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hawkwing_lb...because I needed to get some bread and milk. And eat them.
I am still not counting books half- or mostly- read for research. Only cover-to-cover counts!
Books 2014: 13-19
13. Anna Kashina, Blades of the Old Empire. Angry Robot Books, 2014.
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. Review forthcoming (I hope) at Tor.com.
Yeah. So that happened.
14. Deborah Coates, Strange Country. Tor, 2014.
Review copy from Tor. I hope I'll get to talk about this in my column. It's an interesting entry in Coates' rural-contemporary fantasy-with-ghosts. I don't like it as much as the excellent Wide Open or its immediate predecessor Deep Down, but it's still a very solid book.
15. Seanan McGuire, Half-Off Ragnarok. DAW, 2014.
Review copy from DAW. I also want to talk about this in the column. It's a great deal of fun, although not quite as entertaining, for me, as the Verity Price installments: it's also interesting to see McGuire's narrative pattern at work.
16. Peter Higgins, Truth and Fear. Orbit, 2014.
Review copy from Orbit. Review forthcoming from Ideomancer.com. Higgins has an excellent turn of with prose, and Truth and Fear pulls off its climax with rather more verve and, well, climax than its immediate predecessor, but it is more the second part of a novel-in-three-parts than a book that stands well on its own, and we have yet to see proof that Higgins can bring a narrative to an ultimately satisfactory conclusion.
17. Carrie Vaughn, After the Golden Age. Tor, 2011.
Copy courtesy of Tor.com. I want to talk about this, and its sequel, in the column too. It is a very interesting take on superhero stories, and one of the few superhero stories I've read that's appealed to me on any bar the most superficial levels. It is doing interesting things with family and privilege, I think, although I'd like to think about it more.
18. Carrie Vaughn, Dreams of the Golden Age. Tor, 2014.
Copy courtesy of Tor.com. Sequel of sorts (the next generation) to the aforementioned After the Golden Age, and a little bit more straightforwardly a superhero story - and thus less appealing to me. Feels somewhat as though it might appeal to a YA agegroup, but on the other hand maybe not. Interesting and entertaining, on the whole.
nonfiction
19. Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France. WW Norton, London & New York, 1996.
This is a book with a very tight focus: the illegal book trade in France in the couple of decades before the Revolution. A little under two-thirds of it is history, well-written, well-sourced, and not infrequently entertaining (although I should recommend having read at least a summary of the period in question before diving it); the remainder is devoted to significant extracts in translation from three of the most popular illegal books with which Darnton is concerned.
Pornography and philosophy were close kindred in 18th century France, it seems, and both were equally dangerous for the people who traded in them. Indeed, one of the most popular novels of the period is a philosophical tract with pornographic interludes, or a pornographic tract with philosophical interludes - they were, at any rate, close bedfellows, and booksellers asked their suppliers to provide them with works in the "philosophical" line when they meant illegal books of any flavour.
It is a very interesting read, although now I want to read more about illegal literature and censorship in Europe as a whole in the 18th century.
I am still not counting books half- or mostly- read for research. Only cover-to-cover counts!
Books 2014: 13-19
13. Anna Kashina, Blades of the Old Empire. Angry Robot Books, 2014.
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. Review forthcoming (I hope) at Tor.com.
Yeah. So that happened.
14. Deborah Coates, Strange Country. Tor, 2014.
Review copy from Tor. I hope I'll get to talk about this in my column. It's an interesting entry in Coates' rural-contemporary fantasy-with-ghosts. I don't like it as much as the excellent Wide Open or its immediate predecessor Deep Down, but it's still a very solid book.
15. Seanan McGuire, Half-Off Ragnarok. DAW, 2014.
Review copy from DAW. I also want to talk about this in the column. It's a great deal of fun, although not quite as entertaining, for me, as the Verity Price installments: it's also interesting to see McGuire's narrative pattern at work.
16. Peter Higgins, Truth and Fear. Orbit, 2014.
Review copy from Orbit. Review forthcoming from Ideomancer.com. Higgins has an excellent turn of with prose, and Truth and Fear pulls off its climax with rather more verve and, well, climax than its immediate predecessor, but it is more the second part of a novel-in-three-parts than a book that stands well on its own, and we have yet to see proof that Higgins can bring a narrative to an ultimately satisfactory conclusion.
17. Carrie Vaughn, After the Golden Age. Tor, 2011.
Copy courtesy of Tor.com. I want to talk about this, and its sequel, in the column too. It is a very interesting take on superhero stories, and one of the few superhero stories I've read that's appealed to me on any bar the most superficial levels. It is doing interesting things with family and privilege, I think, although I'd like to think about it more.
18. Carrie Vaughn, Dreams of the Golden Age. Tor, 2014.
Copy courtesy of Tor.com. Sequel of sorts (the next generation) to the aforementioned After the Golden Age, and a little bit more straightforwardly a superhero story - and thus less appealing to me. Feels somewhat as though it might appeal to a YA agegroup, but on the other hand maybe not. Interesting and entertaining, on the whole.
nonfiction
19. Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France. WW Norton, London & New York, 1996.
This is a book with a very tight focus: the illegal book trade in France in the couple of decades before the Revolution. A little under two-thirds of it is history, well-written, well-sourced, and not infrequently entertaining (although I should recommend having read at least a summary of the period in question before diving it); the remainder is devoted to significant extracts in translation from three of the most popular illegal books with which Darnton is concerned.
Pornography and philosophy were close kindred in 18th century France, it seems, and both were equally dangerous for the people who traded in them. Indeed, one of the most popular novels of the period is a philosophical tract with pornographic interludes, or a pornographic tract with philosophical interludes - they were, at any rate, close bedfellows, and booksellers asked their suppliers to provide them with works in the "philosophical" line when they meant illegal books of any flavour.
It is a very interesting read, although now I want to read more about illegal literature and censorship in Europe as a whole in the 18th century.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-12 07:18 am (UTC)HELP ROBERT AICKMAN'S TWITTER HAS REPRODUCED.
and booksellers asked their suppliers to provide them with works in the "philosophical" line when they meant illegal books of any flavour.
I may have to revive this usage.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-12 03:59 pm (UTC)If it had been an entirely different book, it would have been an interesting Weird-style image. But it was this book, and SUDDENLY SPIDERS.
I may have to revive this usage.
I intend to do so myself. *g*
no subject
Date: 2014-02-12 11:27 am (UTC)Excuse me if I give Blades of the Old Empire a miss. Though I am looking forward to the review...
no subject
Date: 2014-02-12 04:00 pm (UTC)I hope the review shall see the light of day. *g*