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aseThis very nearly wound up titled "Geniuses and Megalomania", because there seemed to be an awful lot of that this month, but the entry wound up bookended by lighter stuff. Thank goodness.
Monsoon Diary (Shoba Narayan): Autobiography about life as the bright daughter of a large South Indian family that loves food. Very lightweight, good bedtime reading - as long as you don't go to bed on an empty stomach. Food is a major focus of the book: common breakfasts, memorable feasts, a well-intentioned but fairly disastrous charity dinner; love expressed through lunches. The author includes recipes at chapter ends. It tempts me to cook, which I consider a good thing.
Cold Tom (Sally Prue): Tom of the Fae is - horrors - enslaved to humans by love. YA fluff with one interesting idea (love as a chain) and a whiff of Tam Lin. It suffers from the cuteness and over-tidiness seen in a lot of YA books - very small cast, who all wind up in close happy relationships - and the central theme's pretty standard YA stuff, but the perspective twist is kind of cool. Worth the dollar it cost at a library sale, but not necessarily worth the full price.
The Life of the World to Come (Kage Baker): Fifth novel in the Company series. (Finally!) It moves things along very nicely. Document D, Alec Checkerfield, time travel, weird and possibly metaphorical prophetic dreams. Things go boom! in bad ways, as they tend to around the botanist Mendoza.
For people unfamiliar with Kage Baker's novels: the Company series focuses on events in the lives of certain time traveling immortals who steal great cultural works and to-be-extinct species from their doomed fates and stash them in improbable places for the edification of future generations and profit of Dr. Zeus Inc., the company that created the immortals. Only there's a few hitches, like that distressing "things go boom! around Mendoza" pattern. Sometimes there are also little gray men. If someone wants to explain what was going on at the end of Graveyard Game (or send me a copy of the paperback), email or indicate spoiler-ness when commenting.
The style is fun, the plotting multi-novel, and attention to detail sometimes is really rewarding. Hooked? Find a copy of In the Garden of Eden and start catching up.
Because oh the stuff to catch up on. Remember that "attention to detail" thing? I need to hit the library for copies of "Son Observe the Time" and The Graveyard Game. "That be thuyne uncle Labienus" yes there's some sneaky cross-arc connections. The sixth book is going to be all sorts of fun. Who knows, Mendoza might actually finally be back.
Reread bits of Cyteen. It's a stress thing.
Watchmen (Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons): Notable '80s graphic novel, noted for being an "adult" comic back when they weren't so much. Edward Blake, ex-superhero, is killed. Those who try to find out why discover they've got a thread into a Gordian knot of trouble.
It's, um, well. Picking this up for some light bedtime reading was really a mistake. (I have this problem quite often when I'm trying to read comics. Which is probably why I don't read them much.) There's an awful lot of blood and violence, I can't think of a major protagonist I'd want to spend time with, the art does what it's supposed to, the blocking is striking, and the plot is fabulous. All the byzantine twisting of now, history, minor characters, world events, and even interesting use of the use/abuse of power theme. It's cool. It's intricate. It's just... did Moore really have to throw someone out a skyscraper on the first page?
So. Major points for fabulous plotting, but... don't read this if you're convinced the world's in bad shape.
A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar): Biography of John Nash, Nobel laureate and mad mathematician. Very good book - extensive research, heavily footnoted, and a very lively read. And occasionally distressingly close to home. The science library at school has a resident Weird Guy - badly dressed, gives off the creepy vibe, makes female undergrads (at least me) a little nervous. I've heard one very apocryphal origin story, and mostly try to avoid him. Unfair and paranoid? And at the same time, maybe he's the violent sort of crazy.
Mental health care in this country is a mess. I'll be over here, being vaguely upset and incoherent.
The one place I think A Beautiful Mind falls down a bit is explaining the concepts key to Nash's work. It does an okay job with game theory, but everything else tends to blur into mathematical vocabulary glossolalia. I may be biased on this point, though, because my other recent significant nonfiction reading has been The Selfish Gene. Selfish Gene is all concept, all the time; a very different proposition from a biography. (I've been reading Selfish Gene since late December or early January. It's heavy going, but really interesting and intellectually exciting.
I just called something "intellectually exciting." Shoot me, please, before the bourgeoisie mentality spreads.)
That's my only real quibble about the book. A Beautiful Mind gets bonus points for making me think about how I look at people and how society treats the usefully eccentric and/or the less usefully odd. Find it and read it so I have someone to talk to about it!
I also reread Mirabile (Janet Kagan) in random chunks. Comfort reading, With silly puns, off-the-wall biology, and nice characterization. Everyone means well, and it generally works out.
My last-weekend-of-the-month binge was Hellspark (Janet Kagan). Mirabile is a short story collection, and Hellspark I believe a first novel, and I think the difference shows. In brief, Tocohol Susumo, a red-haired golden-eyed Hellspark trader with a Really Special extrapolative computer, is asked to solve a murder and a question of sentience. I'm glad I read this when I was younger and less jaded by fandom, because I would've tossed this as a Mary Sue-ish if I'd read it after reading all that bad fic. I would have missed a very entertaining story that's just a bit larger than life, in that nifty space opera way. My other quibble with the book is the way everyone's good intentions work out for the best, but after some of the other stuff I read this week I can't say that's a bad thing, in fiction.
In February I read an awful lot of the fiction on the weekends, when I slept late and failed to get anything done that I'd planned on. I can either blame this on a disinclination to get up when it's cold out (and the circulation in the house is terrible; the upstairs is always ten degrees warmer than the downstairs) or my disinclination to do my homework. One of these can be solved by a heater. The real problem probably can be solved by willpower, or going to the school library, out of reach of all that pesky fiction.
Monsoon Diary (Shoba Narayan): Autobiography about life as the bright daughter of a large South Indian family that loves food. Very lightweight, good bedtime reading - as long as you don't go to bed on an empty stomach. Food is a major focus of the book: common breakfasts, memorable feasts, a well-intentioned but fairly disastrous charity dinner; love expressed through lunches. The author includes recipes at chapter ends. It tempts me to cook, which I consider a good thing.
Cold Tom (Sally Prue): Tom of the Fae is - horrors - enslaved to humans by love. YA fluff with one interesting idea (love as a chain) and a whiff of Tam Lin. It suffers from the cuteness and over-tidiness seen in a lot of YA books - very small cast, who all wind up in close happy relationships - and the central theme's pretty standard YA stuff, but the perspective twist is kind of cool. Worth the dollar it cost at a library sale, but not necessarily worth the full price.
The Life of the World to Come (Kage Baker): Fifth novel in the Company series. (Finally!) It moves things along very nicely. Document D, Alec Checkerfield, time travel, weird and possibly metaphorical prophetic dreams. Things go boom! in bad ways, as they tend to around the botanist Mendoza.
For people unfamiliar with Kage Baker's novels: the Company series focuses on events in the lives of certain time traveling immortals who steal great cultural works and to-be-extinct species from their doomed fates and stash them in improbable places for the edification of future generations and profit of Dr. Zeus Inc., the company that created the immortals. Only there's a few hitches, like that distressing "things go boom! around Mendoza" pattern. Sometimes there are also little gray men. If someone wants to explain what was going on at the end of Graveyard Game (or send me a copy of the paperback), email or indicate spoiler-ness when commenting.
The style is fun, the plotting multi-novel, and attention to detail sometimes is really rewarding. Hooked? Find a copy of In the Garden of Eden and start catching up.
Because oh the stuff to catch up on. Remember that "attention to detail" thing? I need to hit the library for copies of "Son Observe the Time" and The Graveyard Game. "That be thuyne uncle Labienus" yes there's some sneaky cross-arc connections. The sixth book is going to be all sorts of fun. Who knows, Mendoza might actually finally be back.
Reread bits of Cyteen. It's a stress thing.
Watchmen (Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons): Notable '80s graphic novel, noted for being an "adult" comic back when they weren't so much. Edward Blake, ex-superhero, is killed. Those who try to find out why discover they've got a thread into a Gordian knot of trouble.
It's, um, well. Picking this up for some light bedtime reading was really a mistake. (I have this problem quite often when I'm trying to read comics. Which is probably why I don't read them much.) There's an awful lot of blood and violence, I can't think of a major protagonist I'd want to spend time with, the art does what it's supposed to, the blocking is striking, and the plot is fabulous. All the byzantine twisting of now, history, minor characters, world events, and even interesting use of the use/abuse of power theme. It's cool. It's intricate. It's just... did Moore really have to throw someone out a skyscraper on the first page?
So. Major points for fabulous plotting, but... don't read this if you're convinced the world's in bad shape.
A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar): Biography of John Nash, Nobel laureate and mad mathematician. Very good book - extensive research, heavily footnoted, and a very lively read. And occasionally distressingly close to home. The science library at school has a resident Weird Guy - badly dressed, gives off the creepy vibe, makes female undergrads (at least me) a little nervous. I've heard one very apocryphal origin story, and mostly try to avoid him. Unfair and paranoid? And at the same time, maybe he's the violent sort of crazy.
Mental health care in this country is a mess. I'll be over here, being vaguely upset and incoherent.
The one place I think A Beautiful Mind falls down a bit is explaining the concepts key to Nash's work. It does an okay job with game theory, but everything else tends to blur into mathematical vocabulary glossolalia. I may be biased on this point, though, because my other recent significant nonfiction reading has been The Selfish Gene. Selfish Gene is all concept, all the time; a very different proposition from a biography. (I've been reading Selfish Gene since late December or early January. It's heavy going, but really interesting and intellectually exciting.
I just called something "intellectually exciting." Shoot me, please, before the bourgeoisie mentality spreads.)
That's my only real quibble about the book. A Beautiful Mind gets bonus points for making me think about how I look at people and how society treats the usefully eccentric and/or the less usefully odd. Find it and read it so I have someone to talk to about it!
I also reread Mirabile (Janet Kagan) in random chunks. Comfort reading, With silly puns, off-the-wall biology, and nice characterization. Everyone means well, and it generally works out.
My last-weekend-of-the-month binge was Hellspark (Janet Kagan). Mirabile is a short story collection, and Hellspark I believe a first novel, and I think the difference shows. In brief, Tocohol Susumo, a red-haired golden-eyed Hellspark trader with a Really Special extrapolative computer, is asked to solve a murder and a question of sentience. I'm glad I read this when I was younger and less jaded by fandom, because I would've tossed this as a Mary Sue-ish if I'd read it after reading all that bad fic. I would have missed a very entertaining story that's just a bit larger than life, in that nifty space opera way. My other quibble with the book is the way everyone's good intentions work out for the best, but after some of the other stuff I read this week I can't say that's a bad thing, in fiction.
In February I read an awful lot of the fiction on the weekends, when I slept late and failed to get anything done that I'd planned on. I can either blame this on a disinclination to get up when it's cold out (and the circulation in the house is terrible; the upstairs is always ten degrees warmer than the downstairs) or my disinclination to do my homework. One of these can be solved by a heater. The real problem probably can be solved by willpower, or going to the school library, out of reach of all that pesky fiction.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-28 06:11 pm (UTC)"Son Observe the Time"? Hmm. Will have to research.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-01 10:37 pm (UTC)"Son Observe the Time": Hugo nominee, also in one of Gardner Dozois' Year's Best... collections. One of the many, many short(er) stories Kage Baker's written.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-01 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-28 09:02 pm (UTC)Hey! I know her!! Well, actually, them, since it's two people, Karen Rose and Julia. They're good friends with my best friend/LJ buddy otterblossom. Otterblossom actually rents her apartment from Karen Rose's parents and lives down the street from them.
Julia gave me one of her books for free, but I don't remember it that well. I should reread it.
Funny thing is, Tom and I are actually in one of their Star Trek novels, but I've never read/seen it! Otterblossom told me about it and that it was because they found us interesting and could use the names! :-)
Sorry to go on and on, but it's no use to talk about knowing people when people haven't heard of them. And I've never known anyone who knew them before!!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-01 10:48 pm (UTC)No way! That is so cool! This (http://janetkagan.com/index.htm) Janet Kagan, right? She wrote, like, two novels and a small heap of short stories. I've really liked the stuff I've found so far. (One day RSN I'll pick up a copy of Uhura's Song, really. Or maybe I have... must get to dad's and check sometime.) If you've got one of her books I really would pick it up and read it. As much as I damn Hellspark with weak praise, it really is fun, and Mirabile is just fun.
Sorry to go on and on, but it's no use to talk about knowing people when people haven't heard of them.
It's totally cool and understandable. One of my lab partners is a slash fan, and we've spent out-of-lab time being evil and bonding over fanfic and fandom. It's just so cool that you know Kagan - all of her. *G*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-02 02:00 pm (UTC)Looking at the web site you mentioned, you know, I'm suddenly not sure.
Maybe not. Though otterblossom loves Uhura's Song too, and that might be why I got them mixed up.
I seem to have read Mirabile and associated the plot and title with Julia and the book she gave me, but the book she gave me seems to be called Regenesis (just looked up the list of books I own).
I think I may have been mixing up people and books. Oooops. Sorry!!
I'm all confused now. But I do know that Julia is a big filk person and her name has been mentioned on the Bujold list a few times for that. And looking various things up online, she and Karen Rose write under the pseudonym LA Graf, which is not Janet Kagan, obviously.
Oh well, very strange. I honestly thought what I wrote before was true and now am thinking I'm all wrong. So maybe the people I know are not Janet Kagan, even though I've been associating the name with them for years. Yikes!!! Sorry!!! How embarrassing!! Good thing I've figured it out now and not when it could have been much more embarrassing!!
Oh well, glad you enjoyed the books!! :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-28 10:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-01 10:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-01 07:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-01 11:05 pm (UTC)This might be different if I'd done any significant travelling in the last four years.
(Also, I'm prone to forcibly downplaying stuff and having my hysterics long after the fact. It's not a good thing.)
You're very right about Moore's darkness. I love what he does with plot and characters and theme, but I think I'd like to take it in small doses. One Moore graphic novel per six months sounds about right. Or maybe one a year. He definitely goes places I don't like to visit often.