Monday, August 29, 2011

Book note

The City and the City
by China Mieville
2009

The City and the City is an absorbing mystery, both on the mystery-mystery level and the what-the-hell-are-these-cities mystery level. Like stories of its type, it solves the superficial mystery, gives you a good sense of the background, but you know all the while that there is much Borlu doesn't tell you -- or possibly doesn't realize himself. And you know this is coming, because it's that kind of book.

Like Avice, Borlu has truck-sized blind spots. Like Avice, he gets some better, though of course it comes with a price.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Quote

"He walked with equipoise, possibly in either city. Schrödinger's pedestrian."

The City and the City
by China Mieville
2009

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Read:

(this summer)

Fables
Volumes 1-12

Very enjoyable graphic novel series.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Book note

Palimpsest
by Catherynne M. Valente
2009

I am not a particular fan of overwrought prose. I often find that writing that is praised to the moon for its lyrical beauty (oh dear lord, how I hate that word: lyrical) is needlessly baroque while adding nothing to the story. On at least one occasion, I've had the unpleasant feeling that an author is simply shouting, "LOOK AT THE WORDS I KNOW! LOOK WHAT PRETTY SENTENCES I CAN MAKE WITH THEM!" (I'm looking at you, The Witches of Eastwick.)


But I loved this book. I found the writing so beautiful that I would pause over phrases to enjoy the precise structure and vocabulary before moving on. But the prose doesn't try to carry the story on its own (one of the downfalls of bad literary fiction, in my experience.) The prose is the story, completely integrated. The way she uses words builds the imagery, which builds the city. If it is all delightfully strange (and it is) it is also consistent, and controlled. Palimpsest has exactly the moment-to-moment enjoyment I look for in a keeper.

Quote

"He is a relic of tigerhood, a bygone age when great cats knew calculus and dactylic hexameter and held a court of dreams in the jungle."

Palimpsest
by Catherynne M. Valente
2009

Quote

"He liked to think about the Vestals in their great round house, which always looked to him like a salt mill, tending their little fires and writing diaries forever lost, diaries of quiet lives spooled out into virginity and the contemplation of a goddess of whom no stories were told at all."

Palimpsest
by Catherynne M. Valente
2009

Friday, August 19, 2011

Quote

"See, now you're just stringing words together."

Sheriff Carter to a technobabbling Dr. Grant
"Crossing Over"
Eureka
8/6/2010

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Quote

"Sei had never been comfortable in the presence of books. Their natural state was to be shut, closed, to grin pagily from shelves, laughing at her, promising so much and delivering such meanness, such thinness."

Palimpsest
by Catherynne M. Valente
2009

"Pagily" is my new favorite word.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Quote

"Once, on this spot, one thousand and twelve hearts stopped without a gasp."

Palimpsest
Catherynne M. Valente
2009

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Read

The Faculty Club by Danny Tobey

Story notes

A couple of kindle freebie stories:

"Of Swine and Roses"
by Ilona Andrews

A cute story about a girl, a pig, and a literal pig.
(I had no idea Ilona Andrews was a husband and wife team.)

"Martian Invaders Meet Mom"
by Rebecca and Alan Lickiss

Another husband and wife team, this one clearly labeled, with a silly story about aliens and raising children, and how alike these things are.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Quote

"I'd like to find your inner child/and kick its little ass."

"Get Over It"
Hell Freezes Over
The Eagles

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Quote (Classic)

"That was the end of Grogan. The man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible."

Joan Wilder
Romancing the Stone

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Book note

Boom!
by Mark Haddon (who also wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)

Children's book.

After Jim's big sister tells him he's being sent to the "special" school because of his poor school habits, he and his friend Charlie put a walkie-talkie in the teacher's lounge to see if it's true. (Although Charlie seems to have his own motivations.)

At first, they are bored, but suddenly they hear two of their teachers speaking a different language that they can't identify. When they investigate further, strange things begin to happen. Could their teachers possibly be aliens?

This is a fun tale -- outrageous and often silly, with kids who act like kids.

Note: There is an alien who calls itself Britney; I wonder if this is a nod to J.Lo in Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday, or if great minds just think alike?

Read:

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

Quote

"'Hang on,' I said. 'They're going to populate a whole planet with sci-fi fans? Is that sensible?'"

Boom!
by Mark Haddon
2009

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Quote

"Would you just stop being annoying and enigmatic!"
Eli Stone to Dr. Chen

"Soul Free"
Eli Stone 

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Sad

Author William Sleator (1945-2011) has died.

Sleator's House of Stairs was one of my defining reads in middle-school, and no doubt had a lot to do with my interest in sff later. The grim story is about a group of teenage orphans who are kidnapped and dumped in the "house of stairs,"(an Escherian disaster meant to throw the kids off-balance) in a rather brutal attempt at brainwashing.

I reread this one not all that long ago, and found it as compelling as when I was 12. The characters were  -- and still are, a bit -- unusual for young-adult literature: the narrator, Pete, is mildly autistic (I think) and Lola is quite aggressive, and not in the cutesy, punky way so many are now.

With the resurgence of dystopian YA, House of Stairs should still be a huge success, but maybe it isn't a pretty enough dystopia.

Another of Sleator's books that I remember fondly is Into the Dream, which I read when I was younger. Classmates Paul and Francine find that they are having the same nightmare, a vision filled with dread that leaves them exhausted and terrified. They follow clues from the dreams to find a damaged little boy and a mysterious event that ties the three of them together. It's a fine example of old-fashioned suspense.


Rest in peace.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Book note

Embassytown
by China Mieville
2011

A chewy and enjoyable alien/human communication story (not first contact, though sometimes it feels like it.) Avice has returned to her home of Embassytown on an alien planet. She becomes entangled, first, in the dilemmas of an alien species reaching out for a human quality it doesn't understand, then in the fallout of a dangerous human contaminant that could well destroy the aliens (and the Embassytown humans with them.)

The plot is grand and sweeping, with change threatening on a planetary scale. It feels like old-fashioned science fiction: an attempt to create an entirely new alien contact problem that needs to be solved with human ingenuity. All the while playing with the net up. Nice to see.

Quibbles: false flags on Avice's reliability as a narrator distracted me; there is something in Avice's personality or history that seems a little off -- I still can't tell if that's a feature or a bug. And I would have really liked to see Scile's transformation, instead of hearing third-hand snippets about it.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Book Note

The Quantum Thief
by Hannu Rajaniemi
2011

Despite an irritating beginning and the lack, really, of a satisfying ending, The Quantum Thief is a lot of fun. As in most post-human books, it isn't about post-human life, it's about throwbacks who still approximate humans. That's what we find on the moving Martian city, Oubliette, where legendaryish thief Jean le Flambeur must go to track down his missing memories. There are hints, of course, that he may be/have been something much greater, hints that point to Sequels Yet to Come.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Quote

"When they landed, they fractured the world's rules as well as its surface."

The Scar
by China Mieville
2002