Penultimate Booklog!
Don't you just love the word "penultimate"?
271. Across the Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn - Historical fiction set in an alternate Japan. Basically: one where there are ninjas. For reals, yo! Magical ninjas! Watch out; they will kill you in your sleep.
The first couple chapters of this really grabbed me: teenage Takeo returns from wandering the hills to discover that everyone in his village has been massacred. He’s rescued from the murderers by Lord Otori, and the two escape through the forest. Meanwhile, Lady Kaede, who’s spent almost her whole life as a prisoner of war, fights off a potential rapist by stabbing him. Death-defying escapes! Heroines who know how to use a knife! This, I like-it reminded me of an Errol Flynn movie if, you know, Errol Flynn were Japanese. Right: a Toshiro Mifune movie, then. Yes!
But then Takeo and Kaede meet and have boring, star-crossed love at first sight, blah blah blah. Second half of book: decidedly less interesting. It’s the first of a series, and I’m actually not sure at the moment if I care to continue. Has anyone read the rest of the books? Do they get better?
272. The Vintner’s Luck, Elizabeth Knox - In the early part of the 19th century, a young winemaker sees an angel out in the field behind his house. They talk for a while; eventually they agree to meet every year on the same night. I loved this premise; it reminded me of one of my favorite stories ever, Neil Gaiman’s “Men of Good Fortune.” The difference is that “Good Fortune” is about someone who will live forever, while Luck takes place over a single human lifetime. Also, in Luck, our human protagonist, Sobran, and his otherworldly visitor actually become lovers. Score!
Well, sort of. This book is actually not nearly as good as “Men of Good Fortune,” although that’s setting the bar pretty high, in my opinion. The relationship between Sobran, his angel, and Aurora-a young widow Sobran also comes to have an important connection with-is wonderful and rich and nuanced. I liked all three of these characters very much. The book’s theology, however, confused me deeply: I did not understand it at all, which made the motivations of the higher powers at work in this novel-some of whom made personal appearances-completely opaque to me. The love story (stories!) still moved me, but I felt like I was missing the larger meaning of the text.
Also, the ending decidedly underwhelmed. The structure is so linear-year by year by year-that I felt that the climatic moments came at odd places in the story. So this is another one that goes into the category of “didn’t love it, still worth reading.” Just make sure you’ve read “Men of Good Fortune” first!
273 Anyone But You, Jennifer Crusie - The interwebs seem to agree that Jennifer Crusie writes above-average romance novels, so after reading several books that were very srs bsns, I decided to finally give one a try. This started out great: liked the snarky dialogue, liked the unusualness of an older woman/younger man pairing, thought the characters all seemed agreeable enough. The plot was really thin, however, and what little there was totally goes off the rails at the end-I’m not sure I get the logic of writing a romance novel where guy and gal get together, then immediately have a big histrionic fight. That the curtains close on a kiss (god knows) might be a cliché, but sometimes it’s preferable.
I was also kind of annoyed that the B-plot (which almost dominated the teeny tiny A-plot) involved the protagonist’s best friend writing a novel in about five minutes. As someone currently trying to write one herself, I kept wanting to scream, “It’s not that EASY, yo!” Crusie, I’m sure in your heart of hearts, you will back me up on this.
This book was problematic, but it was still fun, and I’ll definitely be adding Crusie’s name to my list of potential comfort reads.
274. Holmes for the Holidays, Ed. by Martin H. Greenberg, et. al. - Allow me to use an analogy here. Imagine that in 20 years or so people start publishing collections of Buffy the Vampire Slayer pastiches. (In this version of the future Joss Whedon is either incredibly generous or has very bad lawyers.) In each story, Buffy does some research with the Scoobies (all of whom are currently getting along great!), patrols a cemetery, and stakes a vampire...and that’s it. No character development, not even any character insight! In every. Single. Story.
That’s this collection, pretty much. If some of the tales had been particularly humorous or blessed with Arthur Conan Doyle’s gift with atmosphere, that might have redeemed things somewhat. Instead, we get not one, but TWO stories that offer a rational, Sherlockian explanation for the events of A Christmas Carol. I know it’s a holiday collection, but did it really have to be produced via cookie cutter?
I also have to say, this is one of the worst-edited books I’ve read in a long-purely from a copyediting standpoint, I mean. Words are used incorrectly, there are bizarre misspellings, and the book is littered with sloppiness: strangers being referred to by name, then introduced three paragraphs later-that kind of stuff. And there are THREE editors credited. Yikes.
Needless to say, this did not fill me with holiday cheer.
275. Unwind, Neal Shusterman - This is a young adult book. It’s sci-fi, not horror. Nevertheless, it is quite possibly the scariest book I have ever read. It takes place in a future where, between the ages of 13 and 18, kids who grossly misbehave or who are orphans not considered to be useful or talented enough or who are specially chosen “tithes” are taken away to be “unwound”-broken down to all their component parts and distributed among those who might need a new heart or lung or hand. Each part is kept alive, so it’s not really murder, right?
If you think that’s creepy, it’s nothing compared to the details of how they actually do this. There’s a sequence about 3/4ths of the way through the book where characters are taken inside a Harvest Center and…oh my god. I don’t want to spoil anything by going into detail, but think of the worst thing you can think of. It’s worse than that, and Shusterman writes the hell out of the sequence. It’s truly impressive. And, you know, traumatizing. After I finished reading, I had to fight the urge to call my mom. I wanted a hug.
The one real problem I had with this book was the idea that unwinding was some kind of compromise between pro-choice and pro-life arguments. I have an admitted HUGE HONKING BIAS here (part of me thinks, “Yeah, I could see certain pro-lifers going for a system like that…”), but I have to say, I think this misses the point of what being pro-choice is about by, well, several dozen light-years. Luckily, this bit of backstory is not the focus of the book; if you can ignore it or handwave it away, there’s an engrossing, intense (SCARY!) adventure story to be had here.
I don’t think I would ever give this book to a kid, though, unless it was a kid with parents I really, really hate. Have fun dealing with those nightmares, hypothetical frenemies!
276. Comfort & Joy, Jim Grimsley - This is a queer romance, set around Christmas, so I thought it would be the perfect holiday read for me. Um. Not so much. The tone is just so dour-I’m not sure there’s a joke in the entire book. Neither Ford nor Dan particularly grabbed me. And Grimsley has this annoying tendency to write sentences. That stop. And devolve. Into fragments. Argh!
There are some nice atmospheric moments, but I never felt involved with the characters and was thus pretty bored.
277. Going Out, Scarlett Thomas - Another of Thomas’ hard-to-find early novels. This one is about twentysomething Luke, who has a rare disease that makes it impossible for him to go outside, and Julie, who goes out in the world but is afraid of everything she finds there. The two of them, along with an assortment of their friends-a girl who just won the lottery, a guy with testicular cancer, a girl who thinks she’s a witch, a girl whose boyfriend died tragically-all set out to find a cure for Luke.
I knew how this book was going to end pretty much from the very beginning, but it was still a lot of fun getting there. I love Thomas’ writing style, and I love her intelligent, neurotic characters. It’s always a pleasure hanging out with them for a couple hundred pages.
278. The View From the Seventh Layer, Kevin Brockmeier - Short stories. For the most part, amazing short stories. Brockmeier is an astounding writer; his prose is full of complex, gorgeous images, but with enough playfulness, too, to keep it from being unbearably pretentious. These are stories you can get lost in-literally: I don’t know how long I spent exploring the pathways of “The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story,” but it was a long time.
Some of it, however, I have to admit flew whoosh, right past my head. Sometimes this was okay: even though I felt like my mind couldn’t fully encompass the title story, it didn’t matter; it’s full of “choruses”-repeated phrases-that would make Chuck Palahniuk weep, and the effect is like an incredible view out the window of a moving vehicle, glimpsed a second too late-you crane your neck, and though you can’t quite see it, you know it’s there. However, there are also stories like “The Lady with the Pet Tribble.” This story is honest-to-god Star Trek fanfic. (Kirk/OFC!) But besides being honest-to-god Star Trek fanfic in a collection of literary short stories…um. I don’t get it. Maybe you need to be better-versed in Star Trek canon-I am going to make Korax read it and find out-but if the point really is “Ha ha, I wrote honest-to-god Star Trek fanfic and published it, yes I did!” Well. Um. WHY DIDN’T WE THINK OF THIS SOONER?
(It’s really beautifully written fanfic, but still.)
Overall, this collection is fantastic, and, as you can see, incredibly thought-provoking. Give it a try-and do let me know if you figure it out.
279. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno, Yasutaka Tsutsui - Well, this was weird. I really liked some of the stories in this collection-and I deeply loathed others. “The Very Edge of Happiness,” for example, is a brilliant and chilling piece of social commentary; “The World Is Tilting,” however, is one of the most misogynistic pieces of crap I’ve suffered through all year. What am I supposed to do with that?
You know, I really hate that I’m even in the position to have to review half of what I read from the perspective of my angry ovaries; I start to feel like the girl who cried sexism. On the other hand… THERE ARE WOLVES EVERYWHERE. HIDE YOUR SONS! ARM YOUR DAUGHTERS! I’m just going to keep beating on this thing until it goes away.
280. Assisted Loving, Bob Morris - I have two questions for Bob Morris. One: how did you feel when you learned that your book, on which I’m sure you worked pretty hard, was being published with the most soul-scarring, eye-bleaching cover I’ve ever seen outside of the horror section? And two: would you like a little cheese with that whine? Man. If you ignore the SCARY SCARY cover, this book’s sole selling point is that it’s supposed to be a funny account of, and I quote, “double dating with my dad.” Well, it’s not funny, and while widowed father and gay son are both searching for love, they never double date. They just complain. A lot. And at great, great length.
This was like one of those endless, obligatory meals with relatives you don’t much like. You know the kind: the ones where at the end, everyone decides to skip dessert. Gah. Check, please!
Total Reviews: 280/284
271. Across the Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn - Historical fiction set in an alternate Japan. Basically: one where there are ninjas. For reals, yo! Magical ninjas! Watch out; they will kill you in your sleep.
The first couple chapters of this really grabbed me: teenage Takeo returns from wandering the hills to discover that everyone in his village has been massacred. He’s rescued from the murderers by Lord Otori, and the two escape through the forest. Meanwhile, Lady Kaede, who’s spent almost her whole life as a prisoner of war, fights off a potential rapist by stabbing him. Death-defying escapes! Heroines who know how to use a knife! This, I like-it reminded me of an Errol Flynn movie if, you know, Errol Flynn were Japanese. Right: a Toshiro Mifune movie, then. Yes!
But then Takeo and Kaede meet and have boring, star-crossed love at first sight, blah blah blah. Second half of book: decidedly less interesting. It’s the first of a series, and I’m actually not sure at the moment if I care to continue. Has anyone read the rest of the books? Do they get better?
272. The Vintner’s Luck, Elizabeth Knox - In the early part of the 19th century, a young winemaker sees an angel out in the field behind his house. They talk for a while; eventually they agree to meet every year on the same night. I loved this premise; it reminded me of one of my favorite stories ever, Neil Gaiman’s “Men of Good Fortune.” The difference is that “Good Fortune” is about someone who will live forever, while Luck takes place over a single human lifetime. Also, in Luck, our human protagonist, Sobran, and his otherworldly visitor actually become lovers. Score!
Well, sort of. This book is actually not nearly as good as “Men of Good Fortune,” although that’s setting the bar pretty high, in my opinion. The relationship between Sobran, his angel, and Aurora-a young widow Sobran also comes to have an important connection with-is wonderful and rich and nuanced. I liked all three of these characters very much. The book’s theology, however, confused me deeply: I did not understand it at all, which made the motivations of the higher powers at work in this novel-some of whom made personal appearances-completely opaque to me. The love story (stories!) still moved me, but I felt like I was missing the larger meaning of the text.
Also, the ending decidedly underwhelmed. The structure is so linear-year by year by year-that I felt that the climatic moments came at odd places in the story. So this is another one that goes into the category of “didn’t love it, still worth reading.” Just make sure you’ve read “Men of Good Fortune” first!
273 Anyone But You, Jennifer Crusie - The interwebs seem to agree that Jennifer Crusie writes above-average romance novels, so after reading several books that were very srs bsns, I decided to finally give one a try. This started out great: liked the snarky dialogue, liked the unusualness of an older woman/younger man pairing, thought the characters all seemed agreeable enough. The plot was really thin, however, and what little there was totally goes off the rails at the end-I’m not sure I get the logic of writing a romance novel where guy and gal get together, then immediately have a big histrionic fight. That the curtains close on a kiss (god knows) might be a cliché, but sometimes it’s preferable.
I was also kind of annoyed that the B-plot (which almost dominated the teeny tiny A-plot) involved the protagonist’s best friend writing a novel in about five minutes. As someone currently trying to write one herself, I kept wanting to scream, “It’s not that EASY, yo!” Crusie, I’m sure in your heart of hearts, you will back me up on this.
This book was problematic, but it was still fun, and I’ll definitely be adding Crusie’s name to my list of potential comfort reads.
274. Holmes for the Holidays, Ed. by Martin H. Greenberg, et. al. - Allow me to use an analogy here. Imagine that in 20 years or so people start publishing collections of Buffy the Vampire Slayer pastiches. (In this version of the future Joss Whedon is either incredibly generous or has very bad lawyers.) In each story, Buffy does some research with the Scoobies (all of whom are currently getting along great!), patrols a cemetery, and stakes a vampire...and that’s it. No character development, not even any character insight! In every. Single. Story.
That’s this collection, pretty much. If some of the tales had been particularly humorous or blessed with Arthur Conan Doyle’s gift with atmosphere, that might have redeemed things somewhat. Instead, we get not one, but TWO stories that offer a rational, Sherlockian explanation for the events of A Christmas Carol. I know it’s a holiday collection, but did it really have to be produced via cookie cutter?
I also have to say, this is one of the worst-edited books I’ve read in a long-purely from a copyediting standpoint, I mean. Words are used incorrectly, there are bizarre misspellings, and the book is littered with sloppiness: strangers being referred to by name, then introduced three paragraphs later-that kind of stuff. And there are THREE editors credited. Yikes.
Needless to say, this did not fill me with holiday cheer.
275. Unwind, Neal Shusterman - This is a young adult book. It’s sci-fi, not horror. Nevertheless, it is quite possibly the scariest book I have ever read. It takes place in a future where, between the ages of 13 and 18, kids who grossly misbehave or who are orphans not considered to be useful or talented enough or who are specially chosen “tithes” are taken away to be “unwound”-broken down to all their component parts and distributed among those who might need a new heart or lung or hand. Each part is kept alive, so it’s not really murder, right?
If you think that’s creepy, it’s nothing compared to the details of how they actually do this. There’s a sequence about 3/4ths of the way through the book where characters are taken inside a Harvest Center and…oh my god. I don’t want to spoil anything by going into detail, but think of the worst thing you can think of. It’s worse than that, and Shusterman writes the hell out of the sequence. It’s truly impressive. And, you know, traumatizing. After I finished reading, I had to fight the urge to call my mom. I wanted a hug.
The one real problem I had with this book was the idea that unwinding was some kind of compromise between pro-choice and pro-life arguments. I have an admitted HUGE HONKING BIAS here (part of me thinks, “Yeah, I could see certain pro-lifers going for a system like that…”), but I have to say, I think this misses the point of what being pro-choice is about by, well, several dozen light-years. Luckily, this bit of backstory is not the focus of the book; if you can ignore it or handwave it away, there’s an engrossing, intense (SCARY!) adventure story to be had here.
I don’t think I would ever give this book to a kid, though, unless it was a kid with parents I really, really hate. Have fun dealing with those nightmares, hypothetical frenemies!
276. Comfort & Joy, Jim Grimsley - This is a queer romance, set around Christmas, so I thought it would be the perfect holiday read for me. Um. Not so much. The tone is just so dour-I’m not sure there’s a joke in the entire book. Neither Ford nor Dan particularly grabbed me. And Grimsley has this annoying tendency to write sentences. That stop. And devolve. Into fragments. Argh!
There are some nice atmospheric moments, but I never felt involved with the characters and was thus pretty bored.
277. Going Out, Scarlett Thomas - Another of Thomas’ hard-to-find early novels. This one is about twentysomething Luke, who has a rare disease that makes it impossible for him to go outside, and Julie, who goes out in the world but is afraid of everything she finds there. The two of them, along with an assortment of their friends-a girl who just won the lottery, a guy with testicular cancer, a girl who thinks she’s a witch, a girl whose boyfriend died tragically-all set out to find a cure for Luke.
I knew how this book was going to end pretty much from the very beginning, but it was still a lot of fun getting there. I love Thomas’ writing style, and I love her intelligent, neurotic characters. It’s always a pleasure hanging out with them for a couple hundred pages.
278. The View From the Seventh Layer, Kevin Brockmeier - Short stories. For the most part, amazing short stories. Brockmeier is an astounding writer; his prose is full of complex, gorgeous images, but with enough playfulness, too, to keep it from being unbearably pretentious. These are stories you can get lost in-literally: I don’t know how long I spent exploring the pathways of “The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story,” but it was a long time.
Some of it, however, I have to admit flew whoosh, right past my head. Sometimes this was okay: even though I felt like my mind couldn’t fully encompass the title story, it didn’t matter; it’s full of “choruses”-repeated phrases-that would make Chuck Palahniuk weep, and the effect is like an incredible view out the window of a moving vehicle, glimpsed a second too late-you crane your neck, and though you can’t quite see it, you know it’s there. However, there are also stories like “The Lady with the Pet Tribble.” This story is honest-to-god Star Trek fanfic. (Kirk/OFC!) But besides being honest-to-god Star Trek fanfic in a collection of literary short stories…um. I don’t get it. Maybe you need to be better-versed in Star Trek canon-I am going to make Korax read it and find out-but if the point really is “Ha ha, I wrote honest-to-god Star Trek fanfic and published it, yes I did!” Well. Um. WHY DIDN’T WE THINK OF THIS SOONER?
(It’s really beautifully written fanfic, but still.)
Overall, this collection is fantastic, and, as you can see, incredibly thought-provoking. Give it a try-and do let me know if you figure it out.
279. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno, Yasutaka Tsutsui - Well, this was weird. I really liked some of the stories in this collection-and I deeply loathed others. “The Very Edge of Happiness,” for example, is a brilliant and chilling piece of social commentary; “The World Is Tilting,” however, is one of the most misogynistic pieces of crap I’ve suffered through all year. What am I supposed to do with that?
You know, I really hate that I’m even in the position to have to review half of what I read from the perspective of my angry ovaries; I start to feel like the girl who cried sexism. On the other hand… THERE ARE WOLVES EVERYWHERE. HIDE YOUR SONS! ARM YOUR DAUGHTERS! I’m just going to keep beating on this thing until it goes away.
280. Assisted Loving, Bob Morris - I have two questions for Bob Morris. One: how did you feel when you learned that your book, on which I’m sure you worked pretty hard, was being published with the most soul-scarring, eye-bleaching cover I’ve ever seen outside of the horror section? And two: would you like a little cheese with that whine? Man. If you ignore the SCARY SCARY cover, this book’s sole selling point is that it’s supposed to be a funny account of, and I quote, “double dating with my dad.” Well, it’s not funny, and while widowed father and gay son are both searching for love, they never double date. They just complain. A lot. And at great, great length.
This was like one of those endless, obligatory meals with relatives you don’t much like. You know the kind: the ones where at the end, everyone decides to skip dessert. Gah. Check, please!
Total Reviews: 280/284