Readage
I get a lot of time to read books in this job. You see, this is drilling granite. You have to contend with;
Soils
Gravels
Calcrete
Silcrete
Upper Saprolite
Lower saprolite
...profit?
Thus, twelve holes or 700-900m a day takes about, total, of 3 hours of work a day and i have to kill (nominally) 12 of them. Anyway, here's a couple of the books I've read.
Kraken, China Mieville
He's apparently got a big boner for London, with this being his second book set in London. This one involves a magically stolen giant squid specimen, which draws the protagonist into a byzantine magical underworld of London, populated by mages, witches, and so on and so forth.
Stylistically it was, as usual, a fabulous read. Mieville's use of vocabulary and pacing and themes is excellent, but the first fifth to quarter of the book was a confused muddle to read, but in a way that matches the obvious confusion of the protagonist, who eventually figures out what's going on...and then the prose, pacing, syntax starts making sense. Its probably deliberate.
In fact, there's a whole onion of layers to the book. Its hard to know whether to take it as a statement by Mieville, when the protagonist becomes a prophwet for a religion, and that religion happens to be...curating a museum...whether this is a statement on how Science has become a form of religion. Certainly the remedy to the plot in the book is magical, metaphysical and related to such a statement.
I think its a great book, reccommend it.
Gardens of The Moon, Steven Eriksson
High fantasy, kinda. This is the first in aseries of , six? seven? books about the Malazan Empire. It reads like the third or fourth book in the series insofar as there's no character development, most of the characterts aren't even fleshed out at all, and the cultures, peoples, traditions, races and magic aren't all explained, introduced, or anything. In fact, it is definitely like the whole story starts halfway through. From the start you have to deal with five, six subplots, and it jumps back and forth and carries on at a hectic pace.
The only interesting thing is the apparent moral ambiguity of the characters; clearly the Empress is the evil tyrant, and she is opposed by bizarre forces, but you never really get the typical High Fantasy themes explored (I guess they happened in books minus-one and minus-two?).
You know, the peasant boy sets off, encounters the garrulous veteran, the grumpy old mage, the querolous priest. They have adventures, then discover an evil witch/tyrant/empress, ally themselves with an oppressed people/resistance movement/cabal of rebellious mages and at the denouement of book one, are besieged in their last stand fortress and...cue book two.
I'm ambivalent as to whether I'll bother reading. I haven't identified with any of the characters. They aren't even caricatures or stereotypes, they have no foibles, no warmth. The prose is generally fairly bland, so you tend to notice when Eriksson reaches for his thesaurus, instead of with Mieville where you notice when he doesn't. But then again, these are particularly thick books and if I can find them at Elizabeths they'll help pad out a good week of time between holes out here, so I think I can manage it for $11. Certainly more palatable than reading Stephanie Meyers.
Nation, Terry Pratchett
This is anther fairly solid book by pratchett. It is, like all his books, more a fable and a moral story than anything else, and this is a story aimed at exposing our prejudices about our own cultural history and how little value we assign to native cultures and traditions.
What struck me was how close to our world he sailed, in this parallel world, and yet that only highlights the inability of Pratchett to make that last leap and to write one of his inimitable books, and set it in the here and now. I think that's a shame. He makes asute commentary on our culture and our prejudices and racism...but clearly a parable is the way to do it, lest he have to resort to lecturing.
Its a good read, but only got me through 2 days of rig time. I'd reccommend it to Pratchett fans. Its not a Discworld novel, but its still worthwhile.
Sacrifice, CS Bolton
Unknown author, random selection in a secondhand bookshop's fantasy section, results in a reasonable read but one I won't recommend.
Without giving away spoilers, this is basically a form of medical drama stroke detective novel set in the Shetland Islands. The story is based on folktales of the Trouw, or Trolls, based on inherited Norse folklore which persists in the Shetlands. This is, basically, a form of secret underground cult resulting in human sacrifice.
The threads of "fantasy" in the novel is clearly because it mentioned trolls somewhere, in passing, and trolls is fantasy, rite? Either way, I ended up reading a detective novel by surprise.
CS Bolton does a good job, though, of characterisation. She fleshes out the heroine, the husband, the coworkers, rather well. There's twists, there's turns, even the odd dead end, all de rigeur for detective novel thrillers. It was also, clearly, extremely thoroughly well researched.
Scott Pilgrim 6, Brian Omalley
See the movie.
Coming up are some Fllewelling books and other random crap I brought up with me.
Soils
Gravels
Calcrete
Silcrete
Upper Saprolite
Lower saprolite
...profit?
Thus, twelve holes or 700-900m a day takes about, total, of 3 hours of work a day and i have to kill (nominally) 12 of them. Anyway, here's a couple of the books I've read.
Kraken, China Mieville
He's apparently got a big boner for London, with this being his second book set in London. This one involves a magically stolen giant squid specimen, which draws the protagonist into a byzantine magical underworld of London, populated by mages, witches, and so on and so forth.
Stylistically it was, as usual, a fabulous read. Mieville's use of vocabulary and pacing and themes is excellent, but the first fifth to quarter of the book was a confused muddle to read, but in a way that matches the obvious confusion of the protagonist, who eventually figures out what's going on...and then the prose, pacing, syntax starts making sense. Its probably deliberate.
In fact, there's a whole onion of layers to the book. Its hard to know whether to take it as a statement by Mieville, when the protagonist becomes a prophwet for a religion, and that religion happens to be...curating a museum...whether this is a statement on how Science has become a form of religion. Certainly the remedy to the plot in the book is magical, metaphysical and related to such a statement.
I think its a great book, reccommend it.
Gardens of The Moon, Steven Eriksson
High fantasy, kinda. This is the first in aseries of , six? seven? books about the Malazan Empire. It reads like the third or fourth book in the series insofar as there's no character development, most of the characterts aren't even fleshed out at all, and the cultures, peoples, traditions, races and magic aren't all explained, introduced, or anything. In fact, it is definitely like the whole story starts halfway through. From the start you have to deal with five, six subplots, and it jumps back and forth and carries on at a hectic pace.
The only interesting thing is the apparent moral ambiguity of the characters; clearly the Empress is the evil tyrant, and she is opposed by bizarre forces, but you never really get the typical High Fantasy themes explored (I guess they happened in books minus-one and minus-two?).
You know, the peasant boy sets off, encounters the garrulous veteran, the grumpy old mage, the querolous priest. They have adventures, then discover an evil witch/tyrant/empress, ally themselves with an oppressed people/resistance movement/cabal of rebellious mages and at the denouement of book one, are besieged in their last stand fortress and...cue book two.
I'm ambivalent as to whether I'll bother reading. I haven't identified with any of the characters. They aren't even caricatures or stereotypes, they have no foibles, no warmth. The prose is generally fairly bland, so you tend to notice when Eriksson reaches for his thesaurus, instead of with Mieville where you notice when he doesn't. But then again, these are particularly thick books and if I can find them at Elizabeths they'll help pad out a good week of time between holes out here, so I think I can manage it for $11. Certainly more palatable than reading Stephanie Meyers.
Nation, Terry Pratchett
This is anther fairly solid book by pratchett. It is, like all his books, more a fable and a moral story than anything else, and this is a story aimed at exposing our prejudices about our own cultural history and how little value we assign to native cultures and traditions.
What struck me was how close to our world he sailed, in this parallel world, and yet that only highlights the inability of Pratchett to make that last leap and to write one of his inimitable books, and set it in the here and now. I think that's a shame. He makes asute commentary on our culture and our prejudices and racism...but clearly a parable is the way to do it, lest he have to resort to lecturing.
Its a good read, but only got me through 2 days of rig time. I'd reccommend it to Pratchett fans. Its not a Discworld novel, but its still worthwhile.
Sacrifice, CS Bolton
Unknown author, random selection in a secondhand bookshop's fantasy section, results in a reasonable read but one I won't recommend.
Without giving away spoilers, this is basically a form of medical drama stroke detective novel set in the Shetland Islands. The story is based on folktales of the Trouw, or Trolls, based on inherited Norse folklore which persists in the Shetlands. This is, basically, a form of secret underground cult resulting in human sacrifice.
The threads of "fantasy" in the novel is clearly because it mentioned trolls somewhere, in passing, and trolls is fantasy, rite? Either way, I ended up reading a detective novel by surprise.
CS Bolton does a good job, though, of characterisation. She fleshes out the heroine, the husband, the coworkers, rather well. There's twists, there's turns, even the odd dead end, all de rigeur for detective novel thrillers. It was also, clearly, extremely thoroughly well researched.
Scott Pilgrim 6, Brian Omalley
See the movie.
Coming up are some Fllewelling books and other random crap I brought up with me.