Archive for September, 2007
September 24, 2007 at 4:33 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
101. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Science Fiction) 300 p.
Sci-fi Classics Challenge
Course reading: Science Fiction
At the opening of the novel, Genly Ai, representative of the Ekumen on the planet Gethen, has been two years on that cold world, attempting to convince its people that he is an emissary from the council uniting more than eighty worlds, a union Gethen in being invited to join. The tense Gethenian political situation and his difficulty in persuading them of the truth of his story make Genly’s job dangerous, but help from a very unlikely source gives him a chance—a slim chance—of success.
I particularly like the structure of this book, which displays all of Ursula K. Le Guin’s considerable talent for world-building. Genly’s account of the events forms the main narrative, but it is interspersed with various Gethenian tales, both historical and legendary, and by a surprisingly intimate first-person perspective from one of the Gethenian characters. Each of the Gethenian tales, while they illuminate some point of Gethen’s history or culture related to the plot, yet manage to seem organic, natural, as though they really arose from Gethenian society, rather than being created to throw light on the main narrative.
Since the science fiction course I’m taking this term is intended to be something of an introduction to the genre, we’ve naturally talked a good deal about what in particular makes a book “science fiction” (which I’ll probably write more about some other time.) It’s a good course, and like all good courses, I’ve learned to recognize and articulate things that might have occurred to me, but never did. I particularly agree with the idea that science fiction is inherently a contemporary genre: no matter when or where it’s set, it’s always a reflection of, and a commentary on, its own time—and perhaps, any time. Science fiction—or at least, good science fiction—has a psychological reality that transcends the physical reality in which the action takes place.
I found that very true of The Left Hand of Darkness, which is surely one of the best science fiction novels ever written. The novel itself spends some time exploring the ways in which beings from radically different cultures can connect with one another, but it also allows the reader to connect with an invented culture, but one with enough things in common with her own to entirely suspend her disbelief over the course of the book. For example, one of the Gethenians makes a point about patriotism that resonated strongly with me:
What is love of one’s country; is it hate of one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That’s a good thing, but one mustn’t make a virtue of it, or a profession…
Although the book is mainly serious, there was at least one amusing line, which has got to be one of my favourite descriptions in fiction:
He was a hard shrewd jovial politician, whose acts of kindness served his interest and whose interest was himself. His type is panhuman. I had met him on Earth, and on Hain, and on Ollul. I expect to meet him in Hell.
I am very grateful to have finally read this book, not just because it’s such an awesome read (although it is), but because I was so disappointed not to have liked Le Guin’s Earthsea books. She’s such an amazing person, and has done so many interesting and groundbreaking things within SFF, that I wanted to love her books, and I just didn’t. Now, at least, I can be at ease knowing that I throughly enjoyed her masterpiece, rather than just admiring its message.
Books read: 101
Pages read: 29,934
Next up: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (re-read), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Sci-Fi Classics Challenge, Ursula K. Le Guin
September 22, 2007 at 11:06 pm · Filed under Books Etc
I made it too 100 books, although I fell a little short of my revised goal of 30,000 pages (I made it to 29,634.) There is a full list of books with links to reviews for your perusal.
And now here’s the fun part for me—the stats!
- 100 books by 61 different authors.
- 87 books were new to me, while 13 were re-reads.
- 64 were written by women, 36 by men.
- Of the 61 different authors, 36 were women and 25 were men (59% and 41%, respectively.)
- I went back for second (or third, fourth, fifth, and in three cases, sixth) helpings of 19 authors, 13 female, 6 male.
- I rated 40 of them 4 stars or above (on LibraryThing.)
- I read 5 short story collection: 4 world lit, and 1 fantasy collection.
- 39 were borrowed from the library or from friends, or were read online through Project Gutenberg; I owned the other 61 at the time I read them, having acquired them through new and used bookstores or BookMooch.
Breakdown by Genre
- Non-fiction: 1
- Memoir: 3
- Chick lit: 1
- Mystery and suspense: 30 (15 adult mysteries, 7 juvenile mysteries, and 8 suspense novels)
- Fiction: 34 (29 adult and 5 juvenile; of the adult, 19 were world lit and 10 were British/American/Canadian)
- Fantasy: 27 (17 adult, 4 young adult, and 6 juvenile)
- Science fiction: 4
Breakdown by Date
- January: 35
- February: 2
- March: 0
- April: 1
- May: 6
- June: 13
- July: 16
- August: 13
- September (up to 22nd): 14
I abandoned four novels unfinished: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster, Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle, Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, and A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. The latter was the only one I felt regret at not finishing, because there were a lot of things I liked about it even though I wasn’t enjoying the book as a whole. Luckily(?) I’ll be picking that one back up this winter, since it’s on the syllabus for my upcoming Fantasy and Horror course.
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007
September 22, 2007 at 10:57 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Fiction and Literature, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
100. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Science Fiction) 244 p.
Sci-fi Classics Challenge
Course reading: The Novel
Whew! I really had to force myself to finish this. It’s been a long time since I read this, but not long enough—I remembered it well enough that there was no suspense whatsoever, but not well enough to skim any of it. Still, it’s done, and I must admit that it’s an interesting book to study in an English course, even though I didn’t get much pleasure from reading it.
I don’t want to discourage anyone from reading it, however. Frankenstein is a classic, and deservedly so. It’s quite a fascinating tale, and very different from the expectations I had based on what I’d heard about the story. The most important thing, which many people know but often forget, is that Frankenstein is the scientist, not the monster—the being Frankenstein creates has no name, and although the being gets the chance to tell his own story, the book revolves very much around Victor Frankenstein himself.
Probably my least favourite element of the novel was Frankenstein’s personality, in particular an aspect he shares with the being: they’re both such drama queens! Frankenstein moans constantly about how wretched he is, while the being can’t shut up about his own wickedness and despair. I also found that there were so many coincidences in the text that they intruded on the narrative.
I did enjoy the book to a certain extent, and I’m glad read it—but I’ll be equally glad never to read it again.
Books read: 100/100 (100%)
Pages read: 29,634/30,000 (99%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Sci-Fi Classics Challenge
September 20, 2007 at 3:06 pm · Filed under Books Etc
When he was twelve years old, Gordon Korman wrote his first novel. Less than two years later, in 1978, Scholastic had published it under the title This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall. By the time he turned 21, in 1984 (coincidentally, the year I was born) Korman had nine published children’s novels under his belt.
Korman was one of my very favourite authors when I was young. No children’s author made me laugh the way he did—and it wasn’t just me. Every friend who’s read his books has found them hilarious. Even my mother thought they were funny (I can still remember reading a particular scene from the end of The Twinkie Squad (”blah blah blah“) aloud, and both of us laughing so hard we could barely breathe.) And they’ve stood the test of time: I still laughed at even No Coins, Please and I Want to Go Home, surely the most juvenile of his early works.
It’s strange to realize it, but I was very young when I read Korman’s books. The last book of his that I read as a child was The Toilet Paper Tigers, which I remember buying as soon as it was released, in 1993, when I was only nine. By then, I’d already devoured 12 of the 18 novels he’d already written. Among my favourites of his children’s novels are the first four Bruno and Boots books (This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall, Go Jump in the Pool!, Beware the Fish!, The War with Mr. Wizzle), I Want to Go Home, and The Twinkie Squad. I also loved two of his YA novels, Don’t Care High and Son of Interflux. If you’re at all interested in children’s fiction, and particularly if you have a child about 6-9 years old, you should check out some of his books.
I was thinking about I Want to Go Home this afternoon. It’s one I found hysterically funny as a child. Mike Webster is “rewarded” for good grades by his parents by being sent to Camp Algonkian Island. No athlete, Mike is looking forward to a long, tedious summer when he meets fellow camper Rudy Miller. Rudy, straight-faced and sarcastic, manages to keep Mike in stitches while hatching progressively wilder schemes to escape from Camp Algonkian Island.
Today, I had an epiphany—I realized who Rudy Miller is. He’s Psmith! A modern-day, pre-teen, Canadian Psmith, it’s true, but despite those differenced (and the lack of a monacle) he is incredibly Psmith-like. He even has a sidekick called Mike. I would love to know whether Psmith inspired Rudy at all—I Want to Gome Home was published when Korman was eighteen, so it’s possible, I suppose. It would be awesome if he were, but even if he isn’t, it’s still a fun parallel to think about.
Tags: Gordon Korman, P.G. Wodehouse, Psmith
September 18, 2007 at 10:27 am · Filed under Books Etc, Miscellanea
So, second week back at school. Exciting, tiring, and somewhat demoralizing. Worst news first—I can’t take the African Lit course! I had to switch things around and it conflicted with another course. I was pretty upset at first, but now I’m kind of okay with it. Although I still cannot believe that I dropped a course in African Lit to take an intro to French Linguistics. Instead of great novels by African authors, I’ll be reading chapters from Structure du français moderne.
Actually, that’s not exactly true. I did go to the first class and snag a course syllabus, including the reading list, which I present for your edification:
- Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
- Tahar Ben Jelloun, The Sand Child
- Calixthe Beyala, Your Name Shall Be Tanga
- J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
- Naguib Mahfouz, Akhenaten
- Tayab Salih, Season of Migration to the North
- Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat
- Amos Tutuola, The Palm-wine Drinkard
Some of those books don’t seem to be available from regular bookstores, even ordered online, so it’s nice that I can get them from the Women’s Bookstore (where the course copies have been ordered.)
I’m also getting a new roommate. I may have mentioned that my roommate of four years (who is the best roommate ever, and also one of my best friends) got an apartment with her boyfriend. In August, she packed up her clothes, books, beading supplied, and our cat, and moved into her new place. I was somewhat at a loss as to how to go about finding someone to replace her. I had to, not only for financial reasons, but because I live in a co-op, in a subsidized unit, and both bedrooms have to be occupied if I want to keep that subsidy.
Anyway, I wasn’t too keen on living with a stranger. Luckily, my best friend from childhood happened to be living at home and looking to move out, and she was tempted by the incredible rent. I haven’t really been in touch with her over the past five or six years, but she’s just the same. As I am reliably informed that I am also just the same, no doubt we shall get along as famously as ever. We even considered getting a cat, as mine has (as I mentioned) recently departed for a nice place near the lake, but I wasn’t too keen on the extra responsibility cats bring, and P felt that it would be a betrayal of her own cat, Sour Grapes (I love that name for a cat. If I ever have another cat, I’m going to call it Pork Chop.)
So, new job + new roommate + new school year = no time (or energy) for reading. Don’t you hate it when life gets in the way of your hobbies? I really need to finish my degree and try to get a job where I can read books for a living.
September 18, 2007 at 9:09 am · Filed under Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
99. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (Science Fiction) 85 p.
Sci-fi Classics Challenge
The Time Machine begins, as so many old-fashioned SFF novels seem to, with a framing story. The narrator is a guest of a man he introduces to us as the Time Traveller, a learned gentleman in the late Victorian style, when most experts in scientific fields seem to have been enthusiastic and experienced amateurs. During an after-dinner discussion at his home, the Time Traveller opens the subject of time, specifically time as a fourth dimension little different than the three dimensions of space with which his listeners are already familiar. He claims to be on the verge of completing a working time machine, and demonstrates his success with a functional model. The next week, at a similar dinner party, he staggers in late to the table, and recounts his tale of a journey into the far future, one which presented him with a very unexpected picture of humanity’s future evolution.
The Time Machine is actually only a novella, and the future humans, the Eloi and the Morlocks, are explored with a shallowness that would win instant censure in a modern-day SF novel. Still, the story was ground-breaking in its day, and it still has enough interesting ideas to be an important SF text, as well as a fairly enjoyable read. It isn’t a book that I would recommend to someone purely on its own merits, but for any fan of the genre as a whole, it’s essential reading.
Books read: 99/100 (99%) — just one more to go!
Pages read: 29,390/30,000 (98%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, H.G. Wells, Sci-Fi Classics Challenge
September 10, 2007 at 11:20 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
So many new and exciting things going on in my life right now—a new roommate moving in this month and five shiny new courses are at the top of list—and all I can think about is a punctuation mistake.
The plural of Miles is not Mile’s. Just sayin’.
Oh, how I sometimes wish I could edit the internet!
September 8, 2007 at 10:28 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Fiction and Literature, World Literature
98. I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (Fiction) 357 p.
World Lit Challenge: Australia
Ed Kennedy is nineteen years old. When he’s not earning a living as an underage cabdriver, he’s spending time with his best friends Marv, Ritchie, and Audrey, or his dog, the Doorman. After he stops a bank robbery, he receives a playing card in the mail: the ace of diamonds. On it are written three addresses. Ed begins to realize that he has been chosen to deliver messages to the people at those addresses—and that it’s up to him to figure out what messages these people need to hear.
I am in love with this book. I am in love with Markus Zusak. I will read The Book Thief as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.
Ed isn’t at all the kind of character I could imagine myself liking, at least not at first glance, but he’s incredibly endearing, and he really grows on you. He lives a life nothing like mine, but his ability to appreciate love and beauty (sounds stickily sentimental, but I can’t think of any better way to put it) lets me connect with him.
The Book Thief is the Zusak book everyone recommends, and I’m dying to read it, but someone recommended I Am the Messenger to me for my world lit challenge. I was lucky enough to find it used a few days ago, and it was worth every penny.
Books read: 98/100 (98%)
Pages read: 29,305/30,000 (98%)
Two books or 695 pages to go! (Although I have 50 or 60 books left to read for various challenges this year.)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Markus Zusak, World Lit Challenge
September 7, 2007 at 11:39 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Fiction and Literature, World Literature
97. Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami (Fiction) 186 p.
World Lit Challenge: Morocco
From the back cover:
For reasons as different as the lives they are leaving behind, four Muslims illegally cross the Strait of Gibraltar in an inflatable boat headed for Spain. What has driven these men and women to risk their lives? And will the rewards prove to be worth the danger?
(There’s something strange about the use of the word “Muslims” in that blurb, since the chief thing the four have in common is that they are Moroccan, not that they are Muslim.)
While in search of world literature for my challenge, I came across a recommendation for this book. Although I didn’t immediately order it from the bookstore, I was intrigued enough by the description and the attractive cover to check out Laila Lalami’s blog, as well as some of her articles. She’s an intelligent, articulate writer (and one who writes often about African and Asian authors and novels, for those interested in world lit.) Although great articles do not necessarily indicate a talent for writing fiction, I was intrigued enough to order her debut novel.
I’m so glad I did.
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits is divided into three sections; anyone who has read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus will be familiar with the structure. The novel’s prologue opens on an inflatable raft in the Strait of Gibraltar, where thirty-odd people, mostly adult Moroccans, are hoping to make the 14-kilometre crossing without attracting the attention of the Spanish coast guard. If caught, they will be arrested and deported, returning to Morocco 20,000 dirhams poorer. If they remain free, they will have the chance to start from nothing in Spain, but with better prospects than they would have had at home.
Part I goes back and follows the four main characters as events in their lives begin to lead them to attempt the crossing. A woman with an abusive husband, a young man with a wife and parents to support, a young woman involved in an Islamic fundamentalist group, and a man whose degree in English language and literature have left him unqualified for any of the few jobs available. Part II follows the same people after the trip, showing the changes it has made in their lives. Since the characters are united only by the trip itself, the book reads a bit like a book of short stories, albeit one more unified than most.
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits did what all good fiction does for me: it took me out of my life and dropped me into someone else’s, and not only for the few hours I spent reading it. Laila Lalami has created characters who will stay with me. She has also given me some insight into the culture and the socio-economic situation in Morocco today.
Lalami’s prose is straightforward but graceful. I particularly liked the way her characters would (briefly) explain things the reader already knew, but which it would be natural for a narrator to expand on. It made their accounts seem more natural, rather than tailored to fit the format of the book. It was a lovely touch to an already excellent work of fiction.
I hope to see lots more from Laila Lalami, although at the moment this is her only published novel.
Books read: 97/100 (97%)
Pages read: 28,948/30,000 (96%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Laila Lalami, World Lit Challenge
September 7, 2007 at 1:45 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
96. Strange Candy by Laurell K. Hamilton (Fantasy, Short Story Collection) 257 p.
Ugh. I really need to stop trusting Laurell K. Hamilton to deliver even a decent read. Actually, these short stories don’t suffer from the problems that plague the Meredith Gentry and later Anita Blake novels, but LKH’s greatest skill has always been her world-building, and short stories don’t give her much room to work in. Instead of taking generic fantasy settings and stock characters and turning them on their ears, she seems stuck using them the way they’ve been used hundreds of times before.
I don’t want to go too far into what I didn’t enjoy about this collection, since I do enough LKH-bashing already, and I’d rather save my whining for the latest Anita Blake or Merry Gentry. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t too impressed with any of the stories, but there were three (or possibly four) that I did enjoy. Unsurprisingly, they were the ones that took place outside the usual sword-and-sorcery paradigm.
Of the four I enjoyed, A Scarcity of Lake Monsters was the one I liked least, and I liked it more for its ideas than its execution. Selling Houses was my favourite story of the collection. Set in the Anita Blake universe, it features a realtor who is willing to sell houses to some unusual clients. I also liked House of Wizards, where a young, magicless woman marries a wizard and learns how to deal with his magic-wielding family. Geese had some nicely atmospheric moments, and an unusual kind of love story. For once, I think Hamilton should have stuck with exploring that story, rather than focusing on a rather pointless action plot. Actually, the B-plot from Geese could make a rather interesting book, although maybe if it were written by LKH.
On the whole, even the stories I liked weren’t all that good. I definitely don’t recommend this to anyone but Laurell K. Hamilton completists and very fast readers.
(Side note, for Anita Blake fans: three of the stories—Those Who Seek Forgiveness, Selling House, and The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death are all set in her universe; the first and last are actually Anita stories. The last one is the same story that appears in Bite, an anthology which also contains stories by Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, and a couple of other authors of contemporary supernatural fantasy.)
Books read: 96/100 (96%)
Pages read: 28,762/30,000 (96%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton
Older entries »
