The Books We're Reading, Canto II

[zorenathres]

Wool is followed by Shift and Dust, and there are additional short stories. I was not aware of this structure until I looked it up on Wikipedia.

didn't think of wiki, thanks!

[warty goblin]

Started reading The Three Body Problem, one of this year's (substitute) Hugo nominees. Apparently some people take issue with the translation - and maybe it's spectacular in the original Chinese, I can't judge - but I'm finding it a completely enjoyable read. Some of the phrases are odd, in that I can't say a native speaker would have said that, but it's perfectly intelligible. In fact I'd say it's almost more enjoyable for that, since it definitely doesn't read like every other book written in the last five years.

The narrative style is also very different than the current trend towards tight focus on a single character in more or less continuous linear time; with lots of cuts between viewpoint characters, and the occasional section that doesn't even have a single viewpoint and is simply free-floating illumination of some past or future event in a nearly historical sort of style. It doesn't even bother with the device of having a character say these things; it just plain drops 'em in the text and gets on with things. It's a lot more open and liberated in other words, and I very much enjoy it. Particularly compared to the last thing I've been reading, which was written in lockstep first person stream of consciousness. Not my favorite style at all, that.

[Kd7sov]

I just finished The Golem and the Jinni. Quite a good read, if sometimes overfull of poor decisions. (Which is, I recognize, a consequence of characters with their own goals and a lack of omnisicence.) The ending was not entirely happy, but things turned out better than I was expecting.

[Brother Oni]

Started reading The Three Body Problem, one of this year's (substitute) Hugo nominees. Apparently some people take issue with the translation - and maybe it's spectacular in the original Chinese, I can't judge - but I'm finding it a completely enjoyable read. Some of the phrases are odd, in that I can't say a native speaker would have said that, but it's perfectly intelligible. In fact I'd say it's almost more enjoyable for that, since it definitely doesn't read like every other book written in the last five years.

The narrative style is also very different than the current trend towards tight focus on a single character in more or less continuous linear time; with lots of cuts between viewpoint characters, and the occasional section that doesn't even have a single viewpoint and is simply free-floating illumination of some past or future event in a nearly historical sort of style. It doesn't even bother with the device of having a character say these things; it just plain drops 'em in the text and gets on with things. It's a lot more open and liberated in other words, and I very much enjoy it. Particularly compared to the last thing I've been reading, which was written in lockstep first person stream of consciousness. Not my favorite style at all, that.

Sounds like a very Chinese structure, where you're following the main plot, a new character arrives and you spend a page or two recapping their lives before jumping back to the main plot. I believe this is based on the oral tradition where people hear about a famous person in a story then they find out in a separate story session why he's so famous and the flashback device is the best way to incorporate that in a written form without having massive appendices to the book (my copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms already has ~1/3 of the last volume dedicated to notes on each of the chapters and it doesn't need padding out by moving all the flashback bits to there).

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is probably the most famous example, with the film version having a half hour interlude of Jen and Dark Cloud meeting before he explains why he followed her all the way to Beijing.

[Palanan]

I've finished the third Cadfael novel, Monk's Hood, which was a little confusing owing to a dense tangle of family relationships around the prematurely deceased. For some reason the story slowed down for me partway through, but once Cadfael makes his journey into Wales the book becomes fascinating and almost lyrical, and Cadfael's love for his native land shines through every page. I especially appreciate the descriptions, or rather counterbalance, of English and Welsh law, and how canny individuals would press a case under one system or the other depending on whether it would favor their cause.

Also, I loved the mention of farmers shifting border stones as the "national sport." It was wry, affectionate humor at its best.

For my next Cadfael novel I've skipped ahead to The Confession of Brother Haluin, which has started out finely written and deeply compelling. I'd forgotten the careful attention to human nuance in these books, written from an experienced and quietly compassionate perspective.

In nonfiction, almost inadvertently I'm rereading Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun, being an account of the doomed expedition of De Soto through the southeastern landscapes and cultures of North America. Every page is fascinating, and with every page I find myself craving more. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the earliest Western glimpse of Native American cultures in this region, and our only written record of Mississippian peoples at their zenith.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I should read more Cadafel.

Meanwhile, I finally picked up Elantris, and I'm loving it.

[Eldan]

Your first Sanderson book? Most of the rest of his work is good too. I wasn't that much of a fan of Steelheart and won't be picking up the sequels. Mistborn, I thought, got some very slow parts in the second and third book that weren't all that necessary. Apart from that, everything I've read was golden.

[LibraryOgre]

I should read more Cadafel.

It's come out in ebooks!

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I wasn't that much of a fan of Steelheart and won't be picking up the sequels.

What was it that you didn't like about it? If it was that it didn't really feel like "a Sanderson book" like his others, Firefight gets a lot of that feel back.

[Eldan]

Difficult to say, really. None of the characters felt all that interesting, for one. The world or the "magic" system weren't all that interesting, this time around. And the story felt as if it had been done tons of times before. (Though I guess on the basic level, all of his stories have.)

And Steelheart himself is a very dull antagonist.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Your first Sanderson book? Most of the rest of his work is good too. I wasn't that much of a fan of Steelheart and won't be picking up the sequels. Mistborn, I thought, got some very slow parts in the second and third book that weren't all that necessary. Apart from that, everything I've read was golden.

Ironically, no! Way of Kings was my first, then the Mistborn trilogy (and Alloy) and Words of Radiance.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Difficult to say, really. None of the characters felt all that interesting, for one. The world or the "magic" system weren't all that interesting, this time around. And the story felt as if it had been done tons of times before. (Though I guess on the basic level, all of his stories have.)

And Steelheart himself is a very dull antagonist.

The magic system gets more fleshed-out and interesting in Firefight, though none of the rest changes much. If you didn't particularly find David or Megan interesting, yeah, I'd give the book a pass.

[Palanan]

It's taken me a while, but I've just finished The Confession of Brother Haluin, one of the later novels in the Cadfael series, and now firmly one of my very favorites.

Spoiler

Show

This is one of several Cadfael novels in which there is no actual murder--or rather, what was assumed to have been a murder never actually took place. While there is a genuine murder as well, it occurs much later in the novel; and while it may be the only murder in the Cadfael series which is never fully solved, it provides a key to unraveling the true story of the murder-that-wasn't, and uncovering a much deeper tale of pride, vanity and bitter revenge.

The novel ends on an optimistic, almost joyous note which reminds me faintly of the exuberance at the very end of Return of the King, even if the restoration is much more focused and personal. There is an overt symbolism with the passage from winter to spring--and yet the author's careful descriptions of skies and snowfalls, wind and winter-light all speak of a lifetime's experience in the landscape where the story takes place, and that intimate understanding of seasons and their passing merges perfectly with the author's experience with the seasons of human life. All of it is written with a wry, reflective and quietly patient air, the perspective of a wise observer of human foibles.

It's been years since I've seen any of the Cadfael novels on the shelves in a bookstore, and I have a feeling they've been crowded out by more modern and stylish fare. Brother Haluin's story in particular is one of restoration and redemption, freedom from half a lifetime of bitter guilt and desperate remorse, and I don't have much sense that a book like this would be well-received today, no matter how artfully the strands are woven, nor how finely the spectrum of human emotion is represented in the characters.

This is deeply unfortunate, and not only because the mystery itself is so smoothly presented, every subtle falsehood perfectly convincing, diversionary trails cunningly laid and eventually unwoven into an unexpected design. But today's readers, I suspect, are far less willing to accept the attitudes of a distant past with much sympathy, far more inclined to pass judgement by modern standards than look for common human strands. That is one of the gifts of this series, the author's ability to present characters whose traits are so vividly human, recognizable as ourselves and our family and neighbors--and who live so naturally and completely in their own time, and yet are still sympathetic to readers from ours.

But I'm not sure if there are as many readers now who are willing to extend that sympathy as when the series was written, nor as receptive to stories of restoration and quiet wisdom. For those who do, the series is richly rewarding, and this volume high among them.

[SilentNight]

Finally reading Huckleberry Finn seeing as I somehow didn't in high school, thus continuing my trend of famous books by dead people which since May has included Kim by Rudyard Kipling, Candide, and Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.

[turkishproverb]

Reading: Thunder on the Battlefield: Sword. Good collection of modern sword and sorcery stories.

[Eldan]

Reading Stories, a short story collection edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio. Mostly through, very disappointing so far.

Short stories, I think, can come in three flavours. There are those stories that feel like whole stories, even if they leave many things open. They are beautiful and complete and should not have a single word more. And there are the stories that are short, but feel unfinished. Outlines or beginnings or outtakes of novels. And then there's the third kind, which is luckily rare, that feel like nothing. They are words on a page that go nowhere and then stop and tell you nothing.

This collection has almost entirely the second, and that's sad. There's also one, so far that's the third. I can only think of one story in there that was good, despite all the many famous names.

(It also has Gaiman's The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, which I read before in an illustrated edition, and that would be a shame to read otherwise. The illustrations are perfect and wonderful and should not be missed. Apparently, there was also a multimedia version Gaiman did in the Sydney opera house, with musicians and projected images and that must have been beautiful.)

[CarpeGuitarrem]

It's come out in ebooks!

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Meanwhile, I picked up Monster Hunter International, and the first chapter was suitably entertaining. What a way to get dropped into the Masquerade.

[LibraryOgre]

Just finished "One Nation, Under Gods", a nice long look at how non-Christian religions have helped shape America. Currently casting about for something new to read, or something old to read again. My wife discovered yesterday that by using an e-reader, making the print larger, and giving everything a green cast, she reads faster and more comfortably, so I'm also looking at buying a bunch of ebooks to give her more to read.

[MrConsideration]

Just finished the Hyperbole and a Half book (charming and laugh-out-loud funny as ever, but it was a bit crap reading it on Kindle and having to zoom in and pitch around all the time) as a little break before returning to Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Empire 1875-1914, which is proving to be a bit of a slog.

[Killer Angel]

Almost finished to re-read the Lyonesse trilogy . Fun reading (as always, with Vance), but men, the beginning of the first book is Slooooooow .

[turkishproverb]

Started The Whitechapel Horrors.

A 3rd Person Holmes novel.

...


Why do people hurt me?

[Feytalist]

Started The Whitechapel Horrors.

A 3rd Person Holmes novel.

...


Why do people hurt me?

The question here is: why do you hurt yourself?

I'd stick with the originals, really.

[comicshorse]

Having liked the Jack Reacher movie I decided to try one of the novels. The library had 'Without Fail' as an audio book so I grabbed that.
I was seriously unimpressed with the book for oh so many reasons ; Reacher's habit of speaking in awful cliches, the huge jumps to conclusions and the ridiculous motivation and plans of the bad guys, Reachers habit of dragging out every conclusion by asking ten or more leading questions before getting to the point, etc
Not sure if this is just a mis-step in the series but I can't see me going back to try another

[Lethologica]

Having liked the Jack Reacher movie I decided to try one of the novels. The library had 'Without Fail' as an audio book so I grabbed that.
I was seriously unimpressed with the book for oh so many reasons ; Reacher's habit of speaking in awful cliches, the huge jumps to conclusions and the ridiculous motivation and plans of the bad guys, Reachers habit of dragging out every conclusion by asking ten or more leading questions before getting to the point, etc
Not sure if this is just a mis-step in the series but I can't see me going back to try another

One Shot was basically the movie without the stupid punch-up scene at the end, so there are probably some Reacher novels you'd like. Echo Burning, The Hard Way, 61 Hours, and Worth Dying For are some of the better ones.

(That said, I wouldn't bother reading all of them, or even most of them. They get samey after a while.)

[warty goblin]

So many books, so little time.

My most notable recent read is probably Witch World, a 1963 novel by Andre Norton that launched the eponymous long-running (up until 2005 if Wikipedia is to be believed) series and shared world. As with a lot of genre fiction from roughly this time period, the prose is, to modern eyes, so spare as to be almost hard to read. Although written mostly in tight third person, there's never a paragraph that can be skimmed and summarized as 'angst' or otherwise longwinded internal monologue. Pretty much every sentence impacts the story directly, and needs to be properly paid attention to. This isn't to say there's no insight given into the characters' internal lives, merely that it is delivered efficiently when needed, and not as a blow-by-blow reaction to every single event that occurs.

It's also further proof that people have been writing about gender issues for quite a while. I can't say this particular book comes off as enormously progressive on its own, but there's enough expectations subverted throughout - how often is it that the legendary ancient weapon of destiny bestows itself on a supporting character? - that I don't think it's Norton's last word on the matter in this particular world either. Plus it spends a third of its running time on a viewpoint character who's basically Eowyn in a much grittier world, which is all kinds of excellent.

I'm taking a pause before jumping into the second Witch World novel (I got an omnibus of the first three), on the grounds that classic genre fiction is best savored. So I just started A Turn of Light, by Julie E. Czerneda. I'm not far enough into it yet to tell very much, except that the writing seems good, and it's an immense relief to encounter a modern fantasy where the main character isn't the Duke of Whatever. Also the book has some really enjoyable maps, scaled by travelling time - so I know the central village is about a fifteen minute walk across - and with a very intriguing level of local detail, i.e. indicating which peasant family lives in which house. This points to a really promising attention to local significance. In a genre that pays a lot of attention to the largescale, I find this refreshingly different.


I'm also going on something of a short story binge. I'm three stories in to A Magic Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic, an anthology from 1998 edited by Margaret Weiss. The first story by Larry Nivan was a fun romp around a sorcerous mythological bronze age. The second story by Orson Scott Card was a succinct argument for human extinction as a form of quality control. Not far enough into the third to really have an opinion yet. I'm also about halfway through Chicks and Balances, the sixth Chicks and Chainmail anthology. The short length of the stories and relatively loose mandate (must be about a woman and armor in some capacity) means it's basically a long sequence of authors having a blast doing something weird, funny or whatever, which produces a really enjoyable reading experience. Even when a story doesn't do it for you, it's not long enough to leave much a of sour impression, and there's so many really enjoyable ones that are perfectly suited to their short running length you'll be smiling again almost at once. I can't say any of them are exactly life changing, but the net effect is certainly life-improving, at least as long as one has a high tolerance for genre in-jokes about plate brass foundation garments.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Meanwhile, I picked up Monster Hunter International, and the first chapter was suitably entertaining. What a way to get dropped into the Masquerade.

The book continues to be kick-in-the-door awesome. It does a fantastic job of describing scenes vividly (EWWWWWWW SWAMP), it keeps up a killer pace, it sets some really impressive stakes, and it's overall a really cool take on the genre. I dig that it's a much more down-to-earth and gritty/grimy look into urban fantasy than Dresden (although I love the Files for different reasons), and also MHI is totally Task Force: Valkyrie but non-government.

[turkishproverb]

Just finished Arrows of the Queen, and a small short story collection. Figuring out what to read next.

[IthilanorStPete]

I've been reading The Annihilation Score, the latest book in Charles Stross's Laundry Files series. It continues to be as entertaining as the previous books, with the added bonus of being from a new POV character. It's quite a change to go from five books written mostly in one character's POV to another, related character with a very different worldview and attitude. Stross does a pretty good job establishing a distinct character voice, although there are a few authorial tics that slip through. It's also a notably more diverse book: female protagonist, mostly female cast, physical and mental disabilities represented and handled well. With regards to racial and sexual orientation diversity, the main cast is somewhat lacking; I get the feeling that Stross wrote himself into a bit of a corner by not including more diversity early on in the series, when the characters were first established. At least the secondary characters have a good variety of backgrounds and lifestyles represented.

I've read a decent amount of other books over the past couple of months that are worth talking about (enough that I should probably start a separate thread). In short:
-Greg Egan's Diaspora and Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death have been the highlights, both being solidly-crafted stories about unusual perspectives, though with very different topics and themes.
-Peter Watts's Echopraxia was fascinating and mindbending, much as his earlier book Blindsight was, although it lacked the thematic unity of that work.
-China Mieville's Embassytown was fairly interesting, though not without issues. There was a bit too much reliance on alien words for the sake of strangeness for my tastes. It explores some of the same ideas about the nature of consciousness as Watts has; not quite as well, to my mind.
-A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham intrigued me, I'd like to read the rest of that series. Slow-moving, elegaic, and deeply introspective without being ponderous.
-I read the first few chapters of Storm Front, the first Dresden Files novel. The persistent sexualization of every female character got tiresome very quickly; some Googling indicated that the series doesn't really get better in this regard, so I decided to not spend any more time or effort on those books.
-I read City of Stairs and The Mirror Empire a while back; interesting books, though each flawed in their own ways. Once I get around to getting this year's Hugo packet and reading The Goblin Emperor, I'll probably write something about this year's epic fantasy.
-Finally, on the non-fiction front, I read Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 by Linda Colley after Kate Nepveu mentioned reading it as background to her Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell reread. It was an absolutely fascinating book to read, both engaging and informative. I've really never read any book focusing on social history to this degree; it's definitely an interesting perspective to look at things from.

[dehro]

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day in hospital, which gave me time to read a book: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, by Murakami.
Murakami is a ****.
He's left so many important plot elements unresolved that when I turned over the back cover of the book and saw his picture staring at me, I actually said "you're a **** " out loud. Other than that, the reading was pretty good, a compelling story of personal anguish and unresolved issues dragging for decades and finally confronted. I might be tempted to read more by the same author

[Feytalist]

-Peter Watts's Echopraxia was fascinating and mindbending, much as his earlier book Blindsight was, although it lacked the thematic unity of that work.

Watts has skyrocketed to the top my my favourite authors list very quickly. Within the space of reading Starfish, actually. "Fascinating and mindbending" is exactly right; the man writes difficult concepts so tightly it's astounding. Starfish is probably my favourite, if only for its depiction of Maelstom and electronic wildlife, and the soul-crushing reality of the Rifters. But otherwise Blindsight would win out for it's underlying themes, as you say. Fascinating.

I really need to get into his short stories at some point, I've heard good things.