It turns out that I got a smashing good deal. All but one of the thirteen books are hardback, and fully half are at least signed, some limited editions.

I’ve been slowly working through them, loving every minute of the new authors I would not have tried otherwise. the first book I pulled out was a Ray Bradbury I’d never heard of from the ’60’s, Golden Apples Of The Sun. That man could write. His stories of the future, if pushed out another 40 or so years, are still incredibly plausible. The characters in each of the stories are like neighbors that you’ve just met – real and interesting and with histories that make them unique and motivate their actions.

This set of stories is more true sci-fi than other collections like The Illustrated Man. There’s still the stories of unintended consequences that highlight the pitfalls of the arrogance of man, but they are more about using technology as a crutch rather than cautions against building another nuclear bomb. Overall an excellent read, with some of the stories being especially poignant tales of outcasts trying to find a place in the world.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

The tale of Offred is a tale of despair, of freedom lost to backlash against too much change too quickly. It is the tale of the women of Afghanistan, a story of minority and fragile political status; a lesson in fear and what happens when righteous indignation of a disenfranchised power structure is invoked. The sad part is that the United States is going through the same transformation – the religious are ruling the country and revoking freedom in small, insidious ways. And the populace is responding the same way that they did in the book. We are mostly indifferent unless the change affects us directly.

The next book I picked up had an apt passage – describing my interpretation of Offred’s situation.

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how may skies have fallen.

– Lady Chatterly’s Lover – DH Lawrence

The humour in the book is evident from the point at which a demon and angel are consulting as to which of them did the right thing with Adam and Eve. The story is completely irreverent, but takes a turn to the philosophical toward then end. Somehow, the bit of philosophy didn’t drown out the tale or its ability to make me laugh out loud. In fact, watching the demon develop the telemarketing industry was rather enlightening.

The plot takes science fiction/fantasy and sets the whole genre on its ear. I wish there were more stories like this one, it could care less about fitting inside a box and told a good tale.

It’s an interesting treatise on relationships and overcoming fear as an impediment to happiness. As told from his side, it seems extremely reasonable. The assumptions are put in place such that the entire theory is plausible. That’s the first problem. The man operates upon the theory that there is a soulmate for everyone and that the search for that person should be all consuming. It gets crazier from there.
This book is not really a lovestory but rather Richard Bach expounding some of his theories on how life should be lived. Some of his revelations hit me like a blow, a moment of truth so profound I was stunned. Others were just plain weird and easily dismissed. The funny part is that at this moment I can remember the weird stuff better than the pieces that felt like truth.

That sums it up pretty well. Other than the bizarre moments (the woman reveals that her soulmate disagreed with her on some issues so he “changed”), it was rather forgettable.