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August 16
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Ori
gave
 
to:
Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Joe Hill
bookshelves:
good-yarns
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: thriller/horror fans
read in April, 2008
Ori said:
"Good character study, with true spine-tingling action. The build-up of scares is especially good, and though the "twist" isn't especially surprising, it's still plenty creepy.
This reads like vintage Stephen King, when he was still work...more
Good character study, with true spine-tingling action. The build-up of scares is especially good, and though the "twist" isn't especially surprising, it's still plenty creepy.
This reads like vintage Stephen King, when he was still working on his characters and getting into their heads, rather than just in a sort of auto-pilot... And, oh yeah, Joe Hill, is in fact one of Stephen King's children. If he keeps writing books like this, he won't be in pop's shadow for long....less
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June 24
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Ori
gave
to:
A Canticle for Leibowitz (Paperback)
by Walter M. Miller Jr.
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended to Ori by:
I think I saw that Claire gave it a good review
recommended for: artists, scientists, the paranoid, the religious, and anyone who enjoys speculative sci-fi
read in April, 2008
Ori said:
"Inevitably, after a night of carousing my friends and I will end up at someone's house during the wee hours of the morning discussing the end of the world. Fire, ice, global warming, meteors striking, zombies, Aztec calendars, and many others have b...more
Inevitably, after a night of carousing my friends and I will end up at someone's house during the wee hours of the morning discussing the end of the world. Fire, ice, global warming, meteors striking, zombies, Aztec calendars, and many others have been suggested. But it seems we've moved beyond traditional cold war terrors. None of them seem to think the end will come from a nuclear doomsday scenario.
A Canticle for Leibowitz begins hundreds of years after a cataclysmic nuclear event. A backlash against the scientists who created the weapons that nearly destroyed the world snowballs into a genocide of nearly all educated people and books. Who remains? Renegades, vagabonds, and in a new form, the Catholic Church.
This book does a wonderful job of showing the sacred significance of knowledge and science and the balance humanity struggles to achieve between art, science, and religion, as well as perseverance and apocalypse. ...less
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Ori
gave
to:
Cryptonomicon (Mass Market Paperback)
by Neal Stephenson
bookshelves:
good-yarns,
loooonnnngggg-and-good
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: nerds, dorks, geeks
Ori said:
"Minor (early portions of the book) Spoilers:
Many reviewers have already equated this to a sort of cyber-punk Infinite Jest. Like Infinite Jest this was a tour de force that I greatly enjoyed, but like Infinite Jest it has made me h...more
Minor (early portions of the book) Spoilers:
Many reviewers have already equated this to a sort of cyber-punk Infinite Jest. Like Infinite Jest this was a tour de force that I greatly enjoyed, but like Infinite Jest it has made me highly suspicious of future books by the same author.
I always wonder just how much was left on the cutting room floor, and then, perhaps how much more should have been. This is not a problem I have with all long books. For instance there was never a point in It where I felt things were moving too slowly. I feel it may be a problem with books that have more literary aspirations. If the writing is beautiful/interesting it's easy to get wrapped up in the prose at the expense of the plot.
A lot of the early Epiphyte shenanigans just feel like the plot-filler that allows Randy to have some back story before we get to the data haven and the numerous story-lines finally begin to intersect.
Leaving aside the plot, most of the book is enjoyable and there are several scenes that are downright insightful, or just plain cool, and in the last 350 pages or so these combine with the plot for some high-level mass-market paperback fun.
...less
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February 14
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New comment on Kat's review of
Digital Fortress
(see all 4 comments)
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January 06
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Ori
gave
to:
The Best American Comics 2007 (Best American TM)
by Anne Elizabeth Moore
bookshelves:
graphicnovelsiecomics
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: fans of comics
read in January, 2008
Ori said:
"While The Best American Comics of 2006 had an admittedly liberal-bias (not so much a problem for me) the comics ran the gamut from conventional to wildly experimental narrative in a variety of artistic forms, so nebulous that it was difficult to cate...more
While The Best American Comics of 2006 had an admittedly liberal-bias (not so much a problem for me) the comics ran the gamut from conventional to wildly experimental narrative in a variety of artistic forms, so nebulous that it was difficult to categorize some of them as styles. There was fiction and nonfiction, reportage and memoir, with varying degrees of whimsy and seriousness. While there were some obvious gaps, these were acknowledge and explained by Harvey Pekar in his introduction, and over all it felt as though he really had read through endless stacks of comics and selected the ones he felt were best.
Sadly the same cannot be said for the 2007 edition edited by Chris Ware. While the artistic style does vary somewhat, with few exceptions most of the strips are stultifyingly similar panel based endeavors. More than a few forray into less than exciting biographies of "how I became a writer/comic-stripper" and other meta-navel-gazing. While I do find writing about writing interesting, and appreciate that navel-gazing has produced great art, and this volume does include fine examples of both, it's hard to believe that quite so many could have been "the best" produced last year.
More glaring is the sort of hipster cronyism that pops up in several of the pieces. This is the sort of expression that made the second half of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" feel to so many people like a self-aggrandizing bore, despite the fact that Dave Eggers is a good writer, and possibly also, a good person.
Many comics reference other comic artists that are included in this edition, and indeed many feel similar to the point of lacking originality. Overall, whereas the 2006 edition felt, whether true or not, as though comics were coming in from across a broad intellectual landscape, the 2007 edition feels more as though the editor pulled together a group of his best friends. And there's little doubt that these are talented friends, but the scope is still seems sadly limited.
I hope future editions will return to the precedent set by the 2006 edition as well as perhaps becoming even more open to other avenues that have been largely ignored by the last two editions including nationally syndicated newspaper strips (is anyone going to argue that "For Better or For Worse," is not deserving of praise every year?), traditional, but innovative hero-based comic books (like "The Last Man"), reinterpretted manga (the adventures of Scott Pilgrim), and self-published web-comics (Get Your War On, or xkcd)....less
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December 03
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Ori
gave
to:
The Book of the Dead (Diogenes Trilogy, Book 3)
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
bookshelves:
good-yarns
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: a quick read
Ori said:
"Every reader should have at least one mass market paperback author they can count on for when their flight gets cancelled at an airport.
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's books read like the summer blockbuster that you're ashamed to admit to y...more
Every reader should have at least one mass market paperback author they can count on for when their flight gets cancelled at an airport.
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's books read like the summer blockbuster that you're ashamed to admit to your friend that you love.
Well, hear me now: I am not ashamed. Well, maybe a tiny bit, but despite the cheesy titles their books are fairly inventive, gripping, and well written, and with Stephen King in semi-retirement (or at least retirement from writing good books) we all need something to fill the void....less
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October 18
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Ori
gave
to:
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (Hardcover)
by Max Brooks
bookshelves:
good-yarns
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in October, 2007
Ori said:
"This book is certainly engrossing, but there are several flaws in it's internal logic that will give even the most rabid zombie fans a pause. For instance: Zombies walking across the bottom of the ocean. I don't care how magically resilient zombie...more
This book is certainly engrossing, but there are several flaws in it's internal logic that will give even the most rabid zombie fans a pause. For instance: Zombies walking across the bottom of the ocean. I don't care how magically resilient zombies are to the ravages of saltwater, or mindlessly determined, they wouldn't be able to stand that sort of atmospheric pressure.
And there were a few other things like that.
Overall it's a good time, but it whereas the Zombie Survival Guide could be read both as amusing fiction and inspired lunatic nonfiction, World War Z is only presented as a theoretical and fictional terror....less
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May 10
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Ori
gave
to:
Tell It Slant (Paperback)
by Brenda Miller
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Ori said:
"I teach out of this book, mostly because we're required to teach from something and I don't like the 4th Genre anthology. Even with 436 page version (I couldn't find it here) it's still surprisingly compact and the "try it" exercises are s...more
I teach out of this book, mostly because we're required to teach from something and I don't like the 4th Genre anthology. Even with 436 page version (I couldn't find it here) it's still surprisingly compact and the "try it" exercises are sometimes okay. I also like the pictures of the authors at the start of each there essays. It's the least dreary of a dreary bunch. Why can't some one publish an instructive text that is actually enjoyable to flip through?...less
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April 30
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Ori
gave
to:
Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood. (Paperback)
by Jean Piaget
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Ori said:
"Piaget captures the moods and thoughts of children with sparkingly accuracy. This collection is priceless just for the interviews.
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