Read Recently
Or not so recently; now we're talking about the last books of August (The Last Books of August! Sounds like a bad movie).
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
I like to try to catch up with the classics of SF/F if I can, to find out what I've been missing. The answer, in this case, is a really ugly book.
Basically, it riffs off a popular idea from the 50s (it's copyright 1959): nuclear war and the attendant breakdown/reconstruction of society. Pretty much everyone did that one; some did more than one. Miller gives us the order of St. Liebowitz, a monastic order based around the now deceased former engineer Isaac Liebowitz, an order devoted to preserving what little information about technology survived both the bombs and the deliberate burning of both science and scientists that followed in the direct aftermath. All pretty typical stuff, down to the cyclical history that leads to the book ending in a nuclear war, though not before civilization has been restored to a level capable of s(limited) interstellar flight. So if it's typical 50s post-nuke crap, what's so ugly?
So, civilization has been restored, and nuclear war once again beckons (it's North America vs. Asia again! Funny how that never changes, eh?). As the tensions increase, a bomb is dropped on the nearby city. Refugees crowd the courtyard of St. Liebowitz's monestary. The Abbot refuses to let the doctors work there unless they refuse to grant euthenasia to those who are irreparably dying--fine, that's his right, it's his monestary. But there's this girl. She has a baby. She and the baby are dying of radiation poisoning. Slowly. Painfully. The Abbot tells her not only that she must die in pain, but that her child must too. He commands her to let her child die a slow, horrible death. In the name of god. Because god likes that. And to keep her from ending the pain (and her life, I realise) he tries to kidnap her. And assaults a doctor. And the story gives me the definite impression we're supposed to admire him.
xeger, you were right on that one. I should have listened.
I looked for something to take the taste out of my mouth. I found Liquor, by Poppy Z. Brite. Ms Brite, on LJ as docbrite, is most famous for her stories of bisexual vampires and such (okay, I only read one and I didn't like it much). Liquor is an entirely different creature, and a light, fun read.
Essentially, New Orleans cook-wannabes John Rickey (Rickey) and Gary Stubbs (G-Man) are lifelong friends (and something more, though not quite for so long--the issue of homosexuality is delicately led up to, allowing you to work it out for yourself before confirming it for you) and have recently been unfairly fired from their last job. So, sitting in the park and drinking, Rickey has a thought--they should open their own restaurant. New Orleanians love to drink, and they love to eat; what about a restaurant with liquor in every dish? While Rickey's excited, G-Man knows that they're barely keeping up on their rent; how will they start a new restaurant? So they go and get new jobs, and then Rickey thinks of a way for them to test out the idea, and that leads to a silent partner who recognises a good idea when he sees one . . . can the boys succeed? And why is the manager at Rickey's last job suddenly obsessed with blaming Rickey for everything that goes bad in his life?
So: mostly light-hearted, though there are some macabre moments, including the two politest, best-behaved thugs who ever terrified an old man to death. But even that's funny. This was in many ways the best antidote to Liebowitz I could have asked for.
So it looks like my total for August was 9 fiction books, no Non-fiction. Giving me, if my math is right, 70 for the year, 16 of those non-fiction.
Hopefully tomorrow I can get around to this month.
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
I like to try to catch up with the classics of SF/F if I can, to find out what I've been missing. The answer, in this case, is a really ugly book.
Basically, it riffs off a popular idea from the 50s (it's copyright 1959): nuclear war and the attendant breakdown/reconstruction of society. Pretty much everyone did that one; some did more than one. Miller gives us the order of St. Liebowitz, a monastic order based around the now deceased former engineer Isaac Liebowitz, an order devoted to preserving what little information about technology survived both the bombs and the deliberate burning of both science and scientists that followed in the direct aftermath. All pretty typical stuff, down to the cyclical history that leads to the book ending in a nuclear war, though not before civilization has been restored to a level capable of s(limited) interstellar flight. So if it's typical 50s post-nuke crap, what's so ugly?
So, civilization has been restored, and nuclear war once again beckons (it's North America vs. Asia again! Funny how that never changes, eh?). As the tensions increase, a bomb is dropped on the nearby city. Refugees crowd the courtyard of St. Liebowitz's monestary. The Abbot refuses to let the doctors work there unless they refuse to grant euthenasia to those who are irreparably dying--fine, that's his right, it's his monestary. But there's this girl. She has a baby. She and the baby are dying of radiation poisoning. Slowly. Painfully. The Abbot tells her not only that she must die in pain, but that her child must too. He commands her to let her child die a slow, horrible death. In the name of god. Because god likes that. And to keep her from ending the pain (and her life, I realise) he tries to kidnap her. And assaults a doctor. And the story gives me the definite impression we're supposed to admire him.
xeger, you were right on that one. I should have listened.
I looked for something to take the taste out of my mouth. I found Liquor, by Poppy Z. Brite. Ms Brite, on LJ as docbrite, is most famous for her stories of bisexual vampires and such (okay, I only read one and I didn't like it much). Liquor is an entirely different creature, and a light, fun read.
Essentially, New Orleans cook-wannabes John Rickey (Rickey) and Gary Stubbs (G-Man) are lifelong friends (and something more, though not quite for so long--the issue of homosexuality is delicately led up to, allowing you to work it out for yourself before confirming it for you) and have recently been unfairly fired from their last job. So, sitting in the park and drinking, Rickey has a thought--they should open their own restaurant. New Orleanians love to drink, and they love to eat; what about a restaurant with liquor in every dish? While Rickey's excited, G-Man knows that they're barely keeping up on their rent; how will they start a new restaurant? So they go and get new jobs, and then Rickey thinks of a way for them to test out the idea, and that leads to a silent partner who recognises a good idea when he sees one . . . can the boys succeed? And why is the manager at Rickey's last job suddenly obsessed with blaming Rickey for everything that goes bad in his life?
So: mostly light-hearted, though there are some macabre moments, including the two politest, best-behaved thugs who ever terrified an old man to death. But even that's funny. This was in many ways the best antidote to Liebowitz I could have asked for.
So it looks like my total for August was 9 fiction books, no Non-fiction. Giving me, if my math is right, 70 for the year, 16 of those non-fiction.
Hopefully tomorrow I can get around to this month.