I finished the second... section? Book? ...of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862), continuing to switch between the Brick and the Gutenberg translation as appropriate. Hugo is not writing in the 20th century novel format, he is expounding his feelings in narrative format. So one reads ( about dolls, and femininity, and convents, and other things too. Note that all the quotes are from the Gutenberg translation.Collapse )

When the "who needs an editor" conversation comes 'round again, I'm throwing Les Miserables into the ring for Hugo. There's these moments, like the burial of Mother Crucifixion, which are awesome, and these pithy bits about the soul of France buried in "Waterloo", but much of this is obscured by Hugo's fundamental indifference to narrative momentum (my interpretation).

After heroic slogging through Waterloo and the convent, I got bogged down early in the third book and set aside the Brick for a reread that would free up a few brain cells. Well, that was the intent.

I reread The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman) (1995) and it was everything I remembered: breakneck action, plucky protagonist, mind-blowing worldbuilding, stunning cliffhanger. The Golden Compass establishes a world with several interesting deviations from ours - daemons, long-lived witches, the monolithic church, the Svalbard bears' high and inhuman intelligence, Dust, the alethiometer - that each contribute to the sudden yet inevitable climatic twist. The Subtle Knife (1997), second in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, isn't as good: it tries to introduce a host of new characters on top of the first set, with their own attendant sub-plots. Not all of them are well-introducted, and several of them make the reader want to brain Pullman with his own sense of irony. It's not delicious, it's over-salted. Less than 50 pages into The Amber Spyglass (2000) I really wanted a completely different novel, one with about 10 less protagonists. It's okay to tell your "war against Heaven" story from one or two PoVs with the occasional omniscient breakout! In fact, it would evade a lot of problems with the unending enticements of infinite worlds, and the Mother Hangup, and that thing where the Roger thread almost entirely drops out in the second novel and comes back in a half-hearted way in the last book! Not to mention the siren call of the Great Man theory of history in a thematic muddle with the Kingdom of Heaven / Republic of Heaven / Other Republic of Heaven conflict. Also, the witches were awesome in the first novel and sorf of sidelined in the second and third novels, this makes me very sad.

So, His Dark Materials: starts with a bang, gets tripped up in its own themes. I'm still working through The Amber Spyglass, we'll see if I make it through, or do a "good bits" skim.

Continuing the theme of worldbuilding as a strength, Stray Souls (Kate Griffin) (2012) continues to rock the London of her Matthew Swift series, but will be a hard sell for people who aren't familiar with those novels. The protagonist, Sharon Li, barista and addict of self-help books, starts a facebook group and meetup for people with magical "problems" after she starts walking through walls, and gets sucked into solving one of Greater London's latest magical crises. The story's a little too wrapped up in whether Swift is going to pull strings offscene or have a more significant role (spoiler: he does). In this story, I am less concerned about what Swift and the angels are getting up to, because this is supposed to be about Sharon and her Magical Anonymous group. So that was less than awesome. I don't know if I'm parsing something more in the horror genre with urban fantasy sensibilities, or what, but some parts of the novel didn't mix well with over-lunch reading. On the plus side, I liked Sharon, and I like the ongoing theme of city living as grimy and smelly and buying on credit because you have no money, with clean well-kept offices being the exception and often tangled up in some eldritch horror. There's a sequel coming out this year; if Sharon is going to cross paths with the Midnight Mayor, I am pining for Sharon and Penny to hang out. Shaman and apprentice urban sorceress, what could possibly go wrong?

Numbers game: 3 total finished. 1 new, 2 reread; 3 fiction. Les Miz and The Amber Spyglass in process.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/603092.html, where there are comments.

For the holidays, I asked for and received epub copies of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House novels (1932 - 1943), most of which I reread over the first half of January. They have held up surprisingly well. I was worried about Little House on the Prairie, one of my favorites, where the Ingalls family tries to establish a claim on Native American land, anticipating the government will force relocation of Indian Territory. The novel is surprisingly not-awful at respectfully presenting the Native Americans' rights to treaty land and to be treated as human beings, despite the lens of the Ingalls' prejudices and manifest destiny. And, of course, the Ingalls depart Indian territory at the end of the novel, relocated when the army tells them to leave. The tone of the departure is that the Ingalls were the problem, not the Native Americans. So it's not perfect, but it dances between the attitudes of the time and the attitudes of a more modern era in a way I can live with.

At some point, I will reread Farmer Boy and On the Banks of Plum Creek, which for some reason I started and didn't finish. Oh right, my library hold for Scoundels came in.

Star Wars: Scoundrels (Timothy Zahn) (2013): ( IT'S A NEW ZAHN SW NOVEL AND IT'S HEISTFIC. WIN. Giant twist-revealing spoilers.Collapse )

Since then, I have been reading the Brick, also known as Les Miserables (Victor Hugo) (1862). The Brick's nickname is instantly explained when one holds the paperback 1,460 page Fahnestock and McAfee translation, published in 1987. I'm alternating it with Project Gutenberg's 1887 Hapgood translation as appropriate. So far I am through book one of five.

Notes so far: I am heavily influenced by cahn's reread, in conjunction with the skygiants reread. I didn't discover the bookmark function on the ereader until book 2 "Cosette", so I have very little to say about book 1. That's okay, because two opens with Waterloo, the famous 50 page break from narrative.

( I am not an English major, nor do I play one online.Collapse )

I look forward to getting back to Valjean; one gets the impression Hugo is boxing him in with tangents, cutting off the lines of escape from revolution and social justice and striving for self-improvement until those are the only choices left.

Numbers game: 7 total finished; 7 fiction. 6 reread, 1 new. Working on Les Miz.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/599409.html, where there are comments.

2012's going down as one of the less consistent book log years.

The Best American Science Writing 2010 (Jesse Groopman, editor; Jesse Cohen, series editor):. Table of contents below, ask for reactions to any titles that strike your interest.

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The Best American Science Writing 2011 (Rebecca Skloot, Floyd Skloot, editors; Jesse Cohen, series editor): Not as good as the 2010 edition, with a standout for "The Mathematics of Terror" for comprehensively demonstrating the need for better math education in the States.

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Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Lois McMaster Bujold) (2012): Despite serious consideration of suicide by Komarran balcony, implied war crimes, that ImpSec thing that probably wasn't insured, and the laying to rest of unquieting family tradition,s this was charming without ever being challenging. It's... it's fluffy. A gooey warm-feeling novel, with few sharp edges. At some point I'll appreciate CVA for what it is, rather than what I'd like it to be.

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) (1813): Reread. Classic romantic story of two proud, intelligent personalities forced to reflect on their flaws, and reassess their assessment of the character of others. P&P took three tries to accomplish the first complete reading, which may be a strong argument for letting people find books at their own speed and maturity. It's grown on me; I doubt I will ever be Darcy's partisan, but the wit and observation of human foibles that weren't appreciated by a teen have greater appeal as I get a little more sympathetic and less judging.

Emma (Jane Austen) (1815): The focus on a young woman with more energy and self-regard than application in a closed society made for curiously relevant lunchtime and public transit reading. When I was giggling at Emma's matchmatching schemes instead of reviewing for the board, or absorbing the narrative's reflections on the anxieties of Society (Highfield, classroom, and/or workspace), Austen's people sense seemed uncannily universal.

I reread The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Robert Heinlein) (1966) in that way you do. As I get older, I have a harder time taking Heinlein's characterization seriously.

The Cloud Roads (Martha Wells) (2011): Moon, orphan and wanderer of the Three Worlds, is reunited with his people, and must face challenges of integration, trust, and the Big Bad.

( Cut for length and minor spoilers.Collapse )

This isn't deep: I marathoned The Cloud Roads and its sequel in one weekend, and didn't have much impulse to reread after closing the second novel. The ancilliary comments about the Arbora (nonwinged Raksura, usually the makers, sometimes ground fighters) and Aeriat (winged, usually the leaders and fighters) also highlighted, how to say it? Who gets the bulk of the writer love. I mean, flying people, what's not to love.

The Serpent Seas (Martha Wells) (2012): Sequel to The Cloud Roads. Moon had been consort to Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud court, for eleven days; nobody had tried to kill him yet, so he thought it was going well so far. Moon's integration into a Raksuran court and their relocation to a new home is interrupted by the theft of a core element of their new home.

( Rich worldbuilding... sometimes a little too rich. But the characters are awesome.Collapse )

So I have mixed feelings: on the one hand, fun adventure novels. On the other hand, the second-order worldbuilding is sometimes not as clever as I'd like.

The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien) (1954): Reread. I wasn't foolish enough to open The Hobbit before watching the new movie, but late fall is Tolkein weather.

The Siren Depths (Martha Wells) (2012): Third novel and sequel to The Serpent Seas; Wells fills in missing pieces of Moon's history, and he lays to rest some of his angst. ( SomeCollapse )

Numbers game: 10 total finished. 8 new, 2 reread; 8 fiction, 2 nonfiction.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/596162.html, where there are comments.

Apparently this Halloween's theme is trick and not treat? East coast people, please stay safe from the high winds and flooding and the associated bad weather problems.

(Hurricane to snow in 150 miles or less. Ridiculous.)

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/592821.html, where there are comments.

Since moving to the 'burbs last month, it's come to my attention that I need a GPS. A recent experience convinced me I really like semi-live traffic updates, so I'm looking at a Garmin Nuvi 2555LMT. Any considerations before I throw money at this? Keeping in mind that the traffic updates and rerouting are the killer app that might wean me off paper maps.

(Major drawback to the 2555? Not designed to be strapped to a bicycle. It's an imperfect world.)

As long as I'm throwing money at car accessories, which can't you live without? So far I've jacked my mp3 player into the auxiliary music drive, and made vague noises about emergency supplies in the trunk.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/590706.html, where there are comments.

March through June, because I was distracted by academic due dates.

Ultraviolet (R.J. Anderson) (2011): YA fiction. Teenager must come to grips with the events that landed her in a mental institution with an accusation she killed a popular classmate.

( Mixed feelings.Collapse )

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) (2008): ( Meh.Collapse )

Crucible of Gold (Naomi Novik) (2012): This had far fewer problems than Tongues of Serpents. Plus, the narrative clipped along fast enough I was willing to overlook several gaping worldbuilding holes. The real treat was( character development! Spoilers by the bushel.Collapse )

So I sort of accidentally mainlined Stackpole's first four X-wing novels? And watched a season and a quarter of the Clone Wars cartoon over spring break? In that way you do, when you're jonesing for prequel movies that aren't awful. And here is the kind of hilarious thing, the X-Wing novels flunk the Betchdel so hard - Erisi Dlarit's entire plot line is Wicked Temptress! - while the Clone Wars have Aayla Secura (woman) and Ahsoka Tano (teenage girl) facing off against Asajj Ventress (evil Dark Jedi, incidentally also female) without a hint of catfight. It just sort of happened! Five minutes into an animated / CGI / whatever lightsaber battle I am thinking, "wait, these are women talking about something other than a man. Okay, there's some trash-talking Anakin and Dooku, in a completely platonic 'my master's better than your master' way." There's a thing to be said about target audiences, 1990's vs 2010's, and novels vs TV, and divergences, which doesn't fit here, sadly. I stopped watching Clones Wars when scragging the Jedi officers started sounding like a good idea, but I'm pleased to report the close proximity of women and large explosions. On the novel side, I sort of want to come down on Stackpole for dubious female characterization, but honestly, it's more like dubious characterization fill stop. Isard and Dirricote shouldn't have overlapping vocabulary / attitude registers with Vorru and Black Sun. And can someone oppose Rogue Squadron for reasons other than overwhelming corrupt ambition? Shades of gray, please?

The Bird of the River (Kage Baker) (2010): Set in the same fantasy universe as The Anvil of the World and The House of the Stag, once largely defined by your birth into the forest-loving and largely pacifist Yondri or the violent, industrial Children of the Sun. Protagonist Elissa struggles with her half-and-half brother's problems and social entanglements on the eponymous river barge. Baker's characteristic charm and humor are on display here; endings are happy, and the trip there is entertaining.

I started The Neon Court (Kate Griffin) (2011) with misgivings. The title and early chapters available online suggested it contained urban fairies and fridging. Urban fairy anything is a personal turnoff in 90% of everything I read or watch, and dead women for maximum manpain - well. So my enjoyment of Matthew's tendencies for causing mayhem and gruesome injuries (not to mention the property damage) were in serious danger of being overwhelmed by the other elements in the air. Fortunately, the series rides a fine line of having its cake and eating it too (see Ultraviolet review, above), leading to my overall enjoyment - it's not perfect! I can poke holes! But the good bits are really solid, I love the parts I love! - and incoherent reviews. So I wasn't thrilled with this installment, but I was willing to keep going with the series.

The Minority Council (Kate Griffin) (2012): In which the Midnight Mayor is scammed by his Aldermen, lies by omission to an overworked civic servant, and finds his PA unexpectedly resourceful. And Matthew Swift goes on a little crusade against drugs, with predictably explosive consequences.

Truth shot a sly glance at expediency, expediency waggled its eyes significantly, truth made a little noise in the back of its throat, and expediency jumped straight on in there.

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Lord of Light (Roger Zelazny) (1967): Jo Walton says most of what I'd say. I read it at 29 instead of childhood, but I found the extended flashback so poorly marked as to be confusing, and I have serious qualms about the Hindu/Buddhist-influenced setup. Whatever Zelazny did here that's supposed to be very clever, I'm missing it.

I finished two-thirds of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Oliver Sacks) (1985) before my attention span gave out. The individual cases would make interesting elements of a newspaper column or multi-author collection, but en masse were a little too much.

City of Diamond (Jane Emerson) (1996): Reread. Originally written as the first in a space-opera-ish trilogy about the people and politics of three missionary city-ships adhering to an offshoot of Catholicism; however, it stands alone fairly well. I find it immensely satisfying comfort reading: entertaining worldbuilding, mostly likeable characters, a clear delineation of the good guys and the bad guys. The Greykey philosophy makes very little sense if one pokes too hard, and Tal's characterization has some serious "ice princess has a heart after all!" moments gives me no joy, but there are many, many components balancing these. I am willing to be charmed my every single Diamond character who is not Tal, and by Opal characters other than Arno and Hartley Quince. If the trilogy had ever been finished, oh, the problems I'd expect, but the story ends on a decently complete note if you know it's an abandoned work in progress. No one dies, there's a wedding, and there's women with autonomy, so it's a good cozy novel for days when one's brain is mostly otherwise occupied.

Numbers game: 13 total finished. 11 new, 2 reread; 12 fiction, 1 nonfiction. 1 incomplete.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/584156.html, where there are comments.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is available in electronic format, and I want something to read on the train, so I'm looking at ereaders. Are there overwhelming reasons to go with a Kindle Touch over a Nook Simple Touch? Available free / cheap books, breadth / depth of compatible file formats, convenience of downloading internet content, marginal non-reading bonus features? I'm leaning toward the Nook. I'm also eying the Sony ereader in reflexive anti-crowd attitude, but I'm not buying without trying.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/583200.html, where there are comments.

January was a major wrap-up month, where I finished two books I'd swapped out for commute reading. And then I went back to school full-time and finished nothing in February; the YBF#9 was dragged out from the end of January through the very beginning of March. There was also a lot of fragmented Greatest Hits rereads, such as the "75% of Outbound Flight / Survivor's Quest" reread that isn't logged here. But here is what I actually finished:

How George Rogers Clark Won the Northwest, and Other Essays in Western History (Reuben Gold Thwaites) (1903): Nonfiction. The publication date is not a typo.

My roommates and I spotted a box of free books on the street, and of course had to investigate. This is one of the books we found. The "Northwest" of the title refers to the old American Northwest: Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. The prose dates the book, as does its blatant racism and laser-sharp focus on the male gender's historical triumphs. There's something pretty cool about the firsthand accounts of interviewing Revolutionary War veterans that made it worth my time to normalize for the dated attitudes and go with it.

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (Louis Menard) (2001): Nonfiction yoinked from the Pulitzer lists. A very academic look at the people and ideas of post-Civil War American philosophy. This was interesting and detailed and included entertaining side-trips, including a little education on the history of post-secondary academics and research in America. However, nothing stuck very well; this is another book that I wanted to have a discussion about to get more traction on the material.

Choices of One (Timothy Zahn) (2011): Post-ANH pre-Empire romp: the Emperor's Hand investigates treason on the Outer Rim, the Rebel Alliance looks for a new base in the same system, and sneaky OCs set up Imperials and Rebels to take a fall.

Adjusting one's expectations is important. One makes different demands of Serious Business nonfiction than distracting fiction. And when I need mindless distraction, Star Wars delivers. Choices of One pushes the boundaries of sneaky and unreliable narration and might go over the line into author manipulation, but kept me entertained. I am not sure if baby Jedi Luke or the Thrawn-Car'das galactic road trip were more fun.

Year's Best Fantasy 9 (David Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer, ed) (2009): What the title says. The good, or at least smoothly written or thought-provoking, included Kage Baker's "Running the Snake", an alt-history Shakespeare; Naomi Novik's swashbuckling "Araminta, or The Wreck of the Amphidrake"; and "The Film-makers of Mars", where Geoff Ryman's prose does exactly what he wants it do. James Stoddard's "The First Editions" might not be a classic for the generations, but the idea of turning people into books (literally) is such an interesting conceit I thought about it for several days.

The bad: Doyle and Macdonald's "Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita", a vampire-werewolf-supernatural evil thing that reads like the first draft a larger "supernatural hunter in Europe" thing; "The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D.", by Al Michaud, a longwinded yarn whose punchline is half-spoiled by the introduction; Howard Waldrop's Penzance / Peter Pan / other? pirate crossover "Abast, Abaft!", which suffers from my limited Gilbert and Sullivan tolerance, as well as my Disneyfied knowledge of Peter Pan canon; "Dearest Cecily" (Kristine Dikeman) combines epistolary format with a really stupid catty fight over a man, managing to fail a Bechdel test in a story with no men.

The ugly: "A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica", Catherynne Valente. Valente's writing concerns run almost, but not quite, ninety degrees to my reading interests. So the nonstandard narrative structure that reads like infodumps - if indodumps can be emotastic - didn't do a lot for me. Lisa Goldstein's "Reader's Guide" had a similar structural problem: it looked like a "figure out the story from the questions" story, and morphed into something completely different. I also didn't appreciate the pre-story introductory blurbs; as mentioned, "The Salting and Canning..." blurb includes a spoiler, which significantly detracted from my reading experience. The introductions to the remainder of the stories didn't significantly help me direct my attentions to stories' strengths, or at least adjust my expectations to be in line with author intent.

Other notables: Peter Beagle has two stories in this collection; "The Rabbi's Hobby" and "King Pelles the Sure", which are small-scale "people" stories. This works much better for me in "The Rabbi's Hobby"; I came to Beagle at the wrong age to appreciate the fairy tale-ish style of "Pelles" and The Last Unicorn. So it's technically well-executed, but not my thing.

( Table of contents behind cut.Collapse )

Numbers game: 4 total finished. 4 new, 0 reread; 2 fiction, 2 nonfiction.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/579028.html, where there are comments.

Jhegaala (Steven Brust) (2007): Vlad Taltos visits his homeland while on the run from the Organization. This wasn't the book I expected (road trip with personal development and witty Jhereg). If it developed the "transformation" theme associated with the title, it was the transformation of the village Vlad visits, which I wasn't as invested in. The window dressing was very nice - reasonably interesting secondary characters, plot that didn't completely implode when prodded with a logic-stick - but I built up some anticipation based on the time-line skip between Phoenix and Athyra which wasn't fulfilled here.

A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge) (1992): Reread. Space opera. The only countermeasure to a threat engulfing all high FTL civilizations is carried with a handful of sapients on one ship, the Out of Band II, and two children at the bottom of the FTL zone.

As usual, memory plays tricks. The "Net of a Thousand Lies" so strongly conjures usenet, my memory recalls more of it than is actually present ("hexapodia as key insight"), overlaying my subscriptions circa 199. I also forgot the horrific deaths of the Straumer children, what a brat Johanna was (in those circumstances? It was understandable brattiness), what a prick Pham Nuwen was, and how all of this came together in a riveting space opera. The "fun space opera" bit stuck. I think I had more thoughts on this, but they have been subsumed into...

The Children of the Sky (Vernor Vinge) (2011): Sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep; Tines' World after the Straumers and Out of Band II.

This book wins on raw entertainment. It's coherently written in clear prose about a fairly black and white moral dilemma. People are good or villains or misguided, and the misguided are redeemed. This is not a subtle novel. (One could argue that Nevil's wickedness is influenced by Recent Events, but that's not particularly subtle.)

( Spoiler-cut.Collapse )

Amdijefri was my favorite part of Fire; Joanna and Ravna got to be rock stars in Children. This is more about personal taste than writing quality, I think. I am not a fan of traveling circus troupes, but I'm a sucker for tough girls and politics.

A Deepness in the Sky (Vernor Vinge) (1999): Reread; Pham Nuwen's Adventures in the Slowness. The first time I read this I missed the setup for the translators' revolt, so this time I tried to read closely for those clues.

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At first, I hadn't planned to reread this, since I was pretty sure the library didn't have a paperback edition, and I had no plans to stuff a 700-page hardcover into my commute bag. (The commute bag is a Timbuk2 Classic Messenger, size small, awesome as long as the train reading is trade or mass market paperback.) So I was pleased to discover that Deepness benefited from being at the end of the alphabet during the last bookcase cull, and was on my shelf in paperback.

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That was November. In December I started two nonfiction books, but didn't finish them; flipped through several Union-Alliance novels, and reread Heavy Time (1991) and Hellburner (1992) cover to cover. Heavy Time, about independent asteroid miners versus a large, corrupt, and bureaucratic corporation, has a resolution that is even more out of left field than most of Cherryh's novels, which is I guess what happens when your protagonists high cards are a salvaged miner-ship and Ben Pollard, part-time hacker and full-time pain in the neck. Hellburner is comfort reading for me. The rest of my December reading time was taken up with professional journals.

Numbers game: 6 total finished. 2 new, 4 reread; 6 fiction.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/575559.html, where there are comments.

I am back from my New Year's Chicago trip. The pork belly pastrami is eaten, and the Museum of Science and Technology t-shirt that says C-H-I-C-Ag-O with mass values has made a successful debut as part of my commute wardrobe.

Tomorrow is the SF bike party. I know what I'm wearing, so perhaps I should see about properly adjusting the headlight mount and sticking fresh AAA's in the tail-light, and maybe try strapping things to the cargo rack (Christmas present for me my bicycle me!). Or I could surf the internet. Decisions, decisions.

At some point I should write my 2011 retrospective / 2012 look-ahead. The placeholder version is: I regret almost nothing about 2011. 2012 is forecast to be demanding and rewarding all at once. A slice of real destiny, to paraphrase a favorite author. The material rewards are unlikely to manifest before 2013, but the important stuff - engaging work, community, a good exercise program, etc - are already in gear and moving me forward.

Oh yes, if someone's having problems commenting on LJ, PM me or comment on the DW version. I believe I have have invite codes if you need to create an account to comment.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/574424.html, where there are comments.