Ryan
The second novel in Sigler's Infected trilogy, this one takes a step back from Dawsey's story and looks more at the general response of the US government to the triangle invasion. This one's more of an action story, compared to the horror story that the first book was – I think the best comparison would be to the first two films in the Alien trilogy in terms of tone and feel. And, just like with the Alien films, I enjoyed the first one a lot more, although the second one is a fine entry in the series.
There's far too much ground covered by this book to adequately deal with it in a scant 300 pages, but Hirshey tries her best to do so. What this subject really needs, though, is a huge Ken Burns-style documentary with accompanying soundtrack, because reading about the various artists Hirshey talks about (and to) made me want to dig through my CD collection.
It seems at times Hirshey gears the book towards the people that she's come to know over the years, which is the only main complaint I have with this - as one example, the “divas” phenomenon gets the lion's share of the late 1990s chapter, with significantly less space spent on the Lilith Fair crowd. Maybe it's just a question of where I was coming from at the time, but I think that the focus of those two, at least, should have been reversed.
Robinson's style is compared often with that of Heinlein's, and I can definitely see why from this book. It was a fairly enjoyable, light read. Robinson's got a fun sense of humour, and it shines through even the serious moments of the book.
What I really liked about it, though, was the way that Robinson talks about Vancouver and its surrounding area. It's a wonderful corner of the world, and reading this book really made me want to visit it again. Vancouver tourism should definitely be cutting Spider Robinson a cheque.
Oh wow.
When people think about Ditko, and especially about Ditko and Lee, Spider-Man is the first thing that comes to mind, which is quite understandable. However, having read their work on both that series and Dr. Strange, I would have to say that the latter is the better of the two series.
The stories that span this series are truly epic in scale; while many Marvel comics of the same era still wrapped up their storylines in one, maybe two issues, the ones here go on for a dozen issues at a time, and deal with truly huge plots, featuring classic Marvel concepts like Eternity, Dormammu, and the Living Tribunal.
The art is crisp, while at the same time being Freaky in a way that only 60s art could be, the storylines are hugely epic - if you're a fan of Marvel's cosmic material, this volume's a must-read.
Finally, it ends.
In all seriousness, I've enjoyed the NJO series - I don't want to talk about my feelings on the whole thing here, but I posted a blog entry on it at http://theorangemonkey.livejournal.com/176980.html.
So, anyways, The Unifying Force. In this volume we see an end to the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong; there are lots of big actiony scenes as a result, and because it's the last volume in the series, absolutely every character that's been in the series so far shows up. The result of this is that there isn't much character growth or quiet moments in this book, but as most of the individual character arcs have been wrapped up already, that's not too much of a complaint.
In retrospect, the series ends in the only way that it really could have, but it's done in a satisfying way - a large part of the concluding message is “our enemies are more like us than we ever gave them credit for”, which is the kind of moral that could have easily come across as cheesy, but Luceno does a good job of preventing it from being so.
Every once and a while, Marvel comics will put out a new line of comics geared towards reaching “non-traditional” comic audiences. They'll sell these new titles in traditional comic book stores, where only traditional comic audiences tend to go, and then they'll cancel the books when they don't sell well. Every time they do, there are some really fun titles that get produced, and Livewires definitely fits into that category.
It's especially odd that this was a series marketed to “new readers”, though, because it's ver steeped in old Marvel; the main storyline deals with the Livewires team trying to take down an army of LMD (android) versions of Nick Fury, and one of the characters is sporting an AIM uniform on the cover of the volume. It's a mongrely sort of series, but light-hearted and fun enough that you don't really have to think about it.
One of the things that I really did like about this book is that it has some of the most fun character names that I've seen in a Marvel series in a long time:
Hollowpoint Ninja. Gothic Lolita. Cornfed. Stem Cell. Social Butterfly. Not the most descriptive names in terms of powers, but wonderful all-around.
This was a lovely, precious little book about a French emigre who comes to the US to enroll in art school.
Larson's got a great ability to tell a story and advance characters without using dialogue, but when she does choose to use dialogue, she does it rather effectively (and bilingually, which was a nice surprise!)
I tried not to make comparisons to Brian Lee O'Malley's work when reading this, but there are some similarities - they both are good at telling stories that seem like ‘slice-of-life' type stories at first, but with small fantasy nuggets underneath that; by the time, however, that you've fully digested those nuggets, you realize that those nuggets aren't the important parts, the character bits are.
I'm actually fairly unsure about what I thought of this book. There was a lot I liked about it; I loved the way that Kosinski talks about music throughout it, and I think that the character of an anonymous artist like Goddard is inspired. I found myself imagining Goddard's music to sound like Daft Punk, which I realize is a bit of an anachronism, but it seems to fit somehow.
There were two main things that I didn't like about the book, at the same time. The first was what appeared to be some subtle passive racism regarding the character of Donna. She's the only black character in the book, and she is presented as an overly sexualized, petty character, and she's written in a way that seems to suggest that she is that way because of her ethnicity. The other thing is the ending of the book. For the first 9/10ths of the book, it's primarily a character-driven piece, with little true plot to speak of, and then it turns into a much more plot-driven piece right at the very end, which is a little jarring.
Overall, I'd give it a tentative recommendation if you're a music lover.
This was quite an enjoyable audiobook to listen to. The intensity of it seemed to be ramped down a little from the second volume of the trilogy.
In this volume, the remaining Beta clones learn the details of John Alpha's plot to take over the world, and make their last-ditch effort to put a stop to his mad plan. I don't want to say too much, because the twists and turns are quite worth listening to it, and I wouldn't want to spoil anything.
The story's strong, the performance is great, and it really takes into account the idea of the podiobook as a genre unto itself, rather than just a castoff of traditional publishing. A must-listen for fans of the genre.
I tried to like this book. I really did. And I usually have an aversion to not finishing books, but I had to put this one down after the first hundred pages.
I'm a big fan of Palahniuk's other work, and I know what he was trying to do with the language in this, but I just couldn't overcome it, and I knew that if I tried to finish it, I would just end up hating it.
Sawyer usually excels at telling character-driven sci-fi stories that could easily take place in the contemporary world, so it's interesting to see him attempt to tell a story that's a little more space opera-y.
Overall, this was a fun read, with many of Sawyer's characteristic elements, but I thought that the pacing was a little off during the first half of the story, and that there were some parts that were a little too infodumpy. Aside from that, though, it's an engaging, fun little story about wormholes, dark matter, and finding your place in the universe.
Currently “read” the audio version of the novel from podiobooks.com
It's not often that an author can make a serious claim at having created a genre, but in some ways that's what Sigler did with this, the world's first ever podcast-exclusive audiobook.
The story's pretty simple - a group of miners discover a giant deposit of platinum deep in a mountain in Utah ... but as they start to mine it, they start to realize that they're not alone. Sigler's a good enough of an author to prevent the story from being cliched, and has a lot of fun telling the story of what lies beneath Funeral Mountain. Not as good as his later work, but fun to listen to all the same.
The Kobayashi Maru scenario has been a part of Star Trek lore since the release of The Wrath of Khan in 1982. In the film, it's a test of character that Starfleet command applicants undergo: The Klingons (or Romulans, depending on the era you're watching) are threatening a cargo ship called the Kobayashi Maru that is trapped in the Neutral Zone. The would-be captain has a choice to make: do you enter the Neutral Zone, threatening war with the Klingons(Romulans), or do you leave the Maru behind, knowing that it will be destroyed by the alien armada? Over the years, the test, and the responses different captains have given to it, has become a characterization shorthand throughout the Star Trek universe.
It's ...interesting, then, that not only does Jonathan Archer, in the original Maru scenario, give a rather standard response of “leave”, but the entire scenario is removed of its moral complexity: the Neutral Zone doesn't exist at this point in Federation history, and we learn that the Maru was carrying secret technology through disputed territory to spy on the Romulans, thereby giving the Romulans more cause to disable the ship. Furthermore, we learn that the Romulans have developed technology to take over starships and pilot them by remote control. This means that Archer's choices were really:
a) leave, allowing the Kobayashi Maru to be destroyed, or
b) stay and fight, allowing the Kobayashi Maru to be destroyed and Enterpise (which, is should be noted, at this point is 50% of Starfleet) to be hijacked to be used to attack other Federation outposts and colonies.
This is not exactly a difficult choice; definitely not the type of choice that would be used as a command test centuries later. By recasting the Maru scenario in this way, it not only creates bad fiction, it retroactively makes the other stories featuring the Kobayashi Maru poorer as a result.
This is not the kind of novel that's going to set the world on fire. What it is, though, is the penultimate book in the New Jedi Order series, which means it's in charge of making sure that all of the pieces are properly in place for the finale. And that, I have to say, it does fairly well.
The plot: The Jedi are contacted by those within the Vong who would challenge Shimmra; Tahiri and Corran Horn are conscripted to take Nom Amor and Nem Yim to the living planet of Zonama Sekot to try to advance the cause of peace, while Wedge Antilles and Jaina start another push against the Vong's military presence in an effort to win back the galaxy.
There was a lot in here for me to like: Corran's one of my favourite Jedi, I'm really fond of Zonama Sekot as a setting, and I really like how they've allowed the new generation of Jedi to take centre stage. I would have enjoyed it a lot more, though, if it felt like it was an essential part of the story, rather than just filler moving everything in place for Luceno's The Unifying Force, which will (thankfully) see the end of the Yuuhzan Vong invasion story.
A lot of readers attach a stigma to fiction that's given away by its author, the thinking no doubt being that if the author doesn't think it's worth buying, why should the reader/listener bother investing their time and emotional energy in it? It's an understandable argument on one level, but with podcasted novels like this, those arguments are proven completely false.
Hutchins is amazingly talented. He writes with the scope and scale of big summer blockbuster films, but in a way that contains more character depth and complexity than Hollywood would usually feature, as we continue to follow the clones of John Alpha in their attempts to discover their progenitor's plans, which go much deeper than any of them dare realize. Hutchin's treatment of the clones is masterful; each of them has their own distinct personality, but every once and awhile you catch subtle little similarities between their personalities, as well as some similarities with Alpha.
7th Son is coming out in print later this year, and I hear a film's been optioned as well, but for now you can listen to the whole thing for free at www.jchutchins.net
Expanded universe material can be tricky sometimes. It's one thing when it's stuff that extends a story, like Dark Horse's Buffy comics or the New Jedi Order novels, but stuff that takes place before or during the thing it's based on is difficult; if the story's important enough for me to want to read about it, then why is it something that never gets mentioned by the characters elsewhere?
That's the case with this book. Vader stops a coup attempt within the Empire, with Palpatine killing a lot of the conspirators himself. That's pretty much the entire story; not only are you not really given anyone to cheer for, but you know the conclusion of the story before it begins. There's no real surprises or twists in the plot, and you don't really learn much about the characters within it. I'd have to recommend giving this one a pass unless you're the most hardcore of hardcore SW fans.
So, the Legion was rebooted again. I'm not sure why, probably due to some mega-crossover happening in the mainstream DC universe (Infinite Crisis, most likely). The basic idea for the team remains the same, however: a thousand years in the future, there's a huge super-team of human and alien teenagers who use their abilities to protect the United Planets.
This version of the Legion goes back to exhaustively using the “lad” and “lass” type names, which I've never been fond of, and is centred around the idea of the Legion as iconic figures within the teenaged counter-culture of the 31st century. It's an interesting idea, but Waid seems to want to say that they're rebels because of their celebration culture created before their birth. This seems like a meta-commentary on the current state of comic book fandom, but one that seeks to be a booster of comic fandom, rather than a critique of it.
Overall, this was a fine read, but a lot of that is due to familiarity with the characters and seeing them reimagined. It lacks both the moral and storytelling complexity of the Five Year Gap stories, while at the same time not being as fun and light-hearted as the post-Zero Hour ones.
I was really hoping this book would be great. Pirates, magic, sci-fi ... I like all those things, and I've seen and read really interesting examples of them in various combinations, but this just fell completely flat.
The characters travel around, do a bunch of stuff without really being given motivation to do so, there's stuff that's clearly meant to be humourous but isn't, and at no point did I feel I was given any reason to care about any of the characters.
Any book that has a chapter that's a Simpsons reference (in this case, the brochure Homer and Marge are given when they first learn they're going to be parents) is automatically going to win points with me.
Skinner approaches the question of fatherhood with a down-to-earth humour that really helps to disarm concerns the father-to-be may have, while at the same time being serious and grounded about those concerns.
The only downside to the book is that a lot of his advice tends to boil down to Just Be A Man About It, which can get a little repetitive. As a result I'd say it shouldn't be the only fatherhood book you read if you're becoming a parent, but it should definitely be one of them.
I usually find books in the dummies series way too simplistic, but this wasn't the case with this one - I actually had to skim over some parts because they were beyond what I needed to know (I'm not planning on mucking about with soil ph or anything like that). Recommended for anyone wanting to do Serious Gardening.
I had read a story or two of the Spirit when I was younger, and I remember being underwhelmed by it at the time. After reading Eisner's Contract With God, however, I decided to give the Spirit another shot, and I'm glad that I did.
Eisner is a very visual storyteller, and he displays a mastery over the panel in his art. He quite liberally brings in elements from children's books, classic art, and other sources; he shows a total mastery over the texture of the drawings he's creating, and controls blank space throughout the page like a conductor in front of a symphony.
Something else that I found absolutely fascinating about the stories is how willing Eisner was to have them not be about The Spirit himself. I mean, he's a fairly standard masked crime-fighter type, so there's not that much about him that would necessarily sustain a series over a long period of time; as a result, Eisner tells these little stories about people living in the inner city, who happen to interact with the Spirit in some minuscule way. I counted in one story; the Spirit was featured in only twelve panels over a ten page story. That provides a great deal of creative flexibility, and Eisner really took it and ran with it.
If you're a comics fan, this is something that you definitely should read. Even if you're not, it's still very readable and, like Gaiman's Sandman series, really opens up the possibility of what graphic fiction can be about.
This was a fascinating collection of short stories taking place in Dublin in the 1920s. James has a really interesting style of writing, despite his insistence on not using quotation marks, which bothered me a little.
One of the reasons I loved the writing style in this, though, is that I can hear the voices of my Irish relatives in Joyce's writing - I feel like I've heard many of these characters telling stories before, and it really helped me connect to the stories that Joyce was telling. I know that's not the kind of thing that's going to intice anyone to read it or anything, but for me it was a nice treat.