reading log!
BOOOOOOOOKS. Books books books books books.
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (re-read)
Summary: An odious teenage boy falls overboard off a liner, is rescued by a Grand Banks schooner, and turns out quite satisfactorily in the end.
Reaction: KIPLIIIIIIING. All the Kipling. I have so much Kipling on my Kindle right now. I think "Captains Courageous" was his first Actual Book that I read, and while I have never quite forgiven him for scaring me stiff with the dead Frenchman coming back for his knife, it is still awesome. All the accents! Kipling was first of all a poet, and he's very nearly up with JRR Tolkien for... for being a poet who cannot quite talk prose. Also, though he has his brushes with racism, he is one of those awesome writers whose "how this class of people ought to be seen behaving" filter is well and thoroughly broken; he sees all sorts of people and writes about them as they are. Which is what makes him a great writer.
(Well, that and the sheer love of words. I believe it was "How the Whale Got His Throat" that started me off. I still plan to memorize that someday, so I can tell it to small children and make them giggle. XD)
Trillions by Nicholas Fisk
Summary: An alien invasion of little crystal things strikes a small English town.
Reaction: ...well, the concept was interesting. The execution, though, with the bombastic military dudes and the worried formerly-military dude now a peaceable scientist and the innocent children and all? Was, well, sort of painfully Cold-War to someone as young as me. *wry face* It wasn't nearly as bad as "three episodes of Star Trek: TOS mashed together" sounds, but there was so much more that could have been done with the characters and their reactions - nobody's motivation was properly explained. So, all in all, it just confused me, when I wasn't eyerolling at the NUKE EVERYTHING military people being Pasteboard Idiots.
Frontier Wolf by Rosemary Sutcliff (SPOILERS)
Summary: ...very hard to summarize. It is about Romans and, er, native British people of some sort, in the Edinburgh area. And it's sort of a coming-of-age story for the main character, and also sort of an Irreconcilable Differences Of Culture story. And basically a Rosemary Sutcliff, yes.
Reaction: I was recced this by sophia_sol here. (Warning: spoilers.) So I knew a bit about it going in.
It is unusually sad and bittersweet for a young-adult adventure story - I haven't read any Sutcliff in, oh, at least ten years, so I can't recall if that's normal for her or not - but it is also amusing. Because, Hilarion! Who is sort of... okay, I am doing these reviews in the wrong order (even though it is the order I read them in, this time), because the next books I am going to mention have a character who is basically Hilarion in space. And his usual wingman is very much like Lucius, except not (AFAIK) given to reading the Eclogues. So I was all sort of "holy cat, WES JANSON WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN ANCIENT SCOTLAND?" O_O I mean, they look totally different, but they really are like AU versions of each other.
Also, Alexios and Cunorix are a fabulous team and I was *sadface* at the end. And I want pre-book Hilarion/Lucius shenanigans fic! And post-book Alexios/Hilarion long slow getting-to-know-you fic (because really, Hilarion is a bit of a cypher, if a lovable one), and EVERYTHING.
X-Wing series: Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, and Solo Command by Aaron Allston (re-read)
Summary: Post-Return of the Jedi official Star Wars fanfic in which a large and awesome cast of X-Wing pilots... are awesome. And plotty.
Reaction: Well, the first four (by Michael Stackpole) are boring but have Necessary Set-Up. (Also, okay, the one with Corran in the secret jail was pretty clever. This may have nothing at all to do with my proven love for good-guy!jailbreak stories. *innocent eyes*) But these three? Are AWESOME. Ostensibly they are about fighting some Imperial warlord or other, but really they are book-length slice-of-life fic about a gaggle of GOOFY PEOPLE of many species and genders being fabulous. Some of them die, because it is after all a war canon - but every single one has a well-developed story arc, and so many of them are mentally and emotionally messed up in realistic ways. Aaron Allston is a good writer, that's all.
(Also FUNNY. I mean. Really, hilariously funny. OH WES JANSON YOU DORK. *loves them all, but specially Wes, for he is very definitely stuck at nine years old, as am I*)
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
Summary: What it says on the tin. Nonfiction.
Reaction: Well, it's from 1954, and fairly basic, but there are some good bits of information if one never did get round to studying stats in school... o_O It's also got an amusing style, and slangs the big corporations and the unions fairly impartially. I'd have liked some more in-depth information, though; it's very much one of those '50s lightweight overview books.
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik (Temeraire series)
Summary: First book in a re-imagining of the Napoleonic wars with dragons for aircraft.
Reaction: Well! I think I am going to have to read all the books (that are out yet; there are six, it seems) in order to have a proper opinion on the series. This one makes a very interesting start, but there are bits of it where my brain just goes I COULD DO THIS BETTER - as for instance the fact that nobody appears to have invented the parachute. Despite, you know, have people riding flying dragons into battle and sometimes falling off. (Okay, there is a bit of the character development that might have been harder to work in with parachutes, but that could be worked around...)
Also the fact that the dragons are very much second-class citizens despite being universally acknowledged to be intelligent creatures (they can talk and everything). The title dragon notes offhandedly at one point that dragons don't go to Parliament, and there is a subplot about an abused dragon that disturbed me greatly, because there doesn't seem to be any recourse in-universe for situations like that. (And... IDK, it didn't quite feel like there was any foreshadowing of anyone thinking there ought to be a recourse. *srs face* That bothers me.)
(Also - and this is my goofy brain - I was rather thrown out of the story by mention of an old Roman fort at Inverness. It makes me wonder what sort of poor-spirited Scots they had in this AU, to get Romans that far north. O_O Did the Romans have tame dragons and the Scots didn't?)
OTOH... well, you can definitely tell the author has been in fandom. The Laurence/Temeraire friendship is adorable, and the characterizations are often Quite Good. And the choice of era-appropriate terminology and style (which she mentions in the back she was careful about and had betas for) is fabulous; I say this as somebody who makes a bit of a study of historical Britpicking. XD
(Man, I want to read more Age of Sail books now; I've only read a few, really. Not "Master and Commander" or Hornblower or, you know, the ones anyone's heard of. XD)
Man from Snowy River and Other Poems by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
Summary: Poems about Australia.
Reaction: Well, the title poem is definitely the best. The rest are... well, variable. I can see why people compare him to Kipling, but honestly he's nowhere near the same level. (Few people are. *g*) Suffers from "stock poetical touches" and that class-of-people filter I talked about above that Kipling doesn't have. (Well, hello, continuity in a reading-logs post; unexpected to meet you here. *raises eyebrows*)
The title poem is good, though. :D
Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu, Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon, and Lando Calrissian and the StarCave of ThonBoka by L. Neil Smith
Summary: Pre-Empire Strikes Back adventures of Lando Calrissian (you know, the black guy who betrayed Han Solo to be frozen in carbonite and then later piloted the Millennium Falcon to blow up the second Death Star.)
Reaction: Well, in all fairness I haven't seen Lando in about five years (I only watch A New Hope anymore, because Jedi bores me and you can't watch Empire without Jedi), so I can't speak to the characterization. And it really probably isn't fair to compare this trilogy to Brian Daley's Han Solo books (which I have reviewed before now), because those books have THE COOLEST SPIN-OFF DROIDS EVER. I mean, no offence to Squeaky, Emtrey, Vape and the rest (those would be from the Allston X-Wing books) - but Bollux and Blue Max seriously PWN ALL.
But even with those backpedalings, this is still a dumb trilogy. 'Scuse me for saying. It is exactly as dumb as you'd expect from a mediocre writer trying to live up to those titles and also trying to substitute quasi-profundity for characterization.
(It must be admitted, though, that the bit from the space manta's POV was pretty cool. It's a shame the writer didn't keep that level of alien-ness up for longer; it would have made a better book.)
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (re-read)
Summary: An odious teenage boy falls overboard off a liner, is rescued by a Grand Banks schooner, and turns out quite satisfactorily in the end.
Reaction: KIPLIIIIIIING. All the Kipling. I have so much Kipling on my Kindle right now. I think "Captains Courageous" was his first Actual Book that I read, and while I have never quite forgiven him for scaring me stiff with the dead Frenchman coming back for his knife, it is still awesome. All the accents! Kipling was first of all a poet, and he's very nearly up with JRR Tolkien for... for being a poet who cannot quite talk prose. Also, though he has his brushes with racism, he is one of those awesome writers whose "how this class of people ought to be seen behaving" filter is well and thoroughly broken; he sees all sorts of people and writes about them as they are. Which is what makes him a great writer.
(Well, that and the sheer love of words. I believe it was "How the Whale Got His Throat" that started me off. I still plan to memorize that someday, so I can tell it to small children and make them giggle. XD)
Trillions by Nicholas Fisk
Summary: An alien invasion of little crystal things strikes a small English town.
Reaction: ...well, the concept was interesting. The execution, though, with the bombastic military dudes and the worried formerly-military dude now a peaceable scientist and the innocent children and all? Was, well, sort of painfully Cold-War to someone as young as me. *wry face* It wasn't nearly as bad as "three episodes of Star Trek: TOS mashed together" sounds, but there was so much more that could have been done with the characters and their reactions - nobody's motivation was properly explained. So, all in all, it just confused me, when I wasn't eyerolling at the NUKE EVERYTHING military people being Pasteboard Idiots.
Frontier Wolf by Rosemary Sutcliff (SPOILERS)
Summary: ...very hard to summarize. It is about Romans and, er, native British people of some sort, in the Edinburgh area. And it's sort of a coming-of-age story for the main character, and also sort of an Irreconcilable Differences Of Culture story. And basically a Rosemary Sutcliff, yes.
Reaction: I was recced this by sophia_sol here. (Warning: spoilers.) So I knew a bit about it going in.
It is unusually sad and bittersweet for a young-adult adventure story - I haven't read any Sutcliff in, oh, at least ten years, so I can't recall if that's normal for her or not - but it is also amusing. Because, Hilarion! Who is sort of... okay, I am doing these reviews in the wrong order (even though it is the order I read them in, this time), because the next books I am going to mention have a character who is basically Hilarion in space. And his usual wingman is very much like Lucius, except not (AFAIK) given to reading the Eclogues. So I was all sort of "holy cat, WES JANSON WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN ANCIENT SCOTLAND?" O_O I mean, they look totally different, but they really are like AU versions of each other.
Also, Alexios and Cunorix are a fabulous team and I was *sadface* at the end. And I want pre-book Hilarion/Lucius shenanigans fic! And post-book Alexios/Hilarion long slow getting-to-know-you fic (because really, Hilarion is a bit of a cypher, if a lovable one), and EVERYTHING.
X-Wing series: Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, and Solo Command by Aaron Allston (re-read)
Summary: Post-Return of the Jedi official Star Wars fanfic in which a large and awesome cast of X-Wing pilots... are awesome. And plotty.
Reaction: Well, the first four (by Michael Stackpole) are boring but have Necessary Set-Up. (Also, okay, the one with Corran in the secret jail was pretty clever. This may have nothing at all to do with my proven love for good-guy!jailbreak stories. *innocent eyes*) But these three? Are AWESOME. Ostensibly they are about fighting some Imperial warlord or other, but really they are book-length slice-of-life fic about a gaggle of GOOFY PEOPLE of many species and genders being fabulous. Some of them die, because it is after all a war canon - but every single one has a well-developed story arc, and so many of them are mentally and emotionally messed up in realistic ways. Aaron Allston is a good writer, that's all.
(Also FUNNY. I mean. Really, hilariously funny. OH WES JANSON YOU DORK. *loves them all, but specially Wes, for he is very definitely stuck at nine years old, as am I*)
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
Summary: What it says on the tin. Nonfiction.
Reaction: Well, it's from 1954, and fairly basic, but there are some good bits of information if one never did get round to studying stats in school... o_O It's also got an amusing style, and slangs the big corporations and the unions fairly impartially. I'd have liked some more in-depth information, though; it's very much one of those '50s lightweight overview books.
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik (Temeraire series)
Summary: First book in a re-imagining of the Napoleonic wars with dragons for aircraft.
Reaction: Well! I think I am going to have to read all the books (that are out yet; there are six, it seems) in order to have a proper opinion on the series. This one makes a very interesting start, but there are bits of it where my brain just goes I COULD DO THIS BETTER - as for instance the fact that nobody appears to have invented the parachute. Despite, you know, have people riding flying dragons into battle and sometimes falling off. (Okay, there is a bit of the character development that might have been harder to work in with parachutes, but that could be worked around...)
Also the fact that the dragons are very much second-class citizens despite being universally acknowledged to be intelligent creatures (they can talk and everything). The title dragon notes offhandedly at one point that dragons don't go to Parliament, and there is a subplot about an abused dragon that disturbed me greatly, because there doesn't seem to be any recourse in-universe for situations like that. (And... IDK, it didn't quite feel like there was any foreshadowing of anyone thinking there ought to be a recourse. *srs face* That bothers me.)
(Also - and this is my goofy brain - I was rather thrown out of the story by mention of an old Roman fort at Inverness. It makes me wonder what sort of poor-spirited Scots they had in this AU, to get Romans that far north. O_O Did the Romans have tame dragons and the Scots didn't?)
OTOH... well, you can definitely tell the author has been in fandom. The Laurence/Temeraire friendship is adorable, and the characterizations are often Quite Good. And the choice of era-appropriate terminology and style (which she mentions in the back she was careful about and had betas for) is fabulous; I say this as somebody who makes a bit of a study of historical Britpicking. XD
(Man, I want to read more Age of Sail books now; I've only read a few, really. Not "Master and Commander" or Hornblower or, you know, the ones anyone's heard of. XD)
Man from Snowy River and Other Poems by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
Summary: Poems about Australia.
Reaction: Well, the title poem is definitely the best. The rest are... well, variable. I can see why people compare him to Kipling, but honestly he's nowhere near the same level. (Few people are. *g*) Suffers from "stock poetical touches" and that class-of-people filter I talked about above that Kipling doesn't have. (Well, hello, continuity in a reading-logs post; unexpected to meet you here. *raises eyebrows*)
The title poem is good, though. :D
Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu, Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon, and Lando Calrissian and the StarCave of ThonBoka by L. Neil Smith
Summary: Pre-Empire Strikes Back adventures of Lando Calrissian (you know, the black guy who betrayed Han Solo to be frozen in carbonite and then later piloted the Millennium Falcon to blow up the second Death Star.)
Reaction: Well, in all fairness I haven't seen Lando in about five years (I only watch A New Hope anymore, because Jedi bores me and you can't watch Empire without Jedi), so I can't speak to the characterization. And it really probably isn't fair to compare this trilogy to Brian Daley's Han Solo books (which I have reviewed before now), because those books have THE COOLEST SPIN-OFF DROIDS EVER. I mean, no offence to Squeaky, Emtrey, Vape and the rest (those would be from the Allston X-Wing books) - but Bollux and Blue Max seriously PWN ALL.
But even with those backpedalings, this is still a dumb trilogy. 'Scuse me for saying. It is exactly as dumb as you'd expect from a mediocre writer trying to live up to those titles and also trying to substitute quasi-profundity for characterization.
(It must be admitted, though, that the bit from the space manta's POV was pretty cool. It's a shame the writer didn't keep that level of alien-ness up for longer; it would have made a better book.)