"stuck on the second story =/"
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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bookshelves: science-fiction
Meh. I think Asimov's magic shines better in the form of short stories. ]]>
bookshelves: fiction
The fact is, Chuck Palahniuk is a one-trick pony. Every single one of his books has the exact same narrator, the exact same condescending, repetitive voice. I found that voice easy to sympathize with (har-har) at first, and that's what drew me to his works in the beginning. I thought it was a strong, jaded voice that makes wonderfully strong, jaded commentaries. That voice became less and less interesting with each book of his that I read, until this one, when I finally looked at it and saw the pretentious, repetitive, whiny voice that it really is.
It doesn't help that the author I immediately read before Palahniuk was Asimov and his clean, straightforward writing. The contrast was laughably drastic. I picture Asimov to be this affable uncle who sits on a simple wooden chair in the middle of a well-lit room, and tells you a story. I picture Palahniuk to be the 30-something guy with slicked hair who tells a story by first turning off all the lights, building a bonfire in the middle of the room and then shines a flashlight in his face before telling you a story with a weird, fake voice.
Anyway, Lullaby itself has a stupid plot and stupid characters. I persisted through it mostly because it was very short, and with the amount that Palaniuk repeats himself I can pretty much skip through half of the pages without missing anything. I thought perhaps the ending would bring a bang of a revelation to all the nonsense that preceded it, because other books I've read by him tend to have sensational endings. Well, the ending was sensational in a way, but only in the stupidity department.
I'm officially removing Palahniuk from the list of authors that I read. ]]>
"chuck palahniuk is really starting to piss me off"
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bookshelves: science-fiction
After I, Robot, I was hungry for more robot stories, and Robot Visions was the only other robot collection I could find at my local library. A good chunk of the collection are in I, Robot, but without the connecting segments where Susan Calvin was interviewed. I personally enjoyed I, Robot more and thought the stories collected there were more solid, but this is by no means a weak collection at all. More mysteries, more puzzles, more situations where your inner child delights at the faithful robot and cheers for the happy ending, and your more mature brain ponders the many questions that Asimov proposes in each story. The collection of short essays at the end of the book was a pure pleasure to read. Asimov comes off as a playful and optimistic person/writer that I find very endearing.
The more I read Asimov, the more I admire his writing style. He doesn't take roundabout ways of saying anything that can be said in a line, and he doesn't spend pages setting up or spewing personal agenda. His heroes aren't overwrought with overwhelming personal pain or anguish and he doesn't try to fit a metaphor into every other line. He doesn't say unnecessary shit, and the result is a prose that reads naturally and cleanly. I love it. ]]>
bookshelves: science-fiction
I remember reading this book back in high school, and I remember being unimpressed by it. This just goes to indicate that tastes change with years. Of course, picking this up a second time, I realized that I remember practically nothing about any of these stories.
Each story was like a little puzzle that manages to quickly hook me in a head full of questions and curiosity. Some revelations almost made me squeal with delight, chuckle or grin with amusement. Asimov, being a classic science fiction author, writes with more ease than I had anticipated; his characters were quite wonderful, especially Dr. Susan Calvin, Donovan and Powell. And of course, I loved the robots!
I'm so glad that Scifi&Fantasy book club picked this for their April read, giving me a chance to rediscover this gem that my more immature mind failed to appreciate at a younger age. ]]>
Marian
voted on the book list Best Russian Literature
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bookshelves: horror
What a disappointment; I was all looking forward to my first GoodReads author read of the month too. So, just to cover the basics, this is a book about a future where the Despair "plagued" people and almost everyone started offing themselves, and then this One Man who was resistant and his buddy went on this journey across the Country, after hearing a rumor about some doctor who was working on The Cure. It's got a nice post-apocalyptic, dystopian feeling to it, at least for the first half of the book. It kept my interest, and I kept reading despite the subpar writing.
One trick I learned early on about reading this book was to just keep reading; don't stop and read that last sentence over, wondering why the fuck did the author just use an unnecessary and ineffective metaphor for the fifth time in the past two pages. Don't stop and think to myself, "Really? You couldn't just end the chapter with a normal sentence that doesn't have DUN DUN DUN in the background?" If I ignore all that, it wasn't too horrible, and I was curious about the "Source" and the Collectors.
What finally made me roll my eyes was when Norman entered Seattle, and met Dr. Briggs. Now, everything started falling into place like the end of a B movie. The last hundred pages were just dumb, dumb, dumb. And in retrospect, there were a handful of things that I didn't buy but accepted based on suspension of disbelief in hopes that the ending makes it all worth it. Nope!
Oh, not to mention, his writing had nowhere the depth and finesse to make any bit of this book even remotely touching or depressing. I mean, I love end of the world, horrifying, depressing elements, and this book is supposed to encompass all three; I'm supposed to love it. It's like fucking up a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. How do you screw that up?
So here are the Goods and Bads of this book, in summary.
Good: interesting premise.
Bad: juvenile, amateurish writing, shallow characters, stupid plot development, stupid ending. ]]>