'em together. There is a little bit of Usual Suspects syndrome, a...moreSome good stories in this collection--Datlow is a career anthologist and she can put 'em together. There is a little bit of Usual Suspects syndrome, and a few stories that aren't so much Noir as just Dark, but I'm not a genre purist, so. Standouts for me included Nick Mamatas's The Dreamer of The Day, and Paul Tremblay's The Getaway. Brian Evenson's The Absent Eye is also (as usual for Evenson) creepy, atmospheric, and impeccable in tone, but I thought the resolution was a little bland. Joe Langan's In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos, wasn't just creepy but also got me emotionally invested about, of all things, military abuse of wartime detainees.
A few other reviewers have commented on how well the book included women's and queer voices...I have to say meh to that. I don't really get why noir is considered a default masculine genre--or at least a genre that men write more often (better? more comfortably?) than women. Out of 16 stories, I think three were by women. Make of that what you will. (less)
This was a good time--a classic adventure fantasy starring two young female characters who happen to fall in love along the way. Hooray Little, Brown...moreThis was a good time--a classic adventure fantasy starring two young female characters who happen to fall in love along the way. Hooray Little, Brown for publishing! Hooray Lo for writing!
There's some really lovely writing here, and the pace moves along nicely. My only quarrel is the use of *groan* wolves as bad guys. I'm cranky on that front, though, because of that stupid Liam Neeson dudefest that came out a few months ago, paired with the fact that our state is trying pretty hard to slaughter the last wolves we've got. I'm pretty sure that actual wolves don't care how they're represented in fantasy literature.
I'm interested to read Lo's earlier book, Ash, and to get hold of her new book when it comes out. She'll be at ALA in Anaheim this month, according to her blog: if I get the chance to drop by the LB table to say hello, I think I will. (less)
You know how there are free books for Kindle, especially older books, maybe especially out-of-print or not-so-widely-read books? And you know how you...moreYou know how there are free books for Kindle, especially older books, maybe especially out-of-print or not-so-widely-read books? And you know how you sometimes have to take a six-hour plane trip somewhere and you know you're not going to sleep? And you know how sometimes you just want mental Cheetos? Yes? I have a book for you.(less)
General spoilers, mostly for back-of-the-book stuff. Caveat lector.
I'm...trying to think of what to say about this book. I think I heard the author in...more General spoilers, mostly for back-of-the-book stuff. Caveat lector.
I'm...trying to think of what to say about this book. I think I heard the author interviewed on a podcast sometime last year, and if I recall correctly he's a newly published author (first book?) who seems excited about the book and the series and his success. I think the book is also popular...I'm not sure who its readers are, but I'm guessing boys. I wanted to give it a try for its intriguing premise and also because I think I sort of liked the guy in the interview.
So I'm going to try to choose my words, here. This book...needed an editor. It needed a publisher that wasn't desperate to jump on the Hunger Games bandwagon, who was willing to work through a first-time author's inevitable glitches and issues and help make the book better. It did not get those things.
The premise of the book--boy (Thomas) with no memories wakes up in a metal box carrying him up from underground to a world populated only by other memory-wiped boys, all of them trapped inside a giant dangerous maze they can't solve--is interesting. There was potential for it to be Lord of the Flies-ish, to examine what might really go down in a situation where teenaged boys rule themselves and have to survive against bad odds.
But Dashner leaps past all that by assuring us that the kids have set up a fine, orderly, working society in which everyone is assigned to one of about five functional areas--agriculture, slaughterhouse, cleanup crew, medical team, etc. Never mind the huge gaps in the world he creates--who trains the medical team? who maintains the electrical power, and how do they know how to do that? (for that matter, where does the electricity come from, and why haven't the kids followed the wires back to a generator or external source or...?) Suffice to say there is glossing-over. Unfortunately this makes for a pretty safe, low-stakes, unconvincing world. By the end of the book I was wondering about so many logistical details I could hardly concentrate on the plot. Why were there so many kids? Most were never shown, or even named--why not show a smaller group and let us get to know more of them? Later plot revelations begged all kinds of questions about the kinds of kids these are, and the likelihood that they'd act as they do, and why they aren't a little more distinctive and interesting. But.
I have all kinds of issues with how this book is written. Which is to say--with apologies to the author, who worked hard on this, I know--the writing is not good. Badly-written YA pains me. I have a feeling that some editors slack off because hey, kids aren't going to notice the awfulness of a sentence that basically says, "Thomas was shocked that he didn't feel more surprised." The descriptions are minimal, rote, and unclear. The main antagonists of the story--the Grievers--are half-mechanical, half-organic wagon wheels that I still can't clearly see. The descriptions of the one girl in the story are trite. At one point, her voice is described as "pretty." At another, after days of lying in a coma and then horrifying assault by Grievers, running for her life, etc., she's described as smelling "like sweat and flowers." Flowers?
Which brings me to the book's gender issues. Yuck. Teresa, the girl who shows up in the mechanical box shortly after Thomas appears, is a white-skinned, blue-eyed, black-haired, ethereal beauty who shrieks a single sibyl-like omen before falling into a coma. The boys make rape comments. One of the lead boys threatens anyone who touches her. Then she disappears offstage (fed gruel in her coma by the medical team, which has to be one of the worst gaffes in the book) until she turns out to be, basically, a princess. (Symbolically, I mean.) Hooray for girls in YA!
When Teresa revives and joins the action she's continuously sexualized by Thomas, who has a crush on her and can't figure out why he feels like he knows her. She suggests that maybe they were lovers, and I can't figure out if she's joking. (They're sixteen.) She's derided by the boys and constantly makes empty, posturing comebacks about how much smarter girls are, etc etc. Basically she has nothing to do and I have no idea why she's in this book, except to toss in the requisite "romance" for straight boy readers looking for traditional gender role models. It's painful. I'd knock off another star for unconscious sexist stereotypes, but everyone in this book is so thinly-drawn that this just seems par for the course.
The plot is pretty messy--thin, transparent in spots, and then "resolved" in a jumble of new information that turns this book into a teaser for the rest of the series. The pacing is deadly slow. I read this on Kindle, but apparently it has 384 pages in print. Yikes. So much time is spent in repeated conversations, melodramatic "revelations" that turn out to mean nothing, and useless scenes of Thomas trying to remember stuff, Thomas trying to fit in with other kids, Thomas being befriended by a strangely unlikeable kid we're supposed to like, Thomas trying different professions and finding that he doesn't like them. Honestly, so much of this book made no sense and went nowhere.
Overall, this book felt like it thought young adult readers need to be constantly dazzled, bribed, and tricked in order to read a book all the way through. Without cliff-hangers at every chapter end, wild scenarios pulled from action films, and every possible attraction dangled in front of their noses the whole time, kids won't read! This is depressing. A friend's son just started reading Stephen King for the first time, and he's now wildly inhaling every one of King's books that he can find. Whatever you think of King, that man can write. I hope the kids who are reading The Maze Runner will also find their way to King, and to all the other authors whose books hold up to harder scrutiny, or at least a second reading.
It's been a while since I read Stephen King, and definitely a while since I read a new one. But he's one of my first and dearest book loves, and while...moreIt's been a while since I read Stephen King, and definitely a while since I read a new one. But he's one of my first and dearest book loves, and while this one feels a little under-edited in a few places (King has his tics, and he's had them forever, and now that he's been writing for something like half a century, they've started to feel well-worn and comfortable instead of edgy and fresh) it's still great. He tells a story like just about nobody else I've read. I think of him as tapped into story in a large-bore way. Where most other writers are feeding story through a two-inch pipe or a straw, he's got a stand-up city main running straight through him from the night kitchen to us. It's pretty incredible.
Four long short stories, dark deeds, disturbing stuff, etc. etc. I stayed up late for these. (less)
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