books

[winterbadger]

I know a number of people who do the Fifty Books Challenge regularly. I'm not really sure what my consumption of books is (a lot more purchased than read, I realise!), but it wouldn't hurt to chronicle my fleeting impressions of what I read. I'll try and at least mention what I finish; if I have time and enthusiasm, I'll provide a proper review.

I'm not sure if I can recreate what I've done so far this year, but I can try. As is my wont, I've started more than I've finished (I think the "partly read" pile by my bed is about a half dozen at least by now).

Surveillance
Metaconcert
Jack the Bodiless
Diamond Mask

Four books by Julian May, part of her science fiction series about future (and very, very past) Earth in which there really *are* aliens watching us, but they are there to keep an eye on our evolving planetary intelligence as humans become more and more metapsychicly operant (i.e., possessed of mental powers like telepathy, psychokinesis, precognition, and so on). Not bad books; a little predictable sometimes, and a little preachy. The characters are a bit two-dimensional and stereotyped (the Scots all have red hair, the Irish all drink to excess, the Japanese are all scientifically inclined, the Poles are all hot-tempered...) I've read them before, so this was sort of "comfort food" reading. There's a little philosophy and a little science that creep in here and there, and there are some satisfying story arcs, but mostly it's the literary equivalent of a cheeseburger and fries.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

A steampunk novel by Gordon Dahlquist that I picked up in the Edinburgh airport as I saw the delay time on our flight home threaten to extend and extend (in the end, it extended to an extra day...) It promised an interesting new world of Victorianesque science fiction with new "rules" and a curious "familiar but not familiar" setting. But in the end, it turned out to be much more an adventure novel than science fiction; maybe the second book (it's supposedly the first of a duology) will explain more of the science, but in this book the details are never explained, just darkly hinted at. There's really a tremendous amount of violence ("it's like Die Hard, but in pseudo-Victorian sort-of-London!"), some allusions to sex and bondage (not enough for proper titillation, IMDO), and some international scheming and plotting, plus lots of chases, meetings in mysterious darkened mansions, railway trips to quiet but sinister country villages, noblemen, foreigners, foreign noblemen, captains of industry, harlots, fine ladies who behave like harlots, and a boatload of unfortunate red-shirts nameless servants, soldiers, and other passers-by whose main purpose seems to be to get slaughtered. There's a good deal of switching back and forth between the perspectives of several protagonists, which isn't all that annoying and builds a sense of cliff-hangeryness. Not bad, but not excellent. If Julian May is a cheeseburger and fries, this is a steak dinner that tastes good, but is neither quite as flavourful or as filling as you thought it would be when you ordered it.

Comments

[pisica.livejournal.com]

You've done something Bad with HTML somewhere - most of the entry isn't here!

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've kept a list of books read since 1993. My yearly totals range from 51 (heavy graduate school year) to a little over 200 (very unemployed or boring employment with long commute).

[winterbadger]

Ah, now, do you count the books you read for grad school? :-) (So far I've actually only read limited portions of any of mine, so I feel I would be cheating. :-)

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I only count a book if I read it in its entirety, so if it's a novel, then yes, but if it's a lit crit source that I skim except for one chapter, then no.

But that year was also a very social year, so I am misrepresenting myself as a dutiful scholar. :)

[winterbadger]

Thanks, left out a ">".