Books you've read in 2010 - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garrett Lundy 

Just finished S.M.Stirling's original emberverse trilogy (aka. The Change novels). A trio of survivalist-fantasy novels. Very long-winded accounts of how low-tech functions, characters carved entirely out of cliche, and the central deus-ex-machina plot is never resolved.

I had a similar experience reading Stirling's Conquistador a couple of years ago. I couldn't finish it because it was so long and yet so little was happening with the plot and the characters. I like his ideas but the actual writing was disappointing.

I just read The High Crusade by Poul Anderson, which I really liked. Alien invaders pick a fight with medieval English crusaders and get their asses wrecked. Funny but also quite smart. Anderson is such an underappreciated writer.

Also just finished Goldfinger by Ian Fleming. While I generally think the novels are better than the films, in this case I think the film improved on a novel that was alright but not among the best of the books. The plots are essentially identical but the filmmakers make a few changes that allow Bond to be a more proactive character and gets the reader into the action a bit more. That said, while the movie's use of a laser beam is very memorable, I think the book's equivalent for bisecting Bond, a circular saw, is a lot scarier :)

I just finished "His Dark Materials" trilogy.  Despite the over abundance of huge praise for it, I really struggled to finish it.  (I'm an atheist, so the argument of me being opposed to the books ideology are crazy) but the books just struck me as ugh, can't even think of the right word.  I liked none of the characters.  I suppose Lord Azrael was the "good" guy in a sense, but I kept thinking of him abandoning his kid and blowing up the edge of the world without assurances of what he was doing.

All of the characters came across to me as basically unlikable, and wow, for children's literature was there a lot of really morbid action.  I kept reading this was aimed at pre-teen.. I'm wondering what kid that is that wouldn't read it and end up with incredible nightmares.  I mean, the tales of little kids getting their genetalia cut off, or having their bodies cut apart, or a kid who gets his fingers lopped off and is forced because of who he is to battle to the death repeatedly.

I mean, Ender's Game had death in it, but it was NOTHING in comparison to the gory details provided in the Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass.  I mean, not even close.

I'm sure I'll have lots of people leap to the defense of the books.  I'm sure for some they are great reads, and I don't regret going through the series to say that I did, but just not my style I think.

It is very well written, with lots of awards, I just.. well, I just found it really difficult to get through due to some of the content.  Like I said, 'm in no way judging it on the religious opposition to them, I just found the style and content to be a real slog.  But, that's me. 

I liked the first two books, but the third one came across as very bitter and obvious. In the first two books, the anti-Catholic commentary was in the background, coloring our perceptions of Lyra's world and how it relates to ours. The third book is basically open war on religion in general and Christianity in particular.

because in destroying the Christian paradigm he failed to replace it with one of his own --- which I suppose was the point, but it's rather a bitter pill to swallow, especially for the young audiences the book is targeted at.

Adam:  I'd agree.  The Golden Compass was a very good book, actually.. but it seemed as though the series got way more dark as it went on, and really stopped being children's lit about the time they got to the world of Spectres in "Subtle Knife" by that point on, it became a rather adult, complex story that just wasn't as fulfilling.

Dave: yeah, that was kind of my feeling. 

I think the books will have those who desperately support them and those who crazily oppose them based on religious content.  It is kind of sad, then, that I don't think the merits of the story get enough debate.  "The Golden Compass" is in fact, a really compelling read.  The other two, not so much.  (IMHO)

One other thing:

I've been reading H.G. Wells.

Already completed The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Invisible Man. I think all 3 of these hold up well.

Currently reading The First Men in the Moon. While the premise of getting to the moon holds up well in science fiction terms, what the moon is like does not hold up well in light of our manned spaceflight achievements. As a result, I'm having trouble getting through it.

There are still 3 other works in this collection.

Two books about movies:  Citizen Kane - The 50th Annivesary Album and The Godfather Legacy, both by Harlan Lebo.  Checked both out of the local library last week after watching my copy of Kane followed by The Godfather Trilogy on Blu Ray.  Both were interesting reads, but also had distinct flaws.  The Kane book is the better of the two.  There are a few new nuggets among the well-known stories about the film, and Lebo makes a better case for the film not being largely about William Randolph Hearst than I've seen in other books.  (Most of the ones I've read just take if for granted that Kane was Hearst and think Welles simply lied about the connection to avoid a libel suit.)  In fact, he argues that Hearst himself may not have been personally involved in the effort to destroy Kane, but that his loyal minions may have acted on their own, like Henry II's knights in killing Beckett. 

The main value is the "album" portion, which features tons of reproduction material including clippings of original reviews, programs from the premiere and behind-the-scenes photos.  (One of the reviews actually revealed the mystery of "Rosebud" in its closing paragraph.  I guess they didn't use spoiler alerts back then.)  The book also has strange elipses in the story-telling, devoting almost no space to Mankiewicz and his contribution and completely omitting the alleged origin of the name "Rosebud", which apochryphal or not is widely believed to have been the real cause of Hearst's ire.  If you're going to deny that Hearst had a personal vendetta against Welles and Kane you pretty much have to deal with this story and Lebo doesn't.

The Godfather book devotes most of its space to the first film, a bit to the second and as little as possible to the third (despite the author's having a generally more favorable view of the film than most movie-goers.)  Again, it is mostly the familiar anecdotes, with curious omissions and - in some cases - contradictions to on-the-record accounts of events from Coppola and others that I've encountered elsewhere.  (The famous story about the "Leave the cannoli" line is totally botched.)  I got a lot more out of the commentary and bonus material on the Coppola Restoration Blu Ray than from the book.

Regards,

Joe

Finished Sahara by Clive Cussler awhile ago. Not too bad, but sometimes it felt like too many incidences of "serendipity" were used to drive the story.

Also finished The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman a few days ago. This is supposedly a "children's story", but it certainly doesn't read like one. I actually think that this story had better writing than Cussler's "Sahara". The structure doesn't show as much and it seemed less predictable.

Almost finished The Subtle Knife by Pullman. It amazes me that the filmmakers thought an adaptation of this series could have had the anti-religion aspects pulled out. This series, basically, is one big polemic against religion. It especially feels like it takes particular aim at Catholicism. I can see why a lot of religious types would see this series as blasphemous. It essentially puts forward the notion that Satan's side was actually the right side in the "war in heaven" as described in the bible. Of course, Pullman is savvy enough never to refer to or mention Satan. He merely refers to the first war in heaven while one of his characters plans to finish the job against "The Creator" by launching war in heaven number 2. Outside of its obvious anti-religious underpinnings, it is a well-written page turner.

I just read Zero Cool by John Lange. Lange is actually Michael Crichton under an early pseudonym. This was okay. Crichton seems like he's going for a Hitchcockian North by Northwest flavor with a regular guy protagonist vacationing in Spain and caught up in an inscrutable war between rival factions, trying to float his way through it with a lot of witty banter. It's not quite as amusing as it's trying to be but at least it reads really fast and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Then I read Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Trying to refresh myself before the Disney movie comes out in a couple of years :) Not quite as good as the initial John Carter trilogy but it's entertaining enough. The usual Burroughs style.

Few comments on the above:

Dave:  Yeah, Children of the Mind is a tricky one.  First time I read it, I really really hated it.  I've read it several times since then, and it has really grown on me.  I will say, I mostly tell people considering it and Xenocide to grab the unabridged audiobook instead, because the dialog really comes alive and it makes it into a completely different experience.  One of the best audiobook renditions ever, IMHO.  (And yes, Quarra is absolutely revolting in it, especially after the accusation speech, and the way the actress plays those sequences is great great stuff)

In regards to "King of Torts"  I love that Grisham book, it's a great one for me.  I dislike how it ended, but it gives a look at a side of the law I have always wondered about.. roping in huge amounts of defendants, settling, and then keeping 40% while everyone else divides up the rest.  As they start to run the numbers, it's just mind boggling in that book.

Edwin:  I found "Golden Compass" to be very good, "Subtle Knife" to be less so, but still very good.. and I admit, despite all the absolute praise, I found "Amber Spyglass" to be annoying, contradictory, and just bad.  But that's me.  Nothing to do with the religious elements, just too many "gotcha!" moments that undercut the story.

I just finished the Percy Jackson 5 book series.  As childrens lit, it's "OK" but too many pop culture references (brandnames, etc.) will date it, and it completely changes gear in the last book.  I'd call it a very poor-man's Harry Potter series.

Since last post, I took time to read Adele Park's "Young Wives Tales".. it's a decent chick lit book, but it has something happen in the last third that was just floor-me shocking.  And the way it was treated by a female author just really bothered me.  (A woman gets plastered, drunk out of her mind, and is left to get home by her own vices, someone takes advantage of her after she is collapsed in a room, and she spends time hiding it from her husband).  I emailed the author and pointed out that maybe in the UK it doesn't work this way, but here in the US, that's rape.  And the fact that everyone was ready to throw her down the bus was crazy offensive to me.  The author actually answered her own email and commented on how much more liberal and forward laws are in the US, and that she wished more people thought that way.. but then again the woman went to the party tipsy and she made the choice to keep drinking.  Somehow, I couldn't get passed the point that taking advantage of someone who's blackout drunk is just.. wrong, and while she may be at fault for drinking herself there, it certainly didn't change the read of the book for me.

I'm glad you like Anansi Boys.. I just grabbed that from Audible for travel .. I'm looking forward to it

I'm about halfway through Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn.  Definitely the best stuff about the  pair that I've come across, and I've read several books that were entirely about them or covered them as part of the broader story of the "motorized bandits" of the early 30s.  (Including Public Enemies, a very good book made into a not-very-good-or-accurate movie.)  I got on topic after watching my recently acquired Blu Ray of the movie.  (Amazon had the digibook for $15.99 - less than the regular packaging, so I grabbed it.)  I thought I knew a fair amount about the famous outlaws and their friends, but Guinn had access to unpublished memoirs written by family members of both outlaws as well as others involved with the pair that were not available to earlier biographers.  He also conducted his own interviews with witnesses to or participants in their crimes who still survive, and descendants of those who don't. 

Guinn doesn't make excuses for the pair, but he does put them squarely in context of their time and place, and helps explain some of the factors that made them who they were.  There's the substance of a very interesting movie here, completely unlike the Hollywood fantasy of Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn.  (Which was a very good fantasy on its own terms, but less historical than Hamlet or The Scottish Play.)   BTW, when I saw Guinn talking about his book on C-SPAN2, he mentioned that someone was doing a remake of Bonnie and Clyde, and that someone from the production had contacted him for background information.  The same person also told him that the new film would have "a surprise ending".  Nice to know some things never change. 

Regards,

Joe

Halfway though Justin Cronin's "The Passage".

I won't try to describe it, several folks have done a swell job of that at Amazon.

My prediction is that in a couple of years there will be some very excited posts at HTF about the movie version of this book.

Of course, well before then this thread will have been archived.

Just finished the first two books in the Sookie Stackhouse mystery series.. (True Blood is based on them) wrapped up "Dead in Dallas".  I tend to like the books more; though it amazes me how well the show does with the concept laid out.   Two huge differences:  Lafyette and Tara.. and in those points, I wish the show was much more true to the book.

I don't see how Orwell's 1984 begets Haldeman's The Forever War. Please explain your reasoning for the connection. To me, the Vietnam war was a more direct influence on the themes of pointless war and alienation present in TFW.

I finished reading the Takeshi Kovacs "trilogy" (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies) by Richard Morgan. Kind of like film-noir SF. Not bad! The science wasn't the best but the writing is pretty gnarly and entertaining!

Now I'm reading "The Incorporated Man" - another SF novel, where in the future everyone has to incorporate themselves. It's nothing special so far.

Max-

Good read on those.  I really liked "Altered Carbon" but really didn't so much get into Broken Angels or Woken Furies, which I didn't think had the snappy middle that "Altered Carbon" did.

If you like that, and want to go a totally different direction try "The Traveler" "Dark River" etc.. almost the polar opposite from a SciFi perspective from "Altered Carbon"

I have been reading different things over the last several years but my oldest son just reached an age where we can read the same books and discuss them. I have read all the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books and several SF books that he got from school. However over the last year the two books that have stood out the most are "Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire". I absolutely loved these books and we both really enjoyed reading and talking about them each day. The last book in the trilogy does not come out until the end of this month so is there anything anyone can recommend that we both might enjoy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveF 

Hunger Games still on my bookshelf, waiting to be read (Adam's recommendation, I think it was).

Yes it was. Haven't kept up with this thread, but I've been doing a good deal of reading this year. Right now I'm breezing through Clancy's Ryanverse books (in chronological rather than publication order) to kill time until my favorite authors start coming out with stuff. I'm super-psyched for the third Hunger Games novel at the end of the month.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt 

I'm super-psyched for the third Hunger Games novel at the end of the month.

Adam,

Since you like the Hunger Games is there anything else that you can recommend for my son and I?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt^Brown 

Since you like the Hunger Games is there anything else that you can recommend for my son and I?

Try The Maze Runner by James Dasher. Similar dystopian themes by way of "The Twilight Zone", at roughly the same reading level. Dashner isn't as good of a writer as Suzanne Collins, and his characters are less carefully defined, but the storytelling is great and I had real trouble putting it down.

Always glad to see parents, especially dads, taking an interest in reading with their kids. I wouldn't be a voracious reader today if my dad hadn't read with me when I was in grade school.