Laith
The Library of Babel is one of those short story collections you absolutely must read. Borges is your favorite author's favorite author and so many of his ideas have seeped their way into contemporary lit. Whether it's his inventive narratives or his remarkable use of language every story in this collection, no matter how short, will stick out in your mind and leave you thinking well after the pages are completed. You never really "finish" Borges.
What really drew me on this reading was the introductory essay- The Duration of Hell in which Borges detonates a theological hand grenade. I vividly recall Sunday school lessons where the concept of eternal damnation was introduced to me. I never really gave it all that much thought, it was as if the concept tracked along with the other religious tenets (Charity, Prayer, Pilgrimage, etc). But as Borges points out the crime and the punishment are not proportional, sin is finite, but the punishment is infinite. He presents the logical problem, god is just and justice is proportional; and then he walks away resolving nothing. You can't stop thinking about it once you've read this piece.
The titular Library of Babel is of course the main draw here, it's a variation on the idea that a room full of monkeys and typewriters will eventually produce a work of Shakespeare on a long enough timeline. It's incredible, and it has gone on to inspire and influence every generation of authors that followed its publishing- if you had a good professor you've probably already read it or at least some other Borges.
Following along the themes present in The Duration of Hell, the last piece that's an absolute must read is the Babylonian Lottery. It's another Borges masterpiece and it really highlights his talent for building elegant but labyrinthine logical puzzles. This is a deceptively simple piece about a lottery in Babylon that introduces punishments, secret drawings, and then invisible administration. Eventually the lottery governs everything and nobody knows what's chance and what's by design. There are so many wild interpretations that this story invites, and the one that I personally continue to ruminate on is whether or not randomness is different from destiny, whether chaos is just another form of order. From the outset chance is presented as liberating, but as randomness comes to govern over all it really becomes indistinguishable from fate.
I loved this, and I read it right after the disappointment that was Shadows Upon Time. I wonder how much better that series could have been had Roucchio been a Borges fan (and if he is a Borges fan, I guess that's even more of a let down).
The Library of Babel is one of those short story collections you absolutely must read. Borges is your favorite author's favorite author and so many of his ideas have seeped their way into contemporary lit. Whether it's his inventive narratives or his remarkable use of language every story in this collection, no matter how short, will stick out in your mind and leave you thinking well after the pages are completed. You never really "finish" Borges.
What really drew me on this reading was the introductory essay- The Duration of Hell in which Borges detonates a theological hand grenade. I vividly recall Sunday school lessons where the concept of eternal damnation was introduced to me. I never really gave it all that much thought, it was as if the concept tracked along with the other religious tenets (Charity, Prayer, Pilgrimage, etc). But as Borges points out the crime and the punishment are not proportional, sin is finite, but the punishment is infinite. He presents the logical problem, god is just and justice is proportional; and then he walks away resolving nothing. You can't stop thinking about it once you've read this piece.
The titular Library of Babel is of course the main draw here, it's a variation on the idea that a room full of monkeys and typewriters will eventually produce a work of Shakespeare on a long enough timeline. It's incredible, and it has gone on to inspire and influence every generation of authors that followed its publishing- if you had a good professor you've probably already read it or at least some other Borges.
Following along the themes present in The Duration of Hell, the last piece that's an absolute must read is the Babylonian Lottery. It's another Borges masterpiece and it really highlights his talent for building elegant but labyrinthine logical puzzles. This is a deceptively simple piece about a lottery in Babylon that introduces punishments, secret drawings, and then invisible administration. Eventually the lottery governs everything and nobody knows what's chance and what's by design. There are so many wild interpretations that this story invites, and the one that I personally continue to ruminate on is whether or not randomness is different from destiny, whether chaos is just another form of order. From the outset chance is presented as liberating, but as randomness comes to govern over all it really becomes indistinguishable from fate.
I loved this, and I read it right after the disappointment that was Shadows Upon Time. I wonder how much better that series could have been had Roucchio been a Borges fan (and if he is a Borges fan, I guess that's even more of a let down).
I think this book has been around long enough to have a reputation that precedes it. In fact, the only thing I knew about 2666 was its reputation for quality among contemporary literary works. It absolutely lives up to that reputation, this book is challenging and ambitious; sprawling in scope and content, and I'm not just talking page count. This is a novel that overwhelms you, basically guaranteeing itself a reread before it's even finished.
It's a challenge just to explain what the book is about, because unlike a standard novel which delivers one linear plot, this story is fragmentary. 2666 is broken up into 5 distinct parts, which surround a series of unsolved murders in the city of Santa Teresa (a facsimile of Ciudad Juárez). The city is a nexus that draws to itself literary critics, sportswriter journalists, convicts, and dreamers; these stories of murder and mystery run tangential to the search for a reclusive German novelist, Benno Von Archimboldi (a reference to B. Traven, which is worth a Google). These parts are not genre writing, do not expect to read anything at all like a mystery novel, the mystery is the novel itself.
Those are just the broad strokes, each part tells an independent story, and it's the shared details of those minor stories which inform the larger narrative. When I first cracked this open, my intent was to review each piece independently, in keeping with the Author's last will. But that's not how something like this works. 2666 is the sum of its parts, and structured unlike anything else I've ever read. The pieces fit together however you want to puzzle it- but there are only enough pieces to give the impression of the image on the box.
This is an ambitious project, and if you're anything like me, you'll rip through the first three parts of this book grasping for anything resembling a meta-narrative to connect them. Then you'll read the fourth part, the part about the crimes, which was the literary equivalent of spending the day inside a war memorial or a holocaust museum, only for the fifth part to drag you through the horror of the Eastern front of WW2. It’s only once you're beaten down and exhausted, your expectations of what a book could be completely shattered, that Bolaño finally releases those last, crucial details to tie it all together. And then you realize that you've spent the last month reading almost a thousand pages, driven on almost solely by the brilliance of the prose and your own increasingly ravenous curiosity.
That's four paragraphs just on premise and structure alone, and we haven't even touched on prose or theme or the context of the author's life-are you starting to see the problem when it comes to reviewing this? It's a Masterpiece, like one for the canon and not just hyperbole, you could write 10,000 words on it and not even come close to paying it justice! Look at the other reviews, others have tried! This book is a deep sea of ideas and philosophy and perspective and metatextual commentary; these ideas serve as Bolaño's mark on the field of literature. I find it telling that it's only within the book itself that I can find the words to describe both the spirit and the enormity of its contents.
"Vulture of my Prometheus self or Prometheus of my Vulture self, [...] You may say that literature doesn't consist solely of masterpieces, but rather is populated by so called minor works. I believed that, too. Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms and little wild-flowers. I was wrong. There's actually no such thing as a minor work. [...] Every minor work has a secret author and every secret author is, by definition, a writer of masterpieces [...] There's nothing inside the man who sits there writing. Nothing of himself I mean, [...] His novel or book of poems, decent, adequate, arises not from an exercise of style or will, as the poor unfortunate believes, but as the result of an exercise of concealment. There must be many books, many lovely pines, to shield from hungry eyes the book that really matters, the wretched cave of our misfortune, the magic flower of winter!"
I won't gush any further, because this book is not perfect. If you've skipped straight to the cons, then let me summarize the reading experience: exhausting and overwhelming. As novel as the structure is, and as successful as Bolaño is in delivering the narrative in spite of it, there are long stretches of the book where the reader is completely in the dark and subjected to the vicissitude of his trains of thought. If you're, someone who needs a constant sense of narrative progression, you are going to hate this book. If you are someone who cannot stand it when authors go off on long tangents that weave in and out of dialogue, you are going to hate this book. It's as simple as that.
You may also get the sense that the book is unfinished, and that's because by norms of publishing it is. Bolaño was racing the reaper by the end of the writing process, with the book only receiving one round of editing and feedback before his passing, and the posthumous release. There are gaps in quality and gaps in the narrative, but it's not clear if the final product was delivered by design or simply the clock's final result. This is my first Bolaño novel, so I can't really weigh in, people with more grounding in his body of work generally agree that what we got is very close to that hypothetical final draft.
It doesn't escape me that I've been complimenting the prose in a translation, so I must give a nod to Natasha Wimmer, I've read enough poor translations to recognize quality when I see it. While I obviously cannot compare the translation to the original, for the prose to contain so much of the author's voice and so little of the translator's interpretation speaks volumes.
For me 2666 sits up there with Moby Dick, a reading experience that I had all but forgotten until 2666 reminded me. I can recall how difficult I found Moby Dick at the start, only to read on, dictionary close to hand, and find myself transformed by the experience. Not only had I just exposed myself to something profound, but I had tested my mastery over language and redefined what I found to be a challenge. It was an eye-opening piece of literature to me, the feeling of accomplishment that comes with overcoming something challenging was just the cherry on top.
While 2666 isn't perfect, and something of a chore to read, I felt the same feeling as I did with Moby Dick when I turned the last page of this book. A feeling that the experience of reading the book was just as valuable as its content.
PS: I know this review is huge, but I have a few extra notes as I come back to edit this.
First: I’ve tried really hard not to comment directly on the themes/my interpretation of the book in this review. That’s unique to this book because a. I could probably go on for at least another thousand words and b. I think your enjoyment of this text is determined by how curious of a reader you are. Much of this book is focused on the surface level events, the banal, and the remaining elements all point away from resolution; trying to understand the why, piercing through the subtlety, that is the core of the reading experience. I feel like explaining would spoil that experience, interpretations are something best saved to discuss with other readers.
With that said, if you somehow read through this whole review and you need to know what it's actually about, I can't put it any better than phantom_fonte did in this reddit comment (https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/1coc67d/comment/l3g1qjm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1).
Second: I managed to get through all this without ever commenting on how much I adore the cover? People say don’t judge a book by its cover but like, this must be the exception that proves the rule. It’s a just small portion of Jupiter and Semele, the painting by the symbolist Gustave Moreau, and you should really look at the entire thing of it. If you know the story of Semele, the cover becomes yet another element added to the narrative. Out of all the possible elements in the full painting, the selection of death and the white lily is not lost on me either, “At the foot of the throne, Death and Sorrow form the tragic basis of Human Life.”
I think this book has been around long enough to have a reputation that precedes it. In fact, the only thing I knew about 2666 was its reputation for quality among contemporary literary works. It absolutely lives up to that reputation, this book is challenging and ambitious; sprawling in scope and content, and I'm not just talking page count. This is a novel that overwhelms you, basically guaranteeing itself a reread before it's even finished.
It's a challenge just to explain what the book is about, because unlike a standard novel which delivers one linear plot, this story is fragmentary. 2666 is broken up into 5 distinct parts, which surround a series of unsolved murders in the city of Santa Teresa (a facsimile of Ciudad Juárez). The city is a nexus that draws to itself literary critics, sportswriter journalists, convicts, and dreamers; these stories of murder and mystery run tangential to the search for a reclusive German novelist, Benno Von Archimboldi (a reference to B. Traven, which is worth a Google). These parts are not genre writing, do not expect to read anything at all like a mystery novel, the mystery is the novel itself.
Those are just the broad strokes, each part tells an independent story, and it's the shared details of those minor stories which inform the larger narrative. When I first cracked this open, my intent was to review each piece independently, in keeping with the Author's last will. But that's not how something like this works. 2666 is the sum of its parts, and structured unlike anything else I've ever read. The pieces fit together however you want to puzzle it- but there are only enough pieces to give the impression of the image on the box.
This is an ambitious project, and if you're anything like me, you'll rip through the first three parts of this book grasping for anything resembling a meta-narrative to connect them. Then you'll read the fourth part, the part about the crimes, which was the literary equivalent of spending the day inside a war memorial or a holocaust museum, only for the fifth part to drag you through the horror of the Eastern front of WW2. It’s only once you're beaten down and exhausted, your expectations of what a book could be completely shattered, that Bolaño finally releases those last, crucial details to tie it all together. And then you realize that you've spent the last month reading almost a thousand pages, driven on almost solely by the brilliance of the prose and your own increasingly ravenous curiosity.
That's four paragraphs just on premise and structure alone, and we haven't even touched on prose or theme or the context of the author's life-are you starting to see the problem when it comes to reviewing this? It's a Masterpiece, like one for the canon and not just hyperbole, you could write 10,000 words on it and not even come close to paying it justice! Look at the other reviews, others have tried! This book is a deep sea of ideas and philosophy and perspective and metatextual commentary; these ideas serve as Bolaño's mark on the field of literature. I find it telling that it's only within the book itself that I can find the words to describe both the spirit and the enormity of its contents.
"Vulture of my Prometheus self or Prometheus of my Vulture self, [...] You may say that literature doesn't consist solely of masterpieces, but rather is populated by so called minor works. I believed that, too. Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms and little wild-flowers. I was wrong. There's actually no such thing as a minor work. [...] Every minor work has a secret author and every secret author is, by definition, a writer of masterpieces [...] There's nothing inside the man who sits there writing. Nothing of himself I mean, [...] His novel or book of poems, decent, adequate, arises not from an exercise of style or will, as the poor unfortunate believes, but as the result of an exercise of concealment. There must be many books, many lovely pines, to shield from hungry eyes the book that really matters, the wretched cave of our misfortune, the magic flower of winter!"
I won't gush any further, because this book is not perfect. If you've skipped straight to the cons, then let me summarize the reading experience: exhausting and overwhelming. As novel as the structure is, and as successful as Bolaño is in delivering the narrative in spite of it, there are long stretches of the book where the reader is completely in the dark and subjected to the vicissitude of his trains of thought. If you're, someone who needs a constant sense of narrative progression, you are going to hate this book. If you are someone who cannot stand it when authors go off on long tangents that weave in and out of dialogue, you are going to hate this book. It's as simple as that.
You may also get the sense that the book is unfinished, and that's because by norms of publishing it is. Bolaño was racing the reaper by the end of the writing process, with the book only receiving one round of editing and feedback before his passing, and the posthumous release. There are gaps in quality and gaps in the narrative, but it's not clear if the final product was delivered by design or simply the clock's final result. This is my first Bolaño novel, so I can't really weigh in, people with more grounding in his body of work generally agree that what we got is very close to that hypothetical final draft.
It doesn't escape me that I've been complimenting the prose in a translation, so I must give a nod to Natasha Wimmer, I've read enough poor translations to recognize quality when I see it. While I obviously cannot compare the translation to the original, for the prose to contain so much of the author's voice and so little of the translator's interpretation speaks volumes.
For me 2666 sits up there with Moby Dick, a reading experience that I had all but forgotten until 2666 reminded me. I can recall how difficult I found Moby Dick at the start, only to read on, dictionary close to hand, and find myself transformed by the experience. Not only had I just exposed myself to something profound, but I had tested my mastery over language and redefined what I found to be a challenge. It was an eye-opening piece of literature to me, the feeling of accomplishment that comes with overcoming something challenging was just the cherry on top.
While 2666 isn't perfect, and something of a chore to read, I felt the same feeling as I did with Moby Dick when I turned the last page of this book. A feeling that the experience of reading the book was just as valuable as its content.
PS: I know this review is huge, but I have a few extra notes as I come back to edit this.
First: I’ve tried really hard not to comment directly on the themes/my interpretation of the book in this review. That’s unique to this book because a. I could probably go on for at least another thousand words and b. I think your enjoyment of this text is determined by how curious of a reader you are. Much of this book is focused on the surface level events, the banal, and the remaining elements all point away from resolution; trying to understand the why, piercing through the subtlety, that is the core of the reading experience. I feel like explaining would spoil that experience, interpretations are something best saved to discuss with other readers.
With that said, if you somehow read through this whole review and you need to know what it's actually about, I can't put it any better than phantom_fonte did in this reddit comment (https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/1coc67d/comment/l3g1qjm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1).
Second: I managed to get through all this without ever commenting on how much I adore the cover? People say don’t judge a book by its cover but like, this must be the exception that proves the rule. It’s a just small portion of Jupiter and Semele, the painting by the symbolist Gustave Moreau, and you should really look at the entire thing of it. If you know the story of Semele, the cover becomes yet another element added to the narrative. Out of all the possible elements in the full painting, the selection of death and the white lily is not lost on me either, “At the foot of the throne, Death and Sorrow form the tragic basis of Human Life.”
I first read this while traveling in the summer of 2014. I'd seen the movie, so I thought I knew what I was getting into, but this book blew my socks off. Not only that, but I couldn't believe how different the book was, where was Denise Richards? The troopers wear mobile suits? Neodogs? Why did the military government have such an American ring to it? I wish I had sat down and took some notes from that first read, but I didn't. It feels weird to review on a re-read and this book already has like a million reviews anyway, so I guess this will be more like a blog entry than an actual review. If you haven't read this book, but you like SF then do yourself a favor and read it, the same goes for fans of the movie and more generally for people with pulses who like good books.
I recently read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, it's a completely opposite end of the spectrum type of book compared to Starship Troopers. But I want to note that Troopers came out just 5 years after Lucky Jim. They couldn't be more different books, but they're both classics as far as I am concerned. Somewhere in the time between them, one era ended and another began. I see the impact of the times in both of these books: In Jim we see the angst of the post-war educated and a rejection of the old ordering of society. Troopers takes that post-war influence and extrapolates it onto a galaxy-spanning human empire, the concept of a technocratic authoritarian future looming large in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I would call this one of the modern classics.
Modern? This book is 60 years old! You say.
This book is old. You'd be forgiven for seeing the publishing date and thinking that fact would reflect in the writing. Let's get one thing straight, minus the Neodogs and small traces of the Leave it to Beaver Era vocab, I thought this could have been published last week. The secret sauce here is that unlike something relatively contemporary to Troopers, something like Lucky Jim, this is genre writing. At this point in time, I get the sense that the modern tropes for the SF genre were being unveiled. The SF stories of the Golden Age started taking on a more realistic tone. The concept of a technologically advanced future was legitimized as we gained the ability to vaporize whole cities. The period in which this was published is the transition between the Golden Age and the New Wave of SF. We're talking Bradbury to Dick, books like 1984 and I, Robot, ad infinitum; these classics went on to define the genre's unique embrace of hard edged science and political philosophy.
That's the best thing about Troopers (and SF larger still), even if you find the philosophy contained therein to be a little dusty or unsound, there is a philosophy to engage with, and it's a philosophy that modern readers are more than capable of engaging with. A lot of early SF that made a mark were books that delivered this engaging blend of interstellar scenario and secret philosophy essay. But those titles which predate this period never really got the story mechanics as polished as they were by this point, compare Huxley and Burroughs to Bradbury or Asimov. To me, Troopers embodies this personal definition of modern SF, it's a philosophy dissertation masquerading (quite well) as a pulpy SF Man vs Alien story.
The philosophy is a double-edged sword here. I think the main thing that holds Troopers back for a lot of people is that the philosophy of the book is absolute blue bleeding conservative fascism. I think that it is perfectly acceptable to read this book and think that it's disgusting and perverse; this window into the possible future is heartbreaking and pessimistic. Furthermore, I think the modern worldview is in part defined by the active prevention of a Kipling tinted future. To learn the right lesson from the tragedies of both World Wars is to stand in opposition to endless war and military rule. In blowing the whistle and calling Nazi, you would in-fact be echoing the critical reception this book received from its contemporaries and from scholars in the following decades.
I say all that, so I don't sound an apologist for this next part. This book is a product of its time to its core. This is the postwar era, the president has been General Ike for the last two terms, and here comes another veteran in JFK. The America of this time is the post Korea-post McCarthy-baby boom-domino theory American Empire we're talking about. To read Starship Troopers and not see it belie the course of American politics in the 1950s is to put one's own head in the sand. Consider that Heinlein is painting with the colors of the time, and you will see that this work is not entirely self-consistent. Given a purity test, there are some elements that read as liberal, elitist, or even libertarian alongside the more apparent Fascist overtones; there's a dual-handedness to a lot of the ideas as they are presented. Women in this book are a perfect example of what I'm talking about: on one hand it's a progressive concept to have women serve alongside men, on the other hand how much of this book is antiquated machismo and paternalism directed in the female direction (a lot). There is some nuance here is my point, and I choose to take it as Heinlein inviting the reader to grapple with the philosophy rather than espousing those beliefs as right and true.
I think that invitation to grapple is the ethos that inspired the satirical nature of the movie (Of course, I have to mention the movie, name a more iconic pairing). I think that in nerddom it's rare to see a movie that strays so far from the source material wind up being the most appropriate adaptation. I don't think I would be such a fan of the movie if I wasn't also a fan of the book. Even without reading Troopers, you can see the satire in the film-it's dripping off of the poster. Once I gave this book a read I found myself appreciating the movie differently, a straight adaptation may as well just be an extended recruitment advertisement and even that remark makes its way into the film. As a satire the film manages to highlight the aspect of Troopers that dares you to disagree, it has its own magic and message and without that aspect to it, I doubt Troopers would be a definitive cult classic in either medium.
TL;DR: It's classic for a reason, and it isn't a tough or boring read either.
I first read this while traveling in the summer of 2014. I'd seen the movie, so I thought I knew what I was getting into, but this book blew my socks off. Not only that, but I couldn't believe how different the book was, where was Denise Richards? The troopers wear mobile suits? Neodogs? Why did the military government have such an American ring to it? I wish I had sat down and took some notes from that first read, but I didn't. It feels weird to review on a re-read and this book already has like a million reviews anyway, so I guess this will be more like a blog entry than an actual review. If you haven't read this book, but you like SF then do yourself a favor and read it, the same goes for fans of the movie and more generally for people with pulses who like good books.
I recently read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, it's a completely opposite end of the spectrum type of book compared to Starship Troopers. But I want to note that Troopers came out just 5 years after Lucky Jim. They couldn't be more different books, but they're both classics as far as I am concerned. Somewhere in the time between them, one era ended and another began. I see the impact of the times in both of these books: In Jim we see the angst of the post-war educated and a rejection of the old ordering of society. Troopers takes that post-war influence and extrapolates it onto a galaxy-spanning human empire, the concept of a technocratic authoritarian future looming large in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I would call this one of the modern classics.
Modern? This book is 60 years old! You say.
This book is old. You'd be forgiven for seeing the publishing date and thinking that fact would reflect in the writing. Let's get one thing straight, minus the Neodogs and small traces of the Leave it to Beaver Era vocab, I thought this could have been published last week. The secret sauce here is that unlike something relatively contemporary to Troopers, something like Lucky Jim, this is genre writing. At this point in time, I get the sense that the modern tropes for the SF genre were being unveiled. The SF stories of the Golden Age started taking on a more realistic tone. The concept of a technologically advanced future was legitimized as we gained the ability to vaporize whole cities. The period in which this was published is the transition between the Golden Age and the New Wave of SF. We're talking Bradbury to Dick, books like 1984 and I, Robot, ad infinitum; these classics went on to define the genre's unique embrace of hard edged science and political philosophy.
That's the best thing about Troopers (and SF larger still), even if you find the philosophy contained therein to be a little dusty or unsound, there is a philosophy to engage with, and it's a philosophy that modern readers are more than capable of engaging with. A lot of early SF that made a mark were books that delivered this engaging blend of interstellar scenario and secret philosophy essay. But those titles which predate this period never really got the story mechanics as polished as they were by this point, compare Huxley and Burroughs to Bradbury or Asimov. To me, Troopers embodies this personal definition of modern SF, it's a philosophy dissertation masquerading (quite well) as a pulpy SF Man vs Alien story.
The philosophy is a double-edged sword here. I think the main thing that holds Troopers back for a lot of people is that the philosophy of the book is absolute blue bleeding conservative fascism. I think that it is perfectly acceptable to read this book and think that it's disgusting and perverse; this window into the possible future is heartbreaking and pessimistic. Furthermore, I think the modern worldview is in part defined by the active prevention of a Kipling tinted future. To learn the right lesson from the tragedies of both World Wars is to stand in opposition to endless war and military rule. In blowing the whistle and calling Nazi, you would in-fact be echoing the critical reception this book received from its contemporaries and from scholars in the following decades.
I say all that, so I don't sound an apologist for this next part. This book is a product of its time to its core. This is the postwar era, the president has been General Ike for the last two terms, and here comes another veteran in JFK. The America of this time is the post Korea-post McCarthy-baby boom-domino theory American Empire we're talking about. To read Starship Troopers and not see it belie the course of American politics in the 1950s is to put one's own head in the sand. Consider that Heinlein is painting with the colors of the time, and you will see that this work is not entirely self-consistent. Given a purity test, there are some elements that read as liberal, elitist, or even libertarian alongside the more apparent Fascist overtones; there's a dual-handedness to a lot of the ideas as they are presented. Women in this book are a perfect example of what I'm talking about: on one hand it's a progressive concept to have women serve alongside men, on the other hand how much of this book is antiquated machismo and paternalism directed in the female direction (a lot). There is some nuance here is my point, and I choose to take it as Heinlein inviting the reader to grapple with the philosophy rather than espousing those beliefs as right and true.
I think that invitation to grapple is the ethos that inspired the satirical nature of the movie (Of course, I have to mention the movie, name a more iconic pairing). I think that in nerddom it's rare to see a movie that strays so far from the source material wind up being the most appropriate adaptation. I don't think I would be such a fan of the movie if I wasn't also a fan of the book. Even without reading Troopers, you can see the satire in the film-it's dripping off of the poster. Once I gave this book a read I found myself appreciating the movie differently, a straight adaptation may as well just be an extended recruitment advertisement and even that remark makes its way into the film. As a satire the film manages to highlight the aspect of Troopers that dares you to disagree, it has its own magic and message and without that aspect to it, I doubt Troopers would be a definitive cult classic in either medium.
TL;DR: It's classic for a reason, and it isn't a tough or boring read either.
Added to listFull Reviewswith 146 books.
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The Library of Babel is one of those short story collections you absolutely must read. Borges is your favorite author's favorite author and so many of his ideas have seeped their way into contemporary lit. Whether it's his inventive narratives or his remarkable use of language every story in this collection, no matter how short, will stick out in your mind and leave you thinking well after the pages are completed. You never really "finish" Borges.
What really drew me on this reading was the introductory essay- The Duration of Hell in which Borges detonates a theological hand grenade. I vividly recall Sunday school lessons where the concept of eternal damnation was introduced to me. I never really gave it all that much though, it was as if the concept tracked along with the other religious tenets (Charity, Prayer, Pilgrimage, etc). But as Borges points out the crime and the punishment are not proportional, sin is finite, but the punishment is infinite. He presents the logical problem, god is just and justice is proportional; and then he walks away resolving nothing. You can't stop thinking about it once you've read this piece.
The titular Library of Babel is of course the main draw here, it's a variation on the idea that a room full of monkeys and typewriters will eventually produce a work of Shakespeare on a long enough timeline. It's incredible, and it has gone on to inspire and influence every generation of authors that followed its publishing- if you had a good professor you've probably already read it or at least some other Borges.
Following along the themes present in The Duration of Hell, the last piece that's an absolute must read is the Babylonian Lottery. It's another Borges masterpiece and it really highlights his talent for building elegant but labyrinthine logical puzzles. This is a deceptively simple piece about a lottery in Babylon that introduces punishments, secret drawings, and then invisible administration. Eventually the lottery governs everything and nobody knows what's chance and what's by design. There are so many wild interpretations that this story invites, and the one that I personally continue to ruminate on is whether or not randomness is different from destiny, whether chaos is just another form of order. From the outset chance is presented as liberating, but as randomness comes to govern over all it really becomes indistinguishable from fate.
I loved this, and I read it right after the disappointment that was Shadows Upon Time. I wonder how much better that series could have been had Roucchio been a Borges fan (and if he is a Borges fan, I guess that's even more of a let down).
The Library of Babel is one of those short story collections you absolutely must read. Borges is your favorite author's favorite author and so many of his ideas have seeped their way into contemporary lit. Whether it's his inventive narratives or his remarkable use of language every story in this collection, no matter how short, will stick out in your mind and leave you thinking well after the pages are completed. You never really "finish" Borges.
What really drew me on this reading was the introductory essay- The Duration of Hell in which Borges detonates a theological hand grenade. I vividly recall Sunday school lessons where the concept of eternal damnation was introduced to me. I never really gave it all that much though, it was as if the concept tracked along with the other religious tenets (Charity, Prayer, Pilgrimage, etc). But as Borges points out the crime and the punishment are not proportional, sin is finite, but the punishment is infinite. He presents the logical problem, god is just and justice is proportional; and then he walks away resolving nothing. You can't stop thinking about it once you've read this piece.
The titular Library of Babel is of course the main draw here, it's a variation on the idea that a room full of monkeys and typewriters will eventually produce a work of Shakespeare on a long enough timeline. It's incredible, and it has gone on to inspire and influence every generation of authors that followed its publishing- if you had a good professor you've probably already read it or at least some other Borges.
Following along the themes present in The Duration of Hell, the last piece that's an absolute must read is the Babylonian Lottery. It's another Borges masterpiece and it really highlights his talent for building elegant but labyrinthine logical puzzles. This is a deceptively simple piece about a lottery in Babylon that introduces punishments, secret drawings, and then invisible administration. Eventually the lottery governs everything and nobody knows what's chance and what's by design. There are so many wild interpretations that this story invites, and the one that I personally continue to ruminate on is whether or not randomness is different from destiny, whether chaos is just another form of order. From the outset chance is presented as liberating, but as randomness comes to govern over all it really becomes indistinguishable from fate.
I loved this, and I read it right after the disappointment that was Shadows Upon Time. I wonder how much better that series could have been had Roucchio been a Borges fan (and if he is a Borges fan, I guess that's even more of a let down).
I first read this while traveling in the summer of 2014. I'd seen the movie, so I thought I knew what I was getting into, but this book blew my socks off. Not only that, but I couldn't believe how different the book was, where was Denise Richards? The troopers wear mobile suits? Neodogs? Why did the military government have such an American ring to it? I wish I had sat down and took some notes from that first read, but I didn't. It feels weird to review on a re-read and this book already has like a million reviews anyway, so I guess this will be more like a blog entry than an actual review. If you haven't read this book, but you like SF then do yourself a favor and read it, the same goes for fans of the movie and more generally for people with pulses who like good books.
I recently read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, it's a completely opposite end of the spectrum type of book compared to Starship Troopers. But I want to note that Troopers came out just 5 years after Lucky Jim. They couldn't be more different books, but they're both classics as far as I am concerned. Somewhere in the time between them, one era ended and another began. I see the impact of the times in both of these books: In Jim we see the angst of the post-war educated and a rejection of the old ordering of society. Troopers takes that post-war influence and extrapolates it onto a galaxy-spanning human empire, the concept of a technocratic authoritarian future looming large in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I would call this one of the modern classics.
Modern? This book is 60 years old! You say.
This book is old. You'd be forgiven for seeing the publishing date and thinking that fact would reflect in the writing. Let's get one thing straight, minus the Neodogs and small traces of the Leave it to Beaver Era vocab, I thought this could have been published last week. The secret sauce here is that unlike something relatively contemporary to Troopers, something like Lucky Jim, this is genre writing. At this point in time, I get the sense that the modern tropes for the SF genre were being unveiled. The SF stories of the Golden Age started taking on a more realistic tone. The concept of a technologically advanced future was legitimized as we gained the ability to vaporize whole cities. The period in which this was published is the transition between the Golden Age and the New Wave of SF. We're talking Bradbury to Dick, books like 1984 and I, Robot, ad infinitum; these classics went on to define the genre's unique embrace of hard edged science and political philosophy.
That's the best thing about Troopers (and SF larger still), even if you find the philosophy contained therein to be a little dusty or unsound, there is a philosophy to engage with, and it's a philosophy that modern readers are more than capable of engaging with. A lot of early SF that made a mark were books that delivered this engaging blend of interstellar scenario and secret philosophy essay. But those titles which predate this period never really got the story mechanics as polished as they were by this point, compare Huxley and Burroughs to Bradbury or Asimov. To me, Troopers embodies this personal definition of modern SF, it's a philosophy dissertation masquerading (quite well) as a pulpy SF Man vs Alien story.
The philosophy is a double-edged sword here. I think the main thing that holds Troopers back for a lot of people is that the philosophy of the book is absolute blue bleeding conservative fascism. I think that it is perfectly acceptable to read this book and think that it's disgusting and perverse; this window into the possible future is heartbreaking and pessimistic. Furthermore, I think the modern worldview is in part defined by the active prevention of a Kipling tinted future. To learn the right lesson from the tragedies of both World Wars is to stand in opposition to endless war and military rule. In blowing the whistle and calling Nazi, you would in-fact be echoing the critical reception this book received from its contemporaries and from scholars in the following decades.
I say all that, so I don't sound an apologist for this next part. This book is a product of its time to its core. This is the postwar era, the president has been General Ike for the last two terms, and here comes another veteran in JFK. The America of this time is the post Korea-post McCarthy-baby boom-domino theory American Empire we're talking about. To read Starship Troopers and not see it belie the course of American politics in the 1950s is to put one's own head in the sand. Consider that Heinlein is painting with the colors of the time, and you will see that this work is not entirely self-consistent. Given a purity test, there are some elements that read as liberal, elitist, or even libertarian alongside the more apparent Fascist overtones; there's a dual-handedness to a lot of the ideas as they are presented. Women in this book are a perfect example of what I'm talking about: on one hand it's a progressive concept to have women serve alongside men, on the other hand how much of this book is antiquated machismo and paternalism directed in the female direction (a lot). There is some nuance here is my point, and I choose to take it as Heinlein inviting the reader to grapple with the philosophy rather than espousing those beliefs as right and true.
I think that invitation to grapple is the ethos that inspired the satirical nature of the movie (Of course, I have to mention the movie, name a more iconic pairing). I think that in nerddom it's rare to see a movie that strays so far from the source material wind up being the most appropriate adaptation. I don't think I would be such a fan of the movie if I wasn't also a fan of the book. Even without reading Troopers, you can see the satire in the film-it's dripping off of the poster. Once I gave this book a read I found myself appreciating the movie differently, a straight adaptation may as well just be an extended recruitment advertisement and even that remark makes its way into the film. As a satire the film manages to highlight the aspect of Troopers that dares you to disagree, it has its own magic and message and without that aspect to it, I doubt Troopers would be a definitive cult classic in either medium.
TL;DR: It's classic for a reason, and it isn't a tough or boring read either.
I first read this while traveling in the summer of 2014. I'd seen the movie, so I thought I knew what I was getting into, but this book blew my socks off. Not only that, but I couldn't believe how different the book was, where was Denise Richards? The troopers wear mobile suits? Neodogs? Why did the military government have such an American ring to it? I wish I had sat down and took some notes from that first read, but I didn't. It feels weird to review on a re-read and this book already has like a million reviews anyway, so I guess this will be more like a blog entry than an actual review. If you haven't read this book, but you like SF then do yourself a favor and read it, the same goes for fans of the movie and more generally for people with pulses who like good books.
I recently read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, it's a completely opposite end of the spectrum type of book compared to Starship Troopers. But I want to note that Troopers came out just 5 years after Lucky Jim. They couldn't be more different books, but they're both classics as far as I am concerned. Somewhere in the time between them, one era ended and another began. I see the impact of the times in both of these books: In Jim we see the angst of the post-war educated and a rejection of the old ordering of society. Troopers takes that post-war influence and extrapolates it onto a galaxy-spanning human empire, the concept of a technocratic authoritarian future looming large in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I would call this one of the modern classics.
Modern? This book is 60 years old! You say.
This book is old. You'd be forgiven for seeing the publishing date and thinking that fact would reflect in the writing. Let's get one thing straight, minus the Neodogs and small traces of the Leave it to Beaver Era vocab, I thought this could have been published last week. The secret sauce here is that unlike something relatively contemporary to Troopers, something like Lucky Jim, this is genre writing. At this point in time, I get the sense that the modern tropes for the SF genre were being unveiled. The SF stories of the Golden Age started taking on a more realistic tone. The concept of a technologically advanced future was legitimized as we gained the ability to vaporize whole cities. The period in which this was published is the transition between the Golden Age and the New Wave of SF. We're talking Bradbury to Dick, books like 1984 and I, Robot, ad infinitum; these classics went on to define the genre's unique embrace of hard edged science and political philosophy.
That's the best thing about Troopers (and SF larger still), even if you find the philosophy contained therein to be a little dusty or unsound, there is a philosophy to engage with, and it's a philosophy that modern readers are more than capable of engaging with. A lot of early SF that made a mark were books that delivered this engaging blend of interstellar scenario and secret philosophy essay. But those titles which predate this period never really got the story mechanics as polished as they were by this point, compare Huxley and Burroughs to Bradbury or Asimov. To me, Troopers embodies this personal definition of modern SF, it's a philosophy dissertation masquerading (quite well) as a pulpy SF Man vs Alien story.
The philosophy is a double-edged sword here. I think the main thing that holds Troopers back for a lot of people is that the philosophy of the book is absolute blue bleeding conservative fascism. I think that it is perfectly acceptable to read this book and think that it's disgusting and perverse; this window into the possible future is heartbreaking and pessimistic. Furthermore, I think the modern worldview is in part defined by the active prevention of a Kipling tinted future. To learn the right lesson from the tragedies of both World Wars is to stand in opposition to endless war and military rule. In blowing the whistle and calling Nazi, you would in-fact be echoing the critical reception this book received from its contemporaries and from scholars in the following decades.
I say all that, so I don't sound an apologist for this next part. This book is a product of its time to its core. This is the postwar era, the president has been General Ike for the last two terms, and here comes another veteran in JFK. The America of this time is the post Korea-post McCarthy-baby boom-domino theory American Empire we're talking about. To read Starship Troopers and not see it belie the course of American politics in the 1950s is to put one's own head in the sand. Consider that Heinlein is painting with the colors of the time, and you will see that this work is not entirely self-consistent. Given a purity test, there are some elements that read as liberal, elitist, or even libertarian alongside the more apparent Fascist overtones; there's a dual-handedness to a lot of the ideas as they are presented. Women in this book are a perfect example of what I'm talking about: on one hand it's a progressive concept to have women serve alongside men, on the other hand how much of this book is antiquated machismo and paternalism directed in the female direction (a lot). There is some nuance here is my point, and I choose to take it as Heinlein inviting the reader to grapple with the philosophy rather than espousing those beliefs as right and true.
I think that invitation to grapple is the ethos that inspired the satirical nature of the movie (Of course, I have to mention the movie, name a more iconic pairing). I think that in nerddom it's rare to see a movie that strays so far from the source material wind up being the most appropriate adaptation. I don't think I would be such a fan of the movie if I wasn't also a fan of the book. Even without reading Troopers, you can see the satire in the film-it's dripping off of the poster. Once I gave this book a read I found myself appreciating the movie differently, a straight adaptation may as well just be an extended recruitment advertisement and even that remark makes its way into the film. As a satire the film manages to highlight the aspect of Troopers that dares you to disagree, it has its own magic and message and without that aspect to it, I doubt Troopers would be a definitive cult classic in either medium.
TL;DR: It's classic for a reason, and it isn't a tough or boring read either.
This popped on my radar after I finished The Secret History, with Lethem being a onetime classmate of Donna Tartt and one of the many Bennington-related authors that became the white-hot stars of ’90s and ’00s lit. The Fortress of Solitude is his semi-autobiographical opus, a loud and racially charged exploration of his childhood in ’60s/’70s Brooklyn. It tells the story of Dylan and Mingus, two friends who grew up in the shadows cast by their evolving neighborhood and their absent mothers. Dylan, the lone white face in a sea of Black, recounts his youth in pre-gentrified/gentrifying Brooklyn; Mingus is his oasis and conduit, his childhood friend and the focal point of the book. This book is huge, and I’m not just talking page count; it’s simultaneously a bildungsroman, time capsule, and social justice essay wrapped around a comic book plot.
Split into two halves—childhood and later adulthood—Dylan recounts his life after the abandonment by his mother and the arrival of Mingus and his father, Barrett Rude Jr. Mingus’s arrival heralds Dylan’s debut into adolescence as they become fast friends. Exploring music, comics, graffiti art, and their sexual identities, the boys grow incredibly close. Things change when Dylan meets the flying homeless man, Aaron X. Doily (who I can only assume is the impetus for the character of Hancock (2008)), who gives Dylan his magic ring, which he in turn gives to Mingus. Mingus learns to fly with the power of the ring, gradually becoming separate from Dylan as his cohort expands to include the neighborhood ne’er-do-wells Arthur and Robert Woolfolk, his interests diverge from comics to cocaine, and Dylan grows increasingly alienated from him.
Their separation becomes more concrete when Mingus is arrested for the murder of his grandfather, the novel transitioning to Dylan’s aimless years bouncing from the NYC punk scene to college and ultimately to Berkeley, and his eventual career writing the liner notes for Barrett Rude Jr.’s compilation album.
Dylan cannot find peace; he finds himself trapped in an existential loop that can only be resolved by breaking Mingus out of prison. So that’s exactly what he does. Armed with Doily’s magic ring, its powers having changed to grant invisibility, Dylan sets out to free his friend.
I read this and Motherless Brooklyn in advance of my first trip to New York earlier this year; ironically, I did not have the time to cross the East River, much less the Gowanus Canal. I mention this because whether you’ll like this book is make-or-break on whether you like Lethem’s highly detailed prose. As I still remain a Brooklyn virgin, I found his descriptive style captivating and illustrative—this is some of the best English written. Likewise, I could see that same attention to detail overwhelming or choking, depending on the reader. Particularly if you’re from Brooklyn, I doubt you need the four pages he seems to devote to each minor setting.
That said, this book is sprawling. Whether it’s the not-quite coming-of-age story it tells, the comic book subplot, the devotion to set and setting, or the secondary focus on music, there seems to be something for everyone. I will echo other reviews in saying the last third is underwhelming. As I hinted before, the only real complaint I have is that the characters never truly mature; Dylan’s motivations are less relatable, and it leads the final act into nonsense territory.
This popped on my radar after I finished The Secret History, with Lethem being a onetime classmate of Donna Tartt and one of the many Bennington-related authors that became the white-hot stars of ’90s and ’00s lit. The Fortress of Solitude is his semi-autobiographical opus, a loud and racially charged exploration of his childhood in ’60s/’70s Brooklyn. It tells the story of Dylan and Mingus, two friends who grew up in the shadows cast by their evolving neighborhood and their absent mothers. Dylan, the lone white face in a sea of Black, recounts his youth in pre-gentrified/gentrifying Brooklyn; Mingus is his oasis and conduit, his childhood friend and the focal point of the book. This book is huge, and I’m not just talking page count; it’s simultaneously a bildungsroman, time capsule, and social justice essay wrapped around a comic book plot.
Split into two halves—childhood and later adulthood—Dylan recounts his life after the abandonment by his mother and the arrival of Mingus and his father, Barrett Rude Jr. Mingus’s arrival heralds Dylan’s debut into adolescence as they become fast friends. Exploring music, comics, graffiti art, and their sexual identities, the boys grow incredibly close. Things change when Dylan meets the flying homeless man, Aaron X. Doily (who I can only assume is the impetus for the character of Hancock (2008)), who gives Dylan his magic ring, which he in turn gives to Mingus. Mingus learns to fly with the power of the ring, gradually becoming separate from Dylan as his cohort expands to include the neighborhood ne’er-do-wells Arthur and Robert Woolfolk, his interests diverge from comics to cocaine, and Dylan grows increasingly alienated from him.
Their separation becomes more concrete when Mingus is arrested for the murder of his grandfather, the novel transitioning to Dylan’s aimless years bouncing from the NYC punk scene to college and ultimately to Berkeley, and his eventual career writing the liner notes for Barrett Rude Jr.’s compilation album.
Dylan cannot find peace; he finds himself trapped in an existential loop that can only be resolved by breaking Mingus out of prison. So that’s exactly what he does. Armed with Doily’s magic ring, its powers having changed to grant invisibility, Dylan sets out to free his friend.
I read this and Motherless Brooklyn in advance of my first trip to New York earlier this year; ironically, I did not have the time to cross the East River, much less the Gowanus Canal. I mention this because whether you’ll like this book is make-or-break on whether you like Lethem’s highly detailed prose. As I still remain a Brooklyn virgin, I found his descriptive style captivating and illustrative—this is some of the best English written. Likewise, I could see that same attention to detail overwhelming or choking, depending on the reader. Particularly if you’re from Brooklyn, I doubt you need the four pages he seems to devote to each minor setting.
That said, this book is sprawling. Whether it’s the not-quite coming-of-age story it tells, the comic book subplot, the devotion to set and setting, or the secondary focus on music, there seems to be something for everyone. I will echo other reviews in saying the last third is underwhelming. As I hinted before, the only real complaint I have is that the characters never truly mature; Dylan’s motivations are less relatable, and it leads the final act into nonsense territory.
Book Club for December (I know it's February) ____________
I haven't kept up with the book club lately, I shouldn't have skipped the Hitchhiker's re-read because it totally threw off the rhythm I had going with these. That's half of the case for the delay here, I missed the deadline and put it down half finished, until last week. I wouldn't chalk the cause of the pause entirely up to a busted schedule, no, I put Akata Witch down because I didn't like the book. I won't leave the reader in suspense, it's because this is YA. I'll admit my bias here, and it's an obvious one, I am not in the YA demo and these books don't really do much for me. Likewise, I'm not sure if I can tell good YA apart from bad YA at this point, but I've read better YA than this.
Akata Witch is easy to wrap your head around, what if Harry Potter took place in Nigeria and the magic was less about wands and more about Juju. We join Sunny, an adolescent albino girl whose family has recently repatriated to Nigeria from the US. Through Sunny's American eyes, readers get a speedy introduction to Nigeria before diving further into the world of the Leopard People (Wizards). Sunny makes friends with Orlu, Chi-Chi, and Sasha, eventually joining them under the magical/juju-ical tutelage of Anton. Just as Sunny as gets her bearings in the secret world of wizards Leopards, she learns that she and her classmates are fated to battle the Black Hat; Nigeria's child murdering Voldemort.
That's all you really need to know, this is Nigerian Harry Potter. Its got the same strengths as HP as well, namely in discovery and atmosphere. There are some things I really liked here: I thought that the Juju-magic system was very interesting and much better developed than the magic in HP. It was cool how the magic system was inspired by and used to introduce some of the folklore and fill in cultural gaps that American readers are bound to run into with a book like this. This book also retains that coming of age/adolescent transformation aspect that made Harry Potter such a relatable YA read. The best moments in the book come as Sunny comes to grasp her power and new identity. It doesn't hurt either that the dynamic of Sunny's friend group is fun and supportive, the book shines brightest when it's just Sunny and the gang going about their days.
Unfortunately, that's all I came to like about this book. Akata Witch manages to copy and alter almost every aspect of Harry Potter, it sticks to the formula, but it's just worse. One big failure of the book early on was with how little explanation of the "wizarding world" there was. I might call this weak world building, but it's not that there was a failure to build a world, more-so there wasn't enough explanation. In Harry Potter, nearly 3/4s of that first book is devoted to explaining and exploring every aspect of the world. Introducing shopkeepers, Quiditch, and chocolate frogs, it's all contextualized as Harry comes into contact with it. Meanwhile Akata Witch just drops you in, explaining only where necessary and seemingly making as little use of Sunny's status as a student as possible. That's just not going to work when the reader is not familiar with Nigeria much less your Afro-magical world! It's not like the magic was well explained either, Sunny may have been learning Juju but none of it carried over to the reader, that, or Leopard Knocks has a vastly inferior curriculum to Hogwarts and Sunny is just as clueless as I am.
It was "Black Hat" as the Voldemort stand in that took me over the edge. I never liked the fated child trope to begin with, and now you're telling me that the villain in this book isn't just magical Hitler (as Voldy was) but he's also a serial child murderer (that the muggles, sorry, "lambs" are AWARE AND TERRIFIED of) and the only plan the elder magicians have is to task a squad of teens, one of whom literally started learning magicJuju that day, to deal with him while doing absolutely nothing else about it. This is where I put the book down.
Having gotten past that, I can say that my dislike of this book came down to how disjointed the pacing of the book was coupled with how obvious of a lift of Harry Potter it is. This story had a really structured series of milestones that the characters had to get to, but the interconnecting story tissue that fills the gaps between moments isn't effective. This story feels abrupt, things happen because they have to happen, not because a character has caused them to happen. With the story basically set on rails there's no real pay off when Sunny and the gang eventually overcome their foe. In fact, our heroes have nothing to do with the mechanism that defeats Black Hat, their only contribution to his defeat being their geographic proximity to him.
This was supposed to be a wizard-come-of-age story but I didn't really feel the pay-off here. This was a cool idea with lackluster execution, and credit where it's due, so much of what I read in this book was new and interesting to me, it just wasn't enough to overcome the novice/lifted story structure.
Book Club for December (I know it's February) ____________
I haven't kept up with the book club lately, I shouldn't have skipped the Hitchhiker's re-read because it totally threw off the rhythm I had going with these. That's half of the case for the delay here, I missed the deadline and put it down half finished, until last week. I wouldn't chalk the cause of the pause entirely up to a busted schedule, no, I put Akata Witch down because I didn't like the book. I won't leave the reader in suspense, it's because this is YA. I'll admit my bias here, and it's an obvious one, I am not in the YA demo and these books don't really do much for me. Likewise, I'm not sure if I can tell good YA apart from bad YA at this point, but I've read better YA than this.
Akata Witch is easy to wrap your head around, what if Harry Potter took place in Nigeria and the magic was less about wands and more about Juju. We join Sunny, an adolescent albino girl whose family has recently repatriated to Nigeria from the US. Through Sunny's American eyes, readers get a speedy introduction to Nigeria before diving further into the world of the Leopard People (Wizards). Sunny makes friends with Orlu, Chi-Chi, and Sasha, eventually joining them under the magical/juju-ical tutelage of Anton. Just as Sunny as gets her bearings in the secret world of wizards Leopards, she learns that she and her classmates are fated to battle the Black Hat; Nigeria's child murdering Voldemort.
That's all you really need to know, this is Nigerian Harry Potter. Its got the same strengths as HP as well, namely in discovery and atmosphere. There are some things I really liked here: I thought that the Juju-magic system was very interesting and much better developed than the magic in HP. It was cool how the magic system was inspired by and used to introduce some of the folklore and fill in cultural gaps that American readers are bound to run into with a book like this. This book also retains that coming of age/adolescent transformation aspect that made Harry Potter such a relatable YA read. The best moments in the book come as Sunny comes to grasp her power and new identity. It doesn't hurt either that the dynamic of Sunny's friend group is fun and supportive, the book shines brightest when it's just Sunny and the gang going about their days.
Unfortunately, that's all I came to like about this book. Akata Witch manages to copy and alter almost every aspect of Harry Potter, it sticks to the formula, but it's just worse. One big failure of the book early on was with how little explanation of the "wizarding world" there was. I might call this weak world building, but it's not that there was a failure to build a world, more-so there wasn't enough explanation. In Harry Potter, nearly 3/4s of that first book is devoted to explaining and exploring every aspect of the world. Introducing shopkeepers, Quiditch, and chocolate frogs, it's all contextualized as Harry comes into contact with it. Meanwhile Akata Witch just drops you in, explaining only where necessary and seemingly making as little use of Sunny's status as a student as possible. That's just not going to work when the reader is not familiar with Nigeria much less your Afro-magical world! It's not like the magic was well explained either, Sunny may have been learning Juju but none of it carried over to the reader, that, or Leopard Knocks has a vastly inferior curriculum to Hogwarts and Sunny is just as clueless as I am.
It was "Black Hat" as the Voldemort stand in that took me over the edge. I never liked the fated child trope to begin with, and now you're telling me that the villain in this book isn't just magical Hitler (as Voldy was) but he's also a serial child murderer (that the muggles, sorry, "lambs" are AWARE AND TERRIFIED of) and the only plan the elder magicians have is to task a squad of teens, one of whom literally started learning magicJuju that day, to deal with him while doing absolutely nothing else about it. This is where I put the book down.
Having gotten past that, I can say that my dislike of this book came down to how disjointed the pacing of the book was coupled with how obvious of a lift of Harry Potter it is. This story had a really structured series of milestones that the characters had to get to, but the interconnecting story tissue that fills the gaps between moments isn't effective. This story feels abrupt, things happen because they have to happen, not because a character has caused them to happen. With the story basically set on rails there's no real pay off when Sunny and the gang eventually overcome their foe. In fact, our heroes have nothing to do with the mechanism that defeats Black Hat, their only contribution to his defeat being their geographic proximity to him.
This was supposed to be a wizard-come-of-age story but I didn't really feel the pay-off here. This was a cool idea with lackluster execution, and credit where it's due, so much of what I read in this book was new and interesting to me, it just wasn't enough to overcome the novice/lifted story structure.
Not much of a review in me for this one. This series keeps impressing me, I have this worry that this will get so out there that it basically devolves into the book version of two and half men, fart jokes and pop culture references, but Dinniman keeps this show on rails and keeps it interesting to boot. Can't wait for the next one.
Not much of a review in me for this one. This series keeps impressing me, I have this worry that this will get so out there that it basically devolves into the book version of two and half men, fart jokes and pop culture references, but Dinniman keeps this show on rails and keeps it interesting to boot. Can't wait for the next one.
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"
It's not Gene Wolfe, it's Job, the whole damn thing is Job. But Job had his fortunes returned twofold, and Hadrian's story ends in a significant reversal of the old parable. It's tough to complain or criticize this ending, largely because the events of this last entry have been foreshadowed across the entire series, but it still managed to leave a nasty aftertaste in my mouth.
I think maybe I pinned my hopes a little too high, I really thought this final arc would mirror Gene Wolfe's influence, one where salvation is not guaranteed but earned-instead we get a repetition of classic Dogma. I hate to say it, but all this series amounts to is bible stories in space, half a retelling of the resurrection and half a surface level examination of Theological Determinism vs. Free Will- particularly the interpretation of Aquinas. At least the battles across hyperspace were cool.
Notably absent from this christian hotpot is any discussion of Hell and eternity. I thought we'd get there, but we didn't. This really put me in mind of Borges, who wrote of the four cycles, the four archetypes of story: The siege, The return, The quest and The sacrifice and that all versions amount to just one story- a destiny fulfilled through repetition and variation.
I'll still buy the box set.
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"
It's not Gene Wolfe, it's Job, the whole damn thing is Job. But Job had his fortunes returned twofold, and Hadrian's story ends in a significant reversal of the old parable. It's tough to complain or criticize this ending, largely because the events of this last entry have been foreshadowed across the entire series, but it still managed to leave a nasty aftertaste in my mouth.
I think maybe I pinned my hopes a little too high, I really thought this final arc would mirror Gene Wolfe's influence, one where salvation is not guaranteed but earned-instead we get a repetition of classic Dogma. I hate to say it, but all this series amounts to is bible stories in space, half a retelling of the resurrection and half a surface level examination of Theological Determinism vs. Free Will- particularly the interpretation of Aquinas. At least the battles across hyperspace were cool.
Notably absent from this christian hotpot is any discussion of Hell and eternity. I thought we'd get there, but we didn't. This really put me in mind of Borges, who wrote of the four cycles, the four archetypes of story: The siege, The return, The quest and The sacrifice and that all versions amount to just one story- a destiny fulfilled through repetition and variation.
I'll still buy the box set.
I know I'm a little late in posting this, but Happy New Year! These year in reviews take a little bit longer than the average book review, so feel free to skip around, but please don't skip my 2024 wrap up. I know that 2024 wasn't the best year for human civilization, and we're looking at a rough remainder of the decade, but it was a good year for books!
2024 was an incredibly busy and fruitful year for me: I became an uncle many times over, I've taken on more responsibility in my professional life, and in late September I got engaged! Despite all that, I managed to make a respectable dent in my ever-growing TBR.
My reading goals have remained consistent, with a few minor changes:
- Read a minimum of 30 minutes every day. (692 Days in a row according to kindle)
- Read and review as many books as I could. (77 Books read! 55 Reviewed!)
- Read more than just SFF, I aim to finish at least 10 titles outside the SFF space, with at least half of those being NF/History titles.
I read fewer books than last year, as I intended, but whether it was a conscious effort or because of how busy I've been, I can't say for sure. I tried to pepper in more non-fiction and literature this year, and some of those books, particularly the large and dry non-fiction volumes, really brought down the pace. As for the reviews, I've come to develop a few personal rules concerning sequels; what I will and will not review. New books? Yes. Old Books? Also, yes. 4th non-contemporaneous issue in a popular series? No. When it comes to series, it comes down to whether or not the book is the first or the latest in the series. Or, if it is otherwise critical to, or divergent from, the series to date.
I have found a happy medium between over-reading and not reading at all. Doing reviews along with broadening up the genres I read in has helped to keep up the habit without overdoing it. My approach for 2025 remains much the same as it was last year, namely, striving for balance between life and reading time, along with reading more challenging/literary/nonfiction books. I think of it as having veggies along with the junk food. And of course the reviews will continue.
So with the year behind us, allow me to highlight some of what I read this year.
Non-Fiction for the year: I originally conceived of ranking these, but I did not read prolifically in this genre. I should have set a fixed goal on this because I did not reach for the NF/History pile nearly as much as I should have. I did manage to read three titles: From the Streets of Shaolin: The Wu-Tang Saga, The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus, Mao: The Real Story.
Wu-Tang notwithstanding, these were really difficult to move through because of the sheer density of information. Maybe my approach to non-fiction is wrong, but I was forced into chipping away at these books in 20-30 page bursts. The narrative rhythm is absent in non-fiction, it makes it very difficult to settle in for a long lazy afternoon reading session. I would love recommendations for more interesting, or more story driven non-fiction books. I enjoy history, I just feel like I struck out with my picks.
Favorites Series for the year: I love a good series, and I was pleased to find a number of great ones this year. I kept up with prior favorites, but I've decided that for the purposes of this listicle, I will only mention series that were new to me this year. The short list for the year is as follows: Sun Eater by Chris Roucchio, The Factory by Derek Raymond, The Masquerade by Seth Dickinson, and Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman.
All of these were incredible series that captured me until I either finished them or caught up to the latest release. Despite the sterling quality across the board, there are only two real contenders: The Factory and Sun Eater.
While it was easy to get it down to two, I truly could not say which of these dominated more of my year. Sun Eater had me hooked for longer because of the length of the series, but the Factory books really are a cut above the average piece of genre writing. Indeed, the Factory series was kind of an out of nowhere surprise slam dunk for me and was something I was fully expecting to shrug off.
But I think Sun Eater gets the nod; this is a debut series in a genre I love-something I had extremely high expectations for, which impressed me at every possible opportunity. It really is the best iteration of the space opera epic yet.
Top 5 Books for the Year: These are my favorites for the year, in no particular order. I did consider banning series entries from this list, but I'm a pretty heavy series reader, so that would have made the list too short. I'll say a little for each of these, but my basic ranking criteria are: A. Personal Enjoyment and B. Impact/Resonance (do I still meditate on this book's ideas?).
- The Ministry for the Future: I know I said this list isn't in order, but this is my overall pick for the year. I just can't put this book out of my mind, and I think it'll only be a more and more important read as the climate disaster worsens.
- The Plague: This touched a nerve with me, I think it will for a lot of people post-covid. Doesn't hurt that it's also quite an accessible read as far as Lit goes.
- He Died With His Eyes Open/I Was Dora Suarez: The Factory novels were a big discovery for me, I think each of these books (not the fifth) are some of the best written. Ever. Both of these are listed because I can't choose which is better.
- Night's Master: I didn't read enough of the Flat Earth to make it a series contender, but this first book was incredible. I plan to read more Tanith Lee in the new year.
- Dark Matter: I really enjoyed this book, it was by far one of the most fun things I read this year and fascinating to boot. The Apple TV show is also a banger.
Small shout-outs to Permutation City, The Employees, The Passenger, and Crash. These were interesting, extremely well written, but very challenging books that remain on my mind. I thought that these books ranked among the very best in quality and resonance but among the lowest in reading experience/personal enjoyment.
Author of the Year:
This one is usually tough to pin down, but maybe I've already spoiled this one with the constant Factory gush. That's right, this year it's Derek Raymond a.k.a. Robert William Arthur Cook, and it's him by a mile. I cover this in my reviews, but he's got an existentialist style that elevates his crime fiction to unparalleled heights. His biography is wild to boot, and I guess just like with PKD, I'm a sucker for a folk figure.
As I did last year when I wound up picking another dinosaur author, I'll also give a nod to a contemporary author. And this one isn't a surprise either. I loved Sun Eater, and I can say this having read 6 ever improving works, Chris Roucchio is one of the best doing it right now.
____________ Thanks for reading my year in review, this year there was nothing I regret reading except for maybe The Shining Girls, which was a book club pick so it was out of my hands to begin with. Hope 2025 is great for everyone!
I know I'm a little late in posting this, but Happy New Year! These year in reviews take a little bit longer than the average book review, so feel free to skip around, but please don't skip my 2024 wrap up. I know that 2024 wasn't the best year for human civilization, and we're looking at a rough remainder of the decade, but it was a good year for books!
2024 was an incredibly busy and fruitful year for me: I became an uncle many times over, I've taken on more responsibility in my professional life, and in late September I got engaged! Despite all that, I managed to make a respectable dent in my ever-growing TBR.
My reading goals have remained consistent, with a few minor changes:
- Read a minimum of 30 minutes every day. (692 Days in a row according to kindle)
- Read and review as many books as I could. (77 Books read! 55 Reviewed!)
- Read more than just SFF, I aim to finish at least 10 titles outside the SFF space, with at least half of those being NF/History titles.
I read fewer books than last year, as I intended, but whether it was a conscious effort or because of how busy I've been, I can't say for sure. I tried to pepper in more non-fiction and literature this year, and some of those books, particularly the large and dry non-fiction volumes, really brought down the pace. As for the reviews, I've come to develop a few personal rules concerning sequels; what I will and will not review. New books? Yes. Old Books? Also, yes. 4th non-contemporaneous issue in a popular series? No. When it comes to series, it comes down to whether or not the book is the first or the latest in the series. Or, if it is otherwise critical to, or divergent from, the series to date.
I have found a happy medium between over-reading and not reading at all. Doing reviews along with broadening up the genres I read in has helped to keep up the habit without overdoing it. My approach for 2025 remains much the same as it was last year, namely, striving for balance between life and reading time, along with reading more challenging/literary/nonfiction books. I think of it as having veggies along with the junk food. And of course the reviews will continue.
So with the year behind us, allow me to highlight some of what I read this year.
Non-Fiction for the year: I originally conceived of ranking these, but I did not read prolifically in this genre. I should have set a fixed goal on this because I did not reach for the NF/History pile nearly as much as I should have. I did manage to read three titles: From the Streets of Shaolin: The Wu-Tang Saga, The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus, Mao: The Real Story.
Wu-Tang notwithstanding, these were really difficult to move through because of the sheer density of information. Maybe my approach to non-fiction is wrong, but I was forced into chipping away at these books in 20-30 page bursts. The narrative rhythm is absent in non-fiction, it makes it very difficult to settle in for a long lazy afternoon reading session. I would love recommendations for more interesting, or more story driven non-fiction books. I enjoy history, I just feel like I struck out with my picks.
Favorites Series for the year: I love a good series, and I was pleased to find a number of great ones this year. I kept up with prior favorites, but I've decided that for the purposes of this listicle, I will only mention series that were new to me this year. The short list for the year is as follows: Sun Eater by Chris Roucchio, The Factory by Derek Raymond, The Masquerade by Seth Dickinson, and Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman.
All of these were incredible series that captured me until I either finished them or caught up to the latest release. Despite the sterling quality across the board, there are only two real contenders: The Factory and Sun Eater.
While it was easy to get it down to two, I truly could not say which of these dominated more of my year. Sun Eater had me hooked for longer because of the length of the series, but the Factory books really are a cut above the average piece of genre writing. Indeed, the Factory series was kind of an out of nowhere surprise slam dunk for me and was something I was fully expecting to shrug off.
But I think Sun Eater gets the nod; this is a debut series in a genre I love-something I had extremely high expectations for, which impressed me at every possible opportunity. It really is the best iteration of the space opera epic yet.
Top 5 Books for the Year: These are my favorites for the year, in no particular order. I did consider banning series entries from this list, but I'm a pretty heavy series reader, so that would have made the list too short. I'll say a little for each of these, but my basic ranking criteria are: A. Personal Enjoyment and B. Impact/Resonance (do I still meditate on this book's ideas?).
- The Ministry for the Future: I know I said this list isn't in order, but this is my overall pick for the year. I just can't put this book out of my mind, and I think it'll only be a more and more important read as the climate disaster worsens.
- The Plague: This touched a nerve with me, I think it will for a lot of people post-covid. Doesn't hurt that it's also quite an accessible read as far as Lit goes.
- He Died With His Eyes Open/I Was Dora Suarez: The Factory novels were a big discovery for me, I think each of these books (not the fifth) are some of the best written. Ever. Both of these are listed because I can't choose which is better.
- Night's Master: I didn't read enough of the Flat Earth to make it a series contender, but this first book was incredible. I plan to read more Tanith Lee in the new year.
- Dark Matter: I really enjoyed this book, it was by far one of the most fun things I read this year and fascinating to boot. The Apple TV show is also a banger.
Small shout-outs to Permutation City, The Employees, The Passenger, and Crash. These were interesting, extremely well written, but very challenging books that remain on my mind. I thought that these books ranked among the very best in quality and resonance but among the lowest in reading experience/personal enjoyment.
Author of the Year:
This one is usually tough to pin down, but maybe I've already spoiled this one with the constant Factory gush. That's right, this year it's Derek Raymond a.k.a. Robert William Arthur Cook, and it's him by a mile. I cover this in my reviews, but he's got an existentialist style that elevates his crime fiction to unparalleled heights. His biography is wild to boot, and I guess just like with PKD, I'm a sucker for a folk figure.
As I did last year when I wound up picking another dinosaur author, I'll also give a nod to a contemporary author. And this one isn't a surprise either. I loved Sun Eater, and I can say this having read 6 ever improving works, Chris Roucchio is one of the best doing it right now.
____________ Thanks for reading my year in review, this year there was nothing I regret reading except for maybe The Shining Girls, which was a book club pick so it was out of my hands to begin with. Hope 2025 is great for everyone!
Happy New Year, everyone! I just stumbled on this year in review entry, and it is a neat little feature, isn't it? 2023 has been something of a reading renaissance for me, but this all really started in 2022. That was the first year in my adult life without any need to study/cram or work long hours, and I realized that I needed a "productive" alternative to my phone.
I rode the momentum of that decision along with a string of some really excellent books (Hyperion, Blindsight, and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet to name a few) and decided that in 2023 I would have three main reading goals:
1. I would read a minimum of 30 minutes every day. (326 Days in a row according to kindle) 2. I would try to read as many books as I could. (92 Books read!) 3. I would try to review everything I read. (this got added later)
I stuck to my genres (SF/Fantasy) but I made sure to cleanse the palate with whatever sounded interesting/ whatever literary references went over my head. I wanted a baseline for just how much I could read in a year without pushing myself; turns out you can read a ton when you don't have casebooks and social media competing for your time. Once I started the Urth of the New Sun series I realized that I couldn't keep it all straight without taking notes, and once you have notes you're basically obligated to post a review.
It's been a great reading year for me, and I intend to keep up with this habit I've formed. My goals for 2024 are a little different, I'd actually like to read with a little more moderation (I may have spent more time with the books than I did with my girlfriend), I'd like to finish the Dandelion Dynasty, and I would like to read more books outside my genres/wheelhouse (maybe a little more non-fiction and literature).
With all that said I read a ton this year so let me highlight some stuff!
Favorites Series for the year:
I was big into series this year, I read Urth of the New Sun, The Culture, Bobiverse, Murderbot, The First Law, The Dandelion Dynasty, Monk and Robot, Alex Stern, and the Sarantine Mosaic.
I had a blast reading all of these series and I have nothing but praise for all of them, you seriously can't go wrong picking up any one of these. That makes it super tough to pick my series of the year, since almost all of these books left such a strong impression on me. I mean, seriously, it's kind of like picking which cut of Wagyu was most delicious!
When in doubt, I turn to the roots, and what I was most excited about (and most diligent with) had to be the Culture Series by Ian M. Banks. I was absolutely consumed by this series, it was like "oh wow, I can't believe this has existed all this time, and I am literally the last person to hear about it." I didn't love every book, but it's 10 whole books, there's bound to be a miss or two. What's really impressive is that each book could very easily be the start of their own series, each book is wholly unique and PACKED with ideas and content. I wish I could read more Culture. RIP BIG BANKS.
Author of the Year:
I only read two of his books this year, but I love them both. I will be reading more Philip K. Dick in 2024. His authorial style agrees with me in a way that no one else I read this year quite managed to match. Obviously, I am a little late to the party and I know that marking him as my favorite for the year is a little bit like saying Citizen Kane or On the Waterfront is my favorite movie. But I can't help it, Ubik was amazing and A Scanner Darkly really agreed with me!
If I have to pick someone a little more contemporary, I am giving the nod to Becky Chambers. I first read her in 2022, but with each additional book of hers that I read, my appreciation of her style and ideas only grows. I absolutely loved Monk & Robot, I fully intend on grabbing a box set for this series once it's complete. M&R aside, there is more Wayfarers on the horizon for me. Count me as a fan.
Top 5 Books for the Year:
1. The Library at Mount Char 2. Use of Weapons 3. A Scanner Darkly 4. Bad Brains 5. Cosmos
This list is in order, but maybe it shouldn't be. I read so many excellent books this year, so this isn't a quality metric, but rather I'm ranking these books by how much I liked them and just how much of their ideas/imagery/plot managed to make it into my daily thoughts (Love and Staying Power). What makes me rank Char at the top has a lot to do with just how much of a surprise it was, I expected nothing and got something so incredible and unique. Let's not forget to mention that it is an authorial debut for Scott Hawkins, a grand slam the first time up to bat is something that I can't help but take note of.
Wish I could unread this:
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
You can read my review of this fanfic, but I don't know why I didn't put this down. Chalk it up to morbid curiosity. My problem with this book had a lot to do with the weakness of the writing, and not necessarily with the premise or plot.
Happy New Year, everyone! I just stumbled on this year in review entry, and it is a neat little feature, isn't it? 2023 has been something of a reading renaissance for me, but this all really started in 2022. That was the first year in my adult life without any need to study/cram or work long hours, and I realized that I needed a "productive" alternative to my phone.
I rode the momentum of that decision along with a string of some really excellent books (Hyperion, Blindsight, and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet to name a few) and decided that in 2023 I would have three main reading goals:
1. I would read a minimum of 30 minutes every day. (326 Days in a row according to kindle) 2. I would try to read as many books as I could. (92 Books read!) 3. I would try to review everything I read. (this got added later)
I stuck to my genres (SF/Fantasy) but I made sure to cleanse the palate with whatever sounded interesting/ whatever literary references went over my head. I wanted a baseline for just how much I could read in a year without pushing myself; turns out you can read a ton when you don't have casebooks and social media competing for your time. Once I started the Urth of the New Sun series I realized that I couldn't keep it all straight without taking notes, and once you have notes you're basically obligated to post a review.
It's been a great reading year for me, and I intend to keep up with this habit I've formed. My goals for 2024 are a little different, I'd actually like to read with a little more moderation (I may have spent more time with the books than I did with my girlfriend), I'd like to finish the Dandelion Dynasty, and I would like to read more books outside my genres/wheelhouse (maybe a little more non-fiction and literature).
With all that said I read a ton this year so let me highlight some stuff!
Favorites Series for the year:
I was big into series this year, I read Urth of the New Sun, The Culture, Bobiverse, Murderbot, The First Law, The Dandelion Dynasty, Monk and Robot, Alex Stern, and the Sarantine Mosaic.
I had a blast reading all of these series and I have nothing but praise for all of them, you seriously can't go wrong picking up any one of these. That makes it super tough to pick my series of the year, since almost all of these books left such a strong impression on me. I mean, seriously, it's kind of like picking which cut of Wagyu was most delicious!
When in doubt, I turn to the roots, and what I was most excited about (and most diligent with) had to be the Culture Series by Ian M. Banks. I was absolutely consumed by this series, it was like "oh wow, I can't believe this has existed all this time, and I am literally the last person to hear about it." I didn't love every book, but it's 10 whole books, there's bound to be a miss or two. What's really impressive is that each book could very easily be the start of their own series, each book is wholly unique and PACKED with ideas and content. I wish I could read more Culture. RIP BIG BANKS.
Author of the Year:
I only read two of his books this year, but I love them both. I will be reading more Philip K. Dick in 2024. His authorial style agrees with me in a way that no one else I read this year quite managed to match. Obviously, I am a little late to the party and I know that marking him as my favorite for the year is a little bit like saying Citizen Kane or On the Waterfront is my favorite movie. But I can't help it, Ubik was amazing and A Scanner Darkly really agreed with me!
If I have to pick someone a little more contemporary, I am giving the nod to Becky Chambers. I first read her in 2022, but with each additional book of hers that I read, my appreciation of her style and ideas only grows. I absolutely loved Monk & Robot, I fully intend on grabbing a box set for this series once it's complete. M&R aside, there is more Wayfarers on the horizon for me. Count me as a fan.
Top 5 Books for the Year:
1. The Library at Mount Char 2. Use of Weapons 3. A Scanner Darkly 4. Bad Brains 5. Cosmos
This list is in order, but maybe it shouldn't be. I read so many excellent books this year, so this isn't a quality metric, but rather I'm ranking these books by how much I liked them and just how much of their ideas/imagery/plot managed to make it into my daily thoughts (Love and Staying Power). What makes me rank Char at the top has a lot to do with just how much of a surprise it was, I expected nothing and got something so incredible and unique. Let's not forget to mention that it is an authorial debut for Scott Hawkins, a grand slam the first time up to bat is something that I can't help but take note of.
Wish I could unread this:
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
You can read my review of this fanfic, but I don't know why I didn't put this down. Chalk it up to morbid curiosity. My problem with this book had a lot to do with the weakness of the writing, and not necessarily with the premise or plot.
Book Club for July (In September) _______
I realize I forgot to review this, and its been a little while since I read it so this review will be short. If you've read Joe Abercrombie before then you should just implicitly trust him to deliver a solid fantasy romp. This is his twist on the fantasy comedy genre, so really it's a much more vulgar Colour of Magic with the blood and gore turned up several notches.
I did enjoy the premise-though its less imaginative than Discworld. We join Brother Diaz, the newly appointed head of "The Temple of the Holy Expediency", which is a fancy name given to an order of monsters and blasphemers the church finds too useful just to execute- think vampires, werewolves, elves, you name it. We join brother Diaz and his gang on their first mission for the pope, to restore the recently rediscovered princess Alexia to the throne of Troy. This does take place in a fictionalized Europe but they're basically working for the Catholic church, it's not 1:1 but it's close, the politics of this different religion pretty much follow reality.
I don't have much more to say- most of the charm is in meeting the quirky cast so I won't expound. This book was good, the dialogue in particular is always a strength of Abercrombie's, and this is no exception. The character work is also extremely solid for a self contained story, there's depth and backstory for each of the "Devils". If you're in the mood for something on the lighter side but doesn't throw the stakes out the window I think you'll enjoy this. I think this is too well done just for 3 stars but personally this didn't grab me in the way 4 or 5 star books do: 3.5/5.
Book Club for July (In September) _______
I realize I forgot to review this, and its been a little while since I read it so this review will be short. If you've read Joe Abercrombie before then you should just implicitly trust him to deliver a solid fantasy romp. This is his twist on the fantasy comedy genre, so really it's a much more vulgar Colour of Magic with the blood and gore turned up several notches.
I did enjoy the premise-though its less imaginative than Discworld. We join Brother Diaz, the newly appointed head of "The Temple of the Holy Expediency", which is a fancy name given to an order of monsters and blasphemers the church finds too useful just to execute- think vampires, werewolves, elves, you name it. We join brother Diaz and his gang on their first mission for the pope, to restore the recently rediscovered princess Alexia to the throne of Troy. This does take place in a fictionalized Europe but they're basically working for the Catholic church, it's not 1:1 but it's close, the politics of this different religion pretty much follow reality.
I don't have much more to say- most of the charm is in meeting the quirky cast so I won't expound. This book was good, the dialogue in particular is always a strength of Abercrombie's, and this is no exception. The character work is also extremely solid for a self contained story, there's depth and backstory for each of the "Devils". If you're in the mood for something on the lighter side but doesn't throw the stakes out the window I think you'll enjoy this. I think this is too well done just for 3 stars but personally this didn't grab me in the way 4 or 5 star books do: 3.5/5.