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Family, Sort Of: September Reading
Oct. 18th, 2004 09:58 pmYou know the drill. Cuts usually for length, but may be for spoilers as well. This time the spoiler-happy cut is probably The Madness Season. Also, note shiny new icon. I post so much about books two dedicated icons seem necessary. What I really need, though, is a good general SF/F icon.
Contact (Carl Sagan):: Reread. Radio astronomer and SETI advocate Ellie Arrroway is enmeshed in the reception and decryption of a radio message from Vega, and the world's construction of the strange and fascinating machine the message describes.
I wish I could say that I decided to go on a "putting the 'science' back in 'science fiction' " kick after reading Forty Signs of Rain at the end of August, but it was actually a nifty Dar Williams songvid that got me to pull this off the shelf. Sometimes I bring new connotations to "shallow," oh yes.
(05.09.2004)
A Live Coal in the Sea (Madeleine L'Engle):: Family drama. The story of how Camilla Dickinson's granddaughter isn't her granddaughter, technically sort of, as told through flashbacks to Camilla's life with her deceased husband and related contemporary experiences. L'Engle's less overtly fantasy novels always drive me slightly crazy - whose family, in the crush of upsetting events, is that calm and not prone to shouting at each other?
(Right. Rhetotical question.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kd5mdk, mearigh, the message has been delivered.)
Other than that... mostly-contemporary mainstream fiction isn't something I read a lot of, so I can't comment on adherence to or deviance from the tropes of the genre. The writing style felt a bit jerky; Catherine Asaro's prose style, particularly in The Phoenix Code and Skyfall, came to mind. I think that's not new in L'Engle, but it was easier on my mental ear when I was 12 or rereading one of the stories I'm hopelessly nostalgic over. In some ways the entire novel's an exploration of the effects the main character's mother had on subsequent generations of the family. It's sort of an oblique theme, though, and may be a misread on my part.
The Madness Season (C. S. Friedman):: ( Friedman's novels drive me insane. )
New Voices in Science Fiction (Mike Resnik, Ed.):: About what the title says: a collection of short stories by authors of rising prominence circa 2003. ( I wasn't overwhelmed by any of the stories, but some struck me as more interesting, incomprehensible, or irritating than others. )
Contact (Carl Sagan):: Reread. Radio astronomer and SETI advocate Ellie Arrroway is enmeshed in the reception and decryption of a radio message from Vega, and the world's construction of the strange and fascinating machine the message describes.
I wish I could say that I decided to go on a "putting the 'science' back in 'science fiction' " kick after reading Forty Signs of Rain at the end of August, but it was actually a nifty Dar Williams songvid that got me to pull this off the shelf. Sometimes I bring new connotations to "shallow," oh yes.
(05.09.2004)
A Live Coal in the Sea (Madeleine L'Engle):: Family drama. The story of how Camilla Dickinson's granddaughter isn't her granddaughter, technically sort of, as told through flashbacks to Camilla's life with her deceased husband and related contemporary experiences. L'Engle's less overtly fantasy novels always drive me slightly crazy - whose family, in the crush of upsetting events, is that calm and not prone to shouting at each other?
(Right. Rhetotical question.
kd5mdk, mearigh, the message has been delivered.)Other than that... mostly-contemporary mainstream fiction isn't something I read a lot of, so I can't comment on adherence to or deviance from the tropes of the genre. The writing style felt a bit jerky; Catherine Asaro's prose style, particularly in The Phoenix Code and Skyfall, came to mind. I think that's not new in L'Engle, but it was easier on my mental ear when I was 12 or rereading one of the stories I'm hopelessly nostalgic over. In some ways the entire novel's an exploration of the effects the main character's mother had on subsequent generations of the family. It's sort of an oblique theme, though, and may be a misread on my part.
The Madness Season (C. S. Friedman):: ( Friedman's novels drive me insane. )
New Voices in Science Fiction (Mike Resnik, Ed.):: About what the title says: a collection of short stories by authors of rising prominence circa 2003. ( I wasn't overwhelmed by any of the stories, but some struck me as more interesting, incomprehensible, or irritating than others. )
