Cats on books, number Eleventy-seven hundred and five...
I've noted before cats read book. It should surprise no one who knows cats well that they are opinionated readers as well. So, what have my evil felines be reading lately? Well, they have a list, and they aren't shy about sharing.
We open with Jemmy lounging upon the dining room table (Yes, I've tried, stringwoman has tried, and short of actual violence, keeping him off isn't happening. We arm ourselves with spray bottles when we eat at that table, and keep a wary eye out.), lounging next to a pile of books, with his chin upon Arturo Pérez Reverte's The Sun Over Breda, as Bob wanders in and speaks to him:
Bob: Have you see Whitechapel Gods? I was going to read it when Zaza got done with it, and now I can't find it anywhere.
Jemmy: Fidelio took it to Kansas City with her. It's probably still in her luggage, because she hasn't unpacked yet.
Bob: Oh, that is so uncool! I want that book!
Jemmy: Well, I think her suitcase is mostly full of dirty clothes and the books she's finished reading, so I guess she'll get around to it when she's ready to do laundry.
Bob: And just when will that be? Because I dipped into it just before she started packing up everything in sight and I want to get back it it--it sounded so totally cool.
Jemmy: It was pretty good, as I recall, although parts of it very quite unclear to me.
At this point in the conversation, Zaza strolled into the room.
Zaza: What parts? I mean, for a horrific and grotesque dystopia the plot's pretty straightforward.
Jemmy: How did they get into that position in the first place? Where did Mother Engine and Grandfather Clock come from? Are they metaphors for like, you know, the Industrial Age, and Modern Life, and all that?
Zaza: Does it matter?
Jemmy: Are we going to get into one of those discussions about authorial intent versus whatever the reader brings to the work and all that?
Zaza: We can--or we can skip that, and just admire the book for what it is. Besides, how many dystopian novels come with happy endings?
Jemmy: Answers! I want answers!
Minerva: What he going on about?
Zaza: Whitechapel Gods.
Minerva: Well, I can see that. But I think there's a lot of the eye of the beholder there, although you're right about the dystopia-with-a-happy-ending thing, and I'm proud to note that it wasn't a cheap happy ending either.
Bob: OK, which suitcase is it in? Because I really want to get my pawns on this, and lie down with it for a nice long study.
Zaza: Oh, it's totally worth it, Bob--very inventive. Jemmy, are you done with that one you're parked on?
Jemmy: You mean, The Sun Over Breda? Yes, but you know, it's in the middle of a series.
Zaza: So, will I be at a loss?
Jemmy: No, but I think it would be totally worth it to start at the beginning, and go from there. With any luck, Fidelio will get off dead center and pick up the earlier books in this set, so we can follow Captain Alatriste right from the start.
Minerva: So, is this really a guy book?
Jemmy: Depends.
Bob: Um, no, maybe not, but it's not exactly non-violent.
Minerva: Dear, we're cats. I just want to be sure it's not one of those male fantasy pieces of macho idiocy, with one ma piling up mountains of corpses and sweeping every woman he meets (and all of them improbably beautiful) off their feet, like a James Bond parody.
Bob: No.
Jemmy: Not hardly. I mean, people get killed and it sucks a lot that this happens. Which should, you know, pretty much throw this out of that class, although the presence of art and poetry and books as things of worth also ruins this for membership in that class of books. Also, it wasn't written by an American.
Minerva: Well, there's another couple in one of those bags on the stairs, so I know what I'm reading next.
Jemmy: Not the Casanova bio? I mean, if there was ever a human who was one of us at heart...
Zaza: Huh. Never thought of it that way. Bob, while you wait for Fidelio to unpack, you could take a look at Boneshaker. It's by Cherie Priest, you know, who wrote that werewolf book, and the one with the girl turned into a statue, plus the ones set in Chattanooga.
Bob: What's it about?
Minerva: Alternate history Seattle, with steampunk trimmings on a coming-of-age story.
Bob: Oh, cool beans! Because the last thing I read was Scalzi's Agent to the Stars, and that as nice, but you know, it was nice, and I'm ready for something with a little more...something.
Jemmy: Angst?
Zaza: Let's be honest, "emo".
Minerva: Oh, don't pick on the boy. I know what he means--something with a little more tooth to it, a little more challenge. Scalzi's OK, he's just got this tendency to be a little flip, and maybe a little shallow sometimes. If beach books were short...
Jemmy: But they're good!
Minerva: For short beach books.
Zaza: There's that new copy of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld Fidelio picked up--it's a new edition; the old one must have come out back when Sugartoes was a kitten.
Minerva: Go ahead and say "Before our time", and quit trying to throw your age around here. If you want something that has "fairytale writtenall over it, it's good. I heard Fidelio say she thought it had held up well.
Jemmy: Is there a chance Fidelio will ever pick up anything else by Alex Bledsoe?
Zaza: You know as much as the rest of us there, cowboy, but I have to say I wasn't all that taken with it myself.
Minerva: You know, there are times when that mix-up-two-genres thing really works, and times when it doesn't. The hard-boiled detective as magician--yes, Jim Butcher can keep at it. The hard-boiled detective in ancient Rome--yes, when Lindsay Davis does it. The hard-boiled detective-with (Dan Brown, eat your heart out) Catholic mythos and supernatural yaya stuff? Yes, when James Macdonald does it in The Apocalypse Door. And Glen Cook's Garrett books proved that hard-boiled detective in a secondary-world fantasy is not only possible, but desirable (more Morley Dotes, though, please). But first of all, in The Sword-Edged Blonde, the voice fails, then the world-building isn't convincing, and while I can give points for smuggling the story of Rhiannon of the Birds into the middle of things, this just doesn't work for me. So if you see signs that Fidelio is adding more like this to her booklist, please take steps.
Bob: Steps?
Minerva: You know, whatever needs doing, do it.
Bob: I don't know that I'm comfortable with that.
Minerva: Look, we prevailed on her to stop buying books by Rachel Caine, we can win on this one, too.
Jemmy: I don't think e have a fight, because I saw her stick it in the Goodwill stuff pile.
Zaza: Good to know that good sense can prevail in book-buying around here, then. Because this was pretty much working overtime to manage to make it to two-dimensional, if you know what I mean.
Jemmy: How about those Arianna Franklin books?
Bob: I think I heard her tell stringwoman what while the writer may have done her medical history and political history research, the textile research was crap.
Jemmy: Seriously, do we care:
Bob: Well, stringwoman does, she's into that stuff. And I think Fidelio knows about that stuff, because she tossed Jemmy off her Janet Arnold last summer and said something about having to decide to either give it a comb binding or buy a new one. But they're good stories.
Jemmy. Well, I may take a lounge with one then, since I think The Serpent's Tale is lying on the bedspread.
Minversa: Listen, did you take time to look over Carol Berg's Flesh and Spirit when you were parked over by the computer monitor/
Jemmy: Yes, I checked out both that and Breath and Bone out, and I can recommend them highly. I mean, a magic system that works through dancing? A whole new twist on the old the-king-and-the-land-are-one? A serious poke in the eye with a sharp stick for apocalyptic fantasies? Plus, Valen is one of us, under the skin, really.
Zaza: I have to say, I'm ready for some nonfiction here. I quite liked The Arcanum, and now I'm on Bruce Henderson's Down to the Sea, which is a nice variant on World War II history, what with 1000% more weather and a lot less combat, but I'm ready for some more.
Jemmy: I found it interesting that it was the Annapolis men who lost their ships, and the reservist who was the real hero. Plus Total Fail by Admiral Halsey and most of the meteorologists.
Minerva: What was The Arcanum about?
Zaza: The development of porcelain in Europe, as a side effect of effort to turn led into gold.
Jemmy: Those crazy alchemists, what won't they do next!
Bob: Has it got lots of science in it? Because I'm not really good at math and formulas and stuff.
Jemmy: Maybe a little light chemistry, but nothing you can't slide past if you have to. It's more about people and stuff, and china decoration, and Frederick the Great and Augustus the Strong and artistic rivalry and crooked bookkeeping and graft and exploitation...
Minerva: So, pretty much humans being humans, then.
Jemmy: Well, pretty much.
Minerva: Well, maybe I'll take a nap with it.
Jemmy: Hey, have any of you managed to check out Unseen Academicals?
Zaza: Not a football fan, hello.
Minerva: Well, Rincewind gets a cameo, and Lord Vetinari has dinner with his lady friend.
Bob: That's nice.
Zaza: Bob, his lady friend is a vampire.
Jemmy: Like that's news? I'm getting a crick in my neck here. I think I'll go look it up.
Minerva: Good luck finding it in the bedroom.
Jemmy: Never underestimate my ingenuity when it comes to getting what I want.
Zaza *rolls eyes*: Please.
We open with Jemmy lounging upon the dining room table (Yes, I've tried, stringwoman has tried, and short of actual violence, keeping him off isn't happening. We arm ourselves with spray bottles when we eat at that table, and keep a wary eye out.), lounging next to a pile of books, with his chin upon Arturo Pérez Reverte's The Sun Over Breda, as Bob wanders in and speaks to him:
Bob: Have you see Whitechapel Gods? I was going to read it when Zaza got done with it, and now I can't find it anywhere.
Jemmy: Fidelio took it to Kansas City with her. It's probably still in her luggage, because she hasn't unpacked yet.
Bob: Oh, that is so uncool! I want that book!
Jemmy: Well, I think her suitcase is mostly full of dirty clothes and the books she's finished reading, so I guess she'll get around to it when she's ready to do laundry.
Bob: And just when will that be? Because I dipped into it just before she started packing up everything in sight and I want to get back it it--it sounded so totally cool.
Jemmy: It was pretty good, as I recall, although parts of it very quite unclear to me.
At this point in the conversation, Zaza strolled into the room.
Zaza: What parts? I mean, for a horrific and grotesque dystopia the plot's pretty straightforward.
Jemmy: How did they get into that position in the first place? Where did Mother Engine and Grandfather Clock come from? Are they metaphors for like, you know, the Industrial Age, and Modern Life, and all that?
Zaza: Does it matter?
Jemmy: Are we going to get into one of those discussions about authorial intent versus whatever the reader brings to the work and all that?
Zaza: We can--or we can skip that, and just admire the book for what it is. Besides, how many dystopian novels come with happy endings?
Jemmy: Answers! I want answers!
Minerva: What he going on about?
Zaza: Whitechapel Gods.
Minerva: Well, I can see that. But I think there's a lot of the eye of the beholder there, although you're right about the dystopia-with-a-happy-ending thing, and I'm proud to note that it wasn't a cheap happy ending either.
Bob: OK, which suitcase is it in? Because I really want to get my pawns on this, and lie down with it for a nice long study.
Zaza: Oh, it's totally worth it, Bob--very inventive. Jemmy, are you done with that one you're parked on?
Jemmy: You mean, The Sun Over Breda? Yes, but you know, it's in the middle of a series.
Zaza: So, will I be at a loss?
Jemmy: No, but I think it would be totally worth it to start at the beginning, and go from there. With any luck, Fidelio will get off dead center and pick up the earlier books in this set, so we can follow Captain Alatriste right from the start.
Minerva: So, is this really a guy book?
Jemmy: Depends.
Bob: Um, no, maybe not, but it's not exactly non-violent.
Minerva: Dear, we're cats. I just want to be sure it's not one of those male fantasy pieces of macho idiocy, with one ma piling up mountains of corpses and sweeping every woman he meets (and all of them improbably beautiful) off their feet, like a James Bond parody.
Bob: No.
Jemmy: Not hardly. I mean, people get killed and it sucks a lot that this happens. Which should, you know, pretty much throw this out of that class, although the presence of art and poetry and books as things of worth also ruins this for membership in that class of books. Also, it wasn't written by an American.
Minerva: Well, there's another couple in one of those bags on the stairs, so I know what I'm reading next.
Jemmy: Not the Casanova bio? I mean, if there was ever a human who was one of us at heart...
Zaza: Huh. Never thought of it that way. Bob, while you wait for Fidelio to unpack, you could take a look at Boneshaker. It's by Cherie Priest, you know, who wrote that werewolf book, and the one with the girl turned into a statue, plus the ones set in Chattanooga.
Bob: What's it about?
Minerva: Alternate history Seattle, with steampunk trimmings on a coming-of-age story.
Bob: Oh, cool beans! Because the last thing I read was Scalzi's Agent to the Stars, and that as nice, but you know, it was nice, and I'm ready for something with a little more...something.
Jemmy: Angst?
Zaza: Let's be honest, "emo".
Minerva: Oh, don't pick on the boy. I know what he means--something with a little more tooth to it, a little more challenge. Scalzi's OK, he's just got this tendency to be a little flip, and maybe a little shallow sometimes. If beach books were short...
Jemmy: But they're good!
Minerva: For short beach books.
Zaza: There's that new copy of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld Fidelio picked up--it's a new edition; the old one must have come out back when Sugartoes was a kitten.
Minerva: Go ahead and say "Before our time", and quit trying to throw your age around here. If you want something that has "fairytale writtenall over it, it's good. I heard Fidelio say she thought it had held up well.
Jemmy: Is there a chance Fidelio will ever pick up anything else by Alex Bledsoe?
Zaza: You know as much as the rest of us there, cowboy, but I have to say I wasn't all that taken with it myself.
Minerva: You know, there are times when that mix-up-two-genres thing really works, and times when it doesn't. The hard-boiled detective as magician--yes, Jim Butcher can keep at it. The hard-boiled detective in ancient Rome--yes, when Lindsay Davis does it. The hard-boiled detective-with (Dan Brown, eat your heart out) Catholic mythos and supernatural yaya stuff? Yes, when James Macdonald does it in The Apocalypse Door. And Glen Cook's Garrett books proved that hard-boiled detective in a secondary-world fantasy is not only possible, but desirable (more Morley Dotes, though, please). But first of all, in The Sword-Edged Blonde, the voice fails, then the world-building isn't convincing, and while I can give points for smuggling the story of Rhiannon of the Birds into the middle of things, this just doesn't work for me. So if you see signs that Fidelio is adding more like this to her booklist, please take steps.
Bob: Steps?
Minerva: You know, whatever needs doing, do it.
Bob: I don't know that I'm comfortable with that.
Minerva: Look, we prevailed on her to stop buying books by Rachel Caine, we can win on this one, too.
Jemmy: I don't think e have a fight, because I saw her stick it in the Goodwill stuff pile.
Zaza: Good to know that good sense can prevail in book-buying around here, then. Because this was pretty much working overtime to manage to make it to two-dimensional, if you know what I mean.
Jemmy: How about those Arianna Franklin books?
Bob: I think I heard her tell stringwoman what while the writer may have done her medical history and political history research, the textile research was crap.
Jemmy: Seriously, do we care:
Bob: Well, stringwoman does, she's into that stuff. And I think Fidelio knows about that stuff, because she tossed Jemmy off her Janet Arnold last summer and said something about having to decide to either give it a comb binding or buy a new one. But they're good stories.
Jemmy. Well, I may take a lounge with one then, since I think The Serpent's Tale is lying on the bedspread.
Minversa: Listen, did you take time to look over Carol Berg's Flesh and Spirit when you were parked over by the computer monitor/
Jemmy: Yes, I checked out both that and Breath and Bone out, and I can recommend them highly. I mean, a magic system that works through dancing? A whole new twist on the old the-king-and-the-land-are-one? A serious poke in the eye with a sharp stick for apocalyptic fantasies? Plus, Valen is one of us, under the skin, really.
Zaza: I have to say, I'm ready for some nonfiction here. I quite liked The Arcanum, and now I'm on Bruce Henderson's Down to the Sea, which is a nice variant on World War II history, what with 1000% more weather and a lot less combat, but I'm ready for some more.
Jemmy: I found it interesting that it was the Annapolis men who lost their ships, and the reservist who was the real hero. Plus Total Fail by Admiral Halsey and most of the meteorologists.
Minerva: What was The Arcanum about?
Zaza: The development of porcelain in Europe, as a side effect of effort to turn led into gold.
Jemmy: Those crazy alchemists, what won't they do next!
Bob: Has it got lots of science in it? Because I'm not really good at math and formulas and stuff.
Jemmy: Maybe a little light chemistry, but nothing you can't slide past if you have to. It's more about people and stuff, and china decoration, and Frederick the Great and Augustus the Strong and artistic rivalry and crooked bookkeeping and graft and exploitation...
Minerva: So, pretty much humans being humans, then.
Jemmy: Well, pretty much.
Minerva: Well, maybe I'll take a nap with it.
Jemmy: Hey, have any of you managed to check out Unseen Academicals?
Zaza: Not a football fan, hello.
Minerva: Well, Rincewind gets a cameo, and Lord Vetinari has dinner with his lady friend.
Bob: That's nice.
Zaza: Bob, his lady friend is a vampire.
Jemmy: Like that's news? I'm getting a crick in my neck here. I think I'll go look it up.
Minerva: Good luck finding it in the bedroom.
Jemmy: Never underestimate my ingenuity when it comes to getting what I want.
Zaza *rolls eyes*: Please.