bookshelves: currently-reading
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bookshelves: speculative-fiction
Not even halfway through this book, I realized two things: I am inhaling this series, thoroughly tickled with the concepts presented, and quickly becoming a hard-core fan of Kelly McCullough.
If you favor comedies of errors, cyberpunk, technological toys, or pagan fantasy, you are made for these books. I keep thinking it's like Pat Cadigan, Emma Bull and William Gibson got together and came up with the perfect birthday present. These are fresh, enthralling, wonderful words written down by someone who refuses to dumb down concepts--but don't let that put you off, if you're not technologically savvy. If you don't know the difference between binary code and hex code, it won't stop you from being sucked in, strapped down, and left careening along for the ride.
I cannot recommend these enough. Buy them. Read them. Put them down, walk away, then pick up the first one and read it again.
MythOS, the fourth book in the series, is already out, and I cannot wait to read it, either. High, high marks for McCullough, start to finish. ]]>
Emilly Orr
added a quote:
"It is great good health to believe as the Hindus do that there are 33 million gods and goddesses in the world. It is great good health to want to understand one s dreams. It is great good health to desire the ambiguous and paradoxical. It is sickness of the profoundest kind to believe that there is one reality. There is sickness in any piece of work or any piece of art seriously attempting to suggest that the idea that there is more than one reality is somehow redundant." — Clive Barker
"It is great good health to believe as the Hindus do that there are 33 million gods and goddesses in the world. It is great good health to want to understand one s dreams. It is great good health to desire the ambiguous and paradoxical. It is sickness of the profoundest kind to believe that there is one reality. There is sickness in any piece of work or any piece of art seriously attempting to suggest that the idea that there is more than one reality is somehow redundant." — Clive Barker
Emilly Orr
added a quote:
"I've learned two things in my life. One that love is the beginning and end of all meaning. And two that it is the same thing whatever shape our souls have taken on this journey. Love is love. Is love. " — Clive Barker
"I've learned two things in my life. One that love is the beginning and end of all meaning. And two that it is the same thing whatever shape our souls have taken on this journey. Love is love. Is love. " — Clive Barker
bookshelves: to-read
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bookshelves: speculative-fiction
Kelly McCullough brings us back to the world of the techno-savvy Greek gods, and Ravirn, who seems to have a unique ability to get himself into very hot water, mostly by sheer ill luck. This book also introduces the goddess of Discord, Eris, and McCullough's interpretation of her quite literally took my breath away.
She'd enjoy that, I think, immensely.
Full of the same humor, wit, dangers and deceptions as the first foray into the land of the (modern) gods, Webmage, this one steps up by adding in rebellious AIs, interpretations of the Primal Chaos behind all things, and a train-wreck love life all his own--which Ravirn is coming to understand can be explosive, psychologically scarring, and darkly amusing, but rarely, rarely peaceful. I sympathize with him, I do, but sympathy must needs take a back seat to watching him get out of yet another threat to life and limb--and potentially, the multiverse--first! ]]>
bookshelves: speculative-fiction
Ravirn is your average hacking genius in college: he doesn't get on well with his dormmate, his grades keep dipping, his computer talks back to him, and his grandmother is threatening to send him to a monastery so he can finish his schooling under a vow of silence.
There's only one small problem--Ravirn's grandmother is Lachesis, the Fate who measures the cords of life.
Webmage is the story of the children of the Titans, or at least one child in particular, as he makes his way through the sometimes labyrinthine deceptions and tricks his extended family is wont to play. Along the way, it is an excellent blend of hard science and magery--his laptop, for instance, can transform itself into a cat-size blue webgoblin named Melchior.
It's not cyberpunk, though there is hacking, computer language, and technological marvels strewn throughout. It's not pure fantasy, because the magic is liberally salted with references to the real world and science. It is wonderful, well-written, completely enthralling, and you'll leave wanting more.
Good for you, there are three (right now) other books. ]]>
Out of all the Travis McGee books, this one sticks with me, I come back to it, time and again. How often do we misinterpret symbols we see, how often do we act out of our own pain, not considering the pain of others? In and amongst the typical Fort Lauderdale settings of all wide-ranging McGee books, this one asks us to look at how we communicate, how we interpret what we see. How we reach those who are closed off from us. What happens when we're surprised, what happens when we hurt, what happens when we need to change.
It was written late in the series by MacDonald, and a casual acquaintance with the characters would help--but even if you've never come across that tall, lazy-seeming, smiling owner of the Busted Flush in Bahia del Mar...there are enough tips and comments on his personality, his friends, and his worldview for you to step into his world and understand him.
And maybe that's the point of the book, distilled: understanding. And what we do when it dawns, good or bad. I highly recommend it for that, if for no other reason--and there are many more good reasons to read it. ]]>