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aseSEPTEMBER
The Wild Shore (Kim Stanley Robinson): ..meh. Postapocalyptic "what is America" bildungsroman where the protagonist learns that sometimes people lie to you and don't have your best interests at heart. This has some of the elements I like about KSR's other novels - attention to detail, location as almost a character in its own right - but the moral focus is uninteresting to me. The nuclear annihilation and post-nuclear log cabin existence of the new Americans, hemmed in by a UN ban (or forces manipulating the ban on the international scene) almost looks a little post-Iraq, if you squint, and ought to resonate with American challenges thirty years later. But it doesn't, to me. First novel-itis? The narrator's political naivete drove me to distraction, and then to indifference.
American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto (Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh): Nonfiction. Sociological study of the Robert Taylor Homes Project in Chicago from its inception to the '90s, looking at the goals and failures of the project. From almost the start, underfunding and over-subscription to services plagued individual buildings and the project as a whole. Venkatesh examines strategies residents devised to survive: under-the-table jobs and businesses, networks and favoritism, relationships with "legitimate" authorities. I found this interesting, and illuminating, but dry. Ventakesh makes evident in the use of theory and endnotes that he's writing a scholarly book first, and only secondarily for a lay audience. It's readable, but I suspect some of the theory went right over my head.
The Steerswoman's Road (Rosemary Kirstein): Reread. Collection of The Steerswoman and The Outskirter's Secret; contains my favorite eyewitness description of a mass non-natural disaster.
OCTOBER
Continued Kirstein re-read: on to The Lost Steersman and The Language of Power. There's something subtle and unexpected going on with gender and worldbuilding; consider this a holding place for a longer examination of the question.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (J. R. R. Tolkien): Reread. When you don't know what else to read... Tolkien. "The Grey Havens" gets me every time.
Cryoburn (Lois McMaster Bujold): New Bujold is always awesome, but this one hit me in unexpected places. I sulked for a week after I finished this. I may still be sulking. Spoiler item was inevitable, but it ruined the last chapter for me, because I saw it coming. I'm also not pleased with other parts of the structure: I think A Civil Campaign's plot-with-a-bow-on-top structure spoiled me for novels of less artifice (Diplomatic Immunity, Cryoburn). The beautiful theme / plot dovetailing in Mirror Dance and Memory didn't help. I'm not sure if LMB is getting subtler, and I'm missing things because I'm not paying attention, or if there's another reason I'm not as happy with this book.
I also have very firm associations with the word "drabble" which completely threw me out of the last 500 words of the novel. Am I the only one?
Tongues of Serpents (Naomi Novik): Fifth in the series, following Victory of Eagles: Laurence and Temeraire, branded traitors to England, arrive at an Australian exile that is anything but settled, or restful.
VofE had the entertainment value of a hot mess, but TofS is, disappointingly, as unfocused and messy with none of the heat. Chapters start with an action, the narrative jumps back to explain how the characters got there, and then skips forward, past the opening action. It makes the plot stutter and obscures the book's forward momentum, a particular disappointment when the reader is wading through the interminable desert crossing on the trail of a stolen dragon egg. The series was sold as "Napoleonic war - with dragons!", but the dragon-inspired alterations from history, combined with Laurence and Temeraire's removal from the hemisphere of active battle, cut the ground out from under the reader's expectations - and Novik's ability to control the plot, one sometimes suspects.
I'd hoped a change in scenery would let Novik focus on the small-scale interactions she seems more comfortable and adept at writing, but I didn't expect quite the isolation of crossing a giant empty desert (which, the Australians on my reading list imply, is an incomplete assessment that does Australian aboriginal history a disservice). Laurence and Temeraire's party leave Sydney on page 64 of the hardcover, and speak to no other companies on the road (or wing) until p203, except for four pages (132-136) which mostly serve as a vehicle to introduce the bunyips. Since the novel is 273 pages, by the math almost half the narrative happens outside cities. The only new character in 140 pages is the new dragon, with associated "19th C British attitude toward runty animals vs 21st C writer sensibilities" awkwardness. Isolating the protagonists by neglecting to include incidental characters may have been a mistake, especially in the wake of many, many heated discussions about minorities in science fiction and fantasy. I put a hold on Tongues of Serpents when the SFPL added it to their libraries, but I might wait for a pre-view for the next novel. Laurence may be the protagonist of the novels, but I find Temeraire and the secondary characters infinitely more interesting. How about a novel about the Chinese embassy, or from Emily Roland's point of view?
I think my real problem is that I want the series to be something it's not. Novik's not writing about major aerial actions, and she's not writing an alternate universe English Dragon Revolution informed by 21st century social justice activism. That's okay, but it pops the sequels to the "beach and brainless" reading list.
The Honor of the Queen (David Weber): Second Honor Harrington novel; reread. The last time I touched anything Weber-authored was 2003; the last time I read a full HH novel must have been 2001 or earlier. This wasn't a particularly well-written novel in my memory, and rereading did not help its case. The plot's direct, but the writing rambles to the point of tediousness. I don't care how many kilometers per second your missile travels, evading penaids and point defenses; I care how much story-propelling boom it makes when it hits something.
Apparently, I absorbed the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Honor Harrington novels (War of Honor, At All Costs, and Mission of Honor, all written by David Weber) in a two-day electronic binge. Does it count as power-skimming when you keyword-search to the characters you care about?
These three novels cover the rise and fall of the Liberal party's wicked leadership, Honor's torrid affair with Hamish Alexander (if an affair can be torrid when the author makes extensive use of narrative fades to black and with the spouse's blessing), the transformation from Star Kingdom to Star Empire, Honor's awesome shotgun Grayson marriage, the resumption of the Haven-Manticore conflict, the birth of the Alexander-Harringtons' first two kids, and the outbreak of peace between Haven and Manticore as they realize their true enemy: the sinister Mesan Alignment.
Sometime between high school and now I lost my taste for Weber's prose, plotting, and (very thin) characterization. The worldbuilding isn't terribly inspiring either. So why did I read this series in high school? Readers, I present the id vortex. It's not a mistake I read Lackey and Weber back-to-back: both writers are very good at torturing their protagonists, sometimes literally. The protagonists, often female, are cursed with feelings that they can't ignore while going about their duties. (Hence the study procrastination.) I think this is very interesting but need to collect further data for the five paragraph paper. Unfortunately, I am too old to read Anne Bishop for the first time and enjoy the experience.
Numbers game: 15 total finished. 7 new, 8 reread; 14 fiction, 1 nonfiction
The Wild Shore (Kim Stanley Robinson): ..meh. Postapocalyptic "what is America" bildungsroman where the protagonist learns that sometimes people lie to you and don't have your best interests at heart. This has some of the elements I like about KSR's other novels - attention to detail, location as almost a character in its own right - but the moral focus is uninteresting to me. The nuclear annihilation and post-nuclear log cabin existence of the new Americans, hemmed in by a UN ban (or forces manipulating the ban on the international scene) almost looks a little post-Iraq, if you squint, and ought to resonate with American challenges thirty years later. But it doesn't, to me. First novel-itis? The narrator's political naivete drove me to distraction, and then to indifference.
American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto (Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh): Nonfiction. Sociological study of the Robert Taylor Homes Project in Chicago from its inception to the '90s, looking at the goals and failures of the project. From almost the start, underfunding and over-subscription to services plagued individual buildings and the project as a whole. Venkatesh examines strategies residents devised to survive: under-the-table jobs and businesses, networks and favoritism, relationships with "legitimate" authorities. I found this interesting, and illuminating, but dry. Ventakesh makes evident in the use of theory and endnotes that he's writing a scholarly book first, and only secondarily for a lay audience. It's readable, but I suspect some of the theory went right over my head.
The Steerswoman's Road (Rosemary Kirstein): Reread. Collection of The Steerswoman and The Outskirter's Secret; contains my favorite eyewitness description of a mass non-natural disaster.
OCTOBER
Continued Kirstein re-read: on to The Lost Steersman and The Language of Power. There's something subtle and unexpected going on with gender and worldbuilding; consider this a holding place for a longer examination of the question.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (J. R. R. Tolkien): Reread. When you don't know what else to read... Tolkien. "The Grey Havens" gets me every time.
Cryoburn (Lois McMaster Bujold): New Bujold is always awesome, but this one hit me in unexpected places. I sulked for a week after I finished this. I may still be sulking. Spoiler item was inevitable, but it ruined the last chapter for me, because I saw it coming. I'm also not pleased with other parts of the structure: I think A Civil Campaign's plot-with-a-bow-on-top structure spoiled me for novels of less artifice (Diplomatic Immunity, Cryoburn). The beautiful theme / plot dovetailing in Mirror Dance and Memory didn't help. I'm not sure if LMB is getting subtler, and I'm missing things because I'm not paying attention, or if there's another reason I'm not as happy with this book.
I also have very firm associations with the word "drabble" which completely threw me out of the last 500 words of the novel. Am I the only one?
Poll #5052 Drabble
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 12
I read fanfic
Yes
12 (100.0%)
No
0 (0.0%)
The "a drabble is a story in exactly 100 words" sentence affected my reading experience
Yes - it enhanced my experience
1 (8.3%)
Yes - it detracted from my experience
4 (33.3%)
No
7 (58.3%)
Should I go to the extra effort to cross-post this poll to LJ?
Yes
1 (9.1%)
No
10 (90.9%)
Is a poll complete without a tickybox?
No!
8 (72.7%)
Yes!
1 (9.1%)
Ticky for fewer exclamation points
3 (27.3%)
Tongues of Serpents (Naomi Novik): Fifth in the series, following Victory of Eagles: Laurence and Temeraire, branded traitors to England, arrive at an Australian exile that is anything but settled, or restful.
VofE had the entertainment value of a hot mess, but TofS is, disappointingly, as unfocused and messy with none of the heat. Chapters start with an action, the narrative jumps back to explain how the characters got there, and then skips forward, past the opening action. It makes the plot stutter and obscures the book's forward momentum, a particular disappointment when the reader is wading through the interminable desert crossing on the trail of a stolen dragon egg. The series was sold as "Napoleonic war - with dragons!", but the dragon-inspired alterations from history, combined with Laurence and Temeraire's removal from the hemisphere of active battle, cut the ground out from under the reader's expectations - and Novik's ability to control the plot, one sometimes suspects.
I'd hoped a change in scenery would let Novik focus on the small-scale interactions she seems more comfortable and adept at writing, but I didn't expect quite the isolation of crossing a giant empty desert (which, the Australians on my reading list imply, is an incomplete assessment that does Australian aboriginal history a disservice). Laurence and Temeraire's party leave Sydney on page 64 of the hardcover, and speak to no other companies on the road (or wing) until p203, except for four pages (132-136) which mostly serve as a vehicle to introduce the bunyips. Since the novel is 273 pages, by the math almost half the narrative happens outside cities. The only new character in 140 pages is the new dragon, with associated "19th C British attitude toward runty animals vs 21st C writer sensibilities" awkwardness. Isolating the protagonists by neglecting to include incidental characters may have been a mistake, especially in the wake of many, many heated discussions about minorities in science fiction and fantasy. I put a hold on Tongues of Serpents when the SFPL added it to their libraries, but I might wait for a pre-view for the next novel. Laurence may be the protagonist of the novels, but I find Temeraire and the secondary characters infinitely more interesting. How about a novel about the Chinese embassy, or from Emily Roland's point of view?
I think my real problem is that I want the series to be something it's not. Novik's not writing about major aerial actions, and she's not writing an alternate universe English Dragon Revolution informed by 21st century social justice activism. That's okay, but it pops the sequels to the "beach and brainless" reading list.
The Honor of the Queen (David Weber): Second Honor Harrington novel; reread. The last time I touched anything Weber-authored was 2003; the last time I read a full HH novel must have been 2001 or earlier. This wasn't a particularly well-written novel in my memory, and rereading did not help its case. The plot's direct, but the writing rambles to the point of tediousness. I don't care how many kilometers per second your missile travels, evading penaids and point defenses; I care how much story-propelling boom it makes when it hits something.
Apparently, I absorbed the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Honor Harrington novels (War of Honor, At All Costs, and Mission of Honor, all written by David Weber) in a two-day electronic binge. Does it count as power-skimming when you keyword-search to the characters you care about?
These three novels cover the rise and fall of the Liberal party's wicked leadership, Honor's torrid affair with Hamish Alexander (if an affair can be torrid when the author makes extensive use of narrative fades to black and with the spouse's blessing), the transformation from Star Kingdom to Star Empire, Honor's awesome shotgun Grayson marriage, the resumption of the Haven-Manticore conflict, the birth of the Alexander-Harringtons' first two kids, and the outbreak of peace between Haven and Manticore as they realize their true enemy: the sinister Mesan Alignment.
Sometime between high school and now I lost my taste for Weber's prose, plotting, and (very thin) characterization. The worldbuilding isn't terribly inspiring either. So why did I read this series in high school? Readers, I present the id vortex. It's not a mistake I read Lackey and Weber back-to-back: both writers are very good at torturing their protagonists, sometimes literally. The protagonists, often female, are cursed with feelings that they can't ignore while going about their duties. (Hence the study procrastination.) I think this is very interesting but need to collect further data for the five paragraph paper. Unfortunately, I am too old to read Anne Bishop for the first time and enjoy the experience.
Numbers game: 15 total finished. 7 new, 8 reread; 14 fiction, 1 nonfiction