Katherine Nabity's Blog, page 246

Book #19

Divergent by Veronica Roth

I’m done reading YA dystopias. No matter how popular or well-lauded, I’m done.

At best, I’m not a huge fan of either genre/sub-genre. Why do I read them? I want to understand them, as a writer and a reader. I want to experience the trend. But now, I’m done. This post is not going to win me any friends or fans.

First, I’m “old.” This is young adult fiction and the characters in these books, including Divergent, are dealing with issues that are young people’s issues. Love, sex, gender, place in the world; all these things are approached with enormous anxiety. Unfortunately, many minor issues are approached in the same way and, when faced, are found to be no big deal. While this might appeal to some older reader’s sense of nostalgia, it just makes me impatient. At age 37, I’m done dealing with most of these issues. Well, maybe not “place in the world,” but I’m somewhat beyond worrying about whether I’m part of the popular group.

Second, I’m tired of trope characters. The doesn’t-know-she’s-pretty action girl. The hot guy love interest; the pasty “nice” guy not-really love interest. Evil adults in charge of the world and child revolutionaries.

Maybe that last category wouldn’t annoy me so much if the world these character inhabited wasn’t a contrivance. Society in Divergent is broken into five amazingly simplified factions that do not mix socially. At the ridiculously young age of sixteen, with no information about the other factions, young people are given the opportunity to choose. Leaving their family’s faction means not seeing their family again (except on visiting days). There is a sixth faction, the factionless. They seem to be either akin to homeless people, or low-level workers, or something like that. Because failed the fairly arbitrary initiation process into whatever faction they chose (at age 16 with no actual knowledge of what the other factions are about), they are now valueless.

Of course, we enter this story at a shifting point. Using technology that probably could not be innovated within the society established, [the angsty teens-in-school plot line shifts to a running from a death squad climax]. (Highlight for the spoiler.)

That’s one thing that what gets me about the dystopias I’m reading. They show a lack of understanding of how the world actually works. In particular, innovation in technology requires more than a group of brainy know-it-alls. Technology requires Candor and Amity and maybe even some Abnegation and Dauntless-ness. As does politics and art and pretty much the entirety of the human experience.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that what most current dytopian fiction fails at is showing that without x you don’t get y. Divergent has an opportunity to, as an allegory, show what we’d be missing if we had this over-the-top segregation based on basic character attributes. Of course, showing that a segregated world would result in a society that simply falls apart doesn’t make for great drama. Ultimately, current dystopias are less social commentary and more a contrivance for putting teen protagonists in danger.

Format: Kindle Cloud

Procurement: Greater Phoenix Digital Library

It’s (almost) Monday. What am I read(-a-thon)ing?

I’m addicted…

Hosts: Angela @ Reading Angel, Candace @ Candace’s Book Blog,

Lori @ Pure Imagination.

The last two Mondays I’ve declared some TBR titles and then swiftly been derailed by on-hold books from the library  becoming available. Well, it’s time to catch up!

Goal List

Library loans:

Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories by Elmore Leonard (This loan expires 7/9. Do they mean at 00:01 or do I get to read on the 9th???)
Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman & Mark Buckingham (Illustrator)
Hippolyte’s Island: An Illustrated Novel by Barbara Hodgson
Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories by Kelly Link

Books that I’m probably not going to get to:

Dark Waters by Shannon Mayer


Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster

Updates
7/9

Number of pages I’ve read today: Read 22%-34%

Total number of pages I’ve read:

Books: Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories by Elmore Leonard

Words written: Finished a scene rewrite in the wee hours of the morning.

7/10

Number of pages I’ve read today:

Total number of pages I’ve read:

Books:

Words written:

7/11

Number of pages I’ve read today:

Total number of pages I’ve read:

Books:

Words written:

Throwback Thursday (07/05/12)

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

Noting that book blogging onften focuses on new releases, here’s how Throwback Thursday works:

Pick a book released more than 5 years ago.
Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it.
Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

It all began with a letter inquiring about second-hand books, written by Helene Hanff in New York, and posted to a bookshop at 84, Charing Cross Road in London. As Helene’s sarcastic and witty letters are responded to by the stodgy and proper Frank Doel of 84, Charing Cross Road, a relationship blossoms into a warm and charming long-distance friendship lasting many years. (via Goodreads)

I’ll never understand readers that don’t like movies. Sure, some movie adaptation don’t work so well. Sometimes, they’re better than the book. And sometimes, there are other unintended consequences.

At some point in high school, I was on an Anthony Hopkins kick. I do this. I obsess and watch everything with aparticular actor/actress that I can get my grubby little mitts on. My Anthony Hopkins kick happened in the late 80s/early 90s. Blockbuster, only brick and mortar, could not hold an infinite selection of movies. Good luck on finding a miniscule British movies released in 1987.  There was no Netflix, no Amazon, and certainly no streaming movies (legal or otherwise). What I did have was cable television. Deep weekly study of TV Guide usually turned up a few things I wanted to watch–usually on at 2am. That’s when I first saw 84, Charing Cross Road. At 2am with the sound turned down so I wouldn’t wake my parents. It was lovely and sad and made me happy to be a book lover and a writer. And it was based on a book! Of course, with no Amazon, etc. finding the book was a whole other glorious hunt… But Anthony Hopkins led me to a movie, that led me to a book, that led me to an author I love.

I’m not sure how many times I have read this book. It is collection of letters between Helene Hanff, New York screenwriter, and Frank Doyle, London bookseller. Considering the previous paragraph about how easy it is for readers today to get their reading hit, 84 Charing Cross Road is a story from a different world. Time passes between letters. More event happen “off-screen” than on. It’s a subtle story told in not many words and it still makes my happy to be a reader and a writer.

(Helene would be utterly disgusted by ebooks, I’m sure, but I wish this book were available in e-editions in order to reach a wider audience. While I love books, I love stories more.)

Book #18

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I’m attempting to read some newer releases, and I’m pretty impressed with the selection offered by the Greater Phoenix Digital Library. Of course, I see now that Ready Player One was published almost a year ago. That’s still better than usual for me.

Ready Player One is dystopian-ish YA science fiction. Generally, my problem with dystopian fiction is that I don’t buy it. I am, perhaps, a naive optimist. I honestly don’t believe that the average of human behavior is evil, which is what most dystopian fiction seems to rely on. Despite a devious, all-seeing corporation, the world of Ready Player One is fairly believable. It’s crowded and over-industrialized. The majority of people work in and are entertained by a virtual world. The OASIS is sort of the mondo combination of Second Life and every MMO/CRPG that has ever existed. If I squint really hard, I can see that future.

The story revolves around a game within the game, the hunt for an Easter Egg placed within the OASIS by one of its now-deceased creators. Find the egg, win his fortune. The egg hunters, or gunters, believe that by steeping themselves in the geek culture of the programmers–the 1980s– they can unlock the Easter Egg.

This is marketed as a YA novel. The protagonist is young, the themes are not overly complex. Yet, I question whether readers too much younger than I am can catch a fraction of the references.  Ernest Cline is two years old than me. I am of the same generation and of a somewhat geeky bent. I “got” many of the references; by far, not all of them. This novel is maybe too reliant on Cline’s favorite things.

There are problems with this book (the previously mentioned evil corporation, a little bit of deus ex machina, and a laggy middle section), but I enjoyed it. What really saves the story for me is its underlying optimism. It stands alone (not part of a series) and a certain portion of the final battle brings to mind the better-natured  community aspects of MMOs.

Format: Kindle Cloud Reader

Procurement: Greater Phoenix Digital Library

Book #17

From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury

So, I’ve been combing through my old LiveJournal entries for book notes/reviews to import into this blog* and I came across this from July 22, 2002:

…finished reading A Clash of Kings. Now that I’ve finished Kings, I need a rest from the intensity of that story. I’m reading From the Dust Returned now. Not the Bradbury that I bought Friday, but a few months ago. A definite change of pace.

Two days later:

Finished From the Dust Returned. A yummy little morsel it was. Creepy in that delicious Halloween way. And it has left me wanting more. More reading that is. I’m in a reading jag. Devouring books.

I seem to be subconsciously reliving the summer of 2002…

I agree with my past self. From the Dust Returned is a yummy morsel. Not really Bradbury at his best, but it’s full of autumnal creepiness which is how I best like Ray Bradbury. From the Dust Returned goes around this the suffix “A Novel” on its front cover. In this case, I can understand why. Bradbury is fairly well known for his short stories and From the Dust Returned reads more like a collection of somewhat related stories and vignettes than a true narratively structured novel. Really, I think it would have worked better if Bradbury hadn’t worried about providing some of this novel’s connective tissues.

The writing is, of course, gorgeous. Bradbury strings words together with a daring and grace that I envy and could never, never pull off.

*If I could go back in time and tell myself one thing it would be, “Tags are not some passing fad. Tag things!”

Format: Hardback

Procurement: Bought new in 2001, First Edition

Bookmark: The dust cover.

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? (07/02/12)

This Week I’m Reading:

Or rather, this is what I intend to read this week. Last week, no sooner had I posted, several library holds became available. This week is still fall-out from that. ;) (Review of Ready Player One coming up this week.)

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman & Mark Buckingham (Illustrator)

The winter isn’t ending. Nobody knows why.

And Odd has run away from home, even though he can barely walk and has to use a crutch.

Out in the forest he encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle – three creatures with a strange story to tell.

Now Odd is faced with a stranger journey than he had ever imagined.

A journey to save Asgard, City of the Norse Gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it.

It’s going to take a very special kind of boy to defeat the most dangerous of all the Frost Giants and rescue the mighty Gods. Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever.

Someone just like Odd… (Goodreads)

Impulse check-out when I was looking for Norse mythology.

Hippolyte’s Island: An Illustrated Novel by Barbara Hodgson

In search of a new adventure, Hippolyte Webb, quixotic spirit, modern-day explorer, and natural historian, sets his sights on the Auroras, a group of tiny islands in the middle of the South Atlantic. His destination wouldn’t be so unusual, except that these islands were last spotted almost two hundred years ago. Equipped with a centuries-old map, an inadequate sailboat, and an advance payment for a book about his quest, Hippolyte embarks on an unforgettable voyage, not just through unfamiliar seas but through the uncharted territory of his own mind and heart. This new novel by the author of The Sensualist and The Tattooed Map–lavishly illustrated with over forty illustrations and a fold-out map–is an enigmatic tale bridging the space that lies between what we believe and what we know. (Goodreads)

Another impulse check-out. I was drawn to the bird on the cover.

Short Story of the Week:

“Faerie Food” by Kat Otis and/or
“An Experimental Excursion in Artificially Amplifying Armoured Animalia” by by Jimmy Grist

The Usual:

A poem, some Poetic Etta, and a chapter of A Clash of Kings.

Throwback Thursday (06/28/12)

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

Noting that book blogging onften focuses on new releases, here’s how Throwback Thursday works:

Pick a book released more than 5 years ago.
Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it.
Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

I’m not typical for a book blogger. Most of what I read is already over five years old, though I’m trying to be a little more current. But I do like the spirit of this meme. I’m going to repurpose it bit and use it import some book-related posts from my previous journal.

Strange Wine: Fifteen New Stories From The Nightside Of The World by Harlan Ellison

From Harlan Ellison, whom The Washington Post regards as a “lyric poet, satirist, explorer of odd psychological corners, and purveyor of pure horror and black comedy,” comes Strange Wine.

Discover among these tales the spirits of executed Nazi war criminals who walk Manhattan streets; the damned soul of a murderess escaped from Hell; gremlins writing the fantasies of a gone-dry writer; and the exquisite Dr. D’arque Angel, who deals her patients doses of death… (via Goodreads)

My original post from June 1, 2001, (with commentary):

—###—

My copy of this book has a history.

One of the few things I remember from the spring semester of 1995 is buying this book. I had taken a walk, this was before I had moved permanently to Lincoln, to find a bookstore on F Street. None of the other bookstores had anything I wanted. It seemed like such a long walk then, from campus to F Street. I’d thought that I’d live in that neighborhood 3 years later and walk that distance at least once nearly everyday.

The bookstore was small, one of those places that specialized in books on mysticism and spirituality. They sold crystals and incense and soothing tapes of music. And they had a small used section of genre books. There on the shelf, lo and behold, was a book by Harlan Ellison. A rare find indeed. (Remember, this was 1995. I couldn’t order up any old book I wanted from Amazon.com.) I slipped it off the shelf and opened the cover. The book was a first edition for $70. That was a lot of money to me back then. I was working in the dishroom, living on financial aid. And really, it’s still a lot of money for a book. (I wouldn’t actually pay that much for a book now.) But… I didn’t flinch when I had to buy chemistry books for more. Books that I would hate, books that would cause me grief, books that I would sell back the moment I didn’t need them anymore. What was $70 for something I would keep and cherish?

The publication date on the book was 1979. I decided I wouldn’t read it until 1999 when the book was 20 years old. An odd thought, buying an expensive book and then not rushing home to read it. So the book sat on my self and traveled with me. To Omaha and back to Lincoln, to the house on Q Street, to my Lincoln Mall apartment, to my F Street apartment so near to where I bought it, and then to Arizona. And in late 1999, I began reading it. Halfway through, I put it down. Short stories are hard to read. They’re short and I wanted more. I wasn’t quite in the mood to read it, even though I had promised myself I would. But yesterday, looking through the stacks in the back room I picked up again. And just finished it today. And it is worth the $70 I paid.

—###—

Why should you read it today? There’s no voice in speculative fiction like Harlan Ellison’s. He’s not fluff. His stories are going to make you think. As Ellison says in the book’s introduction “reading is the drinking of strange wine…drinking strange wine pours strength into the imagination.” This book contains some lesser known stories that haven’t been over-anthologized. Not a light read, but a worthy read.

Book # 16

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

As I said to quite a few people while reading this book, Martin lulls you with a thousand tiny little details and then STUFF HAPPENS! That makes for an interesting reading experience if you make it through the heraldry and genealogy.

One thing that I really like about Martin is his use of oblique storytelling. Not every battle and council meeting is shown. Instead, Martin opts for sometimes showing the aftermath only, using his characters to relate what happened, usually in conversations with other characters. This is a good thing for the TV show. Battles are expensive to film. (Unfortunately, I think the HBO show has resorted to conveying information from character to character before, during, and/or after a sex act…)

Unfortunately, I remember why I kinda lost interest in the series during the third book. I’m not quite a fan of where many of the characters ended up at the end of A Clash of Kings. I’m going to continue reading the series, but we’ll see if A Storm of Swords can pull me along this time and toss me into A Feast of Crows.

Notes on A Game of Thrones

Format: Hardback

Procurement: Purchased, most likely, at Bookmans

Bookmark: “Go on Adventures” corner bookmark that I made from an old birthday card.

Book #15

Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties: A Practical Guide by Miss Edythe McFate by Lesley M. M. Blume, David Foote (Illustrator)

This was an impulse check-out. I saw it while I was browsing for fairy tales and said, “Why not?” Children’s books can be clever and entertaining. I’m still kicking myself for never reading any Roald Dahl or Lloyd Alexander as a kid. Unfortunately, this book annoyed and disappointed me.

Modern Fairies, etc. has two components. Warnings and information on fairies in the modern world, specifically the fairies of New York City, and didactic tales featuring children that know no better than to deal with the fae. The annoying part was the nature myth aspect of most of this book. Too many times the warnings or tales passed off fairies, etc. as the reason for natural occurrences. Now, even if I put aside my skepticism (this is of course a work of fiction), I still don’t know why so many of the tales involve nature after spending effort on trying to be set in current day NYC. This book is not what it claims to be, really. Or, at least, not what I thought it could be–a light kid’s book about truly urban fairies. That was disappointing.

The warnings weren’t too bad. In fact, occasionally Blume’s writing is really lovely. The tales were pretty unremarkable. They weren’t quite witty or ridiculous  enough. In structure, it felt like a handful of short stories with some filler in between, with the filler being the better ingredient. I will give the book props for not presenting these fae as sparkly Disney tinker-bells. They’re generally untrustworthy and often ugly.

Format: Kindle Cloud Reader

Procurement: Greater Phoenix Digital Library

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? (06/25/12)

This Week I’m Reading:
EDIT:

Of course, this afternoon Ready Player One by Ernest Cline became available for check out from the GPDL. I’ll be reading that this week as well.

Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories by Elmore Leonard

From America’s premier storyteller comes this collection of seven classic western tales of destiny and fatal decision, featuring the story that became the basis for the 1957 western film classic, “3:10 to Yuma,” which starred Glenn Ford. (Goodreads)

I need a litte break from fantasy. I requested it from the Greater Phoenix Digital Library and it became available this morning.

Dark Waters by Shannon Mayer

The bonds of family are stretched to the breaking point as legendary monsters, a deadly prophecy, and soul swallowing fears threaten to destroy them. Magic, secrets, sensuality and mind numbing terror all rolled into one to keep the pages flying.(Goodreads)

Won this over the weekend from a read-a-thon drawing. Not usually my thing, but it sounds a bit interesting.

Short Story of the Week:

“21st-Century Girl” by Adrian Tchaikovsky (via Nature) and/or

“Odd Jobs” by Matthew S. Rotundo (via Buzzy Mag)

The Usual:

Already caught up with this week’s Poetic Edda and Minorities. And two chapters of…well, I decided that I wanted to watch the second season of  A Game of Thrones and finished A Clash of Kings. This puts me months ahead of the read-through. The funny thing is that I’ve kind of gotten used to reading a couple chapters a week and will probably move on to A Storm of Swords.

What I Read Last Week:

Took part in the Wicked Wildfire Read-a-thon from Wednesday through Sunday. In addition to finishing A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, I finished Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties by Lesley M. M. Blume, From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury, and read through roughly 25 issues of Marvel’s Ultimate Comics series. Reviews of all those will be posted in the next couple weeks.

What I Gave Up On:

Ted Dekker just didn’t work out for me. The book I checked out from the library was a 2-in-1. I read the first few pages of both Thr3e and Obsessed and neither really caught my interest.

Also, as quickly as it set in, my fairy tale obsession passed.  I returned My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales last night after only reading three stories from it. Also, it was the only one of my recently checked out library books that was in Adobe format. I seem to have firmly moved to the Kindle cloud app.