Reading roundup
(Keeping these numbered from now on, to help with the end-of-year roll-up, which I'm planning on doing again. For the same reason, I'll be keeping track even of the "guilty pleasure" books, which I normally wouldn't write about.)
First the guilty pleasure ones:
1.) Cameron Dokey, How Not to Spend Your Senior Year -- silly YA romantic... thing. I picked it up because I was in the mood for some guilty pleasure reading -- which is, often, YA supernatural romance-type stuff. But the ghost story referenced in the blurb was fake, so there was actually nothing supernatural about it. Which would've been fine, too, except it really wasn't a very good YA book besides. I'm noramlly very undemanding about suspension of disbelief, but I couldn't do it for this one -- it was the old, requires everyone to be total morons problem. The romantic pairings were all stupid, and none of the characters were particularly likable. And the first-person narrator was downright annoying, actually. Overall, I got the sense that this thing was written by somebody who no longer remembered (or cared) what it was like to be in high school, and it showed. So, bottom line -- didn't like it at all.
2.) Jonathan Kellerman, Rage -- Liked this one well enough, though Kellerman's latter books are all weaker than the ones that are our* favorites. (*My mother and I read them together, and compare plots and minor characters and stuff -- we both have a gift for effortlessly remembering and recalling useless trivia.) Overall, my favorite thing about this book was that, by the end of it, Allison and Alex are on the outs and the door is wide open for Alex and Robin to get back together (although, as my mother said, "Sobachku zhalko" -- yeah, poor Spike :( ). [Yes, Alex/Robin = OTP all the way. And it's not just because that's the status quo and I hate messing with status quo, and not just because I like Robin better (as a character and as a person) -- the "thing" that Alex and Robin have in common (speaking simplistically) -- music -- is cleaner, happier than the professional inclination to dig around people's psyches and a fascination with violence that Alex and Allison share. And Robin is different enough to complement him better -- in temperament, the hands-on nature of her work, even appearance. Anyway, I'm quite happy with where this is bound to be going.]
3.) Tess Gerritsen, Vanish -- Hmm... Well, it was an engaging enough read, but I can't say that I liked it too much overall. On the thriller side, the obvious pollitical references rather annoyed me. On the character development side, Rizzoli as nine-months-pregnant cop really amused me, but the paean to turning one's newborn over to one's mother (to the point of having her pick the baby's name) and formula as lifesaver because nursing isn't working well... I'm not a LLL- or attachment-parenting nut by any stretch, but it did sort of make me cringe. So, yes, in the end the baby nurses in "her mother's newly confident arms" (quoting from memory) -- but this happens only after both mother and baby are nearly killed. This makes for a strange moral. And I know, from the book's perspective, the character development is probably more concerned with showing Rizzoli and her mother's continued reconciliation than being a poster child for new parents, but it still irked me. And, totally unrelated, every time I read the name "Olena" on the page, my brain added "zhaba zelena" (green toad), which occasionally interfered with the tension building. I am sort of looking forward to the next Rizzoli book to see how she copes with an older baby.
Then the standard fantasy ones:
4.) Jim Butcher, Dead Beat (Dresden Files #7) -- Well, it certainly can't be said that Harry's circumstances don't change from book to book! I liked this one more than the last couple, I think, because I'd had enough of startling (and invariably depressing) revelations about Harry's family history/loved ones. And having Harry be a Warden now opens up for some interesting possibilities. I liked the new baddies, and was quite disappointed when Sheila turned out to be less than real -- partly because I liked her character, and partly because, clearly, Harry needs to get laid soon. I liked the new good guy character -- Ramirez (who says, "All the other people who let me ride their dinosaur call me Carlos") -- as well, and am glad he is likely to be making subsequent apperances. Glad Vecchio lived through it, too -- I liked her as well. Now "the little coroner" was annoying at times, but also somewhat amusing. Enjoyed the fanboy Tolkien nods, too -- fortunately, in this book, they weren't as disruptive as calling a character "Ronald Reuel"... Anyway, a pleasant read, and looking forward to more.
5.) Mercedes Lackey, Sanctuary -- Mainly read it so that I could dust off my hands and say, "Well, that's that." I didn't enjoy the prequels, Joust and Alta all that terribly much, but it took me *forever* to get into this one. Maybe because NOTHING HAPPENS for the first 150 pages or so. Seriously, the action starts building only in the last fifth of the book, and that's when I started enjoying it, however slightly. The scenes with "taming" a nesting dragon were interesting, and the description of Kiron's fore-felt grief and subsequent despair when Aket-ten is captured were actually quite poignantly done (but I guess angst is Lackey's stock in trade, really). But there were also all these little things that kept annoying me -- really stupid things that someone with scores of fantasy books behind her belt really ought not to be committing -- like having three characters with similar names (Kiron, Kaleth, and Kalen), and having the names be inconsistent, waffling between the pseudo-Egypt setting and standard fantasy. And knowing that when you have to say, "and everybody had a hearty laugh" after a character says something supposedly witty means it wasn't that witty at all. Anyway, that's done.
I'm almost done with two Le Guins I've been reading in parallel with other stuff (as they do tend to get rather depressing), but that should come in the next batch. I also started two other fantasy books and am not sure whether I'm going to continue with them, so I think I'll mention them here lest I forget all about them by next time.
The first one is Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman, which I later found out is one of the Harlequin Luna (fantasy romance) titles, but I don't think that's why I haven't been able to get into it. It's the author's first novel, and it shows, in lines that think they're cleverer than they really are ("The room was remarkable for being completely unremarkable") and too much exposition and a protagonist that's supposed to be smart and sassy but comes across as merely arrogant and self-involved. I picked this book up mainly because I wanted more urban fantasy/mystery along the lines of "The Dresden Files", and this is a far cry from what I was looking for. But I did read some reviews that say the book gets better after the first couple of chapters, so maybe I'll try again once I run out of other things to read. Take it with me on the train, or something -- that's what got me through Sanctuary, after all...
The other book is Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, another first novel, and, again, it shows. The idea is quite interesting -- it's high fantasy, but not another Tolkien knock-off. It was very positively blurbed by Orson Scott Card, which was one of the reasons I decided to try a book by a new author. Sanderson does have a neat hand with first lines, but the rest of his writing could use *a lot* of work. I'm not a total purist when it comes to language in high fantasy, but seeing sociology terms in the novel doesn't help my suspension of disbelief. The worst thing, however, is that the protagonists are a Mary-Sue (perfect at everything except painting, her other "fault" being that she's too tall, and there's even baby talk... grrh!) and a Gary-Stu. I'll probably stick with it because the premise is interesting, but I do have to wonder at the people who are giving this guy glowing reviews and lauding him as the next Tolkien... bzuh?
Finally, the Russian ones:
(I hardly ever read in Russian anymore, except to the kids and browsing through old favorites. It seems like most of the new stuff being put out is some kind of imitation of Western genres anyway, which I might as well read in English. But I did read the books below, and have started my first novel-length Pelevin.)
6.) Sergei Lukyanenko, Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch) -- I first saw this book blurbed in the terrible Sankt-Peterburg catalogue, and was somewhat morbidly intrigued. Then I saw it mentioned, of all places, on discworld, very favorably, and figured I'd give it a try if I came across it. So, spotting it at the library, I snatched it up. Not sure what I expected, and still not entirely sure what I think of it. I was, however, impressed that the seemingly nonsensical "fantasy" cover (vampire holding a boy, tiger, polar bear, guy holding some glowing thing) was not just a random assemblage of images but corresponded to an actual scene in the book. As for what's inside the covers... I think I spent most of my energy as a reader trying to figure out what the heck all the parallels to Ponedeljnik nachinaetsya v subbotu were supposed to *mean*. And there are lots of them, both meta and references by characters in the text.
There's the way the book is divided into three "stories" -- and, like in Ponedeljnik one word is repeated in each title, going even as far as having it appear twice in the middle story's title. The main character is a fairly recent addition to the magical world, and a programmer (this has nothing to do with the plot), who has (useless) assistants working for him whom he refers to as "devotchki". And then there are the things charcters think and say in the text: Anton, looking for a missing perp, wonder where she could've gone: "Ne v kanalizatsiyu zhe prosochilsya", or, comparing himself to a djinn makes references to "razrushatj goroda i vozvoditj dvortsy" -- and then the chief actually says, otrkrytym textom -- "kak skazali klassiki, 'Ponedeljnik nachinaetsya v subbotu'".
And it was nice spotting these little inter-literary nods, but I still don't get the point of it, especially as the world of Nochnoi Dozor is very different from Ponedeljnik, except for being set in and permeated by Russia and a complicated bureaucracy. There is no belief in a bright and glorious future, I guess, or the requirement that a Mage (or Other) is morally better than the humans he serves. In general, the grayness and ruthlesness I didn't terribly like -- not because I'm against those things in general, I can buy an "end justifies the means" argument, but because it didn't feel like what's at stake in maintaining the balance of Light and Dark was very clearly explained. There were some alusions, but in terms of "show not tell" the compromise with the Dark and Light seemed worse than what it was theoretically trying to prevent. And maybe that's the point, but I think we're still supposed to believe that it's necessary.
I did like some things, to be sure. I liked Semyon best among the characters, and I liked the general idea of "twilight" and how it works, and the family of vampires living next door (and how Anton comes to terms with them), and plot twists were certainly nice. I'll read the next books if I come across them, though I don't think I'll be trying to see the movie when it comes out here (too much gore). But I still don't really know what to think of this book, or what I do. I did remember, after googling Lukianenko, that I'd read another ting by him -- his "sequel" to Ponedeljnik in Vremya Uchenikov (a Strugatski homage collection thing), called someting like "Unlucky Week", and was underwhelmed by it. But that still brings me no closer. axmxz, have you read these Dozor books? And if so, what did you think of them, as a Ponedeljnik fan?
7.) Daria Dontsova, Glavbuh i poltsarstva v pridachu (CPA and half (one's) kingdom) -- this is from a popular Russian series of "ironic detective fiction" -- so, partly mystery, partly humor. I've browsed through these books before -- my mother consumes them like sunflower seeds -- but this one I actually started reading from the beginning, and got slightly hooked on, so I borrowed it from my mother. It's easy reading -- finished it in 24 hrs, which is about my mother's time for these, too. The mystery is pretty simplistic, the protagonist's contribution essentially non-existent, and the humor is quite broad, but it works pretty well as beach reading. There's a suitably wacky cast of characters, lots of meandering side stories set in the first-person narrative. I'll probably borrow the next book in this particular series (the Viola Tarakanova one; this author has three others) if I'm bored -- having finally figured out the wacky relationships between the various wacky characters, I wouldn't want to invest the same time in one of the other series, where I'd have to start from scratch. But high literature, or even good mystery, it ain't.
So that's 7 books for the first three weeks of January so far... I've been reading quite a bit apparently.
First the guilty pleasure ones:
1.) Cameron Dokey, How Not to Spend Your Senior Year -- silly YA romantic... thing. I picked it up because I was in the mood for some guilty pleasure reading -- which is, often, YA supernatural romance-type stuff. But the ghost story referenced in the blurb was fake, so there was actually nothing supernatural about it. Which would've been fine, too, except it really wasn't a very good YA book besides. I'm noramlly very undemanding about suspension of disbelief, but I couldn't do it for this one -- it was the old, requires everyone to be total morons problem. The romantic pairings were all stupid, and none of the characters were particularly likable. And the first-person narrator was downright annoying, actually. Overall, I got the sense that this thing was written by somebody who no longer remembered (or cared) what it was like to be in high school, and it showed. So, bottom line -- didn't like it at all.
2.) Jonathan Kellerman, Rage -- Liked this one well enough, though Kellerman's latter books are all weaker than the ones that are our* favorites. (*My mother and I read them together, and compare plots and minor characters and stuff -- we both have a gift for effortlessly remembering and recalling useless trivia.) Overall, my favorite thing about this book was that, by the end of it, Allison and Alex are on the outs and the door is wide open for Alex and Robin to get back together (although, as my mother said, "Sobachku zhalko" -- yeah, poor Spike :( ). [Yes, Alex/Robin = OTP all the way. And it's not just because that's the status quo and I hate messing with status quo, and not just because I like Robin better (as a character and as a person) -- the "thing" that Alex and Robin have in common (speaking simplistically) -- music -- is cleaner, happier than the professional inclination to dig around people's psyches and a fascination with violence that Alex and Allison share. And Robin is different enough to complement him better -- in temperament, the hands-on nature of her work, even appearance. Anyway, I'm quite happy with where this is bound to be going.]
3.) Tess Gerritsen, Vanish -- Hmm... Well, it was an engaging enough read, but I can't say that I liked it too much overall. On the thriller side, the obvious pollitical references rather annoyed me. On the character development side, Rizzoli as nine-months-pregnant cop really amused me, but the paean to turning one's newborn over to one's mother (to the point of having her pick the baby's name) and formula as lifesaver because nursing isn't working well... I'm not a LLL- or attachment-parenting nut by any stretch, but it did sort of make me cringe. So, yes, in the end the baby nurses in "her mother's newly confident arms" (quoting from memory) -- but this happens only after both mother and baby are nearly killed. This makes for a strange moral. And I know, from the book's perspective, the character development is probably more concerned with showing Rizzoli and her mother's continued reconciliation than being a poster child for new parents, but it still irked me. And, totally unrelated, every time I read the name "Olena" on the page, my brain added "zhaba zelena" (green toad), which occasionally interfered with the tension building. I am sort of looking forward to the next Rizzoli book to see how she copes with an older baby.
Then the standard fantasy ones:
4.) Jim Butcher, Dead Beat (Dresden Files #7) -- Well, it certainly can't be said that Harry's circumstances don't change from book to book! I liked this one more than the last couple, I think, because I'd had enough of startling (and invariably depressing) revelations about Harry's family history/loved ones. And having Harry be a Warden now opens up for some interesting possibilities. I liked the new baddies, and was quite disappointed when Sheila turned out to be less than real -- partly because I liked her character, and partly because, clearly, Harry needs to get laid soon. I liked the new good guy character -- Ramirez (who says, "All the other people who let me ride their dinosaur call me Carlos") -- as well, and am glad he is likely to be making subsequent apperances. Glad Vecchio lived through it, too -- I liked her as well. Now "the little coroner" was annoying at times, but also somewhat amusing. Enjoyed the fanboy Tolkien nods, too -- fortunately, in this book, they weren't as disruptive as calling a character "Ronald Reuel"... Anyway, a pleasant read, and looking forward to more.
5.) Mercedes Lackey, Sanctuary -- Mainly read it so that I could dust off my hands and say, "Well, that's that." I didn't enjoy the prequels, Joust and Alta all that terribly much, but it took me *forever* to get into this one. Maybe because NOTHING HAPPENS for the first 150 pages or so. Seriously, the action starts building only in the last fifth of the book, and that's when I started enjoying it, however slightly. The scenes with "taming" a nesting dragon were interesting, and the description of Kiron's fore-felt grief and subsequent despair when Aket-ten is captured were actually quite poignantly done (but I guess angst is Lackey's stock in trade, really). But there were also all these little things that kept annoying me -- really stupid things that someone with scores of fantasy books behind her belt really ought not to be committing -- like having three characters with similar names (Kiron, Kaleth, and Kalen), and having the names be inconsistent, waffling between the pseudo-Egypt setting and standard fantasy. And knowing that when you have to say, "and everybody had a hearty laugh" after a character says something supposedly witty means it wasn't that witty at all. Anyway, that's done.
I'm almost done with two Le Guins I've been reading in parallel with other stuff (as they do tend to get rather depressing), but that should come in the next batch. I also started two other fantasy books and am not sure whether I'm going to continue with them, so I think I'll mention them here lest I forget all about them by next time.
The first one is Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman, which I later found out is one of the Harlequin Luna (fantasy romance) titles, but I don't think that's why I haven't been able to get into it. It's the author's first novel, and it shows, in lines that think they're cleverer than they really are ("The room was remarkable for being completely unremarkable") and too much exposition and a protagonist that's supposed to be smart and sassy but comes across as merely arrogant and self-involved. I picked this book up mainly because I wanted more urban fantasy/mystery along the lines of "The Dresden Files", and this is a far cry from what I was looking for. But I did read some reviews that say the book gets better after the first couple of chapters, so maybe I'll try again once I run out of other things to read. Take it with me on the train, or something -- that's what got me through Sanctuary, after all...
The other book is Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, another first novel, and, again, it shows. The idea is quite interesting -- it's high fantasy, but not another Tolkien knock-off. It was very positively blurbed by Orson Scott Card, which was one of the reasons I decided to try a book by a new author. Sanderson does have a neat hand with first lines, but the rest of his writing could use *a lot* of work. I'm not a total purist when it comes to language in high fantasy, but seeing sociology terms in the novel doesn't help my suspension of disbelief. The worst thing, however, is that the protagonists are a Mary-Sue (perfect at everything except painting, her other "fault" being that she's too tall, and there's even baby talk... grrh!) and a Gary-Stu. I'll probably stick with it because the premise is interesting, but I do have to wonder at the people who are giving this guy glowing reviews and lauding him as the next Tolkien... bzuh?
Finally, the Russian ones:
(I hardly ever read in Russian anymore, except to the kids and browsing through old favorites. It seems like most of the new stuff being put out is some kind of imitation of Western genres anyway, which I might as well read in English. But I did read the books below, and have started my first novel-length Pelevin.)
6.) Sergei Lukyanenko, Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch) -- I first saw this book blurbed in the terrible Sankt-Peterburg catalogue, and was somewhat morbidly intrigued. Then I saw it mentioned, of all places, on discworld, very favorably, and figured I'd give it a try if I came across it. So, spotting it at the library, I snatched it up. Not sure what I expected, and still not entirely sure what I think of it. I was, however, impressed that the seemingly nonsensical "fantasy" cover (vampire holding a boy, tiger, polar bear, guy holding some glowing thing) was not just a random assemblage of images but corresponded to an actual scene in the book. As for what's inside the covers... I think I spent most of my energy as a reader trying to figure out what the heck all the parallels to Ponedeljnik nachinaetsya v subbotu were supposed to *mean*. And there are lots of them, both meta and references by characters in the text.
There's the way the book is divided into three "stories" -- and, like in Ponedeljnik one word is repeated in each title, going even as far as having it appear twice in the middle story's title. The main character is a fairly recent addition to the magical world, and a programmer (this has nothing to do with the plot), who has (useless) assistants working for him whom he refers to as "devotchki". And then there are the things charcters think and say in the text: Anton, looking for a missing perp, wonder where she could've gone: "Ne v kanalizatsiyu zhe prosochilsya", or, comparing himself to a djinn makes references to "razrushatj goroda i vozvoditj dvortsy" -- and then the chief actually says, otrkrytym textom -- "kak skazali klassiki, 'Ponedeljnik nachinaetsya v subbotu'".
And it was nice spotting these little inter-literary nods, but I still don't get the point of it, especially as the world of Nochnoi Dozor is very different from Ponedeljnik, except for being set in and permeated by Russia and a complicated bureaucracy. There is no belief in a bright and glorious future, I guess, or the requirement that a Mage (or Other) is morally better than the humans he serves. In general, the grayness and ruthlesness I didn't terribly like -- not because I'm against those things in general, I can buy an "end justifies the means" argument, but because it didn't feel like what's at stake in maintaining the balance of Light and Dark was very clearly explained. There were some alusions, but in terms of "show not tell" the compromise with the Dark and Light seemed worse than what it was theoretically trying to prevent. And maybe that's the point, but I think we're still supposed to believe that it's necessary.
I did like some things, to be sure. I liked Semyon best among the characters, and I liked the general idea of "twilight" and how it works, and the family of vampires living next door (and how Anton comes to terms with them), and plot twists were certainly nice. I'll read the next books if I come across them, though I don't think I'll be trying to see the movie when it comes out here (too much gore). But I still don't really know what to think of this book, or what I do. I did remember, after googling Lukianenko, that I'd read another ting by him -- his "sequel" to Ponedeljnik in Vremya Uchenikov (a Strugatski homage collection thing), called someting like "Unlucky Week", and was underwhelmed by it. But that still brings me no closer. axmxz, have you read these Dozor books? And if so, what did you think of them, as a Ponedeljnik fan?
7.) Daria Dontsova, Glavbuh i poltsarstva v pridachu (CPA and half (one's) kingdom) -- this is from a popular Russian series of "ironic detective fiction" -- so, partly mystery, partly humor. I've browsed through these books before -- my mother consumes them like sunflower seeds -- but this one I actually started reading from the beginning, and got slightly hooked on, so I borrowed it from my mother. It's easy reading -- finished it in 24 hrs, which is about my mother's time for these, too. The mystery is pretty simplistic, the protagonist's contribution essentially non-existent, and the humor is quite broad, but it works pretty well as beach reading. There's a suitably wacky cast of characters, lots of meandering side stories set in the first-person narrative. I'll probably borrow the next book in this particular series (the Viola Tarakanova one; this author has three others) if I'm bored -- having finally figured out the wacky relationships between the various wacky characters, I wouldn't want to invest the same time in one of the other series, where I'd have to start from scratch. But high literature, or even good mystery, it ain't.
So that's 7 books for the first three weeks of January so far... I've been reading quite a bit apparently.