Reading Log - more of it
*points to icon* I am in your my library, shushing books in rapid succession. :-)
Tank Commander by Ronald Welch (Carey Family historical series)
Summary: Part of a "boys' own history" series. An upper-crust young British officer experiences World War I.
Reaction: It's... quite predictable. The research is pretty good, in the photographic "you are there" way you'd expect from a book so obviously written to Teach History; the minor characters have a bit of life despite the staccato descriptive style, and with a bit more attention could have gotten real personalities. But the main character is fairly bleh, and there's never any suspense about his fate - he just travels from one Historical Incident to another, experiencing them and being in command. We're told he has a fiery temper, but even that doesn't really come across.
I'm not impressed, but if Mr Welch had written on something he wanted to write about (like Welsh lower-class slice-of-life, of which the snippets we get are always well-drawn), he could have been a truly formidable writer.
Anne of Windy Willows by L.M. Montgomery (British edition)
Summary: The one where Anne spends three years pre-marriage teaching a country school that is not in Avonlea. Or, as I remind my sisters, "the one with Rebecca Dew". ;-)
Reaction: I checked this out because I heard the American edition (titled Anne of Windy Poplars) was abridged. It is. Only slightly, but there are a few notable scenes - including the dinner at Tomgallon House - that lose some hilarious little anecdotes (and in one case a very creepy one; L.M. Montgomery doesn't get enough credit as a ghost writer, really) in the abridged edition. Recommended if you're an Anne geek.
(Oddly, I don't even like Anne, though "Windy Poplars/Willows" is my favorite of the Anne books - it's one of L.M.M.'s maturer writings, and the knack for intriguing minor characters is fully developed - but I read the Green Gables series at seven and absorbed it whole. Scarred me for life in some ways, lol.)
Mexican Road Race by Patrick O'Connor aka Leonard Wibberley (Black Tiger series, book #2)
Summary: Young racecar driver Woody Hartford and his Scottish mechanic Worm McNess enter the Carrera Panamericana, or Mexican Road Race, in 1960-something.
Reaction: Okay, these are the books that set me wanting to learn to be an auto mechanic, six or seven years ago when I ran across them at the thrift store. Mexican Road Race is one of my top two favorites, though I don't own it (yet). It's one of those "informational fiction" books so popular in the '50s and '60s; it's a well-written one, which serves as a good intro to road racing and how it differs from other forms of racing, as well as to how cars worked in the '60s.
It's also actually a cracking good story - like the first book, The Black Tiger, and the first one I read, Black Tiger at Bonneville, it's a coming-of-age story in a way for the star, Woody Hartford. (And this one also features his girlfriend Mary Jane getting some sense, which makes me happy, because in the first one she was a caricature.) But I really like it for the Scottish mechanic, Worm, because I like snarky deadpan loyal perfectionist Scottish characters with clever hands and a knack for numbers. XD
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (Discworld series; Moist von Lipwig sub-series, book #1)
Summary: In which Moist von Lipwig, con man, is introduced, hanged, and given the job of reorganizing Ankh-Morpork's nonworking postal system. (Yes, in that order. It's Pratchett. *g*)
Reaction: This was fun. It's of the genre of Pterry's books I like best - the ones where he takes something basic like writing and plays with it until it shows how it was already mystical. (And oh my gosh, does he ever. Words. I... I can't even babble about it, it's that breathtaking. Granted, I'm speaking as a born poet who's always been a bit able to get drunk on words, but... *stars in eyes* This was amazing.)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Summary: A sort of weird detective story involving a lot of answering machines, incidental time-travel, and an even more incidental murder. Also a horse in the bathroom and the world's least interesting trip to Bermuda.
Reaction: Well, way less soul-searingly depressing than some of the Hitchhiker's Guide books. And a little less cracky, to the extent that I could almost follow the story. O_O I enjoyed it, although I thought a little less time could have been spent on the mechanics of being a ghost, and I thought (being after all a Whovian) that the mains were pretty slow to pick up on the implications of some of the time-travel stuff. But the irrevocably wedged sofa was a really fun touch, to my (furniture-Tetris-playing) mind, and I liked the cold pizza. I'm hoping the sequel is as interesting.
Making Money by Terry Pratchett (Discworld series; Moist von Lipwig sub-series, book #2)
Summary: Having succeeded spectacularly with the Post Office, former con man Moist von Lipwig is put in charge of the Ankh-Morpork Bank and Mint.
Reaction: I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. It had a bit more of the "wandering subplots" feel of Unseen Academicals - indeed, some of the Unseen Academicals subplots were quite closely presaged - and one of the subplots' denouements was frankly squicky. But there were some interesting bits about economics (which will never, I fear, be as interesting to me as words), and Commander Vimes made a cameo appearance, though he didn't get to do much of anything Vimes-y.
Next up: I'm thinking Keith R.A. DeCandido's "Dragon Precinct", about the police force in a city full of superheroes. He likes writing cops, and he's good at well-drawn OCs, so it ought to be interesting anyway.
Tank Commander by Ronald Welch (Carey Family historical series)
Summary: Part of a "boys' own history" series. An upper-crust young British officer experiences World War I.
Reaction: It's... quite predictable. The research is pretty good, in the photographic "you are there" way you'd expect from a book so obviously written to Teach History; the minor characters have a bit of life despite the staccato descriptive style, and with a bit more attention could have gotten real personalities. But the main character is fairly bleh, and there's never any suspense about his fate - he just travels from one Historical Incident to another, experiencing them and being in command. We're told he has a fiery temper, but even that doesn't really come across.
I'm not impressed, but if Mr Welch had written on something he wanted to write about (like Welsh lower-class slice-of-life, of which the snippets we get are always well-drawn), he could have been a truly formidable writer.
Anne of Windy Willows by L.M. Montgomery (British edition)
Summary: The one where Anne spends three years pre-marriage teaching a country school that is not in Avonlea. Or, as I remind my sisters, "the one with Rebecca Dew". ;-)
Reaction: I checked this out because I heard the American edition (titled Anne of Windy Poplars) was abridged. It is. Only slightly, but there are a few notable scenes - including the dinner at Tomgallon House - that lose some hilarious little anecdotes (and in one case a very creepy one; L.M. Montgomery doesn't get enough credit as a ghost writer, really) in the abridged edition. Recommended if you're an Anne geek.
(Oddly, I don't even like Anne, though "Windy Poplars/Willows" is my favorite of the Anne books - it's one of L.M.M.'s maturer writings, and the knack for intriguing minor characters is fully developed - but I read the Green Gables series at seven and absorbed it whole. Scarred me for life in some ways, lol.)
Mexican Road Race by Patrick O'Connor aka Leonard Wibberley (Black Tiger series, book #2)
Summary: Young racecar driver Woody Hartford and his Scottish mechanic Worm McNess enter the Carrera Panamericana, or Mexican Road Race, in 1960-something.
Reaction: Okay, these are the books that set me wanting to learn to be an auto mechanic, six or seven years ago when I ran across them at the thrift store. Mexican Road Race is one of my top two favorites, though I don't own it (yet). It's one of those "informational fiction" books so popular in the '50s and '60s; it's a well-written one, which serves as a good intro to road racing and how it differs from other forms of racing, as well as to how cars worked in the '60s.
It's also actually a cracking good story - like the first book, The Black Tiger, and the first one I read, Black Tiger at Bonneville, it's a coming-of-age story in a way for the star, Woody Hartford. (And this one also features his girlfriend Mary Jane getting some sense, which makes me happy, because in the first one she was a caricature.) But I really like it for the Scottish mechanic, Worm, because I like snarky deadpan loyal perfectionist Scottish characters with clever hands and a knack for numbers. XD
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (Discworld series; Moist von Lipwig sub-series, book #1)
Summary: In which Moist von Lipwig, con man, is introduced, hanged, and given the job of reorganizing Ankh-Morpork's nonworking postal system. (Yes, in that order. It's Pratchett. *g*)
Reaction: This was fun. It's of the genre of Pterry's books I like best - the ones where he takes something basic like writing and plays with it until it shows how it was already mystical. (And oh my gosh, does he ever. Words. I... I can't even babble about it, it's that breathtaking. Granted, I'm speaking as a born poet who's always been a bit able to get drunk on words, but... *stars in eyes* This was amazing.)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Summary: A sort of weird detective story involving a lot of answering machines, incidental time-travel, and an even more incidental murder. Also a horse in the bathroom and the world's least interesting trip to Bermuda.
Reaction: Well, way less soul-searingly depressing than some of the Hitchhiker's Guide books. And a little less cracky, to the extent that I could almost follow the story. O_O I enjoyed it, although I thought a little less time could have been spent on the mechanics of being a ghost, and I thought (being after all a Whovian) that the mains were pretty slow to pick up on the implications of some of the time-travel stuff. But the irrevocably wedged sofa was a really fun touch, to my (furniture-Tetris-playing) mind, and I liked the cold pizza. I'm hoping the sequel is as interesting.
Making Money by Terry Pratchett (Discworld series; Moist von Lipwig sub-series, book #2)
Summary: Having succeeded spectacularly with the Post Office, former con man Moist von Lipwig is put in charge of the Ankh-Morpork Bank and Mint.
Reaction: I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. It had a bit more of the "wandering subplots" feel of Unseen Academicals - indeed, some of the Unseen Academicals subplots were quite closely presaged - and one of the subplots' denouements was frankly squicky. But there were some interesting bits about economics (which will never, I fear, be as interesting to me as words), and Commander Vimes made a cameo appearance, though he didn't get to do much of anything Vimes-y.
Next up: I'm thinking Keith R.A. DeCandido's "Dragon Precinct", about the police force in a city full of superheroes. He likes writing cops, and he's good at well-drawn OCs, so it ought to be interesting anyway.