Journey to the Center

I’ve finished a lot of fluff books lately, nothing real groundbreaking. Here’s the catchup:

Phantoms by Dean Koontz is the story of 2 women trapped in a town by an unknown agent of death. They’re joined along the way by police, scientists and one scholar whose theories are confirmed. This is one of Koontz better books. He keeps the spiritualism that taints his later works to a minimum and concentrates on the untenable situation the protagonists find themselves in. A little unrealistic in that all the good guys stay good even with the surety of their deaths looming over them, but the identity of the agent is worth it.
Michael Crichton’s Prey is typical of his formula of writing. Just like in Terminal Man and Congo, scientific excess and unchecked ambition lead to a disaster of potentially global proportion. I enjoyed this book for its investigation into the nuance of nanotechnology, but the reliance upon his earlier formulas left me disappointing. I was unable to suspend my disbelief long enough to really enjoy the last hundred pages or so.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman is a childrens book based in an alternate reality. People have companions that are tied to them, almost as the physical representation of their soul. The main characters best friend is stolen away by mysterious people and she decides to get him back, no matter the cost. Lyra faces down monsters of every sort, including her guardian, to achieve her goal. It turns out that the worst monsters she faces are people. It’s a decent book for one aimed at kids, though I don’t understand the furor over the theism in this universe.

I’d been looking forward to the next book in The Looking Glass Wars series, Seeing Redd, for quite a while, so when I saw a copy I jumped at the chance to read it. I’d started with the short series of the Hatter M comic (which I loved, partially for the artwork and partially for the brilliant story) and then moved on to The Looking Glass Wars. I mowed through that book in a weekend, entranced by the new take on Wonderland and its vicious war machine. I expected to love this book.

Was I ever disappointed. The story is clearly a middle space; something that intends to lead somewhere but could not possibly stand on its own. It has no merit other than setting up book 3. And maybe 4. And however many other books they intend to push out.

It is mostly a rehash of the Hatter M series, from a mildly different point of view. Redd ends up in England by some quirk of fate/imagination and goes through much of what Hatter went through, meeting many of the same characters but getting along with them because she’s evil. There’s a minor skirmish back in Wonderland and some characters have some emotions. That’s about it. Book over. Beddor is clearly setting this up for the Epic Battle in book 3. Or whatever, depending on how long he strings his audience along and can play on this for money.

Right there, in the dust jacket About the Author segment, I found the explanation for my disappointment. Frank Beddor is a movie producer. He spent 3 years coming up with the ideas behind the first book. This second book came out in under a year. He’s working on a movie about the saga. This book was not written for itself, but to try to build up a Looking Glass following that resembles the Harry Potter phenomenon. Sure, it’s for a slightly higher age range, but the idea is still the same. Books > Movies> notoriety.

What I wouldn’t give to trade Seeing Redd for book 1 and my naivete.

ETA: John Scalzi addresses the topic of writing descending into hackery today.  I think this applies perfectly in this situation.

My husband and I are looking at getting a dog. We’ve never owned a dog as adults, so I’m trying to get as much information as I can ahead of time. Sort of get a plan together so that we’re not too surprised when the dog comes home.

This has led me to the library, picking up every book that could be useful on the subject of owning a dog. Some have been helpful, others were just a skim and dump back at the library. I started this process by finally finishing Dr. Pitcairn’s New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. Interesting book, but has a few odd spots. I was unaware that cats would thrive on veggies and dogs should be fed oatmeal. In fact, I’m pretty sure that these are dead wrong. But overall, it was relatively useful and a good starting point. Add some judicious logic and you’re well on your way to actually knowing new things.

I then picked up Sue Sternbergs Successful Dog Adoption. Fantastic book, especially since we’re looking to integrate a dog into our 2 cat home. The temperament tests are going to get copied and used on every dog we look at. We’re looking for our perfect dog, not a dog that’s just good enough for right now. I don’t want to be trying to keep the dog and cats from chasing each other after the first few weeks. My husband was a little reluctant at first (there are lots and lots of tests), but most of them are pretty obvious and easy to perform, so he’s on board now. This will make things both harder and easier. Long term it will be a blessing, but short term its going to be hard to find a dog that’s right for us.

After that, I hit a couple of stinkers. The American Animal Hospital Association encyclopedia of dog health and care was an overview that can be summed up as “take your dog to the vet.” Nothing useful there for anyone who’s ever been around a dog, let alone believes in medicine that’s not strictly Western in origin. The second was The holistic guide for a healthy dog. Absolutely a dud. I tried so hard to read it hoping for something alternative but practical, but it was largely a listing of herbs and what they do. I have an herb encyclopedia for that, I was hoping for something with actual data related to dogs. Both went back after a thorough skimming.

While I was wandering in the library, I picked up Your Cat. Our cats are now eating raw food, but I wanted to see another vets opinion on it. It seems like the standard opinion cliche applies, but the author of this one actually worked in the pet food industry for a while so I was hoping for a bit more. Turns out this was a good primer on simple things you can do for cat health. There were descriptions of symptoms for the fairly common age-related illnesses and some debunking of common myths. I’m particularly interested in the fact that she runs her practice around reducing the instance and maintenance of diabetes in cats by feeding species-appropriate diets. There’s a fabulous description of the circle of crystal control due to bad diet.

Overall, I’d say I’m pretty disappointed in the options in dog books. I know just enough to be dangerous - you’d think someone would have figured out this market and written for it by now.

This is the first of a series of short book reviews. The goal is to get through 50 books this year, each with a review. It’s only appropriate that the first review of the year should be of a book by a first time novelist, Warren Ellis. Ellis is a prolific writer of comics, but this is his first foray into novelization.

Crooked Little Vein is the story of a private investigator that has the worst luck a PI can have - he attracts simple-seeming cases that turn out to be loaded guns. In this instance, Mike McGill attracts a lost property cases with high stakes - a book of Invisible Amendments that the Chief of Staff as his client intends to use on the country. These Amendments are said to be able to reset the country’s morality to the Golden Age when they were written, namely 1776. Following the trail of this book across the country forces the McGill to interact with people with varying degrees of kinks and quirks and face the morality of returning a book with the power this one contains.

The story uses McGills improbable luck to assist with moving the plot along, taking advantage of conventions frequently seen in the comic world but rarely used in mainstream novels. This cavalier attitude toward conventions of reality and coincidence is part of the novels charm. That and cleverly crafted prose, which manages to avoid pushing characters into improbable and awkward conversation while still providing vivid imagery. Even ordinary situations become extraordinary, as exemplified by a red eye flight which becomes a conversation with a serial killer.

Ellis makes good use of his comic background, bringing his scripting skills to the purely written medium. This book reads like a storyboard, the words generating pictures of their own accord. I hope that this first foray into the realm of novels is followed by others. Ellis’ growth as a cross-medium writer is only bounded by his willingness to leave the visual behind.

I am a feminist. This occasionally colors my perception of classical works, making it difficult for me to enjoy some of the pieces that are overtly misogynist or racist. Some pieces are presented in a way that makes it possible to put them back into context and remember they were written hundreds of years ago when sexism and racism were more accepted and overt than they are today. However, I still have problems with The Taming of the Shrew and I was fully expecting Pagliacci to be of its ilk; namely that it would infuriate me with its abuse of women and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the musical impact of the work.

The Seattle Opera took a novel approach to performing this piece, removing the traditional showing of Cavalleria Rusticana from the bill and filling the time with a flashback of Canio and Nedda and a piece of music pulled from other Leoncavalla works. The 11 minute interlude traveled through Canios memory from the time when he and Nedda met (she was very young and he was an adult clown) through to the present day. The music and accompanying circus acts were fascinating in their own right, but they also showed a tenderness between the two that wasn’t displayed in the first act. The growth of the relationship between Canio and Nedda and their happiness together was shown in a way that made it possible to understand Canio better.
My concerns about not enjoying this piece were entirely unfounded. I was absolutely blown away by the opera. I have never been moved by music or performance like I was by Antonello Palombis performance as Pagliacci. I would have thought that I wouldn’t have any sympathy for such a jealous jerk, but the passion and energy Palombi brought to the performance made me cry. It just broke my heart to see him in so much pain. After seeing the way he lavished attention on Nedda in the interlude, it was impossible not to feel for a man whose heartbreak snapped his mind, and Palombis performance brought this state of being home. I think with a lesser actor, it wouldn’t have been as easy to feel that sympathy.

The curtain call showed exactly how much effort Palombi hadput into the final scene. He came out for his bows sobbing with exhaustion. It was a truly beautiful performance, the only one where I felt the need to give a standing ovation. I was privileged to be there.

I’m late to the world of comics, just really getting into it now at the age of 32. But I think this gives me a bit of an advantage over the average joe who started reading comics as a teenager, believing that “pow” and “boom” are the height of literary sophistication. Starting later has pushed me into the realm of comics that have something to say, instead of the ones where the action is the sole purpose of their existence.

Starting with Sandman, moving to Hellboy, and Hellblazer rounded out my horror collection. At that point, I was forced to admit that I liked comics, no matter the stigma around the genre and I branched out to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hatter M and finally Sin City and Watchmen.

Watchmen was beyond anything I’d expected; there was a complexity to the story that is beyond most novels, let alone fiction published in graphic format. And that’s what Whatchment truly is - it’s a novel that happens to incorporate visuals as a medium of storytelling.

The story itself is compelling: during the 40’s vigilantes in costumes are accepted, even revered as folk heroes. In the 70’s they fall out of favor as they’re used too frequently and the abilities of the individuals become super-human. But for these people, the life of an ordinary citizen just doesn’t fulfill them. They need to be meaningful in a way that protects the populace, but after being forced to retire there isn’t any way to legally fill that void.

It’s within this setting that the questions start coming up. What happens when deterrents are removed? Can the future be changed? What is the nature of evil? Do the ends ever justify the means?

The beauty of this story is that it doesn’t attempt to answer the questions it poses, instead it leaves the reader to try to figure out their own answers. The moral ambiguity is the point, not the plot device. Each subsequent read of the story is different, biased by foreknowledge and the ability to muse on the problems posed to the characters. In the pages the timeline is short and fierce, the characters forced to react quickly or miss their opportunity. This is in stark contrast with the readers experience. They are allowed to reflect and repent at leisure, posing the questions again and again until they come up with an answer that they like.

I wish that there were more narratives like this: complex, deep and thought provoking. The genre could certainly use them to get a readership outside of the stereotype.

After listening to an interview with the author on NPR, I added The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf to my list of items on hold at the library. I was looking for soemthing to give me a bit of insight into the Islamic way of life since I don’t really have much exposure to it (the Pacific NW is full of Asian communities, but Islamic ones are harder to find).

Turns out that this story is a typical female coming of age story wrapped in cultural issues. It was easy to identify with the hard lessons of growing up and trying to find a sense of self as distinct from that of the family. So the plot was simple and compelling at the same time. Having struggled with those issue myself, it’s always interesting to me to see how others would interpret the same situations.

The straightforward plot allowed me to do what I’d really been looking for and pay attention to the cultural differences. Unfortunately, the story was geared toward someone with a working knowledge of the culture, so I’m sure that I missed some of the references. It felt much like a Primer; on each subsequent reading after further research and knowledge the meaning changes a little.

I’m now looking forward to a second reading, after more research, that is.

I’d been avoiding War of the Flowers for about a year. The Forword to the story mentioned that some elements had been revised due to the events of September 11, 2001 to spare the reader sensibilities, but that others had been left as they were. There was an apology and a message stating that the author hoped readers would take the story as it stood and not be too tramatized by its similarity. This note alarmed me greatly - what sort of similarity must there be for the author to apologize like that? But finally, I faced up to the avoidance and decided that I should either read the book or get rid of it.

I must admit, I’m a Tad Williams fan. I’ve loved his stories since I first read Tailchasers Song as a child. The Otherland series was one that I loved so much I shared it with my mother and encouraged my husband to read it. However, a four book series is rather exhausting, particularly when the novels are about 1000 pages apiece. This was the first of his in a long time that was a standalone novel, which was a relief as I didn’t want to commit to another long series (if I wanted to do that, I’d read Robert Jordan novels).

War of the Flowers was a clever fantasy story, couched in familiar concepts of Faerie but departing from the overused stereotype of an idyllic land without strife. In fact, the caste system is so finely tuned in Williams’ Faerie that the characters hardly realize there are other ways to live. His use of new conflicts, technologies and cross-dimensional travel give the story a fresh feeling sadly lacking in Fantasy genre fiction.

The story is very quickly paced; Williams loses none of his ambition for the three volume novel in his use of the single volume format, so the story is complex and multi-faceted. The main plot is straightforward, but contains many twists and turns as the sub-plots grab hold of the main character and force him down unexpected paths. In addition, there are very few scenes that exist solely for dissemination of background information that may, or may not, be relevant to the plotline. This is one element that the shortened format has thankfully forced Williams to abandon.

I really enjoyed this story, and frankly, I don’t think that Williams needed to include the foreword warning. The scene he alludes to would never have struck me as similar to the events of 9/11/01 if he hadn’t mentioned it. I definitely recommend this book, particularly to those that like Williams style but don’t want to commit to 3+ volumes.

I just recently finished up Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. I absolutely loved this book. It was so absorbing that I actually had a day where I was disoriented after reading for an hour. I could not figure out how to use my body parts properly and had to be careful on stairs as my vision was hazy.

My husband had picked up this book a while back, but I’d been avoiding it as I’d read Neuromancer and had a tough time with it. The writing style made it so that I had no idea what was happening through most of the story. I couldn’t tell plot movement from random chatter. So naturally, I wasn’t interested in another Gibson story. At least, until I was stuck with a choice between it and another book I was avoiding.

I am extremely happy that I picked this story up. The plot was compelling and immediately presenting, sucking me into the action. The characters were approachable and empathetic. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at Gibsons ability to write a convincing female character. I had none of the problems with this story that I’d had with Neuromancer - even though the language was occasionally esoteric (who says outre anyway?) and the sentence structures were complex, setting the story in a familiar time and place allowed me to puzzle through the more complicated sections without losing the thread of the story.

The only thing that detracted from this story was my brains compulsion to analyze the plot and try to predict what will happen next. It distracted me from the writing enough that the last third of the book was less engrossing than the beginning, but I still had a tough time putting it down.

I find it interesting that Gibsons use of language was more difficult for me to grasp than that of Dickens. But now that I’m more proficient with his way of writing, I will definitely be rereading Neuromancer. Again.

She hit the lock button on the remote again, aiming it carefully at the car. Nothing happened - no click, no beep, nothing. Of course this would happen today. The car had to be freaking out on Halloween of all nights. She’d been in and out of the house several times trying to figure out why the alarm was going off. There didn’t appear to be any logical reason for it, she was tempted to blame the flashing of the lights on pranksters that were undoubtedly hiding in the bushes and snickering every time she’d come out of the apartment.

She had to keep running back in, interrupting her fretting and troubleshooting every time kids would appear. It was odd to see so many of them, but she enjoyed all of the costumes. The little demon had been her favorite - he was very polite after hissing at her initially and his costume looked hand made. Of course, having a parent peering over his should probably didn’t hurt any.

She looked up form her car, noticing the trick or treater approaching from the street. Exasperated, she opened the car door, locked it manually and headed back for the door. It really would have been smarted to turn off the lights and discourage them, but it was rainy and dark out and she didn’t want to rely on just her flashlight.

It looked like this might be the last of the stragglers though. The kid was all alone, walking up the path with his flashlight, a plastic shopping bag for candy and a costume that looked like it had come straight from leftover clothes in the closet. She stepped inside as he reached the bottom of the steps to her front door, reaching around to grab the bucket of candy she’d laid on the floor. But the time she straightened up, he was in the doorway behind her.

“Trick or treat.” The bandanna underneath his eyes muffled his voice.

“Happy Halloween. That’s a great bandit costume.”

“Thanks. So what were you doing with my car?” The boy laughed, it was oddly low pitched.

“Excuse me? Your car?”

“Just hand me the keys.”

It was then that she noticed the gun peeking out from behind the empty bag of candy.