Book Reviews
To get to my job, I ride the Washington Metro from Greenbelt station all the way down to the Crystal City station, which is a 45 minute train ride that I do twice a day. Aside from one transfer between the Green and Yellow Lines, I can just sit in my seat and read a book for the entire commute. I have used this to my advantage to get a LOT of reading done, probably more casual reading than I've done since High School. anailia has used this to her advantage to get me to read all sorts of books she has read (unlike me, she seemed to be able to go through books at a rate of close to one a week even in college). I've also gotten a chance to catch up on a bunch of books and series that I asked to have for past Christmases and birthdays but never got around to actually, you know, reading.
I likey. It makes the commute seem quicker and easier, and I like doing something that engages my mind. It makes me feel more creative for such endeavors as my Mutants & Masterminds campaign that I am attempting to run.
The books I've read so far are:
The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, Thorn part 1), by Tad Williams
The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, Thorn part 2)
To Green Angel Tower (Memory, Sorrow, Thorn part 3)
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
Drive to the East (Settling Accounts part 2), by Harry Turtledove
Prey, by Michael Crichton
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
I read the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series on the recommendation of anailia and they were incredible. At some intellectual level I knew that I was just reading another epic fantasy series in the exact same vein as Lord of the Rings and Sword of Shannara (evil dark lord threatening existence, ragtag band of adventurers trying to uncover the legendary artifacts that will defeat him, an "old race" dwindling in the face of mankind, and climactic battles against the dark lord's minions), but somehow Williams put an entirely new face on an old tale and it felt totally unique and fresh. Highly recommended.
Snow Crash was a crazy-eclectic mindfuck, a bit of a harsh change from Williams' series, but entertaining nonetheless. I plan to read more Stephenson novels in the future (his Diamond Age is probably next on my "to-read" list).
Drive to the East was a continuation of the alternate history series that first introduced me to the entire genre. The premise of the whole series is that the United States lost the Civil War and so the Confederate States of America exists as a seperate nation from the United States. The series has advanced through now three additional wars betwen the USA and CSA: a war in the 1880s, then a parallel World War I with the US on Germany's side and the CSA on France/Britain's side, and now a parallel WW2 where after defeat in the first world war fascism has taken root and the South is led by a militaristic dictator analogous to Adolf Hitler. The series is powerful because it gives you the sense of how accidental so much of history was and how it turns ordinary people into great (or terrible) ones. The word on the net is that Turtledove doesn't plan to continue the series after the conclusion of this alternate second world war. That news is kinda bittesweet for me, because it's such an interesting timeline, but it's also obvious that the author is starting to get a bit tired with it. Still it would be interesting to speculate how such a timeline would advance through the rest of the twentieth century, but that's a topic for another day.
Prey was a stock Crichton thriller, not his best work, but not his worst (that would be Timeline). By the end of the book he was definitely starting to get more supernatural than science fiction-y, but at the beginning he was actually dealing with some science and technology that I am familiar with, like intelligent agents and evolutionary computation. I find Crichton's writing style to be SOO easy to read that I finished this one in about a week.
The Fight Club novel was interesting for me because it was one of the first times that I have seen a novel that became a movie and the movie was at least as good as the book. All the best parts of the novel were in the movie, except I think I may have preferred the ending of the book to the movie (the movie ending was just a tad too Hollywood compared to the books ending). Otherwise, the novel read like a rough draft to the movie's script.
Finally, I just finished American Gods last week. It was an interesting and obviously loving romp through both Americana and classical mythologies. I have a lot of respect for Neil Gaiman and his success with comic book writing, novel writing, and movie writing. The book definitely gets my recommendation.
I am currently reading Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, again at the suggestion of anailia. I am only at the beginning in the first 50 pages or so, but it definitely seems to be a very entertaining book.
As I mentioned above, I think Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson will be the next book that I read. I also would like to get my hands on a copy of the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett collaboration "Good Omens". I still have a handful of other books I own that I have not read yet, like Larry Niven's Discworld series and Orson Scott Card's Shadow series. But I'm also interested to hear what you, my friends, have to recommend to me for books to read. If it is easy to get or for you to lend to me, that would be best, but even if not, I would still like to hear any and all suggestions, and hopefully also why I should read that book.
So, what books or series should I add to my "to read" list?
I likey. It makes the commute seem quicker and easier, and I like doing something that engages my mind. It makes me feel more creative for such endeavors as my Mutants & Masterminds campaign that I am attempting to run.
The books I've read so far are:
The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, Thorn part 1), by Tad Williams
The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, Thorn part 2)
To Green Angel Tower (Memory, Sorrow, Thorn part 3)
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
Drive to the East (Settling Accounts part 2), by Harry Turtledove
Prey, by Michael Crichton
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
I read the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series on the recommendation of anailia and they were incredible. At some intellectual level I knew that I was just reading another epic fantasy series in the exact same vein as Lord of the Rings and Sword of Shannara (evil dark lord threatening existence, ragtag band of adventurers trying to uncover the legendary artifacts that will defeat him, an "old race" dwindling in the face of mankind, and climactic battles against the dark lord's minions), but somehow Williams put an entirely new face on an old tale and it felt totally unique and fresh. Highly recommended.
Snow Crash was a crazy-eclectic mindfuck, a bit of a harsh change from Williams' series, but entertaining nonetheless. I plan to read more Stephenson novels in the future (his Diamond Age is probably next on my "to-read" list).
Drive to the East was a continuation of the alternate history series that first introduced me to the entire genre. The premise of the whole series is that the United States lost the Civil War and so the Confederate States of America exists as a seperate nation from the United States. The series has advanced through now three additional wars betwen the USA and CSA: a war in the 1880s, then a parallel World War I with the US on Germany's side and the CSA on France/Britain's side, and now a parallel WW2 where after defeat in the first world war fascism has taken root and the South is led by a militaristic dictator analogous to Adolf Hitler. The series is powerful because it gives you the sense of how accidental so much of history was and how it turns ordinary people into great (or terrible) ones. The word on the net is that Turtledove doesn't plan to continue the series after the conclusion of this alternate second world war. That news is kinda bittesweet for me, because it's such an interesting timeline, but it's also obvious that the author is starting to get a bit tired with it. Still it would be interesting to speculate how such a timeline would advance through the rest of the twentieth century, but that's a topic for another day.
Prey was a stock Crichton thriller, not his best work, but not his worst (that would be Timeline). By the end of the book he was definitely starting to get more supernatural than science fiction-y, but at the beginning he was actually dealing with some science and technology that I am familiar with, like intelligent agents and evolutionary computation. I find Crichton's writing style to be SOO easy to read that I finished this one in about a week.
The Fight Club novel was interesting for me because it was one of the first times that I have seen a novel that became a movie and the movie was at least as good as the book. All the best parts of the novel were in the movie, except I think I may have preferred the ending of the book to the movie (the movie ending was just a tad too Hollywood compared to the books ending). Otherwise, the novel read like a rough draft to the movie's script.
Finally, I just finished American Gods last week. It was an interesting and obviously loving romp through both Americana and classical mythologies. I have a lot of respect for Neil Gaiman and his success with comic book writing, novel writing, and movie writing. The book definitely gets my recommendation.
I am currently reading Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, again at the suggestion of anailia. I am only at the beginning in the first 50 pages or so, but it definitely seems to be a very entertaining book.
As I mentioned above, I think Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson will be the next book that I read. I also would like to get my hands on a copy of the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett collaboration "Good Omens". I still have a handful of other books I own that I have not read yet, like Larry Niven's Discworld series and Orson Scott Card's Shadow series. But I'm also interested to hear what you, my friends, have to recommend to me for books to read. If it is easy to get or for you to lend to me, that would be best, but even if not, I would still like to hear any and all suggestions, and hopefully also why I should read that book.
So, what books or series should I add to my "to read" list?