wednesday reads n' things
Argh, why did Dreamwidth reset my theme to Tropospherical Red? I am a Celerity girl, damn it! There, fixed. Okay!
What I've recently finished reading:
I finished up listening to The Great War: stories inspired by items from the First World War. It's always hard to rate a short-story collection, especially an anthology from multiple authors, because the contents are always going to vary. In this collection, the stories ranged from middle-grade to YA, set in a variety of countries and a variety of time periods, and the audio version (which I got through the SYNC free audiobook program) uses a variety of narrators as well (with accents appropriate to the stories). The only thing these stories have in common is that they are all inspired by an item from the First World War, which is described by a neutral narrator after each story.
Because I started listening to this back in late April my recall is fuzzy on a few of the stories, alas. Most of them had a very strong anti-war slant, sometimes simplistic.
Our Jacko" by Michael Morpurgo *** Contemporary schoolkid learns about his uncle who died in the Great War, who left behind a helmet.
"Another Kind of Missing" by A. L. Kennedy ** Young boy visiting his invalided-out father in the hospital. It's implied he has mental as well as physical damage.
"Don't Call It Glory" by Marcus Sedgwick ** A sort of ghost story, about a young boy who learns that a German bomber had hit a tree on his street, and he learns the history and becomes a pacifist as the ghost of one of the crew observes and relives wartime experiences. Parts were interesting, but it felt like the author wasn't quite sure what to write about.
"The Country You Called Home" by John Boyne *** Irishmen have issues about being recruited by England for the war. Low-key but well done.
"When they were needed most" by Tracy Chevalier **** A mother packing Christmas boxes for soldiers brings one home for her children to see, and they speculate about their father, away at war, getting his. This has a clever structure and supernatural elements, and was one of my favorites despite having some Americanisms - this is set in England - that even American me noticed.
"A world that has no war in it" by David Almond ** An Irish Romeo-and-Juliet family feud set in the late 20th century, with Romeo and Juliet affected by the old lady who comes to tell their school about the Great War and her beau who died in it. A bit smarmy for my taste.
"A Harlem Hellfighter and his horn" by Tanya Lee Stone ** The single American-focused story, and I liked the idea of following a young black musician, but there wasn't much to it.
"Maud's Story" by Adele Geras *** Finally, a story with a female protagonist! When a girl's older sister falls pregnant by her soldier boyfriend, she secretly takes her place at the local pottery factory to earn money for her family.
"Captain Rosalie" by Timothee de Fombelle **** Five-year-old Rosalie is left to sit at the back of a classroom of older children while her mother works for the war effort. Her POV, as she imagines herself an intelligence officer spying behind enemy lines, is charming, and the story is thoughtful and emotionally charged. Possibly my favorite.
"Each Slow Dusk" by Sheena Wilkinson **** Though maybe this was my favorite. An Irish schoolgirl finds her college dreams threatened by her father's expectations that she nurse her injured brother who has been invalided out from the war. Not only does it focus on a female character, it shows the terrible cost of war even on those who did not actually fight.
"Little Wars" by Urula Dubosarsky ** The sole Australian-set story, about a girl whose brother and his friend play with toy soldiers, and she envies them the games she's not allowed.
I also read The Warehouse by Rob Hart, which I got from NetGalley. This near-future dystopia is a mashup of cli-fi and corporatocracy: The world has become a hellish hot desert in which the only employer (if you're lucky enough to get a job) is the company store, a thinly-veiled Amazon called Cloud, where upbeat corporate messaging hides the fact that the workers are essentially slaves with high-tech shackles. Set against this backdrop is a story of three people: Paxton, whose small business was destroyed by Cloud and who applies for a job there as a last resort; Zinnia, a professional industrial spy, whose job is cover for ferreting out Cloud's secrets; and the Sam-Walton-esque Gibson Wells, the dying founder of Cloud, who is visiting all of his company's sites one last time.
It's a bit heavy on the author's message (which is: we did this to ourselves by purchasing the cheap things we could point and click and have delivered) but it's entertaining and easy to read. But the story falls apart a bit toward the end; Zinnia's first discovery is truly shocking, but the climactic revelation is...a bit of an anticlimax. It felt to me as though the various plot bits didn't really line up toward the end, that things happened because the author wanted them to happen rather than because they made sense. But it was a fun ride (and a cautionary tale) up to that point.
What I'm reading now:
Still Revolutionary Brothers by Tom Chaffin. And a mystery book to be revealed later.
What I'm doing instead of reading:
Dragon Age: Inquisition has sucked me in. Oops?
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth
What I've recently finished reading:
I finished up listening to The Great War: stories inspired by items from the First World War. It's always hard to rate a short-story collection, especially an anthology from multiple authors, because the contents are always going to vary. In this collection, the stories ranged from middle-grade to YA, set in a variety of countries and a variety of time periods, and the audio version (which I got through the SYNC free audiobook program) uses a variety of narrators as well (with accents appropriate to the stories). The only thing these stories have in common is that they are all inspired by an item from the First World War, which is described by a neutral narrator after each story.
Because I started listening to this back in late April my recall is fuzzy on a few of the stories, alas. Most of them had a very strong anti-war slant, sometimes simplistic.
Our Jacko" by Michael Morpurgo *** Contemporary schoolkid learns about his uncle who died in the Great War, who left behind a helmet.
"Another Kind of Missing" by A. L. Kennedy ** Young boy visiting his invalided-out father in the hospital. It's implied he has mental as well as physical damage.
"Don't Call It Glory" by Marcus Sedgwick ** A sort of ghost story, about a young boy who learns that a German bomber had hit a tree on his street, and he learns the history and becomes a pacifist as the ghost of one of the crew observes and relives wartime experiences. Parts were interesting, but it felt like the author wasn't quite sure what to write about.
"The Country You Called Home" by John Boyne *** Irishmen have issues about being recruited by England for the war. Low-key but well done.
"When they were needed most" by Tracy Chevalier **** A mother packing Christmas boxes for soldiers brings one home for her children to see, and they speculate about their father, away at war, getting his. This has a clever structure and supernatural elements, and was one of my favorites despite having some Americanisms - this is set in England - that even American me noticed.
"A world that has no war in it" by David Almond ** An Irish Romeo-and-Juliet family feud set in the late 20th century, with Romeo and Juliet affected by the old lady who comes to tell their school about the Great War and her beau who died in it. A bit smarmy for my taste.
"A Harlem Hellfighter and his horn" by Tanya Lee Stone ** The single American-focused story, and I liked the idea of following a young black musician, but there wasn't much to it.
"Maud's Story" by Adele Geras *** Finally, a story with a female protagonist! When a girl's older sister falls pregnant by her soldier boyfriend, she secretly takes her place at the local pottery factory to earn money for her family.
"Captain Rosalie" by Timothee de Fombelle **** Five-year-old Rosalie is left to sit at the back of a classroom of older children while her mother works for the war effort. Her POV, as she imagines herself an intelligence officer spying behind enemy lines, is charming, and the story is thoughtful and emotionally charged. Possibly my favorite.
"Each Slow Dusk" by Sheena Wilkinson **** Though maybe this was my favorite. An Irish schoolgirl finds her college dreams threatened by her father's expectations that she nurse her injured brother who has been invalided out from the war. Not only does it focus on a female character, it shows the terrible cost of war even on those who did not actually fight.
"Little Wars" by Urula Dubosarsky ** The sole Australian-set story, about a girl whose brother and his friend play with toy soldiers, and she envies them the games she's not allowed.
I also read The Warehouse by Rob Hart, which I got from NetGalley. This near-future dystopia is a mashup of cli-fi and corporatocracy: The world has become a hellish hot desert in which the only employer (if you're lucky enough to get a job) is the company store, a thinly-veiled Amazon called Cloud, where upbeat corporate messaging hides the fact that the workers are essentially slaves with high-tech shackles. Set against this backdrop is a story of three people: Paxton, whose small business was destroyed by Cloud and who applies for a job there as a last resort; Zinnia, a professional industrial spy, whose job is cover for ferreting out Cloud's secrets; and the Sam-Walton-esque Gibson Wells, the dying founder of Cloud, who is visiting all of his company's sites one last time.
It's a bit heavy on the author's message (which is: we did this to ourselves by purchasing the cheap things we could point and click and have delivered) but it's entertaining and easy to read. But the story falls apart a bit toward the end; Zinnia's first discovery is truly shocking, but the climactic revelation is...a bit of an anticlimax. It felt to me as though the various plot bits didn't really line up toward the end, that things happened because the author wanted them to happen rather than because they made sense. But it was a fun ride (and a cautionary tale) up to that point.
What I'm reading now:
Still Revolutionary Brothers by Tom Chaffin. And a mystery book to be revealed later.
What I'm doing instead of reading:
Dragon Age: Inquisition has sucked me in. Oops?
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth