Books Read 2016, January/February
1/5 Othello, William Shakespeare
1/20 City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison
1/22 The Color of Magic, Terry Pratchett
1/31 I, Iago, Nicole Galland
2/8 Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Lois McMasters Bujold
2/17 They Eat Puppies, Don't They?, Christopher Buckley
2/27 The Last Defender of Camelot, Roger Zelazny
I’m going to take January slightly out of order: since I only read four books that month, it isn’t too difficult to follow along. I started with Shakespeare’s Othello for an unusual reason - I had heard a podcast reviewing a book called I, Iago that revisited the play from the perspective of Iago and that fascinated me, so I thought it best to re-read the play and downloaded it from Gutenberg. I’m not going to comment too much on the play as it is fairly well-known except to mention the innocence of Desdemona and the self-torturing nature of Othello. For the most part I love Shakespeare’s language, I have to admit that sometimes it’s a bit obtuse. But this is where I absolutely love reading books on my iPad Mini: if I don’t know a word, highlight it and if I’m connected to WiFi, I can get a definition and dig deeper if I so desire.
Galland’s book is a very interesting exploration of Iago’s overwhelming desire to be his own man and to rise above his station that leads to his destruction and that of Othello and Desdemona. It becomes quite a tragedy, a ‘rocks fall from the sky, everyone dies’ sort of thing: the only core character that survives is Cassio, and he’s maimed. It’s an amazing alternative viewpoint, akin to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Moving on, City on the Edge of Forever. As you may know, Harlan wrote one of the most famous scripts for the original Star Trek series, the City on the Edge of Forever. However, this is not just a reprint of the script: it is a reprint of ALL of the scripts that were submitted, altered, and what was finally shot, which bore very little resemblance to the original! His first submitted script just didn’t fit Rodenberry’s view of what Trek should be: it featured a crewman selling drugs on the Enterprise! A mishap occurs, a crewman goes crazy, time-travel mayhem ensues. It bore very little resemblance to what ended up being broadcast. Harlan has all sorts of stories of the power struggles between him and the production/network powers until he finally gives up. He received an award for the show, which is almost funny in its irony. Now, the script he wrote was quite interesting, but Gene and the network just couldn’t cope, so they rewrote and rewrote and rewrote until it was theirs and that was that. I can fully sympathize that Harlan did not get his vision realized, but that’s sadly the way it goes. He was pretty bitter about it, and apparently still is.
The Color of Magic is the first of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and introduces a recurring semi-hero, the sort-of wizard Rincewind. He only knows one spell, sadly it’s one of the spells of creation, and if he ever casts it it will destroy the world. It’s also jealous and won’t let him learn any other spells, so he’s kind of worthless as a wizard. He’s also a very skilled coward, which makes him an excellent survivor. Personally, I don’t think this is remotely one of the better Discworld books, but it’s a good enough introduction to the series as you learn about Rincewind, the Luggage (which should be capitalized), the Monster Dimension, Death (also capitalized (which is also sort of a pun)), and many other interesting things. For my money, the best Intro to Discworld Books are Guards! Guards! and Weird Sisters. Guards introduces the Watch, the 6’ tall dwarf Corporal Carrot, the estimable Commander Vimes, and the fearsome Lord Ventinari (whom I always thought should be played by Alan Rickman). Weird Sisters is just an awesome book and provides a great counterpoint to the pomposity of the wizards of Discworld.
Of these four books, I, Iago was the only print book. With the exception of Othello, the rest were purchased via an ebook newsletter that I receive every day.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Bujold is the most recent Vorkosigan book and has been eagerly anticipated. It’s been a few years since the Ivan book and since Cryoburn. This particular book taking place directly after Cryoburn and is concerned with Cordelia and the aftermath of the death of her husband, Count Aral Vorkosigan. Jole was a friend and former underling of Aral during his days as a military officer: Jole was also an occasional secret lover before Cordelia entered the picture, which made for some interesting complications. Quite a book, I liked it every bit as much as Ivan’s book. I thought Cryoburn was a little weak, but overall I think the Vorkosigan series is fantastic science fiction. Some people dismiss her series as not serious sci fi because it’s more people-driven stories than reliant on tech, I think that’s just fine. Her stories rely on people being clever and outsmarting their opponents rather than having some overwhelming tech advantage, though sometimes there is such an advantage in play. I quite like her work. We got to see her at a Dallas convention where she was a GoH and read a couple of chapters from Cryoburn, I think that was back in 2009. She’s not a ‘book-a-year’ author, but I’m OK with that as she writes excellent quality and I’m willing to be patient.
I really should re-read Gentleman Jole.
They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? is a book by the son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, Christopher. I really like Christopher’s work, it usually has a political angle, but he's not dogmatic about it, and he does very interesting stuff. This particular book features a lobbyist manipulating the news to try to create a war with China to force the government to buy a weapons system that they really don’t want to buy. It becomes an introspective character study where ultimately the main character finds himself in an unusual way. I can’t say it’s my favorite book by him, that would probably be Thank You For Smoking, but it is interesting and was fun.
The Last Defender of Camelot is a collection of short stories by Roger Zelazny, the writer who brought us The Chronicles of Amber and Why Johnny Can’t Speed, one of the first short stories in a Car Wars/Autoduel-type universe. This collection goes all over the place in genres. I’m very fond of the title story, Last Defender features two members of the court of Camelot in a modern setting having to rise to the occasion one last time to defeat an ancient threat. It’s a story that I like to re-read every now and again. I believe it also has a Half-Jack story about a cyborg. I really like Zelazny’s short stories, and I think this is a good exemplar of his work of that type.
These three books were all physical copies. So for January and February, the score is 4 physical, 3 digital. It’ll be interesting (at least to me) to see what the final tally is! I know I’ve read a lot of books this year and a lot of those are digital.
1/20 City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison
1/22 The Color of Magic, Terry Pratchett
1/31 I, Iago, Nicole Galland
2/8 Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Lois McMasters Bujold
2/17 They Eat Puppies, Don't They?, Christopher Buckley
2/27 The Last Defender of Camelot, Roger Zelazny
I’m going to take January slightly out of order: since I only read four books that month, it isn’t too difficult to follow along. I started with Shakespeare’s Othello for an unusual reason - I had heard a podcast reviewing a book called I, Iago that revisited the play from the perspective of Iago and that fascinated me, so I thought it best to re-read the play and downloaded it from Gutenberg. I’m not going to comment too much on the play as it is fairly well-known except to mention the innocence of Desdemona and the self-torturing nature of Othello. For the most part I love Shakespeare’s language, I have to admit that sometimes it’s a bit obtuse. But this is where I absolutely love reading books on my iPad Mini: if I don’t know a word, highlight it and if I’m connected to WiFi, I can get a definition and dig deeper if I so desire.
Galland’s book is a very interesting exploration of Iago’s overwhelming desire to be his own man and to rise above his station that leads to his destruction and that of Othello and Desdemona. It becomes quite a tragedy, a ‘rocks fall from the sky, everyone dies’ sort of thing: the only core character that survives is Cassio, and he’s maimed. It’s an amazing alternative viewpoint, akin to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Moving on, City on the Edge of Forever. As you may know, Harlan wrote one of the most famous scripts for the original Star Trek series, the City on the Edge of Forever. However, this is not just a reprint of the script: it is a reprint of ALL of the scripts that were submitted, altered, and what was finally shot, which bore very little resemblance to the original! His first submitted script just didn’t fit Rodenberry’s view of what Trek should be: it featured a crewman selling drugs on the Enterprise! A mishap occurs, a crewman goes crazy, time-travel mayhem ensues. It bore very little resemblance to what ended up being broadcast. Harlan has all sorts of stories of the power struggles between him and the production/network powers until he finally gives up. He received an award for the show, which is almost funny in its irony. Now, the script he wrote was quite interesting, but Gene and the network just couldn’t cope, so they rewrote and rewrote and rewrote until it was theirs and that was that. I can fully sympathize that Harlan did not get his vision realized, but that’s sadly the way it goes. He was pretty bitter about it, and apparently still is.
The Color of Magic is the first of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and introduces a recurring semi-hero, the sort-of wizard Rincewind. He only knows one spell, sadly it’s one of the spells of creation, and if he ever casts it it will destroy the world. It’s also jealous and won’t let him learn any other spells, so he’s kind of worthless as a wizard. He’s also a very skilled coward, which makes him an excellent survivor. Personally, I don’t think this is remotely one of the better Discworld books, but it’s a good enough introduction to the series as you learn about Rincewind, the Luggage (which should be capitalized), the Monster Dimension, Death (also capitalized (which is also sort of a pun)), and many other interesting things. For my money, the best Intro to Discworld Books are Guards! Guards! and Weird Sisters. Guards introduces the Watch, the 6’ tall dwarf Corporal Carrot, the estimable Commander Vimes, and the fearsome Lord Ventinari (whom I always thought should be played by Alan Rickman). Weird Sisters is just an awesome book and provides a great counterpoint to the pomposity of the wizards of Discworld.
Of these four books, I, Iago was the only print book. With the exception of Othello, the rest were purchased via an ebook newsletter that I receive every day.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Bujold is the most recent Vorkosigan book and has been eagerly anticipated. It’s been a few years since the Ivan book and since Cryoburn. This particular book taking place directly after Cryoburn and is concerned with Cordelia and the aftermath of the death of her husband, Count Aral Vorkosigan. Jole was a friend and former underling of Aral during his days as a military officer: Jole was also an occasional secret lover before Cordelia entered the picture, which made for some interesting complications. Quite a book, I liked it every bit as much as Ivan’s book. I thought Cryoburn was a little weak, but overall I think the Vorkosigan series is fantastic science fiction. Some people dismiss her series as not serious sci fi because it’s more people-driven stories than reliant on tech, I think that’s just fine. Her stories rely on people being clever and outsmarting their opponents rather than having some overwhelming tech advantage, though sometimes there is such an advantage in play. I quite like her work. We got to see her at a Dallas convention where she was a GoH and read a couple of chapters from Cryoburn, I think that was back in 2009. She’s not a ‘book-a-year’ author, but I’m OK with that as she writes excellent quality and I’m willing to be patient.
I really should re-read Gentleman Jole.
They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? is a book by the son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, Christopher. I really like Christopher’s work, it usually has a political angle, but he's not dogmatic about it, and he does very interesting stuff. This particular book features a lobbyist manipulating the news to try to create a war with China to force the government to buy a weapons system that they really don’t want to buy. It becomes an introspective character study where ultimately the main character finds himself in an unusual way. I can’t say it’s my favorite book by him, that would probably be Thank You For Smoking, but it is interesting and was fun.
The Last Defender of Camelot is a collection of short stories by Roger Zelazny, the writer who brought us The Chronicles of Amber and Why Johnny Can’t Speed, one of the first short stories in a Car Wars/Autoduel-type universe. This collection goes all over the place in genres. I’m very fond of the title story, Last Defender features two members of the court of Camelot in a modern setting having to rise to the occasion one last time to defeat an ancient threat. It’s a story that I like to re-read every now and again. I believe it also has a Half-Jack story about a cyborg. I really like Zelazny’s short stories, and I think this is a good exemplar of his work of that type.
These three books were all physical copies. So for January and February, the score is 4 physical, 3 digital. It’ll be interesting (at least to me) to see what the final tally is! I know I’ve read a lot of books this year and a lot of those are digital.