Fall 2021 Books
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North - If you enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife, you’ll absolutely enjoy this. I had to give a lot of thought to the way Harry and the other Orobourans experienced history: Basically, everyone’s lives line up into a single “iteration” of the universe, and the only thing that seems to change from iteration to iteration is their actions. The only “permanent” changes to the timeline seem to be the addition or removal of an Orobouran: If one is not born in any loop, apparently they’re never born again (or they’re born as a linear from then on). And it stands to reason that there are mild changes to history filtering down from millennia before-it’s mildly horrifying to realize that Harry could live for hundreds of lives with his perfect memory, but he probably won’t, because a mild change to the timeline in the 13th century could result in any lifetime being his last. Also, sending messages to the future in stone is fast (it can only happen in the same iteration), but sending whispers to the past is maddeningly slow, requiring a new iteration for every 70-someodd years. Someone sending a question back to the middle ages could have to wait a dozen lives before their answer gets carved into something.
The Tenth Tier by Ria Hill - In a world similar to but wholly unlike our own, a vaguely governmental agency is known for randomly selecting civilians from the overpopulated society to be euthanatized. The eponymous “tiers” are determined by how well you comply and correspond to how painful the resulting process is. In a rotating series of viewpoints, we get to see how individual lives shaped by this society roll forward into revealing the nature of the tenth tier to society. That said, and I may be very much a cynic…I find the ending terribly unrealistic. Humanity is far, far too willing to blithely unperson “bad people” to ever upset their euthanasia-based society because they learned the worst non-compliers were tortured. The ending was missing a clip from Fox & Friends arguing that they should expand the torture regimen into every tier above zero. (Also: This is all with the caveat that I know the author personally.)
Leah’s Perfect Christmas by Catherine Beck - A Hallmark movie-esque romp through a terrible WASP-y Christmas in Connecticut, because the true meaning of Christmas is Chinese food dinner with your big Jewish family. Book of the year, A+++, buy copies for the whole family. (Catherine Beck is my wife’s pen name. But the book really is super-fun.)
As You Wish by Cary Elwes - A autobiography, specifically of his time making The Princess Bride. It’s okay, but it’s clearly stretched because he doesn’t actually have that many stories, and it’s very much a love-fest for the movie, the actors, the crew and the fans. He doesn’t have a bad word about anybody and the only things that go wrong (that he mentions) are directly his own fault. The most entertaining stories are about Andre the Giant, though it was also fun to learn that Wallace Shaw is a literature professor and acting was just his side gig. Fun for a big fan of the movie, but nothing special otherwise.
The Tenth Tier by Ria Hill - In a world similar to but wholly unlike our own, a vaguely governmental agency is known for randomly selecting civilians from the overpopulated society to be euthanatized. The eponymous “tiers” are determined by how well you comply and correspond to how painful the resulting process is. In a rotating series of viewpoints, we get to see how individual lives shaped by this society roll forward into revealing the nature of the tenth tier to society. That said, and I may be very much a cynic…I find the ending terribly unrealistic. Humanity is far, far too willing to blithely unperson “bad people” to ever upset their euthanasia-based society because they learned the worst non-compliers were tortured. The ending was missing a clip from Fox & Friends arguing that they should expand the torture regimen into every tier above zero. (Also: This is all with the caveat that I know the author personally.)
Leah’s Perfect Christmas by Catherine Beck - A Hallmark movie-esque romp through a terrible WASP-y Christmas in Connecticut, because the true meaning of Christmas is Chinese food dinner with your big Jewish family. Book of the year, A+++, buy copies for the whole family. (Catherine Beck is my wife’s pen name. But the book really is super-fun.)
As You Wish by Cary Elwes - A autobiography, specifically of his time making The Princess Bride. It’s okay, but it’s clearly stretched because he doesn’t actually have that many stories, and it’s very much a love-fest for the movie, the actors, the crew and the fans. He doesn’t have a bad word about anybody and the only things that go wrong (that he mentions) are directly his own fault. The most entertaining stories are about Andre the Giant, though it was also fun to learn that Wallace Shaw is a literature professor and acting was just his side gig. Fun for a big fan of the movie, but nothing special otherwise.