Chronicles
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "araken" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
|
07:21 pm
[Link] | You know, there's a perverse logic to the way the Senate does Supreme Court confirmations. Anyone who can sit still for three hours listening to 17 senators bloviate about them without being able to speak or to even shift their expression from pleasant blandness MUST have a judicial temperament, by definition!
|
|
09:31 pm
[Link] |
Book List
23. Persuasion by Jane Austen
I am quite possibly the only person ever to read Xenophon's war memoirs and Jane Austen's final novel one after the other. Or if I'm not, that must be one weird college class... The whiplash between the two tones is considerable. :-)
I started Persuasion a year or two ago when ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) birdhousefrog told me to read a romance novel to learn to write subtext in my novel's dialogue better. (See! I was paying attention!) Rather than raid my mother's old collection of Books With Shirtless Highlanders on the cover (or her more recent collection of Books With Vampires), I took a different approach. I remembered that Austen wrote books that were pretty much pure subtext. It wasn't really what I was in the mood for at the time, so I put it aside after a few hours of the 8 hour audiobook. Last week I went back to it, found it better than I remembered, and finished it.
I'd read three Austen novels before, in high school and college. They fall in two categories for me: like-but-don't-love (Pride and Prejudice and the quite funny Northanger Abbey) and loathe-beyond-measure (Mansfield Park. By the end of which, I wanted Fanny to die. Maybe in a freak gardening accident, to justify all the ponderous description of the parks. But I digress...)
Luckily, Persuasion was the former. It's also a great example of subtext, as I'd expected, but even more so. Not only do characters not directly say what they're thinking, they often don't even think what they're thinking.
The novel's heroine is Anne Elliot, the 27 year old middle child of a vain baronet, largely forgotten between her shallow elder sister and hypochondriac younger sister. She'd had a chance of love almost a decade before, with an officer of decent prospects but little capital--but been persuaded by her closest confidante and surrogate mother to turn his proposal down. (For some reason, she seems to hold no grudge against this woman who has ruined her life. Didn't get that.) As the novel opens she seems destined for spinsterhood, when her ex-fiance enters her life again.
I have no burning desire to rush out and read Emma or Sense and Sensibility, the last two Austen novels I'm missing, but it was a good novel. Having now been to Bath added to it as well.
Tags: book booklist austen
|
|
09:15 pm
[Link] |
Book List
22. Anabasis by Xenophon (aka "The March of the Ten Thousand" or "March Upcountry")
I stumbled upon this while looking through my iPod for what audiobook to read next; I'd bought it a year or two ago on a whim, listened to the first twenty minutes, and then promptly forgotten about it. The Anabasis is one of the first war memoirs ever written; it was influential even in the Ancient world; Alexander the Great read it and decided that if 10,000 Greeks could take on the Persians, then by the gods he could too.
The book tells the story of how a band of 10,000 Greek mercenaries were hired as muscle by Cyrus, a rival claimant to the Persian Empire. With some allied "barbarians" from the Persian provinces, they marched through the Empire, making it almost as far as Babylon before fighting a great battle against Artaxerxes, the actual Emperor. Though massively outnumbered, Xenophon claims that the battle was a tactical victory for the Greeks--but in reality was a huge strategic defeat, as Cyrus was dumb enough to get himself killed being suicidally brave and confronting his rival on the battlefield.
The Greeks find themselves deep in enemy territory, and a subsequent Persian betrayal leaves their officers dead. They must then march thousands of miles, without supply lines, through what's now Iraq, Turkey, Armenia and Macedonia in a long-shot attempt to reach home again.
The book is at times gripping, and at times very dry. Xenophon's interests reflect his profession and his culture--he's more interested in geography and what villages are good to loot than he is in human drama, though he does give fascinating details about the cultures they pass through and often fight. After the first few minutes, there are literally no named female characters in the entire book, just some offhand mentions of concubines.
The semi-democratic way that the army conducts itself (enlisted men electing officers; officers voting on strategy) apparently inspired some of the American Founders, and Xenophon's silver tongue always seems to counsel the right course--though in the latter third of the book, he spends an inordinate amount of time protesting too much that he would never consider any of the wild plans he'd been accused of. (such as tricking the army into starting a colony on the Black Sea, and colluding with an exiled Armenian prince to rip the army off.)
Much of the interesting bits come from the subtext--Xenophon often tries to avoid the unsavory subjects, but there's enough to know that in many spots the army is raping and pillaging and generally acting less heroic than advertised--though not always. The accounts of military tactics were interesting too, and I learned some things which will be valuable in my writing.
I wouldn't really recommend it as pleasure reading, but it was still worthwhile.
Tags: book booklist xenophon
|
|
05:42 pm
[Link] | Dear TV News Media,
I get it. He was "King of Pop", released the bestselling album ever, and was the tabloid gift that just kept on giving. But with recession, continued unrest in Iran, North Korea saber rattling, a coup in Honduras, and Congress working on completely overhauling the health and energy industries, don't you think that just maybe there might be some other important things to tell us about?
Sincerely,
araken
|
|
07:36 am
[Link] |
Word Count
Another 1500-word day yesterday. Pretty much as soon as I got home, inspiration struck, and I realized scene-by-scene what the next three chapters or so will be. Then after dinner the muse grabbed the keyboard and dictated a scene I'd put off writing this past weekend.
(For those who have never written--there are rare times when the scene comes and you type it, but your being there seems almost peripheral, as if the words come through you rather than from you. I imagine it must happen in different forms of art too. It's an illusion for some fun subconscious threads finally joining the main process of course--but exhilirating anyway.)
It didn't go the way I was expecting--it went much better. By which I mean bigger, flashier, and with a higher body count--including a character I'd intended to survive the book! (Which kind of nicely solves the problem I'd been having figuring out what to do with him-or-her in the next book, doesn't it?)
Word Count: 99,526
Tags: word count
|
|
05:48 pm
[Link] |
Book List
21. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
After the excellent Mistborn trilogy, Sanderson joined the short list of authors who I buy in hardback with Warbreaker, a standalone fantasy set in a world where magic comes from breath and color, and where the gods walk among men.
The bulk of the story follows Siri and Vivenna, two princesses of the ascetic kingdom of Idris. Their father promised Vivenna to marry their greatest enemy, the God-King of the empire of Hallandren. (In this world, the dead occasionally Return to life as gods, and are effectively immortal so long as they're fed off the magical energy known as Breath each week.) However, the Idrian king can't bear to part with his favorite daughter Vivenna to what he belives is a fate worse than death--so he sends his least favorite daughter Siri instead.
While Vivenna is prim and proper, Siri's willful and unsuited to her life among her family, where any kind of color or ostentation is considered sinful. Believing that Siri needs rescuing, Vivenna acts on her own initiative for the first time in her life, running away to the Hallandren capital city to "rescue" her, only to become embroiled in the conspiracies fighting over whether the empire will invade her homeland. Meanwhile, Siri also finds herself surrounded with intrigue, and a God-King who isn't what he seems. (It being a Sanderson novel, nor are many other characters. One reversal in particular took me completely by surprise and creeped me the hell out. In a good way.)
The scene's consistently stolen by the two supporting POVs: the irreverent Returned named Lightsong, a god who doesn't believe in his own divinity, and the myterious swordsman known as Vasher, who bears the Stormbringer-like sword Nightblood. (His solution to the problem of how to fight using a soul-sucking sentient sword is just brilliant, and I'll bet Michael Moorcock wishes he thought of it first.)
I enjoyed the book very much, but it's not without problems, mostly around pacing. The middle stretches on a bit too long, and the end is too short. Long-delayed exposition of the magic system, Shocking Revelations, and the actual climax are all crammed into about 70 pages. By the time you understand the plot, it's practically over. The magic system is fascinating and original (one of Sanderson's specialties), but not developed as much as in the Mistborn books (mainly because it's a standalone rather than a trilogy).
Still, when the worst criticism I can level at a Sanderson novel is "I don't like it quite as much as I loved Elantris and Mistborn", that's pretty damn good.
Tags: books booklist sanderson
|
|
11:48 pm
[Link] |
Word Count
Wrote about 1500 words tonight, including perhaps the most flagrant "EWW, my Mom's going to read this someday!" scene I've ever done. Not that I have too many of those, but still...
Current word count: 97,864
|
|
11:12 pm
[Link] |
Book List
20. Lamentation by Ken Scholes
This book has been receiving buzz as the fantasy debut of the year, so after douglascohen and pyrona blogged about it I thought I'd take a listen for myself.
The book begins as the city of Windwir, home to a powerful monastic order dedicated to preserving the knowledge of the Old World, Canticle for Leibowitz style, is destroyed in fiery cataclysm. The book follows four primary characters: Rudolfo, the charming yet deadly Gypsy King, Jin, the beautiful yet deadly spy for her father's banking dynasty, Patronus, a former pope of Windwir's monks who faked his own death years ago, and Neve, a youth with a destiny. Each of them must determine who is behind the destruction of Windwir, and how best to preserve the Light--the knowledge Windwir protected.
The characters are more interesting and well-rounded than the description implies. Scholes does have a habit of falling back on cliched descriptions from time to time--I like smart, sexy spies as much as the next fanboy--heck, my own novel has one--but we're told a few too many times that Jin has "flashing green eyes" and "the sunset in her hair".
The worldbuilding is very strong with a magical steampunk system where steam-powered robots are programed with scrolls and can be sentient. There's a rich history which I hope to know more about--I particularly liked the blue and green moon, which has been terraformed in prehistory--and foreshadowings that Scholes is taking this series in some very interesting directions in the future, though this book stands alone. Some of the supporting characters, in particular the mechanical Isaak and the Marsh King, are fascinating.
The book has two related problems. First, the villains just aren't all that competent, while all the heroes are--and one morally ambiguous character who throws in their lot with the heroes is hyper-competent, a master manipulator whose manipulations always work, and without unintended consequences. The book has a strong causal chain--each event follows from what has gone before--but after the first half of the book, the outcome never seems in doubt. I can't point to a climax.
Part of this is because of the theme, which subtly compares the programming of the mechanicals with the conditioning of humans. Since the theme denies most free will, the plot feels like it's on a predetermined course.
The audiobook is read by a tag team of Scott Brick, William Dufris, Stefan Rudnicki and Maggi Meg-Reed, with each taking one of the four major POV characters and Brick doing extra duty for the minor POVs. Each individual reader is fine (particularly the always-fantastic Brick and Rudnicki)--the only problem is that each reader was obviously not privy to each other's readings. This means that when a major character talks to another POV character, each reader makes up their own vocalization for the other characters. This means that, say, Rudnicki's deep, confident voice for the elderly former pope Patronus clashes with Brick's tired, soft voice for the same character. It was something I noticed, but not enough to take me out of the story.
This was a great read, very polished, and it's hard to believe this is a first novel. It's not without flaw, but I'll be looking for the next book in the series.
Tags: books booklist scholes
|
10:35 pm
[Link] |
Book List
19. The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman
Continuing the series of "Hey, this has been on my shelf for years, maybe I ought to actually read it...", is this wide-ranging history, which my great uncle suggested to me during 2006, the year that Iraq went really wrong.
In many ways this work is the opposite of The First Salute, which was actually written later. Whereas Salute suffered from too little focus, March of Folly is in essence a 300 page essay, with a tightly focused theme: how folly (defined as pursuing policies against your own obvious best interest) seems an eternal part of the human condition. All of the history in the book is an example to illustrate the theme.
She starts with the legendary account of Trojan Horse and the Biblical story of Rehoboam (whose posturing caused the original kingdom of Israel to split into the northern Israel and the southern Judah) as the prototypes. From there she examines at greater length the Renaissance popes, the British during the Revolutionary War, and America's debacle in Vietnam.
While the Renaissance pope chapter was good for shock value (I knew they were bad, but not THAT bad), the real meat of the book is the comparison between the American Revolution and Vietnam, because, as Tuchman points out a bit too often, we often made the exact same mistakes that our Founders exploited in the first place. (Namely, in thinking that harsh tactics cause capitulation rather than resistance, and that you can negotiate in strength while withdrawing your forces.)
Despite her protests, however, Tuchman does engage in Monday morning quarterbacking. While she maintains that wise contemporaries did oppose all the follies she highlights, she still undersells the strength of the wrong policies. To some extent, the Renaissance popes had to act as earthly kings because of past experiences as French puppets at Avignon. The British knew that no nation had ever maintained its stature as a world power after losing its colonies. And the Americans in the Cold War really did face communist enemies who sought to spread their ideology by force, if necessary.
(She also almost ignores the example of Korea, which, given the current states of North and South Korea, seems to stand up to history as a justified war, despite its high cost in lives. There are reasons you can distinguish Korea from Vietnam--but she doesn't take the time. To make her point, she needed to prove that it should have been obvious that Vietnam was different than Korea.)
An interesting read, though a bit too dry, especially in the Vietnam chapter. (Who knew that a war could be both depressing and boring.?) It made me think, and so served its purpose
Tags: book booklist tuchman
|
|
07:49 pm
[Link] | I don't know how many of the brave souls marching tomorrow in Iran would care or want the prayers of an American Jew. But they have them, nonetheless.
|
|
05:03 pm
[Link] |
Book List
18. The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman
It's hard to sum up this book, because, even after finishing it, I'm still not quite sure what it was about!
The titular "First Salute" occurred when a newly minted ship of the first American Navy sailed into the harbor of the Dutch island St. Eustatius in the West Indies. The garrison, at the orders of the governor, ordered the guns to fire in salute, hailing America as a nation rather than a colony. The Revolutionary War had recently begun, and it marked the first time that any official authority had recognized American independence.
And then...Tuchman seems unsure of where to take the story. We get huge digressions on the history of the island, on the history of the Dutch going back centuries, even a little cameo by the Spanish Armada and Queen Elizabeth I. Some themes emerge: Tuchman's interested in the naval history of the 18th century--very useful for my writing--and in how the European powers used the American war of indepdence as part of their own maneuverings. But if there's an argument she was trying to make, a story she was trying to tell, I couldn't see it.
The last third of the book reverts to the standard account of the American Revolution, following from the southern campaingns where Nathaniel Greene so hounded Cornwallis, to the final siege at Yorktown. This last she does splendidly; it's easily the best account I've ever read of the battle. Tuchman is at her best when she describes how smart people do stupid things, and the world changes because of it, and her account of the British side of Cornwallis's last campaign was eye-opening.
The book was read well by Nadia May; who also did the narration on The Guns of August. I don't regret reading it; I just wish that it had been better organized.
Tags: books booklist tuchman
|
04:18 pm
[Link] |
Book List
17. Wrath of a Mad God by Raymond Feist
This book reminded me of why I started reading Feist in the first place, and why I've kept it up over the years. Because every so often, he pulls off a novel like this.
The novel opens with the magicians Pug, his son Magnus, and Nakor on the homeworld of the Dasati, the psychotically-warlike race about to penetrate into the magicians' home dimension. Meanwhile, Miranda, Pug's wife and a strong wizard in her right, must rally the Tsurani Empire on the world of Kelewan to resist the coming invasion.
The Tsurani were the Evil Empire in the original two Riftwar novels; Feist did an excellent job humanizing them and developing their culture in a three book collaboration with Janny Wurts back in the 1990s, and there are some wonderful callbacks to those books here.
It's a setup for a typical Feist novel, where Something Bad is going to attack either Midkemia or Kelewan, and Only Pug Can Stop It. Like in Feist's previous great solo books, A Darkness at Sethanon and Rage of a Demon King, it doesn't go in the direction you expect. There are real consequences to people's actions, no good solutions, and no tidy happy ending. Characters who have been mysteries since the early 90s finally have their stories told; worlds are forever changed.
And, as Feist tends to do every few books, he lets you know that the big epic background to the story is really only a subset of the even bigger, vaster story that you never knew was there all along. He has a love of giving exposition through the mouths of well-meaning con-men, so that no explanation is ever final. There are events in A Darkness at Sethanon, published in 1987, which only make sense based on information in this book written twenty years later--but which might be superseded later.
Feist's weakness has always been that, after writing a book like this, he then writes several books of fluffy filler. This time, he's apparently under contract for the remaining two Riftwars with no filler inbetween; I'm looking forward to reading them when the next series is done.
Tags: books booklist feist
|
|
11:02 pm
[Link] |
On Almost Becoming a Novelist
(with apologies to John Gardner)
Most summers I go to The Never Ending Odyssey (TNEO), an weeklong alumni workshop for graduates of the Odyssey Writer's Workshop. This year, because of England (and Worldcon and World Fantasy later this year), I won't have the vacation days to go. Instead, I'm doing a novel swap with some Odyssey friends in October. The due date's August 23rd, and I've set July 29th (the day before I go to my friend Jason's wedding) as the day The Damn Novel(tm) must be done in order to have time to polish it. And since the first 15,000 words date back to 2004, it needs plenty of polishing!
The novel's meant to be a five-act story, the first in a series. (I've since learned you're "supposed" to use three acts, but apparently I'm special. :-) ) Right now I have 92,000 words and I'm very near the end of Act IV. That gives me about seven weeks to write Act V. Given my usual "blistering" pace, this will be interesting. (Act I: three months. Act II: three years. Act III: four months. Act IV: one year)
Since I hear 100,000 words is supposed to be the "ideal" epic fantasy length these days, I'd been hoping to keep it to that length, but it's just not going to happen. Still, I'm going to fight to keep it as short as I can, both because I want to sell it, and because the pacing can't stand too many diversions from the finale.
The subplots are wrapping up nicely. That only leaves somehow getting four POV characters, 4.5 armies (one guy's split his forces), two dukes, one king, one magic sword, and two guys who may or may not be gods to the same place at the same time and showing just how much hell breaks loose when they get there. Oh, and what happens after.
Simple, right?
Wish me luck!
Tags: novel
|
|
07:20 pm
[Link] |
Book List
16. Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
This book took me about three years and three tries to read.
It deals with a loose end left at the end of Kushiel's Dart, as Phedre no'Delauny, master courtesan and spy, travels from her home in Terre d'Ange (this alternate Europe's France) to the city-state of La Serenissima (Venice) in search of an escaped traitor. Phedre, however, is no ordinary courtesan--she is the Chosen of the god Kushiel, which makes her experience pain as pleasure. (Unlike in the previous volume, this really doesn't affect the plot much, even though we're constantly reminded of it and literal deus ex machina abounds. Since I loved the first book but skipped past many of the S&M sex scenes as Not My Thing(tm), that was fine with me.)
The novel starts out slowly, with pacing problems exacerbated by just how tidily Dart ended--aside from Phedre's misgivings about the traitor still at large somewhere out of the country, and some relationship angst between her and her sworn protector (who loves her but disapproves of her lifestyle), life for everyone's going just swell.
Once Phedre leaves Terre d'Ange the plot picks up, with some interesting takes on the alternate-Messianic-Judaism in this world, and the unintended consequences of the big battle in the last book. Once in La Serenissima, however, the plot slows down again, as Phedre has to navigate the complex politics of another culture, which has to be explained to us at length. (It's an well-done politics, but for too long nothing acts to raise the stakes for Phedre personally to make my interest more than intellectual.)
Halfway through, Carey pulls an amazing plot reversal out I didn't see coming (but like all good plot twists, I should have), grabbing my interest and making me eager to see what happened next. And from then on the book was great.
Aside from the two hundred page tangent about the pirate lord. It's not that pirate lords aren't cool. It's that when you've already got me hooked on a conflict going on over here, making me spend a third of the book dealing with another, completely unrelated conflict over THERE drains tension from both.
And that, fundamentally, is the problem with this novel. It's not really a novel. It's two excellent novellas ("Phedre in Venice" and "Phedre and the Pirate Lord", let's call them), juxtaposed together with too much filler to make the join work. Carey's first-person voice for Phedre is lush and beautiful; she has a gift for description and worldbuilding, and conflicts that stem from a character's innermost nature. When it works, it works really well. But that makes the parts of the book that don't work that much more irritating.
I'm still glad I finally finished it.
Tags: books booklist carey
|
|
10:02 pm
[Link] |
Book List
15. Saturn's Children by Charles Stross
I'm attending Worldcon again this summer, and so I'm trying to read all of the Hugo nominees for Best Novel. Having already read Zoe's Tale by Scalzi and The Graveyard Book by Gaiman before the nominations were even announced, I decided to try Stross's nomination next.
Saturn's Children is dedicated to Asimov and Heinlein, and it shows. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic solar system colonized by robots who still follow Asimov's Three Laws even though humanity has long since faded into extinction. The heroine is a femme-bot named Freya who, in true Heinlein style, is clever, resourceful, potentially lethal, and is a nymphomaniac who desperately wants to submit herself to a human male (a human female would do in a pinch) and have lots and lots of sex. (Unlike the women in most Heinlein novels, she acknowledges that this is perhaps not healthy, but one she's stuck with by her conditioning.)
But of course, there are no humans left in this universe for Freya to love. Stross does a great job of exploring what happens when a society built to serve humanity has no one left to serve. The dysfunctional society that results is surprising yet believable, with little touches that range from the heartbreaking to the hilarious. (Educated robots believe they were intelligently designed; religious fanatics preach the doctrine of evolution.)
The most fascinating question for me the book ponders was about whether this universe would be better off with humans or not. Without humanity, those robots who aren't enslaved by other robots have a great deal of autonomy, and they prize it highly. Their programming ensures, however, that they can never be truly happy without humans to serve. Yet the presence of humans would mean the loss of not only physical but mental freedom.
My only regret is that, having shown us a fascinating world through the eyes of a sassy and fun POV character, having raised great moral conundrums and brought Freya to the point where it seems the entire fate of the solar system is in her hands--the book falls flat at the end. Stross is much better at raising questions than giving us answers; not only are the themes ambiguous at the end, but the plot fizzles rather than climaxes. (I COULD make a sex-bot joke here, but I'll let that be an exercise for the reader...)
I understand why this book got a Hugo nomination; had I read it by the nomination deadline I might have done the same. I'm just sad that it's a good book that could have been great, if only the author had known how to end it.
Tags: books booklist stross
|
|
05:43 pm
[Link] |
The Tudors
For the most part, I've enjoyed The Tudors. I've forgiven its little historical glitches and the way it implies that Henry and his court spent most of their time having R-rated sex, pausing only occasionally to enact that whole English Reformation thing. (Not that there's anything wrong that...)
I can even forgive the fact that John Rhys Meyers, in no way looks like a young Henry VIII, much less a middle-aged one, because while he has the wrong look for the part, he plays the role well. Most English kings were known for going from mildness to scenery-chewing rage too, after all. :-)
But really, when the most famous historical fact about Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, is "she was unattractive", and the script makes no sense unless Anne is unattractive, and the actors all act as if she's unattractive, wouldn't it make sense to, I don't know, cast someone who's at least a bit frumpy? Or at least plain?
Joss Stone, the British singer who plays Anne, does a fine job conveying emotion while faking a German accent, which is impressive. But I've been on more than my fair share of blind dates in my time, and believe me, if I walked into a blind date to find, as Henry does, that the lady looked like this, I wouldn't storm out shouting "I like her not!" (I'd wait until the blind date started detailing her one bedroom apartment containing a half dozen cats, several dogs, and menagerie of ferrets... :-) )
The dissonance between what you see and the dialogue makes the whole episode break down.
|
|
08:14 am
[Link] |
Book List
12. Implementing Lean Software Development by Tom and Mary Poppendieck
I had to read this one for work; it's about as dry as you'd expect a book on software project management to be. Whereas the first book they wrote was aimed more at developers, this was aimed more at their bosses--lots of case studies, but little new material.
13. Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
The sixth Discworld novel, and much funnier than the previous one I read, Sourcery. This one was a quasi-sequel to Equal Rites, starring Granny Weatherwax and two new witches. The target for the satire this time around is Shakespeare, and Pratchett does a great job both keeping the parody going and making the book stand as a novel.
14. Into a Dark Realm by Raymond Feist
This is the second volume of the Darkwar trilogy, and was much better than the first. The usual Midkemia plots are there--Pug, Nakor and Miranda investigating arcane threats that could Destroy Us All(tm) and a completely disconnected subplot involving the spunky teenage boys from the last book. Where the book really shines though is in the chapters that take place on the Dasati homeworld.
At my first Dragoncon, way back in high school, I saw a panel on fantasy worldbuilding with Feist on it. In one of his comments, Feist ripped into the worldbuilding of Salvatore's Forgotten Realms novels (which I've never read), apparently over the society of the Drow. He pointed out that no society that bent on Evil could actually function. (As Bob Salvatore was sitting three seats away as Feist said this, and as Feist is a former used-car salesman while Salvatore's a former bouncer trained in martial arts, you at least have to give the guy points for chutzpah, if not tact...)
Here, Feist tries to answer his own challenge, to create a functioning society based on Evil, where even the idea of mutual cooperation is alien, and where only the mother-child relationship remains pure. (Fathers spend much of their time trying to track down and kill their offspring, and sons eventually kill their fathers.) It's an entire civilization of sociopaths, disturbing and yet fascinating to read.
Tags: books booklist poppendieck feist pratche
|
|
09:07 pm
[Link] |
Book List Catching Up
9. Sourcery by Terry Pratchett.
The fifth Discworld novel, this one was a little underwhelming--Pratchett seemed to have several good pieces of jokes--half making fun of wizards and half making fun of 1001 Arabian Nights--but never quite seemed to make them mesh into something larger and novel-like.
10. Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton.
The sequel to Pandora's Star, and just as full of well-written, epic space opera goodness and memorable characters and worlds. It brought the story to an exciting conclusion, and everyone interested in this subgenre should read it. One nitpick: I correctly guessed the identity of the last sleeper agent back in the first book, so it was a bit annoying for Hamilton to drag out The Big Reveal(tm) until the next to last chapter or so of this book.
Hamilton's currently writing a new trilogy set in this Commonwealth universe, but I think I'll wait until all three have been released to go through them. That's all right though--I've already bought the three giant volumes of his previous Confederation trilogy, so if I have a sudden urge for more Hamilton, I think I'm going to be OK... :-)
11. Flight of the Nighthawks by Raymond Feist.
Feist is one of the bestselling authors of the late 80s and 90s who, like Weis and Hickman, wrote fantasy novels which owed more to Dungeons and Dragons than to history or folklore. His entire body of work began as worldbuilding background to the D&D campaign he and some friends were playing at the time--he set his novels in the ancient past of his world, and over the course of decades has been slowly working his way up to the Chaoswar, when the original D&D campaign was set.
Nighthawks inaugurates the Darkwar, which is the third of the five big conflicts we were promised way back when. Despite its faults I enjoyed the book. Feist knows how to keep pages turning, uses ample amounts of wizardly duels, swashbuckling, and gratuitous ninjas, and throws in plenty of old characters to fuel nostalgia for my geeky boyhood. Just keep in mind that the characters are flat, and the prose is also vintage 80s fantasy.
Still, if you've never read Feist, I'd suggest going back and reading the original Riftwar series: Magician: Apprentice, Magician: Master, Silverthorn and the magnificent (or so I remember) A Darkness at Sethanon. They have been surpassed by Jordan and those who came after him, but they're classics nonetheless.
Tags: booklist, books, feist, hamilton, pratchett
|
|
07:38 pm
[Link] |
Geeky World Tour
OK, you guys are probably sick of reading them, and I've been putting off writing them, but I do want to finish the account of the trip--mainly so that years from now I can read this and recapture the whole two weeks, not just the first 11 days.
Monday, March 23rd, we left Edinburgh and returned to London. Lots of my plans didn't go the way I wanted them to, but the day ended well.
( Planes, trains, automobiles--and Shakespeare! )
Tags: england, lear, london, shakespeare
|
|
08:24 am
[Link] |
Passover
Tonight is the first seder, which marks the beginning of the festival of Passover. As has become my custom, I apologize in advance for any extra crankiness or whininess I may inflict on anyone over the next week--it's the matzah talking, I swear! ;-)
Tags: passover
|
[<< Previous 20 entries] |
