time yet for a hundred indecisions
Apr. 13th, 2007 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbAnd for a hundred visions and revisions
I haven't been doing a lot of talking, lately. Maybe because I haven't had a lot to say, and none of what I have had to say was remotely entertaining. Or uplifting. For lo, it is the season of assignments and deadlines and forthcoming exams, and I have been feeding on too much chocolate and caffeine to help dampen the appalling fear.
Yeah. Give me an exam with a week to study, and no problem, man. Give me two or three months to work up a good head of worry, and watch me jitter like a jittering thing.
#
Fourteen books recently read, which I shall undertake to enumerate in roughly alphabetical order.
Therefore I give you Fiction 61-73, Books 63-76
61. Steven Brust, Dzur
Brust is, as ever, a consummate artist. He construsts a smooth and compelling story, full of cool stuff. Immediately after the events of Issola, Vlad returns to Adrilankha, and immediately becomes involved in issues arising from his departure from the Jhereg and his decision to leave his former Jhereg interests in South Adrilankha to his estranged wife's custody. Because this is Brust, that's a radical oversimplification of prior events, but the story probably stands well on its own.
In comparison to Issola and Dragon, however - they're closest in my mind because I recently reread them - Dzur feels a little light and surface-y. But Brust is still one of the better authors around, and this is still an excellent book.
62. Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford
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matociquala recommended this to me, a donkey's age ago. I've only lately found time to read it. It concerns the life and times of Christopher, or Kit - "The other name is unsure," as Burgess has Kit put it. "Marlin, Merlin, Marley, Morley. Marlowe will do." Burgess' Marlowe is a playwright and a sodomite, a reluctant spy for Sir Francis Walsingham on behalf of the queen, and an intimate of Sir Walter Raleigh. The story is a familiar enough - a farce or a tragedy or both or neither: I can't tell the difference, here - but Burgess' lush prose is both densely hard work and an amazing display of artistry. Definitely worth reading.
63. Kathy Lynn Emerson, Face Down Beneath the Eleanor Cross
An Elizabethan murder mystery. Susanna, Lady Appleton, must clear herself of the murder of her husband. It's neither particularly good nor particularly bad, but it gets the period details right, which makes me happy.
64, 65, 66. Barbara Hambly, Wet Grave, Days of the Dead, Dead Water.
Hambly, on the other hand, is in the place beyond good with her Benjamin Janvier novels. I cannot do them justice with brief description: they are amazing, pure and simple, though Days of the Dead is probably the weakest, overall, of the series. Wet Grave and Dead Water, though? Pure. Amazing.
Somebody please tell me there will be more.
67. P.C. Hodgell, Dark of the Moon
Why isn't Hodgell more widely available? Why?
This is an interesting - amazing! - second book in her series. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
You are getting the point that it is really really good, yes?
68. P.C. Hodgell, To Ride a Rathorn
To Ride a Rathorn is...
Well, to put it simply, it's quite simply the finest fantasy novel on an epic scale that I have yet read. Read it and you'll see why.
Or if you can't see why, you can disagree with me in interesting ways.
69. Caitlín R. Kiernan, Threshold
70. Peter Watts, Blindsight
Skipping up the alphabetical order some.Threshold and Blindsight are both masterful novels, incredibly good on any objective scale, with scope and flair and panache.
I disliked them both intensely.
Threshold is a quiet, almost intimate piece of Lovecraftian-esque (and someday someone will explain to me the proper adjective for novels of this type) horror. The prose is rich and flowing, the story intensely disturbing. I guess I like comfort in my fiction far more than I prefer to admit to myself.
I do want to read Kiernan's other novels, though, which I suppose makes me something of a masochist.
Blindsight is a masterful science fiction novel: first contact, shiny science, shiny characters, shiny cool-shit-in-space! It's also a quiet, almost intimate horror story taking place on several levels at once. I disagree with its premises and conclusions intensely: finding them both thought-provoking and disturbing on multiple levels.
I also think that Blindsight is a novel that a) everyone should read and b) deserves to win awards. Because it is incredibly good.
71. Elizabeth Moon, Command Decision
Command Decision is, well, not so good. The characters are barely characterised, the action feels thin and superficial, and yet this series? Is like Cadbury's chocolate. It doesn't taste all that great compared to the other stuff out there, and you know it's bad for you, but you still want more.
73. Karl Schroeder, Lady of Mazes
Lady of Mazes is, to borrow an appropriate phrase, all kinds of awesome. 'Awesome' is the appropriate phrase because man, the man has flair and style as well as substance, and flair and style plus substance in a science fiction novel equals, in my books*, an amazing novel. But since I've rather over-used the word 'amazing'**, I'll say 'awesome' instead.
73, 74. Martha Wells, The Death of the Necromancer and Wheel of the Infinite
I do not love these quite as much as I love the 'Fall of Ile-Rien' books or The Element of Fire, but since I have come to love those books beyond all reason, this may perhaps be just as well.
These are excellent, welcome antidotes to the enormous quantities of faux-European medieval fantasy: Necromancer recalls the settings of a Charles Dickens novel and some of the characters of a Conan Doyle without their abundance of faults: Infinite has some refreshingly non-European-derivative world-building.
#
If graphic novels count as books, then I have read a little more: the Morgan-Sienkiewicz-Phillips collaboration of Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her is visually quite impressive, and story-wise most satisfying. I do like most things spy, and Morgan, whatever his faults, knows how to tell a story.
#
I should, in all probability, reorganise my workspace and get more shelves. I have approximately 860 books catalogued. I have perhaps a quarter? a third? again of that yet to catalogue and shelve in their appropriate places. Soon.
#
*Pardon the pun. It seemed appropriate at the time.
**There may be rationing. Or, at least, there probably ought to be.
I haven't been doing a lot of talking, lately. Maybe because I haven't had a lot to say, and none of what I have had to say was remotely entertaining. Or uplifting. For lo, it is the season of assignments and deadlines and forthcoming exams, and I have been feeding on too much chocolate and caffeine to help dampen the appalling fear.
Yeah. Give me an exam with a week to study, and no problem, man. Give me two or three months to work up a good head of worry, and watch me jitter like a jittering thing.
#
Fourteen books recently read, which I shall undertake to enumerate in roughly alphabetical order.
Therefore I give you Fiction 61-73, Books 63-76
61. Steven Brust, Dzur
Brust is, as ever, a consummate artist. He construsts a smooth and compelling story, full of cool stuff. Immediately after the events of Issola, Vlad returns to Adrilankha, and immediately becomes involved in issues arising from his departure from the Jhereg and his decision to leave his former Jhereg interests in South Adrilankha to his estranged wife's custody. Because this is Brust, that's a radical oversimplification of prior events, but the story probably stands well on its own.
In comparison to Issola and Dragon, however - they're closest in my mind because I recently reread them - Dzur feels a little light and surface-y. But Brust is still one of the better authors around, and this is still an excellent book.
62. Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford
matociquala recommended this to me, a donkey's age ago. I've only lately found time to read it. It concerns the life and times of Christopher, or Kit - "The other name is unsure," as Burgess has Kit put it. "Marlin, Merlin, Marley, Morley. Marlowe will do." Burgess' Marlowe is a playwright and a sodomite, a reluctant spy for Sir Francis Walsingham on behalf of the queen, and an intimate of Sir Walter Raleigh. The story is a familiar enough - a farce or a tragedy or both or neither: I can't tell the difference, here - but Burgess' lush prose is both densely hard work and an amazing display of artistry. Definitely worth reading.63. Kathy Lynn Emerson, Face Down Beneath the Eleanor Cross
An Elizabethan murder mystery. Susanna, Lady Appleton, must clear herself of the murder of her husband. It's neither particularly good nor particularly bad, but it gets the period details right, which makes me happy.
64, 65, 66. Barbara Hambly, Wet Grave, Days of the Dead, Dead Water.
Hambly, on the other hand, is in the place beyond good with her Benjamin Janvier novels. I cannot do them justice with brief description: they are amazing, pure and simple, though Days of the Dead is probably the weakest, overall, of the series. Wet Grave and Dead Water, though? Pure. Amazing.
Somebody please tell me there will be more.
67. P.C. Hodgell, Dark of the Moon
Why isn't Hodgell more widely available? Why?
This is an interesting - amazing! - second book in her series. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
You are getting the point that it is really really good, yes?
68. P.C. Hodgell, To Ride a Rathorn
To Ride a Rathorn is...
Well, to put it simply, it's quite simply the finest fantasy novel on an epic scale that I have yet read. Read it and you'll see why.
Or if you can't see why, you can disagree with me in interesting ways.
69. Caitlín R. Kiernan, Threshold
70. Peter Watts, Blindsight
Skipping up the alphabetical order some.Threshold and Blindsight are both masterful novels, incredibly good on any objective scale, with scope and flair and panache.
I disliked them both intensely.
Threshold is a quiet, almost intimate piece of Lovecraftian-esque (and someday someone will explain to me the proper adjective for novels of this type) horror. The prose is rich and flowing, the story intensely disturbing. I guess I like comfort in my fiction far more than I prefer to admit to myself.
I do want to read Kiernan's other novels, though, which I suppose makes me something of a masochist.
Blindsight is a masterful science fiction novel: first contact, shiny science, shiny characters, shiny cool-shit-in-space! It's also a quiet, almost intimate horror story taking place on several levels at once. I disagree with its premises and conclusions intensely: finding them both thought-provoking and disturbing on multiple levels.
I also think that Blindsight is a novel that a) everyone should read and b) deserves to win awards. Because it is incredibly good.
71. Elizabeth Moon, Command Decision
Command Decision is, well, not so good. The characters are barely characterised, the action feels thin and superficial, and yet this series? Is like Cadbury's chocolate. It doesn't taste all that great compared to the other stuff out there, and you know it's bad for you, but you still want more.
73. Karl Schroeder, Lady of Mazes
Lady of Mazes is, to borrow an appropriate phrase, all kinds of awesome. 'Awesome' is the appropriate phrase because man, the man has flair and style as well as substance, and flair and style plus substance in a science fiction novel equals, in my books*, an amazing novel. But since I've rather over-used the word 'amazing'**, I'll say 'awesome' instead.
73, 74. Martha Wells, The Death of the Necromancer and Wheel of the Infinite
I do not love these quite as much as I love the 'Fall of Ile-Rien' books or The Element of Fire, but since I have come to love those books beyond all reason, this may perhaps be just as well.
These are excellent, welcome antidotes to the enormous quantities of faux-European medieval fantasy: Necromancer recalls the settings of a Charles Dickens novel and some of the characters of a Conan Doyle without their abundance of faults: Infinite has some refreshingly non-European-derivative world-building.
#
If graphic novels count as books, then I have read a little more: the Morgan-Sienkiewicz-Phillips collaboration of Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her is visually quite impressive, and story-wise most satisfying. I do like most things spy, and Morgan, whatever his faults, knows how to tell a story.
#
I should, in all probability, reorganise my workspace and get more shelves. I have approximately 860 books catalogued. I have perhaps a quarter? a third? again of that yet to catalogue and shelve in their appropriate places. Soon.
#
*Pardon the pun. It seemed appropriate at the time.
**There may be rationing. Or, at least, there probably ought to be.
